Getting Paid as a Professional Speaker

Leave a reply

A few months ago I was at a network meeting and we were giving our 30 second pitches. The guy before me said he was a “public speaker.” When it was my turn I said “I’m a professional speaker, which means I get paid to speak.”

Big difference, in my mind, between a public speaker and a professional speaker.

A friend sent me an email about getting paid to speak … here is parts of the email and my responses:

>> [This is in regards to someone who is] the author of a best-selling book.

>> she was bemoaning speaking engagements she does being free.

Free isn’t all that bad – there are times, and reasons, to do free.  For example, if you have a method to get email addresses of people in the audience you will build a prospect database…

>> She was saying that corporates that she speaks to always put really strict constraints on her talks/presentations.

If she has a problem with it, and she isn’t getting value out of the opportunity, then she has to say NO.  SHE has the cookie… it is her decision to agree to speak.

>> For instance, she can’t sell her book

Most books sold in the back of the room make very little money anyway.  Assume she gets $10/book (which is not usual – especially if she didn’t self-publish) and she sells 100 books (that is not easy to do) – she gets a mere $1,000 … not much money.

>> or any product at the end

There is a lot of opportunity to make money on non-book products… does she have high-margin products that she could sell?  If so… (read on :))

>> and she has to pay her own way to get there and she gets no fee etc.

It sounds to me she is making bad business decisions.  No fee, no opportunity to sell and she pays expenses?  What does she get out of the engagement… does she get “her name out there?”  That doesn’t put food on the table.

>> … I remember you a few years back now when you said that you’d just gulped, added a few zeros to your speaking engagement fee and they accepted it without blinking.

My first paid speaking engagement was priced at the same price I charge right now. I doubled my rate for a while but that was because I was getting over-booked… I went back to my normal rate once my schedule calmed down.

I did, however, get solid advice from Andy Sernovitz to triple my rates – not necessarily my speaking rates … but I love the advice for various reasons.

>> So I’m thinking; how is there such a difference?

It is a matter of her saying: My fee is $x,xxx plus expenses, and then quietly waiting for a response.  If they say no, that’s fine.  Her time is valuable and I’d argue that one speaking engagement eats up at least four hours of her day.  She can’t do that for free.  If they want to negotiate down she has a business decision to make… which she can do on a case-by-case basis.  But speaking for free, especially if she is a best-selling author, is a great disservice to her capability, knowledge, experience, etc.

>> Is it the groups that you speak to are different corporate groups than her?

I don’t know where she is getting asked to speak but I’ve gotten fees from places/organizations that others said don’t pay.  SHE has the cookie… she has to make a business decision. She has to respect her abilities, and what she brings to the table, enough to say “my time and experience merits $x,xxx,” and if they don’t want her for that then that is fine – she can work on other revenue-generating projects and pass up an opportunity to lose money.

>> Why would she get nothing for her talks and you can name a price?

Because she hasn’t figured out how to name her price, and say NO if they don’t pay a certain amount.

>> I’m just curious how you have obviously been able to get it to work for you, but not her.

Without knowing more about her situation that’s my guess… it is as simple as stating a fee without flinching and then waiting, quietly, for the response.

>> Do you think this is odd?

No.  I think many people do this because they are excited that anyone would listen to them in the first place and they are proud to have an audience.  But you do that a few times and then wonder why you do it for no money…

Another common thing, unfortunately, is speakers who will do it for a couple hundred bucks.  No one is making a living on a couple hundred bucks…. speakers who say they are raising their rate to a couple hundred bucks are still in the “I work by the hour” mode, and they don’t appreciate the power of the message they (can) give.

NOTE: I don’t know if she’s a great speaker or a boring speaker… which could have an impact on her getting jobs…

Herriman Fire: We’re Safe

5 Replies

Hi folks… I’m sure I’ll share about 40% of what I want to share here but I need to get this off my chest so I can get back to work.

One of the best pictures of the Herriman Fire I’ve seen, I think our house is around one of these two arrows.

I’m writing this from a Radisson hotel in Salt Lake City, preparing to do a workshop and a keynote presentation this afternoon.  If I had a real job I’d probably take a vacation day but duty calls 🙂

Last night we left Herriman about 4pm to go to a family birthday party about an hour south.  We noticed a fire in the Camp Williams area and it looked pretty big.

There’s a hill between Camp Williams and my neighborhood.  About 6 years ago, when we first moved in, there was a fire up on the hill and it was kind of a spectacle, but we didn’t feel threatened.

We didn’t think much about it as we went to the party.

