Your Speaking Business, Your Rules: The Truth about Professional Speakers, Episode 5

In this episode, Jenn shares some of the lessons she learned in the beginning of her speaking business, before she knew the myths and realities of the industry.

The difference between a signature speech and a program, and why this makes the biggest difference between being a motivational speaker and a professional who gets paid.

Different types of speaking format- from keynote to fireside chat, and a short visualization exercise to identify what the best format is for you.

Lifestyle of professional speakers, including travel, pre-event planning and ability to fulfill a bigger number of speaking engagements per month.

What to include in your SpeakerKit, so you get hired as a professional speaker.

Do you see yourself as a keynote or breakout speaker? Email me at jenn@jennspingo.com and let me know.

Have a question or suggestion for a future episode topic? Email me jenn@jennspingo.com.

Ready to deliver mic drop moments in your next presentation? Schedule a call to learn more about coaching www.calendly.com/jennchat

Looking to book a speaker for your corporate or association event on topics including leadership and communication? View my programs at www.jennspingo.com

Transcript

One of the biggest questions my clients ask me is, Jenn, am I a keynote speaker?

Am I a breakout speaker? Am I a facilitator? Help me out here. So today's episode is all about the myth of the pro speaker and how you know what style you should choose when it comes to your speaking program. Before we get started with the myth of the pro speaker, I would love to chat a little bit about my personal journey because I think there are some lessons there.

In terms of what to do and especially what not to do, I'm not gonna pretend that I've done everything right in my speaking business, and I would never pretend that in the future. So let's talk about the long and winding road of my particular journey. Once upon a time back in 2009, I started Weightless LLC, which was my signature story of how I lost a hundred pounds in one year.

Now when I first started delivering this presentation. I thought I was crafting a certain experience, but what my audience was receiving was very [00:01:00] different from that. One of the things you'll learn if you're in the health and wellness space is it's not really about your personal story. And so it took me several years to turn that signature story into a business presentation that then became my signature offering.

What did I learn along that long and winding road? And I would say that. Okay. The first few years I spent sharing that message of mindset shifts to accelerate your health, which was one of my signature programs, was it wasn't a program, it was just a speech. As a professional speaker, you need to develop not just a speech, but a program.

And that program might include keynote presentations. It might include breakout, 90 minute sessions. It might include corporate training or half day sessions. It might also include fireside chats, which seems to be a very popular ask for corporate clients these days. So when you think about your speech, is it [00:02:00] something that you can turn into any number of those types of vehicles of delivery?

The keynote, the breakout, the facilitated learning session. These are the questions to ask yourself in terms of determining whether you are a keynote speaker or something else entirely. As a person who spoke on health and wellness, I would say I was not a keynote speaker back in the day, and that was okay with me.

I had young children at home and it was very important that I be there for school pickup. I did a lot of car videos back in the day, live streams on Facebook and YouTube videos. It was a great time actually. I really did enjoy that, and the natural lighting in the car cannot be beat, but it was not a keynote speech.

It was a breakout session, and what that meant was people were reluctant to pay me, or they simply didn't have budgets to pay me. They were looking for a motivational speaker. Now, you may still be a motivational speaker and a keynote speaker wrapped into one beautiful bundle, [00:03:00] but if you are in the category firmly of motivational speaker, then people might suddenly tell you, oh, Jen, I don't have a budget for you.

Come speak for free. I'll give you dinner, I'll give you breakfast, I'll give you a free ticket to the event. That is not a professional speaker. Now, I'm not saying that you will never deliver free speeches as a keynote speaker, but you would do it very strategically and intentionally. And the that presentation, which I typically call a showcase presentation, is the gatekeeper, the doorway to a speaking program.

So when you look at your particular signature speech that you're looking at right now. Is it a speech or is it one of many offers as part of your speaking program, consider it a suite of offerings. Do you offer more than just a 15 minute motivational talk than you are ready to prime yourself as a professional speaker?

If you just have a 15 minute talk, awesome. You have a place to get started from, and any talk can be designed to be delivered [00:04:00] in multitude of formats. So I would encourage you to start with the end in mind. And I work with people who are trying to turn their message into a movement. So that means, you know, ultimately what success looks like for you as a speaker.

Maybe that means you get people onto your substack list. Maybe it means you get more subscribers on YouTube. Maybe it means you actually sign high ticket clients of 5,000 or more into your group programs. You determine what that success looks like. And together we would start with the end in mind. For me, the end I had in mind back in my early days of speaking were.

I just wanna find the next gig, and that was not a program, nor did that lead me to the professional speaking business that I really wanted to have. And logistically, when it comes to your lifestyle, pay attention to how much time you want to dedicate towards speaking. You don't have to earn a keynote fee to be a professional speaker, but you do have to understand how speaking fits [00:05:00] into your overall business model.

For me, I spend about half of my time with speaking and the other half of my time with coaching clients, and that works for me. For you, the mix might be 30% speaking and 70% clients. It might even be 5% speaking where you're earning high fees to speak and you're very selective what the clients you deliver it to and the rest.

Bigger programs. Or licensing. Or sponsorships. Your ideal mix depends on. How much time do you wanna spend traveling? I was not willing or able to travel back in the day. As a mom of two. It's important for me to be close by and I was not gonna be one of those weekend warrior keynote speakers. So this is part of the myth of pro speaking, right?

