32: How Speaking Can Add an Income Stream (and help you find students for your online course)

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Welcome to the Course Creators MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destiny Kopp and in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. But before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my free mini course Course in a Box, which is your plug and play system with templates and videos to get your online course created. You can grab your free Course in a box by going to destinycop.com and I will make sure that this link is in the show Notes and today we are talking about how speaking can add an income stream to your online course business. And I have a special guest with me here today. I have Ashley Kirkwood and Ashley is a dynamic speaker, a trademark lawyer and on air legal expert for a Chicago daytime show. Her law firm Mobile General Counsel helps entrepreneurs to trademark their brands and protect their business assets with contracts. She takes great pride in helping business owners on the legal side and the business side. On the business side, she helps entrepreneurs and experts make make speaking an income stream through live events, her podcasts and coaching programs which all fall under Ashley's brand Speak youk Way to Cash. When Ashley's not helping her legal or coaching clients, you can find her on stage around the country delivering her signature speech, the currency of confidence. And Ashley, I would love to go to one of your speeches.

Definitely. Well thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited that you're here today. And before we jump into all the topics I have for you and the questions, can you tell everybody who's listening today a little bit about you and your entrepreneur journey. And I definitely Want to know how a trademark lawyer has moved into speaking?

Definitely. So I had a pretty traditional career path. I went to Northwestern for law school, work at a large law firm after that. And then I just started having a desire to do a little bit more, have more impact that was also related to my income. And although I was enjoying what I was doing, I was representing mega corporations on large legal teams and it just wasn't fueling that desire. So I left my corporate legal profession and, and started Mobile General Counsel, which is my own law firm. But one of the things that I tell people about starting your own firm is unlike a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of your online course creators, you could have a full time day job and start an online course business while you have your day job, but you cannot start a law firm while at a law firm because there's all these ethical rules around that. So I left my $300,000 corporate job and on day one, I had zero clients and I really had to build my client base from the ground up. So talk about hustling. And so on day one, because I didn't have any legal clients, what I did was I actually started speaking and bulk selling a book that I'd wrote called the Law School Hustle. And it just became a necessity at that point that I'd already been speaking professionally and doing engagements inconsistently here and there. But when I left my job and I was making good money, I really kicked it into high gear and started calling schools, setting up my own book tours, traveling, selling books in bulk, connecting with different associations, and just got the ball rolling on that while I was still working to build my client base at my law firm.

Wow, so you quit a corporate law firm job, 300,000 from scratch, and had to build everything from scratch. I bet that was daunting.

Yes. Had to build everything from scratch. And I think it was really like, you know, because I was at a really great firm, Kirkland and Ellis, I love that firm. And then I left and went to another firm for more money. And I always tell people, you know, if you're happy at one job, it may not be a great idea to go with, go with the money, because I think being happy at your job is worth more than, you know, the raise that I was able to negotiate at the second firm. And I just got there and I was so unhappy and there were so many issues with the second firm that I was just like, I can't in good faith do this. It is impacting every area of my life and it's not Worth it. So, yeah, I just. I left.

So you got into speaking, and it sounded like your niche was calling on schools. Were you speaking in front of students? Who were you? Who do you first, you know, do your initial speeches to?

That's a really good question. So my initial speeches were to law schools. When I first started, I targeted law schools pretty exclusively. Now I do a lot more of my work with colleges and corporations. But initially I worked with law schools because I was a lawyer. I just written a book about law school success, so law school seemed like the best fit. Ironically, though, I find that undergraduate institutions, especially state institutions, have bigger budgets than private law schools. So when I wanted to make it a more sustainable living and I really wanted to be a huge part of my income stream, I switched and pivoted and focused more on colleges, conferences, and corporations.

Well, I know a lot of course creators out there who are listening. You know, they're an expert in their field. They've been working at it for a while, and. And speaking has always been on their list to explore. So let's jump into this. And can, you know, and I'm sure you've worked with course creators in the past. Can you walk me through how an online course creator can get started in adding speaking as an income stream to their online course business?

Absolutely. So one of the first things you want to ask yourself is, what is your expertise? The great thing about course creators is they already know what they're experts in because they're typically creating content around that already. And so after you know your expertise, you need to choose a niche, and you can either do that by industry or topic. So if your niche is, for instance, helping entrepreneurs make six figures make their first six figures, then maybe your niche would be reaching out to the plumbing associations, the individuals who own different plumbing businesses, and teaching them about that. And I say plumbing because, you know, oftentimes entrepreneurs think about, like, oh, I want to go to all these really cool, sexy entrepreneurship conferences, but they don't always pay, and they don't always pay because so many people want to go there. But when you start thinking about, like, all the people who own companies that, you know, that own plumbing and electric companies, all of those people are entrepreneurs, and they need to know how to make their first or second or third six figures. And if you can help them with that, then maybe you should reach out to all of the associations within that niche and see whether you can speak to them. Because they have budgets, they have a group of entrepreneurs that are hungry that otherwise wouldn't get the information that you have to offer.

