Getting Paid to Speak:The Biggest Mistakes New Speakers Make and
How to Avoid Them (Part 2 of 3)By Valerie Young If you love the idea of actually earning money – and potentially big money – as a professional speaker or workshop leader, then read on. In part one of this three-part series we looked at the five biggest mistakes aspiring speakers and workshop leader’s make. These were: Mistake 1: Thinking you don’t know enough
Mistake 2: Letting stage fright hold you back
Mistake 3: Not making constant improvement a priority
Mistake 4: Not being willing to pay your dues
Mistake 5: Not understanding the speaking business You’ll find a copy of this article in Issue 110 in theChangingCourseArchives.com.htm If you find yourself identifying with Mistake #1 you may want to check out my latest eBook, “How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are: What Every Women (and Man) Needs to Know About Competence, the Impostor Syndrome, and the Art of Winging It” atChangingCourse.com/impostor.htm In Part Two of Getting Paid to Speak, we’ll take a somewhat in-depth look at two additional mistakes novice speakers make and how to avoid them. One relates to fee setting, the other has to do with targeting the right market. Mistake #6 Not Realizing What You’re Really Getting Paid For The typical response of those not in the speaking business to how much I make for a single presentation is, “Wow, you get paid that much for a couple hours of work?” Amazed as they are, at $1500-$2000 my fees are relatively low compared to a lot of other speakers. In fact, most speaker bureaus won’t even talk to you unless you’re charging a minimum of $4,000 a day. If you’re setting your fees based on your actual “on” time you’re missing the boat. As a professional speaker you aren’t being paid to talk for one hour, or three hours, or even to facilitate a full-day workshop. What you’re getting paid for are a) your total time commitment and b) your expertise. Let’s look at your total time commitment first. If your speaking engagement involves travel, then you need to consider the total time involved in fulfilling your commitment. That includes the time it takes to set up the contract, get to and from the speaking venue, any pre-event set-up and pack-up time, and the time it takes to take care of any client invoicing and follow-up. For example today is Monday. I’m writing this article from the 12:55 Amtrak train to New York City where I’m scheduled to lead a six-hour workshop tomorrow. On Wednesday I’ll repeat the same program in Philadelphia. After tomorrow’s workshop I’ll hop another train to Philadelphia and then travel home later that night. On paper I’m contracted to deliver two six-hour workshops. But when it comes to my actual time, my commitment began on a Monday around 10:00 a.m. and, assuming the train arrives back on time (which is a big “if”), will end when I walk in my door at around 11:00 p.m. Wednesday. Although I love California and the Pacific Northwest, bi-coastal gigs require a significant time block. Saying yes to a one-hour presentation means agreeing to a three-day commitment. Now mind you I’m not complaining. I’m proud of the time and effort I’ve invested into getting where I am today. Having said that, I’m keenly aware and deeply humbled by the knowledge that I also happen to have been born at the right time and in the right country, that I was fortune enough to have access to educational and occupational resources, and that I have the emotional support of friends and family, all of which enables me to earn more money in a single day than the vast majority of the world’s population get paid in an entire year. Your actual time is only one factor in setting your fees. Although there are some speakers who bill for travel time (I’m not one of them) or who charge local client’s less (which I often do), you’re not being paid to travel. In fact, you’re not really even getting paid for your actual speaking time. You read that right. What your attendees or clients are paying you for is your expertise. Break this down and whether they know it or not, client’s pay you for the time you’ve invested in acquiring that expertise which includes your speaking and facilitation skills. Or, as
Dr. Bailey Jackson, an outstanding trainer and personal mentor explained it to me, “When you’re up in front of a room full of people, your job is to make it look easy.” Not everyone appreciates what it takes to “make it look easy.” When I was in my corporate job I spent months designing a new one-day workshop for my employer to resell to other companies. Before doing a nation-wide roll out, we arranged to beta-test the design with a group of local human resources professionals. The day before the big preview, I’d done a dry run for my boss and co-workers. My boss wanted me to stay to talk about some other project, but I was scrambling to get home to do some final rehearsing. To someone who’d never designed or delivered a workshop in her life, I was over-reacting. “Oh, stop worrying,” she said. “You designed the seminar so you obviously know it.” Designing a 7-hour seminar is one thing. Standing up in