A speaker kept accepting unpaid work because she didn't believe she was worth premium fees. When a Big 4 consulting firm offered only exposure, she realized that free gigs undermine her value unless they're for causes she actually cares about. Your beliefs about who you are determine what you'll charge.
When I started my journey as a public speaker, although my identity was, I want to be a well-known public speaker, I didn't truly believe it myself. And the problem with that, when you don't truly believe that you can live out of your creativity, that you can have a successful business, that you can be a consolidated speaker, is that your mind is going to start making you behave in ways that are sabotaging you. How? In my case, for example, I didn't dare to charge a high price. Because I didn't believe my identity. I didn't dare to say no because I thought, well, I'm not at that level yet. I'm not that good yet. So I used to take a lot of pro bono work. And then one day that shifted. I had a big, uh, one of these Big 4 consulting firms that contacted me and asked me to join a panel. And when I said if they had it, I asked them if they had a budget for it. They said, no, but it's going to be great exposure for you. And indeed it would have been. Great exposure, but I realized that it was actually going against my own beliefs. It was actually sabotaging my identity. If you give it for free, unless it's a charity, which I do all the time and I love it, but if you're giving your time for free for money, who actually make a profit, to me, I was sabotaging my own efforts.
How Much Speakers Charge And Where To Find Paid Gigs [Public Speaking Bootcamp]