So what's the best way to choose a niche?

Well, it should be something. It should be a mix between. One of the things that I teach in my Speaking Ready Cash Facebook group and at the Speaking Ready Cash event and on the Speaking Ready Cash podcast is like you want to think about three things. One, what can you teach without having to learn anything else? What does your background say about your expertise? So not just what you think you're an expert in, but what an objective person would think you're an expert in? And then three, what do you enjoy? Because you have to like it enough to talk about it over and over and over again. So those are kind of the three things that you should think about. And if you already create courses, you already have content, you already have a base in a particular area, then you may already have a niche. It's just a matter of packaging it in a way that, that people with budgets can pay you for it.

So this kind of leads me into my next question is how do you find them? So let's just say you, obviously we know what our expertise is. We're online course creators. We have narrowed down who we're going to go after for these speaking events. How do we find these opportunities?

Yeah. So that is the number one question that we get all the time. We give out lists and things like that of where you can find paid engagements at some of our events. But the biggest thing you can do is honestly use Google. So you'd be looking for. They're called trade associations. So there's a couple of different groups of people that actually hire speakers. Colleges, corporations, nonprofits, trade associations, and then large conferences. So the trade associations are just going to be. There is actually if you Google trade association directory, there's a directory of trade associations. And you'd start there, you'd go to their website, It'd be old school Googling techniques really.

So I was trying to write this down as you were talking. So just Google trade association, colleges, corporations. And there was one more that I missed.

Yeah, there's nonprofits as well.

Nonprofits, yeah. So how do you. Let's just say you have found a nonprofit or a college that you think might be a good fit. How do I know that they would even be interested in my topic? Like, what am I looking for there?

Well, what you have to do and what I tell everyone is you have to start pitching. You have to start pitching. So you essentially need to just reach out to them, let them know, like, hey, are you the person that Brings in outside speakers, they'll either say yes or no or we don't bring in outside speakers. And if they don't bring in outside speakers, then that's the end of your inquiry. Because you don't, you're not, you don't want to sell people on too much. Essentially, I like to sell them on my topic, my expertise. I don't want to sell them on why they need to hire speakers to begin with. So if an organization tells me they never bring in speakers, then I don't pursue that organization. Because there's so many organizations that do bring in speakers. So the key language there is, are you the person that handles bringing in outside speakers? Because then they'll know you actually plan to get paid for this. You're not just going to come in and help them out like you, you want to get paid for it, and you want to be able to distinguish between organizations that understand that and those that don't.

So what you need to include in your pitch, and I'll make sure that this is in the notes here. Are you the person who brings in speakers and you think that they will know immediately that this person is seeking to get paid for it?

Well, I think the outside typically signals that, especially if you're looking at corporations or colleges and some of the trade associations may have, like, call for proposals and things like that, where if you fill that out, they may or may not have a budget, or they may or may not be able to pay. But you can also just ask directly, like, what do you have a budget for the event? But typically the budgeting conversation comes after there's some interest in bringing you in.

How much should somebody expect to get paid for something like this? Like how, you know, we're talking about adding this income stream to our online course business. What is the potential here?

It can be vast, but it takes time. So speaking isn't one of those, like, get rich quick things? Like, I typically tell my, my customers or my clients who are hiring me as their speaking coach is like, okay, well, how long are you willing to work and wait to make this happen? If you're only doing it for money, then you may get weary because it's going to take time for you to build your momentum and for you to have like, your demo video and things like that that you actually need in order to get paid to speak. Because branding is everything. But when I first started, I mean, I, I probably got like $100 for an hour, and now my rates are anywhere from 5,500 and up for an hour presentation. So it can be pretty extensive. There's also people who make like $20,000 per engagement, but they are targeting typically corporate conferences and their keynote speakers for corporate conferences. So if you're just getting started anywhere between $2,500, like $2,500 is typically the average starting rate. If you're just getting started into like the college speaking market, 2500 is a fair, reasonable average rate. Most speakers do not bring in six figures in their first year. Typically they're bringing in anywhere from like 12,000 to $50,000 in that first year if they're doing the pitching consistently. But there are about like 10% of people who are speakers are bringing in multiple six figures figures. And then there's like, I think it's less than 1% of professional speakers are bringing in seven figures. But it does exist where they're bringing that in predominantly from speaking. One of the other great things about being a course creator though is you can. So if I go and speak at a college and I have a course that's on exam writing or I have an exam writing boot camp course, I can get paid to speak and then they would pay me an additional licensing fee for them to actually utilize the online course that I sell them. So there, there is a lot of opportunities to sell your online courses to these larger organizations with as like with a licensing agreement in place.

That's a great point though. And as you were talking about that, I was thinking about, well, what about a health and wellness coach who works with corporations? They could go in there and get a speaking gig and at the same time, you know, maybe even sell their online course to the corporation. Multiple licenses.

