TJ Walker argues that most speaking gurus sell fantasy instead of real income. You need actual expertise and an audience before you can get paid to speak. Buy courses from people who make money speaking, not from people who make money selling courses.
Chapters
Is professional speaking the new multi level marketing scam of our time? Is it a new Ponzi scheme? Well, there are times when it seems like that. Now I try to get a survey, full coverage of what's going on in the industry. So I sign up for a lot of different newsletters, go to websites, but every single day I get bombarded by so called experts, most of whom I've never heard of, saying they're going to teach me how to become a professional speaker, make $25,000 a speech, have an easy rich lifestyle, a jet set lifestyle. Folks, I'm here to tell you that just is a complete scam for the most part. If you go into this thinking I want to be a rich public professional speaker, you're not going to make it. How do I know that? Well, I know a lot of professional speakers. I am a type of professional speaker and I can tell you I've never met anyone who is making a lot of money as a speaker who said, well I was doing stockbroking for a while, I didn't like that. I just decided to become a professional speaker. I went to a course and now boom, here I am. It just doesn't work like that. What these people are doing for the most part is they're really good at selling you a dream, a fantasy. Work one hour a week, take a private jet to a speaking gig, get up on stage, get a lot of attention, get that 10,000, 20,000, $30,000 check, go home and sit by your pool next to your beautiful spouse and lovely kids. That's the dream, that's the fantasy. These people are not going to help you. Most of them don't actually speak for a living. What they do is they're good Internet marketers at selling a dream. So they're telling you that they can teach you how to be a professional speaker. They're not making money from professional speaking, they're making money by selling a fantasy. You see this in a lot of industries. You see so called real estate gurus who don't actually make money from real estate. They make money selling information products and DVDs and long time ago cassette tapes on how to get rich with no money down on real estate. That's how they were making their money. They weren't and this has happened throughout history. They're not making money by finding gold, they're making money by selling the picks and shovels and selling land that doesn't really have gold in it. So my friends, be wary. I don't believe you should aspire to Be a professional speaker. That doesn't mean you can't make money as a speaker. That doesn't mean you can't be professional about it. But the starting point has to be you have a passion and an expertise for a particular subject matter. If you happen to be someone who's devoted your life to cybersecurity and you've read everything about it, and you work in it full time, and you already have clients and customers, and you're an expert on cybersecurity and you've created software on it, and you have a following of people on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. Well, are you well positioned to now become a professional speaker on cybersecurity? Absolutely. You fit the pattern. But to just wake up one day and say, you know what? I don't like a boss. I've kind of failed at everything. I don't have any money. I don't really like to work hard. I think it would be, you know, let me give this thing a try. I tried real estate. That didn't work out. I tried Internet marketing. Let me become a professional speaker and sign up for this course. You are completely wasting your money. Whether it's $1,000, $10,000, $50,000, whatever the course is, take that money, buy a bus ticket, go to Las Vegas, go to Atlantic City, what's ever closer to your local casino, and just put the money on the blackjack table, you'll have better odds and you're probably going to end up in the same place. At least you might have a little fun at the casino. So, folks, don't try to become a professional speaker. Try to become an expert. Try to become an expert who has information and insights that people want, when people want that, through your newsletter, through your books, through your website, through your blog, through your YouTube channel, through your videos on Facebook. When all those other pieces are there, then you are well positioned to start selling your speeches for real money. I'm TJ Walker. I help people speak their best, whether they want to become a professional speaker or be much better in whatever industry they're in, anytime they're standing up to speak. If you want to improve your speaking skills, that's the key. I'm not going to promise you I'm going to make you a $50,000 keynote speaker. But what I can promise you is I can make you a much, much better public speaker if that's what you want. I've got several solutions for you. There are online training courses. I have public workshops every month in New York City, plus live in person private, one on one and group trainings. If you want any one of those solutions, give me a call or check out my website. Thanks.
