Plain Speakers Earning More Than "Professional Speakers"?
© David Newton
3/26/08

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If you've ever wanted to be a professional speaker - normally you'd be given tons of advice about speaking programs and what to do to get your "accredited speaking status" as a pro-speaker you'd probably give up trying. Yep, that’s what some speakers clubs will try to tell you.

Well that's exactly what lots of "wannabe speakers" do. Sadly, they do give up.

The "Holy Grail" it seems they have been told was; "you have to chase speaking engagements in big business". But no one ever asked why?

This is simply not the case. In fact, the speaking market in big business only represents a tiny fraction of the total speaking market place.

Speakers, who appear at public seminars normally on their own, represent a much bigger slice of the market.

Let’s look at the industries they come from:

Real Estate - an area that has seen speakers develop for decades. These days it covers many facets of the public seminars in existence such as negative or positive gearing, wraps, portfolio management, commercial buying and more.

Share Market Investing - another big seminar area. Some of the training courses in this sector are just as big if not more so than real estate.

Mind Power Courses - for decades this market still grows covering many spin offs like career development, relationships, business success and more.

Business Marketing Seminars - since the 1990's this area has grown to a huge size. Promoted in part by the business coaching industry. In spite of that, the number of public seminars in this arena is still climbing.

Relationship and Dating Seminars - with the advent of the internet and a very large slice of the population now living the single life, more people are seeking social options and wanting to gain skills in creating lasting relationships.

Internet Seminars - over the last few years this area has grown to an enormous size and still growing. As more people go beyond using emails and buying airline tickets online, they desire to see if making money online is for them and will learn how to write and produce eBooks at an internet seminar.

The above examples are still not complete.

I've still got mention

- weekends away seminar retreats
- online seminars
- tele-classes / tele-conferences

Plus the huge market in "Study at Home" seminars - where the person who can't make it along to a seminar buys a seminar pre-recorded on CD's and DVD's to play and learn from at home of in the car.

What do people pay to go to seminars these days?

1. Some seminars can be free - with the prospect of selling you a much larger $ Product at the end of the seminar.

2. Some seminars can be at a lower end price I.E. $20 - $250 the organizers will be making an income from this.

3. Seminar price plus + + +
These days it’s possible to go to a seminar and wind up buying a full consulting / coaching package by the end of the day. Investment seminars are great at this one. I know some stock trading seminars where you'll wind up paying for a training package running into $10K or more with hundreds of add-ons.

4. Elite Training Clubs
There is also a big market these days in "Platinum Clubs" - this is where the seminar participant is "invited" to join a select group that "get an opportunity" to meet the training guru.

It’s not uncommon for some of the "clubs" to charge an admittance of between $20K to $100K per year to join. And if the guru in question has a long standing with his / her client database plus a lot of names on their list, I've seen these clubs start up and sell out with in days.

Anyway, Back to Basics . . .

Starting out as a speaker isn’t always a straight pathway for many budding speakers. Often I've seen speakers worst enemy is their own creative attempts at marketing holding themselves back.

Then there are the speakers who have some speaking experience, but can't quiet seem to organize themselves to run a seminar event. They make big blunders with signing up people, PR and promo tactics either left out or ignored, and fail to see the supply chain of leads to bookings in a clear cut manner.

On the other hand
The big successful speakers have more of a 'get it done now' attitude and aren't willing to let tiny obstacles get in the way. They have high expectations and an excellent grasp of organizational dynamics. These are the people whom with little 'actual' speaking training make a ton of money from running seminars.

But is it easy to be a seminar speaker?

• Based on my experience it gets down to one thing - Is there a market for your specialty?
• Are people buying this area of knowledge currently?
• What do I know other speakers don't know about this topic?
• Am I passionate about telling people how to understand this topic better?
• Will people pay me happily to learn about it?

Defining where you stand with your topic is a very crucial part of success if you want to be a paid speaker. You are certain to cop a bit of scrutiny if you don't know beyond the general knowledge of the topic if it’s what you're into.

I knew one speaker who no matter how much they were passionate about their chosen topic was still at the starting blocks due to this simple definition. Yet by the same token I know some speakers who while making literally millions out of their chosen topic - still read each day and attend seminars themselves to further their own knowledge of their chosen niche topic. Now that's commitment!


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