On the way home the smoke/fire was much larger, but still not anything we were concerned about.

We went to a friends house and picked raspberries until it was too dark to see anymore.  About that time we noticed a bunch of gawkers… neighbors of our friends were getting on their roof with cameras and binoculars.

We could, through the houses, see the fireline way up on the hill.  It was brilliant, in the dark… an orange line across the hill.

Still, not too worried.

As we drove home (about a mile) everyone… everyone seemed to be out.  Cars were parked along the road and people where on the sidewalks just looking.  Families where out on their porches with cameras.

Still, not too worried.

We finally got the news on about 9pm (Twitter had much more info (hashtag #herrimanfire)) and learned there were about 250 houses evacuated from The Cove – a nice neighborhood very close to the hills, as well as all the houses up the canyon.

PICTURES ON FLICKR HERE.

Just a few weeks ago we were camping in those canyons and I was admiring all of the houses there with nice, private property :p

Soon we heard there were 750 houses evacuating… unfortunately no one had a map available (my biggest beef with the emergency response).

My family was out in our backyard looking and I heard a police loudspeaker (or something like that) but I couldn’t understand it… so we walked to the corner of the main busy street (about 5 houses away).  It was amazing – LOTS of smoke, lots of ash and lots of congested traffic trying to get out.

A neighbor said they were leaving because of the smoke, and that’s when I thought that sounded like a good idea. I didn’t want to wake up to 5 kids crying at night with smoke/breathing problems and have to leave in the middle of the night.

I got home and we started packing… it went well, even though my two young daughters were scared and traumatized.  I gave them jobs to get their mind off of scary stuff… and eventually we piled in the van.

I thought we would be stuck trying to get out of Herriman but we were on the main highway, with no traffic, within 10 minutes (usually a 5 minute drive to get there), and rolled into my in-laws’ house at about midnight.

The kids dropped quickly and my wife and I watched the news for about 30 more minutes… then we crashed.

Today I’m speaking and tomorrow I get on the road for a conference in Dallas. I was supposed to pack, at my leasure, tonight… hopefully I got all I needed to because I don’t think I’ll be sleeping at home tonight.

Thank you to all who have called, chatted, tweeted, texted, facebooked, etc… we are okay and feel loved and blessed.

This is a traumatic event, and I know some families lost homes, and many people are scared.  However, we are so blessed and not alone, as the community has pulled together in a big way – we had friends prepare beds for my family last night, in case we wanted to stay there.  Stores and businesses have donated food and water, etc.

I think about those in Haiti, who didn’t get that support, or those in the recent California pipeline blast who lost their entire neighborhood,… or what if the fire destroyed lots of homes (so far only 4 or 5), etc.

Not to trivialize what’s going on but it could be so much worse.

Thanks again for your thoughts, prayers, concern,… we are and should be okay.

Phishing Scam Spam

1 Reply

Here’s another scam… these will never, ever end, and they will always be slightly different.  They are getting smarter… here’s a my post called Scary Spam where I break down the components of a scam email.

This one looks good enough at first:

But, if you mouse over the link you’ll see, at the bottom left of the browser, that it doesn’t go to a google page at all… it goes to this page where they’ll probably try and get your credit card info:

What I do, when I get this, is not just delete it, but I report it for spam, or in a worse case like this, for phishing (this is a gmail option)… I hope that by doing this I (a) decrease the amount of this crap in my own inbox and (b) somehow penalize the email sending the crap.

Please be careful on what you click on!  First mouse over it and look at the URL… that’s the first thing to check out!

My 5 Favorite Words

5 Replies

I was chatting with my buddy Thom Allen and wrote “sustainable.”  I really do like that word… and it made me think about what my other favorite words are.  Here are mine:

Sustainable: Got this from my MBA classes.  In business sustainability is so critical.  Profit, revenue, cash flow, etc. can all be irrelevant if none of it is sustainable.  I love this word and strive for it in many areas of my life – health/fitness, relationships, projects I take on, etc.  (close second from the MBA program: “significant.”  This is a word that statisticians use to relay if something matters or not.  I know you knew that but in stats is really gave me a new way to use it (with more force, maybe)).

Flexible: Got this from developing software.  You want to create something that can be used elsewhere, in different modules, applications, etc.  Create something that isn’t flexible and you’ll have to do it again, from the ground up.  Create something that IS flexible and you can use it in other places.  Think “widgets” or other things that use APIs.

