There are a variety of reasons why you might be interested in starting a speaking career. Maybe you’re passionate about a topic and want to share it with the world while getting paid to do so. Maybe you want to start a side hustle to make some extra money. Or maybe you fell in love with public speaking and want to get paid to do something you’re excited about. Whatever the case, starting a speaking career can be a rewarding way to turn your skills and passions into income and impact.
But knowing where to start can be challenging. Starting a speaking business and becoming a professional speaker is a massive and multi-faceted goal that can be daunting to aspiring speakers. Thankfully, it isn’t as complicated as you might think. In this article, we’ll take you through a simple 5 step process to build a career you love and be a successful public speaker.
Step 1: Choose Your Topic
Find Your Niche
The first step to building a successful public speaking career is choosing a topic and niche. To some aspiring speakers, this seems difficult and unnecessarily limiting. Why not claim to be able to speak to everyone about everything? Wouldn’t this open up more opportunities and help you book more gigs?
While it may seem like casting a wide net is the best way to get speaking gigs, this is actually not the case. If you claim to speak to everyone, you’re actually speaking to no one; if you claim to speak about everything, you’re actually speaking about nothing.
After all, if you’re an event planner looking for someone to speak about productivity, would you rather hire an industry-leading productivity speaker, or someone who claims they can speak about everything from productivity to marketing to leadership to personal finance?
The answer is clear: you would go with the speaker who has dedicated his career to the topic you want him to speak on. That’s why specializing as a speaker is so important. This also touches on the subject of credibility and expertise, which we’ll get to later in this article.
So how do you find your niche? First, think about who you want to speak to. Typically, you should choose one of the following self-explanatory industries:
- Corporations
- Associations
- Faith-based Organizations
- Nonprofits
- Government and Military
- Colleges and Universities
- Education (K-12)
Which industry is right for you depends on a wide array of factors, but you should consider where your primary interests lie, as well as any existing industry connections you might have that would give you a head start in a particular industry.
Once you’ve chosen an industry, you should narrow your focus even further to a topic or subject within that industry. Think through your passions – the things that excite you and engage your attention. What do you want to share with the world? If you need to, get a piece of paper and just start writing down various topics or areas of interest. This can help inspire ideas or connections you hadn’t previously thought about.
Frame Your Topic as a Solution to a Problem
It’s one thing to choose your topic and find your niche; it’s another thing altogether for others to care about it enough that you get booked and paid to speak about it. Unfortunately, passion isn’t everything. Your topic needs to intersect with the market in a way that allows you to create a sustainable speaking career.
The best way to do this is to stop thinking of your topic as a “topic” at all. Instead, frame it as a solution to a problem your target audience has. For example, you may want to speak about productivity. That’s great! But do you think an event planner is more likely to hire someone who just “speaks about productivity,” or someone who “helps business executives maximize their efficiency at work so they can live life to the fullest”?
This is called your Expert Positioning Statement (EPS), and it’s one of the most important parts of building a speaking business. You should frame your topic as “I help GROUP do TOPIC so they can SOLUTION.” This keeps the focus on what the audience and event organizers gain by hiring you instead of simply focusing on what interests you.
Step 2: Create a Compelling Talk
Now that you’ve chosen your topic and found your niche, it’s time to create a compelling talk. This might seem a bit out of order. After all, shouldn’t you actually get booked before you start developing the speech? Surprisingly, no.
When you pitch your services to an event organizer or other potential client, you should be selling a product, which is notably hard to do if the product doesn’t exist. Like we’ve already talked about, you need to know what you speak about before you try to get booked. Ultimately, the best marketing you can do is have a great talk, which is why it’s important not to rush this step.
Choose Your Style of Talk
It may seem like public speaking is somewhat formulaic, but there’s actually a variety of styles of talk for you to choose from. Here’s a few:
- Keynote Speakers are what you probably imagine when you think about public speaking. These are the speeches that capture the main focus of the given event. They typically last about 45 to 60 minutes and pay the best out of the types of speaking gigs we’re covering here.
- Workshop Speakers typically speak to a smaller, but more engaged audience. These speakers appeal to a subset of people who want to go deeper on a specific topic as opposed to the wide audience of a keynote speaker.
- Seminar Speakers are hired (usually by large corporations) to carry out in-depth training that can last from hours to days. With these types of talks, you are often working with larger, corporate audiences, doing a training for a certain department or sometimes a company-wide team-building day.
You may know based on your strengths and weaknesses which of these styles is right for you, but choosing your style of talk can also involve a bit of trial and error. It may be worth trying out each style within your chosen industry and topic to get a feel for what works best for you.
“So What?” and “Now What?”
