Profit Through Impact- How to Get Paid to Speak When You’re Creating a Movement
Hey, Rebel Speakers. I know that a lot of you are on board with rebelling against the status quo and creating for your audience and your industry a big change.
But there might be this little tiny voice in your head, a voice of reason, wondering, “Can I actually make money doing this?”
In the past, I have talked so much about getting paid, but you might be wondering if going this direction, focusing on making an impact, and then making a profit from that impact, can actually support you.
The answer is yes.
I'm still and always will be a fierce advocate that speakers should get paid for the value they create for organizations.
Honestly, I am still shocked by the fact that so many organizations, including the National Speakers Association, (where you have to have paid speaking gigs if you want to be a professional member) that don't pay their speakers.
I want to address this objection head on of how do you get paid to speak when you're trying to create this movement.
For those speakers who have made it big, for the speakers who people are tweeting about, they are buying their books, they know two key, fundamental truths of getting paid to speak while also creating this movement.
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Focus on Profit Through Impact
The first fundamental truth is to focus on profit through impact.
I want to do a disclaimer right here. Despite what you hear from internet hustlers who tell you, “It's quick and easy to make six figures in three months from speaking, or you can book out your whole speaking schedule in two weeks, and wow, all of those clients are coming in,” I want to say that that is complete and utter crap. Those kind of results are outliers at best.
Speaking is a long-term strategy.
Building a movement is a long-term strategy.
If you are struggling to make ends meet right now in your business you might be thinking “ oh, I'll just get out there and I'll be speaking.”
Know this: speaking is never the solution to a short-term cash flow problem.
It is definitely a long-term strategy.
It's easier to focus on profit through impact when you're in the place of either having a job that produces a stable income or you have a business that is reliably producing about $8,000 a month, which equals to about $100,000 a year.
Because then you are not in the space to start thinking about how you are going to bet by, how are you going to make ends meet. If you have an income you're in a space of creating something bigger. At that point your speaking to scale the impact you want to make and profit through that impact.
If you are that speaker or that business owner who is ready to scale up with speaking, what you need to know is profiting through impact is about being driven by the difference you want to make for your audience and your industry.
It is really the mission statement behind your speaking, which is something I'm going to talk about in a later episode of the Rebel Speaker podcast.
But in the past two episodes, we have talked about what are you moving away from and what do you want to bring people towards. That is the change you want to create. That is how you're going to get known. That is how you're going to get on bigger stages and how your message is going to spread.
When you know that mission behind your message, you will start profiting through impact and you'll start building your platforms, and you'll have to hustle less for speaking gigs.
Speakers who Create Movements have Strong Foundation
But to get to that point, it's all about having a foundation in place that supports your efforts. Speakers who create movements have a strong foundation.
Last year I talked about the three pillars of building a speaking business. Even though I am re-framing my message this year, those three pillars still stand. Those three pillars are strategy, a signature message, and systems.
Strategy is the business end of speaking.
It's about pricing your speech. I don't care if you haven't sold a speech yet, you've never been paid to speak. You want to have a price in mind.
You also want to think about how you're packaging your speeches. What goes into a keynote? What goes into a breakout session? What goes into a workshop?
It's also about positioning. How are you different from the other speakers out there? Guess what, if you are trying to create something bigger like a movement, you're going to be different.
The second pillar is having that signature message.
This is the message you want to create a movement around. It is a message like my client Shannon Walsh's #joyfirst or like Imei Hsu, who's on a mission to make food fun again for food allergy sufferers.
You have to have that signature message, that big idea behind your message. And you also need a speech that represents and gets people from the status quo to the change you want to see for them and for the world.
The third and final pillar is having systems in place.
You can't have a business that takes off without having multiple systems in place, from pitching, to researching, to following up after the gig, to testimonials, to figuring out your visibility blitz.
By the way, we're going to talk about visibility all in the month of March because building your platform and being visible is an important part of getting your message to spread. You have to have systems for all of those things in order to be prepared, to have your message really make that impact and make a difference.
You have to have the foundation in place: strategy, signature message, and systems. That is how you get booked and paid to speak.
2 Rebel Truths About What It Takes to Build a Speaking Business
Number one, make sure you have a primary income stream not related to speaking. Because, although I've seen amazing things happen for my clients, like I've had one session and they go out and they book two paid speaking gigs, overall this is not a fast industry, folks.
It can take six to nine months from when you pitch a speaking gig until you actually go and give the speech. Make sure that you have that primary income in place, that your business has a revenue stream that supports you, so that you can work on doing speaking and scaling through speaking.
Then number two is get your foundation in place. Because when you skyrocket you want to make sure everything is taken care of in advance.
If you are in a place where it's time to scale your impact and make a profit, then we should talk.
I am looking for a few speakers who are ready to create something bigger, who are ready to be on bigger stages and to make a difference with their message.
If that is you, you can go to drmichellemazur.com/speak and schedule a 30-minute chat with me. We'll talk all about you, your speaking experience, your message, and what you want to create, and how I can help.
Let's get the change you want to see in your industry or in the world to a larger audience.
Let's get you speaking for impact.
