🎙An Exclusive Q & A Session You Don’t Want to Miss!

Do you struggle with fear, doubt, and worry in your public speaking? Do you find it difficult to connect with your audience and deliver presentations that leave a lasting, positive, unforgettable impact? If yes, then let's dive in the world of public speaking and presentation skills with your host, Eric Edmeads. Welcome to the Unforgettable podcast.

Welcome back to the Q and A sessions of the Speaker Nation podcast. I'm your host, Eric Edmeads, and as always, I'm answering your questions about speaking and the business of being a speaker. And the three questions for this episode are actually all about the business of being a speaker. They're great questions. And here they come. The first question is, how can a new speaker start building their speaking career? Well, this is a big question and we could run an entire workshop on this, but there are some key things that I'd like to share with you. The first thing is to build a great speaker. What does that mean? It means having a good website. It means having a good social media presence. It means really polishing up your LinkedIn profile to make you look solid no matter what type of speaking you're doing. LinkedIn is the professional social network, and people are going to look there to find out more about you. Now, another side of this is taking a look at exactly what kind of speaking business you want to start. Some people start like a keynote speaking career. They their job or their idea is that they just want to develop speeches and sell those speeches. I want to be paid a fixed rate to deliver this speech for an hour. That's one type of speaking. Another speaker wants to put together, say, workshops and create their own business as being a speaker or trainer. A key decision for you to make is what kind of speaker you want to become. Because once you've determined what kind of speaker you want to become, it makes it a lot easier for you to determine which business model you want to use. Either way, here are some important things that I think you need to know. The one is, you want some kind of Rolodex. These days, electronically, we call them CRM systems or customer relationship management systems. I think that's really imperative. The more people you have on your list, the greater influence and power you have. Look, I can tell you right now, I'd rather have like a thousand people on my mailing list than 50,000 followers on Instagram. And I'll tell you why. Because people, people engaged on your mailing list are people that you can actually reach, people that you have real influence with. And Instagram can't just turn off your account or govern you in because you said something they didn't like. So having a CRM system where you are capturing email addresses and maintaining your relationships with clients is really, really important. Remember too that a good CRM system will keep a track of your history with your clients. So you'll be able to keep a track of the email conversations you've had with them, the different emails you've sent them, and and maybe the different bookings you've had with them in the past. Another important, important aspect of this is generation of referrals. Every single time you do an engagement, whether you do it pro bono for free or whether you do it for billing, I really recommend that you speak to the organizer and ask them right off, are there other organizations that you believe might benefit from what I shared here today and could you please offer me a referral to them or let me know who to speak with? By asking for referrals like that, you are going to branch yourself out. One way I'd like you to think about that is that every single well delivered talk you do is an advertisement for your next booking, your next booking potentially with the same organization or same booker or your next booking elsewhere. What are the common pitfalls in the public speaking business and how can they be avoided? Well, there are a few pitfalls and I can tell you that the most significant pitfall that I've witnessed is thinking you've arrived. Thinking you've arrived at a point where you're good enough, where you no longer need to continue your development. Many years ago I was doing an event in Europe and I was one of three headline speakers at an event that had about 20 speakers at it. One of the other headline speakers is a very well known person. She's a self made billionaire and has a compelling story to tell. The trouble is she's not very compelling in the way she tells it. Now as I came off the stage and I was talking to people about my presentation, people kept coming up to me and saying, wow, that was fantastic, that was amazing. And then inevitably a number of them would come to me and say, you know, this other speaker, her story, I mean what I heard of it was really good. But I just kept dozing off and she didn't hold my attention. And somehow you did. What's the difference? Well, I can give you the mechanical differences. I used a lot more storytelling, I used more tone of voice, I used my body language, I walked in amongst the audience. I did all kinds of mechanical things to do that. But the real reason, the real Reason I did that is because I have never arrived. I walk off the stage after every single presentation that I do with a long list of improvements that can make it even better for the next time. My friend on the stage feels she's arrived and she has nobody around her to disavow her of this belief. And so what that means is that her professional development has come to an end. One of the most significant pitfalls that you can avoid is that. And the way you avoid that is by making a commitment to constant and ceaseless dedication to improving yourself. Here's another big Speaking for free for too long now. What I mean by that is that when you're first starting your career, you need practice and you don't have a reputation. And so you might be invited to speak, and sometimes you might be invited to speak for free. And that's great. I've done many free speeches, there's no question about it. And it's not so good for your self esteem and it's also not that great for your reputation. So one of the things that I suggest is that if you do engage in speaking for free, that you invoice the producer the full value of your speech with a discount line item showing that you've done the talk for free. You are creating a very clear market message that you have a value. You, for example, might suggest that your keynote speech should have been a $10,000 fee. You're giving them a 100% discount, but it kind of communicates to you that you're worth 10,000 for that keynote, and it reminds them that you are. And you know what's really great about this? One of my clients took this advice and did it. They were