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When You're NOT Laughing All the Way to the Bank

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You’re out of town for two days. You manage the stress of airports, coach seating, unpacking for security checks and double tipping at hotels and airports. You’re away from your family for two days at a time, adjusting your sleep patterns through time zones and enduring restaurants that others select.

You love the two hours that you spend speaking and you have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve given the client exactly what he/she requested. But you spoke for expenses only and of course, no fee.

Is it enough?

What you can do to make it worth your time:

1. Sell your products and services following your presentation. The reason that it gets a little testy with speakers bureaus is that they don’t get a percentage of your product sales, don’t want to police it and don’t want you to possibly damage their relationship with the hiring entity. Some speakers pitch their products throughout their entire presentation, close hard and long and offend the audience. You can avoid that.

2. In your standard program agreement, if you have reduced or eliminated your fee, state that your “$7,500 fee is waived due to …” (professional courtesy, services exchanged, as a showcase opportunity, etc.)

3. Have the client record (either video or audio) your presentation at their expense. You can utilize the footage or the recording in multiple ways.

4. Get referrals to other organizations with a recommendation from the meeting planner.

5. Promote your own event or boot camp at the end of your presentation.

6. Pre-sell products to the organization that will be distributed at the event.

7. Get a list of all attendees and their contact information. It’s not often the practice of meeting planners to do this, but it happens. At the very least, reserve the right to have a free drawing at the event to receive a set of your products. In order to be eligible for the drawing, you will have to have the business cards of participants. Don’t be shy about telling them that their name will be added to your mailing list. 8. If you’re a seasoned professional speaker and this is your ideal target market and most importantly you have an extensive line of products and services to sell, offer the meeting planner a percentage of your sales.

9. Treat yourself to an Internet marketing boot camp. It should be required continuing education for speakers because there are always new ways of making money with your intellectual capital. Speaking at a particular event is only one of those.

If you are creative with developing products and services to build your information empire, you may be one of the few who’ll never miss a speaking fee.

In my experience of booking speakers since 1982, most organizations will pay your fee and allow you to sell products. It’s all in the way you position yourself.

When the applause isn’t enough, evaluate the system that you use to secure engagements and do what it takes to secure those paid engagements. Assess your objectives and reaffirm your goals for your speaking career. Take the next step in building your information empire.

Mary McKay is a booking strategist for speakers, authors, experts, leaders, top producers and cultural heroes who want to secure paid speaking engagements. She systematizes the booking process to uniquely position the speaker, optimize the appearance, generate referrals and enable more revenue potential through product sales. Visit http://www.gettingpaidtospeak.com or call 949-429-6646.

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