Scalable: Got this from software development but I think about it with business all the time. In software you want to create something that a gazillion people could use, not just 4 people.  Make software scalable, like Facebook, and if the sun/moon/stars align you could have gobs of people on your system.  In business, make something that can scale and you can have “unlimited” income.  Anything that is hourly billing IS NOT scalable.  Product sales, generally, are scalable.

Creative: I never, ever, ever thought I was creative.  I had zero creativity.  When I hired interns I looked for signs of creativity.  I loved to be around creative.  Once I started my own business I learned I was, indeed, creative.  Creative = clever?

Curious: Another C word that I looked for in my hiring.  I wanted you to think about other ways to do things.  If you aren’t curious you won’t work well in my environment because I don’t provide much training/info for you (sorry).  I want you to figure it out on your own, which means you have to poke around and learn and ask the right questions.  I’m happy to HELP but I don’t want to hold your hand (if you are one of my employees).

What are your favorite words (and why)?

Water Drowning

1 Reply

Last week I was swimming with my kids and my three-almost-four year old had this very concerned look, and in a voice worthy of pity and sadness, she said:

“aaaaaaaw, look at that water down there,” as she points down to the bottom of the pool, with serious concern, “it’s drowning :(.”

In all my years I’ve never thought about the water on the bottom, drowning.  How ignorant of me :p

Influence: Art, Religion, Government, You

2 Replies

I had an idea to start a blog called “you are what you read,” and perhaps do book reviews and stuff like that.  I’m an avid reader and I have a few writing projects, and the idea of the content you consume (food or the written word or music, etc.) influencing who you are, what you think, how you act, what you believe, etc. is really interesting to me.

I did a quick google search to see if the domain was taking (it is) and who was using this brilliant phrase that I thought I came up with :p  I found a post on the rt:21 blog titled You Are What You Read that intrigued me.

It starts off with the question: “what are the ethical implications of using live animals in art?”

The post focuses on an artist in Nicaragua who supposedly tied a dog up and left it to starve… the “art” was watching the dog starve. Why?

According to hundreds of blogs and news articles circulating on the Internet, the artist intended for the dog to starve to death during the course of the exhibition. Vargas intended to raise awareness of the public’s hypocrisy by comparing what happened to this dog to a burglar named Natividad Canda Mayrena, who was mauled to death by two rottweilers in Costa Rica while the police and onlookers watched.

Interesting… and of course, beyond contraversial.

Apparently the dog didn’t starve… they fed it regularly.  This is where it gets really interesting.  The stories online, in news, etc. were all very critical and decried the outrage… without knowing or reporting the dog was not starving.

It seems the art was less about a dog and more about YOU and ME.

Exposición No 1 (the name of that work of art) is one component of a larger work of art called Eres lo que lees, which employs misinformation and manipulates mass media via the Internet.

I remember reading something from Chris Knudsen (I think) about Twitter, in the very early days… his concern was that something could get picked up and BELIEVED in a mob mentality manner, without any facts, basis, etc.  I tried to find it on his blog but I couldn’t… anyway, the point is, misinformation has the ability to manipulate what we think…. read on:

One of the aims of this project was to demonstrate the hypocrisy in real world and art world ethics. Take a dog off the streets and put it into a gallery and it becomes an ethical phenomenon, while stray dogs and most real human suffering are ignored or given minimal attention.

There are plenty of headlines TODAY that are getting front page news while real, bigger issues are getting minimal attention… 🙁  Read on:

This illustrates how easily we can be manipulated into believing what news outlets want us to. The title, “You Are What You Read,” illustrates this point very well. If one artist can manipulate over four million people around the world, imagine the ability that governments, corporations, and religious entities have to do the same.

That last sentence has stuck with me over the last week.  PR and marketing and information and misinformation… how powerful!  And many times, we’re just tools…. right?

You can read the original post that inspired this one right here.

Are you a speaker? You are probably average.

4 Replies

Update 7/28/2010: here’s a brilliant post on Tim Ferris’ blog that goes deeper into how to get to that far left extreme: From CEOs to Opera Singers – How to Harness the “Superstar Effect”

I love watching speakers present.  I am a student of presenters and often find myself writing down two things:

  1. Things to do: what is the speaker doing that is amazing and awesome, and something I need to incorporate.
  2. Things to never, ever do: what the speaker does that discredits the message, causes a negative reaction, etc.

A few weeks ago I was watching an awesome person speak. This person speaks often, so I had high expectations because:

awesome person + speaks frequently = should be awesome presenter

That formula is flawed, of course, and the presentation was… well, also flawed. It was average.