contacted by the same organization a year later and they called up and said, hey, could you come and speak again? We can't afford your full fee, but we'll pay you half of it. The year before, they'd paid nothing. So you see, what's happening is that you're creating a better market impression, not only with the people you're working with, but also with your own sense of self esteem. And then here comes the hard part. There's going to have to come a time where you stop doing it, where you stop working for free, or you work for free under very specific limitations. For example, I'll speak for free now at schools, I'll speak for kids for free all day long. And there are some organizations, particularly charitable organizations and NGOs, that I'm willing to speak for free. I. I'll do that. But Very rarely will I now engage in a, hey, Eric, you can come speak at our event because it'll give you exposure. Not really interested in doing that anymore. And in fact, I got a crash course in that by my business manager because I agreed to do one. I agreed to do one. And the really funny bit was I was doing another event in another country just next door for full fees. And the full fees are substantial, I'm telling you. And she said to me, what do you think would happen if the producer from the first event found out that you spoke at the second event for free? She said, from now onwards, if you want to make a cameo appearance at, say, some kind of personal development expo and just pop on the stage and say a few words, you can. But you can't be advertised as a speaker there when they're not covering your fee. You can't let them use your brand to sell tickets when they're not covering your fee. I have to tell you, I resisted this a great deal because I love to give. But ever since making that decision, a lot of things have changed. So a big pitfall here is being unwilling to speak for free in the early stages when you should be willing to, and then being too willing to do it later. Third question, how do you determine and negotiate your speaking fees? Well, there's lots of different ways to look at this, and it has a lot to do with what industry you're in and the target market you're aiming for, and for that matter, even what country you're in. I can tell you that if you're in the North American market and you're putting yourself out there as a keynote speaker or conference speaker and your keynote fees are anything less than seven to $10,000, they won't even talk to you. I mean, seven to $10,000 is cheap. And nobody wants to be the event planner who booked the cheap speaker, right? Like if you bomb and they go, well, they were cheap. That's not what they were aiming for. They were aiming for mind blown. They were aiming for the audience going, wow. Because whoever's organizing a conference, whether it's a big corporate conference or a personal development expo or whatever it is, they want people to leave knowing they're going to come back the next year or the next month or whenever it is. And so as a speaker, your job is to deliver in a fantastic way, not to be cheap. And so I suggest to you that you have to look at the market conditions where you are and the industry where you are and the target market you're after and then you want to take a look at setting a price. Now the other thing I want to offer you is rather than pricing yourself cheaply, I would price yourself very expensively, but be willing to discount when there's a good reason for it. What I want to suggest is that if you're a little bit worried about charging too much, don't price yourself cheaply. Set a high price and be willing to say no. But also be willing to discount when there's good strategic reasons for doing it. Not too long ago, I was asked to speak at an event in Germany and it was a very big event, thousands and thousands of people. A market that I've not really been exposed to in any great form. I mean, I've spoken there before and I have some clients, but it's not like many of the other countries where I have a deep, deep, deep reputation. And so they asked me if I would come and speak and asked if I would offer a discount on speaking fees. Now my manager was handling this, but they took a look and said, well, from a strategic outcome perspective, this talk is going to expose me to three thousands of thousands of people in a new market. And the talks are being recorded and released online, which is going to create even more exposure at a very high level of production. And so I agreed to do it. I agreed to do it at a big discount. I still took a good fee and I still had all my expenses covered and I still flew at the front of the plane. But I did offer the discount because it was strategically important to do so. So what I want you also to know is that saying no is one of the best ways to raise your price. Now this is difficult when you're first starting out because you don't want to say no to anybody. You don't want to say no because you're looking for experience. And you don't want to say no because you probably love to give. But when I first started learning to be willing to say no, then I found out how much people were really willing to pay. And that is what you want to find out. You want to find out what the market will bear in the industry you're in. Look, if you're going to be speaking about meditation at the Mind Body Expo, I can tell you right now, unless you truly transcend and become a multiple New York Times best selling author and celebritize the hell out of yourself, you're not going to really make a great deal of money. But at the same time, if you are sharing cutting edge leadership strategies at a leadership conference or a large corporate event, you're going to command great fees. And of course, the more you can do to sort of celebritize yourself, you know, write a book, get lots of followers on social media, get yourself media and, you know, exposure and that sort of stuff, all of those things are going to serve to raise your speaking fees. I hope that helps, and I hope this helps you a little bit in the business of creating your career. If you know anybody who's looking at building their speaking career or has an interest generally in public speaking, please share the podcast with them. They can find it at www.unforgettable.show. and by the way, if this has been helpful for you, I'll tell you what's helpful for me. Subscribe and leave us a review. Thanks very much. See you at the next episode.

So that's it for today's episode of Unforgettable. Head on over to itunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on itunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a private $25,000 VIP day with Eric Edmeads himself. Be sure to head on over to Unforgettable show show and pick up a free copy of Eric's gift and join us on the next episode.