As you begin to outline and write your speech, build it around two questions you should always keep in mind. From the audience’s perspective, “So what?” and “Now what?”. Or, to put it another way, why should they care, and what should they do about it?
If you ever lose sight of these two questions, you’ll likely write a speech that completely fails to engage audiences or hold their attention, which will be a major obstacle to any public speaking career.
Structure Your Talk and Fill In the Outline
There are several ways you can structure your talk. It can be 3 points, 5 steps, or even built around a narrative. Choose a structure that works for your topic and create a rough outline keeping the “So what?” and “Now what?” questions in mind.
Once you’ve got a workable outline, start to fill it in with specific details by typing your talk out as a manuscript. This is where you should utilize stories and jokes. Stories are an incredibly important tool for keeping an audience’s attention, and it works even better if you have a relevant story to tell from your own life. But not to worry if you don’t – you can always use someone else’s story too.
When adding humor to your talk, be mindful of what your subject is and use an appropriate number of jokes for the tone you want to convey. Don’t be afraid to do trial and error with certain jokes. If they don’t work, you can always play that off as a joke and make a mental note not to use that joke again. And while humor is an incredible tool to disarm an audience, don’t rely on it too much.
Practice Your Talk
Confidence is one of the most important aspects of a successful public speaking gig. If you’re hesitant in your delivery, closed off in your body language and stammering in your speech, audiences will tune you out and immediately disconnect from what you’re saying. So how do you master confidence on stage? It’s simple: by practicing a lot and improving your your speaking skills.
The more you practice, the less you’ll be stuck in your own head thinking about what to say next. You’ll be able to be fully present with your audience as you confidently deliver your material.
To start with, though, read your manuscript out loud to yourself, and take note of how it sounds, making any changes you feel improve the overall flow. If it helps, you can read it out loud to a friend or family member as well. From there, break it down into smaller pieces as you continue to familiarize yourself with it.
Next, try practicing the speech in front of a mirror, then try recording yourself. This can help you notice words like “um” or “ah” that you use too often. Then try practicing in front of family or friends. Your goal through this entire process should be to use less and less notes, increasingly relying on your familiarity with the material.
It’s incredibly important that you don’t try to memorize your speech word for word. You should aim to completely familiarize yourself with the material, but audiences can intuitively sense when you’re reciting something as opposed to speaking to them about something.
Step 3: Build Credibility
The next step in starting your speaking career is incredibly important: building your credibility. In order to get booked and paid to speak, event organizers and decision makers need to have a reason to hire you. The best way to gain attention and demand in the speaking industry is by establishing expertise and thought leadership so your voice is an essential part of the conversation in your chosen niche.
But while that sounds all well and good, how do you do this practically? It comes down to building a brand for yourself that extends beyond just public speaking. You need to brand yourself as the go-to authority on the problem you solve for your audience. Here are some of the most important aspects of building a brand.
Your Speaker Website
A speaker website is possibly the most important aspect of your personal brand. Quite frankly, if you don’t have a speaker website, you don’t exist as a professional speaker. Your speaker website should primarily serve to educate your potential clients – event organizers, decision makers, etc. – as opposed to your audience.
Everything on the site should be built in a way that projects expertise and competence in your field and shows potential clients who you are, what you speak about and why they should hire you. Ultimately, if you email a decision maker about a speaking gig, the first thing they will check is your speaking website, so it’s important to make a positive first impression. If the website they’re greeted with is incompetently developed, slow and not aesthetically pleasing, it could immediately turn them away from potentially engaging further with you.
This may seem daunting, especially if – like many aspiring speakers – you don’t know the first thing about building a website. But don’t panic! There are several other ways to get an awesome website, depending on your specific skills and budget. To learn more about how to build an awesome website, you can check out our full step-by-step guide.
Your Demo Video
The next important part of building your credibility is having a demo video. This is the among the best marketing and branding tools in your proverbial arsenal, as it gives potential clients a taste of who you are as a speaker and what it would be like to have you on their stage. But there’s an art to making demo videos. The editing, look and feel, music and speaking content all play a big role in selling a potential client on your services.
As with the website, creating a demo video can be daunting, especially if you feel you don’t have the necessary video editing skills, or don’t have any footage of yourself speaking yet. If you have find yourself in the latter category, it may be worth volunteering to speak for free at certain small events (clubs and associations are especially good for this) so you can get the necessary footage.
Ask a friend to help you film your talk. A recent smartphone is perfectly sufficient to capture high quality footage, but make sure you’re mic’d up with a dedicated microphone so you get good audio – these can be bought relatively inexpensively online. And remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You can always update your video later.
