How To Make Money With Public Speaking

SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE

This is my overriding principle that came from years of hard knocks trying to get people to hire me to speak. I get more speaking engagements than I ever had before when I quit trying to sell them and began selling my knowledge in as many different formats as possible. The idea is that infinitely more people can buy what you know through books, tapes, CDs, Ebooks and videos than could ever hire you to speak. Your name recognition because of your knowledge distribution makes speaking engagements much easier to come by because the people that could hire you have already heard you and your message on your knowledge based products. In the mean time, the money from the product sales keeps your business thriving.

GET SPONSORSHIP

You can get other companies to sponsor your speaking fee so they can be associated with your message when you speak. Stop and think of what kinds of groups would want to be associated with your message. Let's say you speak to the banking industry. Maybe mortgage, or mutual fund companies would sponsor you. Maybe bank equipment companies would. Think of anyone who would want to have exposure to your target audience then simply make a proposal to their public relations department.

GET DIRECTLY PAID

This is pretty straight forward. You speak to a corporation, association, civic group, or anyone who would hire you and they pay you directly. Most of the time you should try to get a deposit up front of about 50 percent and the balance either before the event, or the day of the event. You will use various methods to get hired. I have had the greatest success in my career getting hired to speak by promoting myself properly on the Internet.

SPEAKERS BUREAUS

A speakers bureau is a for profit organization that locates speakers for paying clients. The speakers bureau normally takes a percentage of your gross fee. The percentage is usually in the 15 to 30 percent range with the average fee being 25 percent. It is very difficult to start with speakers bureaus unless you are a bonafide celebrity and your fees are substantial. You must remember they get paid on straight commission and the higher your fee, the more they make. Also, unless you have a proven track record, a speakers bureau will be afraid to put you in front of one of their clients because if you bomb they could lose many more bookings from the same client. You must also supply the bureau with promotional materials that don't have your contact information so anyone that sees the material will contact the bureau directly and not you.

PUBLIC SEMINARS

This is another fairly simple idea, but that doesn't mean it's simple to do. Basically you promote your seminar to the public and they buy tickets to attend. You could also promote it to corporate management and get them to buy tickets for their employees to attend. I avoided public seminars for years because of the risk and expense involved in printing and mailing brochures. Now I do lots of public seminars because I can promote them at no cost through my website and email magazine.

TELEPHONE SEMINARS

This can be a form of public seminar, or it can be done for private groups. You arrange for a telephone bridge line (very inexpensive), or a conference call (can be VERY expensive). You have participants call in and you deliver the seminar over the telephone. This saves a tremendous amount of money on travel expenses for you and the participants along with all kinds of savings for the participants (travel, time, etc.) For visuals you can have the participants sitting in front of their computer while on the phone. You tell them what web page to visit to see your visuals. I have produced a CD set on this topic. http://www.antion.com/teleseminarkit.htm

WEBCASTS

This is similar to telephone seminars except you are using the Internet instead of a telephone to hold the seminar.

TRAINING COMPANIES

In this case a company hires you to deliver their programs to public seminar participants, or to participants all from the same private company. Career Track, SkillPath Seminars and Fred Pryor Seminars are examples of companies who hire seminar leaders. In some cases you can develop programs for the seminar company and get a higher fee for delivering that program and a fee each time it is delivered by another seminar leader. You also get a percentage of all the back of room products you sell. These companies can keep you on the road quite a bit so you better be ready to travel and don't think each event will be in the Bahamas . . .Your events are more likely to be in places like Toledo, Cleveland and Columbus. These are relatively low paying jobs when compared to the kind of money you can get promoting your own speeches and seminars.

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