front of 20 people and appearing to effortlessly juggle the content and flow of 120 PowerPoint® visuals, a 100+ page participant workbook, a 250 page leader guide, not to mention managing the learning needs and interpersonal dynamics of a group of discerning managers and professionals is not something that comes out of the design phase. It’s like expecting a screenwriter to finish his or her screenplay on one day and then star in it the next. So, as you think about setting your own fees ask yourself, “What will it take for me to make it look easy?” Depending on your area of expertise, this could include: ~ Any training, degrees, or other credentialing you may need or already acquired ~ The time it takes to research your topic and then learn your material ~ The time involved in becoming adept at managing the dynamics of the group (which, when working with a less than receptive audience, a group I affectionately refer to as “seminar hostages” can take a considerable amount of interpersonal skill) ~ The hours upon hours of rehearsal time to become a masterful presenter ~ Plus any time you invest in continually staying on top of your subject matter Of course each of these areas require a tremendous amount of hard work, effort, and practice. In fact on the content side alone, they say that for every one minute of a presentation, you need to invest an hour of preparation time. The realization that mastery does require hard work changed how I thought about my own fees. Recognizing the years of time and energy I’ve invested in making what I do “look easy” helped me to better value my expertise and time. So what should YOU charge? There simply is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Establishing your speaking fees depends on a range of variables including your audience, your topic, and your own background or experience. One way to get a feel for the going rates in your field is to do a web search to see what other speakers who do what you do are charging. If you’re just starting out and so feel uncomfortable setting your fees too high, then think of yourself as apprenticing and begin by charging less. You can always increase your fees as your confidence and experience grow. If you have no idea what to charge, try to get your client to name a fee first by saying something like, “What is your speaker budget for this event?” If the client puts the ball back your court, you might name a fee but also indicate a willingness to be somewhat flexible by saying, “Whenever possible I try to work within my client’s budget.” You can always come down but if your prospective client responds to your fee with, “Oh, is that all?” it’s too late to go up! Mistake #7: Failing to Match Your Market to Your Financial Goals When asked how much money they’d like to make as a speaker, nine times out of ten, my clients will state a figure in the $100,000 to $200,000 range. I love people who shoot high! In reality, many speakers can and do command five and six figure fees – for a single presentation. From what I’ve read, financial wizard Peter Lynch gets $75,000 to speak. Poet Maya Angelou’s speaking fee is $40,000. And self-help dynamo Tony Robbins charges $135,000 plus first-class travel. While you can make a lot of money in the speaking business you have to be willing to pay your dues. Paying your dues was covered in Part 1, but in brief, includes being willing to invest the time it takes to learn your topic without, however, becoming stalled by what I call the “expert trap.” It also means taking concrete steps to become a skilled and engaging presenter. Next you need to target clients willing to pay you the kind of fees you need to keep you in the style to which you would like to become accustomed. This begins with understanding the difference between your audience and your client. Your audience consists of the people who actually hear you speak. Your client however, is the person or organization writing your check. If you’re putting on your own public workshops, then your client consists of the paying attendees. The same is true if your workshop is being offered through the Learning Annex or another adult education program. Since you’re receiving a percentage of each attendee’s fee, your client and your audience are also one and the same. Sometimes your client is determined by what it is you want to speak about. If you want to teach about how people can improve their love life or achieve spiritual wellbeing, you’re not likely to find a lot of corporate or other organizational sponsorship. Here you’re probably looking at individual’s paying out of pocket. We’ll look more closely at marketing to individuals shortly. If you are targeting organizational clients, you should know that organizations pay based on your time verses the number of attendees. This kind of fee arrangement is commonly referred to as a per diem or per day. Many of my clients are colleges and universities. With them I charge on a per diem verses a per presentation basis. This allows these budget conscious clients to schedule up to two presentations a day making my fee more acceptable and therefore increasing my