What does “average” mean? Check out this drawing I came up with:

NON Professional Speakers

Note, this is for non-professional speakers.  I consider myself a professional speaker because people pay good money to have me speak, and I speak frequently.  More on that below.

For non-professional speakers, some thoughts:

  • Most presentations are average.  You will likely be just average.  You would have to work pretty hard to really suck, even though that’s what you are most stressed about (sucking). Don’t worry, expectations are low and you probably won’t suck bad enough to be in the red circle on the right.
  • Most self-confident speakers (like me) think they are awesome, and awe-inspiring.  But they really are just at the left side of average, in that pinkish box.  As great as you think you are, you are just as average as you would have been anywhere else in the yellow.
  • You *can* do a presentation where you are in the green circle and be awe-inspiring.  But it takes a lot of work.  Presentation skills, your appearance, your message, the stories, jokes, etc.  How you connect… there are so many things to get into that circle that if you ever do, consider quitting your day job and becoming a professional speaker.    But you won’t get there by just practicing a few times… it takes a LOT of work.

Here’s a similar image for PROFESSIONAL speakers.  These are the biggies that get paid to do this for a living.

Professional Speakers

Some thoughts:

  • Since the expectations are much higher, there is no pink box.  You are either average (“yeah, he was like all the other speakers we’ve paid”), or you are awesome.  Getting to awesome is equally as hard as it is for non-professional speakers because you don’t get any slack… the bar is HIGH.
  • Average is different… you can’t go too far to the left or else what would be average for anyone else becomes below average for your audience.  Once again, the bar is high, so you can’t do just okay… just okay, for a professional speaker, is not even close to good enough.

Rarely do I ever see a presentation that I would put in the awesome side of this bell curve.

Thoughts?

Website? Favicon?

5 Replies

Do you have a website?  Y/N

If N… you can stop reading 🙂

If Y… do you have a favicon?

What, you ask, is a favicon?  It is a little tiny icon that goes in the tab of the browser… look at this:

These are *some* of the tabs I have open right now… do you recognize any of the sites I am on?

  1. gmail, always in the first place
  2. a blog post that is hosted on blogger… something I liked and will blog about later.
  3. the third tab I’m on. Because I’m on this tab the favicon doesn’t show up.
  4. Looky looky…!  A blank page.  This is a BUSINESS’ S website… with NO favicon.  See how it sticks out like a sore thumb?  I can’t tell what it is until I click on it.  IF YOU HAVE A WEBSITE, DO A FAVICON!  IT IS EASY!
  5. Twitter… for a person I’m trying to network into.
  6. Google Calendar.
  7. VJC – my competition – they have a great blog post that I’m reading.
  8. blank page … I don’t know, and THEY miss a branding opportunity!
  9. Some association page.
  10. Southwest airlines as I get ready for some trips.
  11. KSL – local news.
  12. Twitter – another person I’m trying to network into.
  13. Huffington Post article about unemployment.
  14. blank page – I don’t know!
  15. Job-Hunt.org post on avoiding job boards that I need to read.
  16. A google search.

If YOUR page was open, would I see a blank page or a nice little favicon?

Here’s a search on favicon to help you get started.  This can really take just a few minutes to do.

10 Marathons

1 Reply

Today I hit 262 miles.

That is the distance of 10 marathons… 26.2 miles * 10.

I won’t even pretend to be a marathoner, but I think it’s cool that I’ve gone that distance.

I have about 240 miles left before the end of the year – and I’m feeling pretty good!

Scary Spam

2 Replies

This is really clever, very scary… I think the spammers will have a good success rate with people clicking on this:

here are the things to watch for:

  1. I don’t know the “from” person, and “local schools” doesn’t make sense to me (but it might to a lot of students :s)
  2. I went to laca.org and it wasn’t a real website… didn’t go anywhere.
  3. online.com?  Too generic…
  4. subject line has a period
  5. I don’t have a mailbox with 23GB.  I Don’t have an account with them.
  6. NEVER, EVER “click here” to validate a mailbox… or anything that you haven’t specifically requested.
  7. Other poor grammar towards the end of the email

When you mouse over the “click here” link you see it will go to this URL:

A few red flags here, also:

  1. the URL doesn’t match the sender (laca.org)…
  2. the subdomain starts with scripts. … NOT GOOD.
  3. 4goodhosting.com?  Seriously?
  4. form1.html?  Very novice.

This has yellow and red flags all over it – but they’ve done a very good job. PLEASE don’t click on anything that looks like this.  Simply delete it (or, if you are on Gmail, report phishing, or report as spam).