Yep, absolutely. Or I have someone that I work with in one of my programs and she's a health and fitness coach. And so one of the things that we developed for her was a plan where she sells. She may go in and speak for free, but she'll sell her $900. She'll give them like 50 of her $900 three month course, which actually teaches people how to lose money or how to lose weight rather not money. How to lose weight.

Yeah, we don't want to lose money, but definitely lose weight.

How to lose weight and be more productive, be more engaged as employees. So there are opportunities for the corporation to buy your program in bulk as like an employee incentive.

I love this. Any other tips for speaking engagements that you. That the online course creators need to know here?

Yeah, for sure. Like, don't negate. You should if you've never spoken you want to have a couple of things. You need a website. It could just be a page on your website that actually talks about your speaking topics. It'd be great to have a signature speech, something that you're known by. Mine is the currency of confidence, which was also a TEDx talk. So if you're listening, you could type in Ashley Kirkwood, the currency of confidence, and find my TEDx talk. And you want to have a demo video, just something that shows you speaking on the topic that you're selling to these either corporations or colleges. Those are kind of the three really, really big things. A signature talk, a website or webpage where they can go to then video of you speaking. So, you know, if you have to speak for free at first, do it to get those assets and then use those assets to pitch paid engagements.

I love that. And I will make sure that that list is in the notes so everybody's aware of it. And I was.

I would.

I wasn't even thinking about the need for a demo video. So that's a great tip.

Yeah, that'll help a lot. And the better your branding materials and marketing materials are, the higher your rates will be.

And, you know, I cannot let a lawyer get off of my podcast without talking about trademark and how we protect ourselves in the online course world. What tips do you have for course creators related to that?

Absolutely. So we work with a lot of course creators and creatives generally. And what a lot of people do is they know they need to trademark their business name, they know they need to trademark their podcast name, but then they forget about trademarking their courses. And I have a course called get the Tea on trademarks where I teach people how to file their own trademark application. It's an online course. And I actually, I trademarked the name of my firm and I was like, oh, I forgot. I need to trademark, of course, the name of my course. And what made me remember was that someone else was using a very similar name and I did not have it trademarked, even though I had. I started using the name first. And so I had to go ahead and file the application. I had to send them a cease and desist. It got so messy when if I would have just trademarked the name of that corner, I would have been covered. And most course creators do not want anyone else using the name that they've created and that they branded under. So if that's you, make sure one, one make sure you search to make sure no one else is using that name. You can do a Google search. You can also do what's called a test search. T E S S and you'd go to uspto.gov and do what's called a test search to make sure that no one else is using that name. But then you need to trademark it. File a federal trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It sounds easier said than done. It's not, it's not as intuitive as I'm making it sound. But I will give you guys a free trademark training so that you all can kind of learn a little bit more about what is a trademark, what you need to do. But you know, work with a lawyer and just get a trademark. Especially if you're making money off of it and you want to continue to make money off of it from years to come. You don't want to be in a situation where now you have this course, you've launched it, and now you need to totally redo the name of the course. And everyone knows and loves your course under that name. So it's really important that for all of your big launches, all your big courses, you get the trademark. Don't just own your business, own your brand assets, own the name of the things that you create.

And I will make sure all those links are in the show notes so everybody knows where to go. Can you tell everybody how much does it cost to follow trademark?

Yeah, so it depends. Like for our firm, the trademark cost is $2,000. And that gets us to handle the entire nine plus month process. So it's a really, really, really long process. It's not short and cut and dry. Now if you are going to do it on your own, we do have like a online course. I think it's like 250. It'll show you how to file it on your own and then you'll just be responsible for the government fees which depending on it gets a little complicated in that it depends on how many categories of goods you're gonna, you know, trademark your name under. But if it's an online course, one category of goods, you could Pay anywhere from 225 to $400 for that application fee. And if that's, if you're listening to this, like in 2019, because the cost to trademark will be going up. The government is reviewing their rates now and they may be raising them by as much as $100. So I do recommend, you know, if you're listening to this now trademark now with the current fees so that you're not, you're not caught up in the fee increase, which will push everyone's rates up.

Thank you for those tips and let us know about those increases there. Ashley, can you tell people where they can find you?

Absolutely. If you're interested in speaking, then we'd love to have you in the Speak youk Way to Cash Facebook group. Totally free resource for speakers looking to learn more about speaking. And and the name of that group is Just Speak youk Way to Cash, which is also the name of the podcast and the event series. And I'm on Instagram ekeourwaytocash as well if you want to follow me. With my firm, it's Mobile General Counsel. That's our Instagram name. That's Also our website mobilegeneralcouncil.com and yeah, so those are kind of the two places either speak youk Way to Cash or Mobile General Counsel.

And I will make sure all of those links are in the show notes as I always do. And course creators, thanks so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Ashley. Would love for you to rate and review the podcast on itunes or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.

Awesome.