Part-time Speaker

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Permalink Reply by Catherine White on March 10, 2009 at 3:42pm

A full time speaking career is the outcome of years of working at both your craft and building a speaking business. I am also a Civil Celebrant, I am licensed to marry (and bury) people, which pays well. Added to that, I am a Publicist and have to say I love that as much as my own stuff.

I see myself a bit like a Preacher (I am not one, neither do I have a desire to be a Minister) but, the point is, there is more to speaking than Sunday morning.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Fournier, Ph.D. on March 11, 2009 at 7:44pm

RB,
I'm going through a similar situation. I've been able to leverage my work and get a couple speaking opportunities through them (conferences, Rotary, Chambers of Commerce, etc.). You might look into the professional organizations you or your work belongs to as well. I've had to treat my speaking business as another job and give it what little time I have available (nights and weekends). As you work on the business, keep looking for opportunities to develop expertise in your topic area. I'm now getting some opportunities that I wouldn't have if I had stopped trying to speak and develop myself and business at the same time. Good luck and don't give up - I know how hard it is to get started and have to work full-time.
Bill

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Permalink Reply by JaWar on March 15, 2009 at 5:49pm

Greetings RB,

I don't think there's one speaker who only generates money from speaking. By this I mean most speakers have some other front end or back end product/service be it consulting, paperback, audio and/or ebooks. With this being considered you'll want to think of other ways to generate money that is directly related to being a professional speaker. This may afford you the opportunity to break into speaking full time much sooner.

Fortunately, we are able to use social media and all the components to network with those who are the decision makers for speaking engagements and wanting to purchase various products/services we may offer. All of my speaking engagements have come through word of mouth thus far. However, my activity on Twitter is opening a number of doors and has people wanting one-sheets, proposals and speaking point.

Creating compelling video and uploading it to various websites such as Youtube is important as it gives others the ability to experience your presentation.

"THINK, PLAN, EXECUTE!" -JaWar

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Permalink Reply by Lenny Laskowski on March 15, 2009 at 8:30pm

RB,

Many professional speakers, even those who have been speaking for years, have another job. There is nothing wrong with being a part time speaker / full time professional. It makes sense, to start building your speaking business while having a full time job. This will allow you to have money to pay the bills. Many professional speaker speak professionally while still holding down a full time profession. They use vacation days to travel and speak, or they only speak in the evenings and weekends.
It takes time to build speaking business to a point where you are in a position to quite your day job (or your real job) as some people may refer to it.
I have been speaking professionally for over 18 years. I worked full time as a engineer while I started my seminar business. I provide seminars on the weekends or evenings and started out speaking only locally. Nothing wrong with that and it make perfect financial sense to use a full time job to help pay and finance your speaking business. Once you have built your business to point where you can financially afford to leave your full time day job, the decision will be easier. Keep in mind you will be putting in a lot of hours but your drive and passion will keep you going.
I now, personally have built my business to where I have clients in over 178 countries and do very little business locally within my own state (only about 2%).
I have an article on my website, Speaking From FREE to FEE which you will find helpful.
Good luck!

Lenny Laskowski

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Yates on May 13, 2009 at 8:38pm

Hi RB!

I am in the same (or very similar) spot.

I have a day job, but I love to speak, teach and train. I started teaching seminars at churches and members of the audience started asking if I could speak at their events. Now I am trying to add motivational/educational corporate speaking to my list. All the while keeping my day job.

One thing I do is take any stage time I can get. I have run training on various topics for my office. I have joined Toastmasters, am going to start looking for rotary clubs (what the heck is that anyway) and others that want speakers!

I would love to hear stories or advice from anyone else out there!

Thanks!

Shawn

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Permalink Reply by Frank (Francesco) S. Adamo on July 28, 2009 at 3:26am

FYI, Rotary International is the oldest and largest service organization worldwide with 1.2 million members in more than 175 countries. There are other service clubs such as Lions, Kiwanis, Optimists and many others. Members of service clubs help serve their community. For Rotary, please check www.rotary.org.

These clubs generally meet once a week and they are always looking for outside speakers who will give a 20 to 30 minute presentations. CAUTION: Do not attempt to sell them products or services. They frown on anyone who is there to give them a sales pitch on your business, services or products. On the other hand, if your presentation is informative and beneficial to the members, they may very well allow BORS (Back Of the Room Sales). You just cannot pitch the products/services.

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Permalink Reply by ToshibaBob Weinhardt on May 19, 2009 at 3:31pm

join as many social organizations as possible ie; chambers of commerce, lions clubs, rotary, business associations ...toastmasters international ....they are always looking for 20 minutesspeakers ...great practice ...to see you at your best ....toshibabob

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Permalink Reply by Frank (Francesco) S. Adamo on July 28, 2009 at 3:37am

If I may I clarify your statement, you generally don't need to be a member to speak at service clubs like Rotary, Lions and Kiwanis. In fact, they seek outside speakers. If you would like to join a service club (I would recommend Rotary), by all means do so, but join only one.

You may join more than one chamber and/or business associations, but join only those that would be beneficial to business. To be beneficial, you need to be active so your time is of value. Don't overextend yourself. As for Toastmasters, I encourage anyone to join one or more Toastmasters club(s). It will hone your speaking skills and give you opportunities to practice you presentations, with immediate and constructive feedback.

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Permalink Reply by Felicia Zigman on June 30, 2009 at 1:11pm

i'm not supposed to promote a service, but I have a new site, trainerview.com who is targeted at beginning and part time speakers...

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Permalink Reply by Lenny Laskowski on July 19, 2009 at 7:27am

Keep in mind, many professional speakers speak part time and have other careers. The trick is learning to balance both careers at the same time. You can do both. The full time 8-5 job will help you pay the bills while you are building your speaking business until you are ready to speak professionally FULL TIME.

Keep in mind, It is not necessary to do this should you decide you still want to do both. Keep in mind with a full time day job, your speaking would have to be restricted to evenings, weekends, or vacation days you take.

Network with other professional speakers who are doing just that (speaking professionally while maintaining another full time job). If you stay local, then your travel time would not be much of an impact, but restricting your speaking business to just local locations also limits the possible speaking engagements you can accept.

Lenny Laskowski
Lenny's website

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Permalink Reply by Drew Stevens on November 11, 2009 at 6:25pm

Three things:
1. Create a good value proposition that can be articulated to your market and your message.
2. Create a niche, you need to go deep before you go wide.
3. Create Marketing Acceleration - a series of tactical activities that help to build your brand.

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