chances of being hired. Even when targeting organizational clients, keep in mind that some are going to pay more than others. Not-for-profits, which include professional or industry associations, government, and higher education, typically have less to pay than for-profits. The solution here is to vary your rates by the type of client with your corporate rates being highest. In addition to determining your market, your topic area impacts your fees with some subject areas commanding a larger fee than others. If you’re running stress management or personal empowerment workshops, you’re probably going to earn less than if you were specializing in executive leadership or secrets to making a killing in real estate. Here again though, your experience and credentials are going to be a factor. If I were to offer a presentation on male-female communication in the workplace I wouldn’t be able to ask anywhere near the mid-five figure range that Dr. Deborah Tannen gets. Why? Because while I could certainly deliver an engaging presentation on the subject, with several best-selling books on the subject, communications expert Tannen is considered one of the top experts in her field. It is possible to make six figures speaking for conducting workshops on topics like astrology, tapping into your inner power, or esteem building for teens. To do so however means you’re going to have to put in the time and effort it takes turn yourself into a “personality.” In other words you’re going to have to become the “astrologer to the stars” or a nationally known leader in the field of self-esteem or well-known guru on tapping into one’s inner power. I find a lot of people are either unwilling to do what it takes to become a personality. In other cases, they simply have a hard time picturing themselves as the next Dr. Phil, Dr. Ruth, or Tony Robbins. To which I say, why NOT you? Even if on the surface your topic doesn’t seem to fit into a corporate model, you may be able to re-frame it so it does fit an organizational need. If you want to run yoga classes or do improvisational comedy, for example you could package these topics as part of an overall stress management program or even spin it as a way to help sales reps to be more productive. Further niche market by developing stress management workshops for members of particular profession. If you target nurses for example, you can pedal your program to hospital administrators desperate to hold onto their shrinking nursing staff. That’s what I had to do with my career workshop. My specialty is helping people turn their interests into income by coming up with creative alternatives to having a job. The challenge here was finding organizations willing to hire a speaker to help their employees to quit their jobs to do their own thing. I came up with two – employers who are laying off large numbers of employees or those who offer career transition workshops for retirees. What’s Your Style?Finally, to some extent your preferred audience size can impact your financial goals. In other words, if you had to choose between two speaking gigs – one is facilitating an interactive workshop for 10 to 15 people and the other is delivering a presentation in front of an audience of 200 to 1200 – which would you pick? If you said the 10-15 people, it’s probably because you like the intimacy of interacting with a small group. If you opted for the large group, it’s probably because you like entertaining people. I’m happy to do either. But the setting I find more exhilarating, and personally, a whole lot less work, is the large group presentation. How finances factor in is simple. In most you’ll earn more money speaking to more people than less. This is true regardless of whether individual participants or an organization is writing the check. The exception is big name speakers like say, a Stephen Covey who can charge a small group of CEOs top dollar for a small group executive leadership retreat. In the next issue we’ll look at perhaps THE biggest – and most costly mistake – aspiring speakers make, namely not knowing how to market their expertise. We’ll also look at the benefits of creating other related income streams as well as resources to make launching your speaking business faster – and easier. About the AuthorOff the beaten path career counselor, Valerie Young, abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence atChangingCourse.com, offering free resources to help youdiscover your life mission and live it. An expert on the ImposterSyndrome, she's presented her How to Feel as Bright and Capable asEveryone Seems to Think You Are program to over 30,000 people. Find more articles written by Valerie atChangingCourse.com/articles/ | 
live life on purpose 
Imagine being able to make a difference in the world by sharing your message with an enthusiastic audience. Not only are you earning tens of thousands of dollars a month in speaker fees but you also have an excellent platform to do what the top speakers do… generate six or even seven figures from the sale of your CD programs or books, consulting fees and other profit centers available to every speaker.