To learn how to build your incredible demo video and structure it in a way that generates maximum enthusiasm from potential clients, check out our full piece on it here.
Step 4: Get Booked and Paid to Speak
Throughout the last three steps, we’ve focused on building a firm foundation for your speaking business by choosing a topic, building your talk, and establishing credibility. Now it’s time to get paid speaking gigs. Getting paid speaking gigs might seem like the most challenging part of starting your speaking career, but with the right approach and strategy, it’s entirely achievable.
Setting Your Speaker Fee
The first crucial step is determining your speaking fee. This can be particularly challenging for new speakers, as you need to strike a careful balance between being competitive and valuing your own time. When setting your fee, you should consider your experience level and credentials, the length and type of presentation you’re offering, any travel requirements, and typical market rates for speakers in your niche. You’ll also want to research what your target clients typically budget for speakers.
A typical range for speakers who are starting out is around $1000 a gig, but this can quickly rise with increased exposure and demand. It’s all about the value you bring to the table for the company paying you. If all of this sounds complicated, you can take advantage of our completely free speaking fee calculator to get an estimate of what you should charge in your current situation.
Find Speaking Opportunities
Finding speaking opportunities requires a multi-faceted approach. Start by leveraging your existing network. Let your professional contacts know about your speaking services, and trying reaching out to past colleagues and employers who may be in the market for a speaker. If you know other speakers, asking for referrals can be an awesome way to mutually help each other; sometimes speakers can’t take every gig they’re offered, or are asked for advice on picking a speaker for the next year of an event they already spoke at.
However, opportunities in your network only go so far, and while they’re a great way to start, eventually you’ll need to branch out into concerted marketing efforts. Start with Google, and try searching things like “[your industry] conference” and filter by proximity if necessary. Direct outreach to the decision makers can be the best way to gauge interest.
Reach Out to Decision Makers
Once you have a list of potential target events, you should begin reaching out to the organizers. Email is your best friend here. While it can be tempting to write up a generic email and send it to hundreds of event planners, you’re not likely to get a single reply this way. Instead, focus on personalizing your email to each specific event.
Additionally, don’t jump straight into sales mode, as this can be a turnoff for potential clients. Instead, try opening with a question like “Are you hiring speakers for [conference] yet?” This can be a conversation starter that can result in an opportunity to pitch your services. When you do make your pitch, ensure that you focus on the value you bring to the audience, along with your specific qualification or expertise. ‘
Step 5: Grow Your Speaking Business
The reality of public speaking is that your time on stage makes up only a tiny amount of what is involved in your speaking career. There are a variety of operations involved in running a speaking business, which is why it’s important that as your business grows, you are prepared to scale at the strategic time. Here are things to consider:
Diversifying Revenue Streams
One key aspect of scaling is diversifying your revenue streams. While speaking fees can provide good income, relying solely on them can be risky. Consider developing online courses based on your expertise. Many speakers find success in writing books or creating educational materials that complement their speaking topics. Coaching or consulting services can provide steady income between speaking engagements. Virtual speaking engagements have also become increasingly popular and can allow you to reach more audiences without the time and expense of travel.
Building a Team
In the early days of a public speaking business, you might manage everything yourself – from booking gigs to handling travel logistics – but this quickly becomes unsustainable as your calendar fills with engagements. Many speakers hit a growth ceiling simply because they’re drowning in administrative work rather than focusing on, well, actually speaking.
The solution is to gradually expand as it becomes necessary. Start by identifying your biggest time drains and pressure points. For many speakers, this means the first stages of direct outreach, in addition to logistics like calendar management and travel logistics.
As your business continues to grow to a point where hiring becomes financially plausible, consider expanding your business strategically. In addition to marketing and logistics, an assistant can help maintain your online presence and engage with your audience, repurpose your speeches into articles, blog posts, and social media content, and more, maximizing the impact of each presentation. Website updates, accounting, and legal matters can be handled by others – whether someone you hire or simply outsource work to – who bring expertise you likely don’t have time to develop yourself.
This support structure doesn’t need to be built all at once – start with your most pressing needs and expand thoughtfully as your revenue grows. The goal is to free up your mental energy and time for what truly matters: crafting compelling presentations, delivering powerful speeches, and building meaningful relationships with clients and audience members.
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve outlined the five most important steps to starting a speaking career. Starting a public speaking career is a long process that starts small and grows fast. Along the way, there will be ups and downs and everything in between, but it’s important to remember that building a successful speaking career is a marathon, not a sprint.
Focus on delivering genuine value to your audiences, building authentic connections within your industry, and continuously becoming a better speaker. With persistence, professionalism, and dedication to excellence, you can build a rewarding and sustainable career as a professional speaker.
