 Getting
Paid to Speak:
The 5 Biggest Mistakes New Speakers Make and How to Avoid Them
By Valerie Young
Before you read this article:
You don’t have to aim to be a
professional speaker to benefit from the following article. Change is change and
advice about successfully launching one incöme stream can easily be transferred
to others.
That’s not the only reason to
read this article. A key element of changing course is getting and giving
support to your fellow dreamers. So if you know someone who should be up in
front of an audience please support their dream by passing this article along.
Picture yourself delivering a
presentation or workshop to an engaged and enthusiastic audience. Now imagine
strolling to the mail box to find a nice check thanking you for your time and
expertise. Sounds pretty nice doesn’t it? It is.
I’ve been a professional
speaker now for over 28 years. I also frequently work with clients who want to
make their living conducting workshops or otherwise speaking in front of a
paying audience. Over the years I’ve learned a thing or two about how to succeed
as a professional speaker – and what mistakes to avoid.
Here are the top five.
1. Thinking You Don’t Know
Enough
The number one mistake
aspiring speakers and workshop leaders make is thinking they don’t have enough
knowledge or training to get out there and talk about a subject. If you find
your dreams stymied by the common, but distorted, notion that expertise means
having three degrees and knowing everything there possibly is to know about a
subject then it’s time to readjust your thinking.
Competence and expertise isn’t
total and complete knowledge, but rather it’s knowing how to identify the
resources it takes to get the job done. In other words, you may not know
everything about male-female communication or how to give a motivational speech,
but I bet you’re smart enough to figure out the researchers, authors, and
speakers who do and to learn from them.
A related mistake is the
misguided belief that you can’t possibly get out there and speak credibly on a
topic unless you have an advanced degree. Of course you want your surgeon to be
highly credentialed and most universities won’t hire you without a doctorate.
But in the vast majority of fields – public speaking being one of them – degrees
are highly over-rated.
Look at talk show host Dr.
Laura Schlessinger. Despite regularly dishing out “expert” (and highly
controversial) opinions and advice on human behavior, “Dr. Laura” as she is
known, is not a physician as many of her listeners presume. Nor is she a
psychiatrist, or even a psychologist. Instead Dr. Laura's degree is a doctorate
in physiology where she studied the effects of insulin on rats.
In fact, one way to counter
the pressure to be credentialed is to proudly proclaim yourself to be the
anti-expert. In her book “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” Mireille Guilano lets
readers know right up front that she’s not a nutritionist, a psychologist, an
exercise physiologist or any other kind of “ist.” Instead, she says, she’s just
a woman who happens to have observed and experienced the French diet and is
sharing that knowledge with people who’d like to eat well and not gain weight.
No one can argue with your own
data. Maybe you aren’t a licensed surgeon but if you successfully cured yourself
of some ailment without surgery, have an interest in non-traditional medicine –
and are willing to put in the research time – you could certainly learn enough
to speak credibly about the latest alternatives to going under the knife.
2. Letting Stage Fright Hold
You Back
You’d think that someone who
wants to speak for a living would have few qualms about public speaking or
otherwise “performing” in public. Not true. Barbra
Streisand was famous for her chronic stage fright.
As part of a college class, I
was videotaped making a presentation. I was a nervous wreck. My voice was
shaking, my hands were shaking. The whole nervous speaker bit. The amazing thing
was no one else could tell – not even me! The person I saw on that tape appeared
calm, cool, and collected.
That experience happened 25
years ago. But, you know, I never forgot it, and from that point on I’ve managed
to calm any pre-presentation jitters by reminding myself that no one can tell.
3. Not Making Constant
Improvement a Priority
Despite my early performance
anxiety, I went on to deliver hundreds of presentations and workshops to
audiences ranging in size from 10 to 1200. Having so much experience under my
belt made me pretty confident about my speaking skills.
That is until a former
employer sent me to New York City to a two-day presentation skills training. The
course, which I later became certified to teach, was conducted by a company
called Communispond. Being the only attendee with a speaking back ground, I felt
pretty cocky as I rose to deliver my benchmark presentation.
Seeing is believing. Even if
you’re already an experienced presenter, there’s always room for improvement. By
far the best way to improve is to observe yourself in action on tape.
4. Not Being Willing to Pay
Your Dues
Sometimes a little knowledge
can be a dangerous thing. For example, a client with little to no previously
paid speaking experience balked when I suggested he seize any chance he could to
get out there and hone his craft – even if that meant in some cases speaking for
free. “That’s not true,” he said. “Everything I’ve read said you should never
give away your services because your client won’t respect you as a
professional.”
While I understood the
concern, charging a fee is simply not a black and white issue. Being willing to
speak for free was what launched my career as an expert on the so-called
Impostor Syndrome. Speaking at conferences and at meetings of professional
associations is not only a great way to test out your material but you’re
showcasing your work to potential paying clients – most of whom have no idea
you’re not being paid.
Should you continue to speak
for free after you start landing paying gigs? It depends. When a large Fortune
500 company was looking for external consultants to potentially train thousands
of employees on understanding issues of sexual orientation in the workplace, I
not only delivered a preview workshop free of charge, but I covered the cost of
printing the attendee workbooks as well. It was time and money well spent. My
co-trainer and I landed the contract and a handsome per diem training fee to
boot.
Speaking for free is all about
getting better at what you do and about exposure. Like most things you shouldn’t
expect instant results. It’s not unusual for me to get a speaking offer from
someone who saw me speak at a conference two years earlier. In fact, I’ve
recently received a great contract based on the recommendation of someone who
saw me speak 20 years ago!
Don’t think of it as speaking
for free. Think of it as the opportunity to essentially make a sales pitch in
front of dozens of potential clients. Besides, now in your bio you’ll be able to
list all the groups you’ve addressed!
5. Not Understanding the
Speaking Business
When I ask clients who want to
get into the speaking business to describe their ideal day, it usually sounds
something like this:
“I see myself spending a few
hours a day planning my presentations or workshops. Maybe I call a few clients
to finalize any arrangements. And then my afternoons are free to do as I
please.”
In these moments I always feel
a little like Cher’s character in Moonstruck when she slapped Nicolas Cage in
the face and shouted, “Snap out of it!”
First of all, unless you’re a
big time speaker, the majority of your non-speaking time is going to be spent
drumming up speaking gigs. If the very thought of marketing yourself, your
topic, and your expertise makes you want to run for the hills, this would be a
good time to consider another field (or just wait for part two of this article
where I’ll talk about marketing).
Next, when you’re just
starting out, you will need to make a heavy investment in developing your
presentation or workshop. In fact they say for every five minutes of speaking
time you should plan to put in about an hour of planning and rehearsing time.
Keep in mind though, that no
one is paying you to endlessly perfect your material. Once you get a good
program down, as far as I’m concerned, the goal is to be able to walk in and
deliver it cold. There’s nothing quite like the relaxed feeling of heading off
to deliver a big presentation without a care in the world because you just know
you’re going to nail it!
If you have something you’d like to share with
the world, and you genuinely enjoy teaching others, there’s no better job in the
world than getting paid to speak. In part two of this two-part series we’ll look
at some more common mistakes aspiring speakers make – like not charging enough,
not knowing how to market themselves, and not clearly identifying their target
market.
Off the beaten path career counselor, Valerie Young, abandoned her corporate
cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence at
ChangingCourse.com, offering free resources to help you
discover your life mission and live it. An expert on the Imposter
Syndrome, she's presented her How to Feel as Bright and Capable as
Everyone Seems to Think You Are program to over 30,000 people.
Find
more articles written by Valerie at
ChangingCourse.com/articles/
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