You travel every week, you go to fun places like Barbados and uh, new Orleans and Disney World, and you deliver these amazing programs in front of thousands of clients. That is amazing if that's part of your success. [00:06:00] It wasn't a part of my success. I prefer to do regional talks. I did a lot of virtual speaking during the pandemic.

So look at your lifestyle. Look at what it is today, and look at what you hope it will be in the future with speaking added to it, and that will help you determine if you speak once a month in a certain location near to you, how does that fit into your mix of business and feed your soul? One of the things that.

I didn't do a very good job of is I was so happy to book speaking engagements that I didn't really give much thought to crafting that experience with each and every speaking engagement. And you might be in this situation as well where you're like, great, I've got four speaking engagements next week.

And then suddenly you're realizing, well, I don't have my slides ready. I don't have my intro and outro memorized. I don't know what kind of engagement I'm gonna be using with my audience. You could find yourself very stressed. Very quickly add into that all the pre and post-event [00:07:00] planning. Do you have, if you have a table at the back of the room, how many books are you gonna bring?

Are you going to do book signing? Do you have, um, branded merchandise that you're gonna be offering? Do you have an assistant who's gonna help you at the event? What type of tech check can you do before you stand up on stage? If you're not doing that tech check before you're on stage, you could run into some issues.

Are your slides the right format? Some of these things you can determine weeks in advance, and some of them you don't have time for that. So as you have a quantity of speeches in one month, you could find yourself doing a lot of those little missing pieces and running out of time to really deliver an amazing experience.

So you don't have to be one of those professional speakers who are out there killing it 12 times a month. I follow some of those speakers and I really admire what they do, but the truth is they have a team. I'm a solopreneur, you might be a solopreneur and if you have a team or a VA or an assistant, that's awesome, [00:08:00] but they're only gonna take some of the bulk of the work away from you.

So there is a number of things that you'll be doing as a professional speaker that don't involve any stage time. So looking at your lifestyle is gonna be extremely important for you. And the mistake that I made in the beginning, 'cause I was just chasing the gig, um, sometimes you get into that mindset, right, of chasing the gigs well.

Yeah, mic drop mindset. We know it's not just about the gig, it's about the experience and moments that matter. Now let's talk a little bit about perfect fit stages. When I first started, I did think I was gonna be the Tony Robbins. Mel Robbins, all the Robbins jumping across the stage, bright lights, DJ, mixing up some cool tune.

Uh, thousands of people cheering with me, uh, you know, crowd surfing. No, not crowd surfing. I would never do that. But you know, I really had this big dream of what it could look like, and that's not really the reality of it. And I realized that that wouldn't have worked out well for me. I don't wanna be a rock star.

I'm nowhere close to being a rock star. I am a [00:09:00] star. But when you think about what your ideal stage looks like, you can take a moment to visualize that. And this is something I encourage every single client I work with to do. Take 30 seconds. Maybe right now if you're not driving 30 seconds to close your eyes, visualize that stage.

Who are the people in that audience? What are you hearing? What do you seeing? And yes, those of you who are listening like that sounds like therapy. This is a technique that is often used in therapy. Okay. What are the five senses that you're noticing within that room that would be your ideal stage? Now, I've done this exercise with other clients in the past, and they've said everything from Jen.

I want to be in an intimate room with couches, super cozy, maybe a fireplace in the corner overlooking a lake. Maybe there's 10 or 12 of us in the room. That's your ideal stage. I can't [00:10:00] tell you what your ideal stage looks like. But I can say that it makes your speaking business that much easier when you know what your ideal stage looks like.

Are you wondering what my ideal stage looks like? Well, it shifts every time. I've been speaking for over 10 years now, so I know that some stages are better for me than others. I'm a pro at virtual stages. I love engaging with folks like testing myself and challenging myself to see how often I can engage folks in a virtual setting, especially with their cameras off.

But that's not necessarily my ideal stage. I love the energy in the room. I love these smaller rooms where we can get really deep into the topic we're talking about. I'm realizing that I'm more of a 90 minute speaker than a 45 minute keynote speaker, and that might take time for you to practice going on those stages and experiencing what those stages look like.

But start with that vision. So as you thought that through and as you visualize what that stage looks like, there was probably a certain picture that came up for you. [00:11:00] Keep that picture in front of you as much as you can. Next time you're looking for speaking leads, next time you are connecting with potential event planners in the industry you want to speak to.

And you can even ask more, intentional questions. When you're having a pre-event planning session with a planner, you could say, well, this is where I shine the most. You can ask for the room layout ahead of time and even design that room layout depending on what your ideal stage looks like. That's part of your toolkit as a speaker, is to set up the room so that you can deliver the best experience you possibly can.

Most people won't tell you you can't set up your room. Now, what helps you get to those stages? Because we've talked about the myth that the pro speaker. We talked a little bit about my journey and some of the foibles I had along the way. We talked about the end in mind, your unique lifestyle, and how to identify those perfect fit stages.

What helps you get to those stages is having a professional looking SpeakerKit in your [00:12:00] back pocket. So what is a SpeakerKit? They might also be known as a one sheet as marketing materials as a speaker portfolio. Different people call 'em different things. But the minimum pieces of information you need to have ready to go at any moment because responsiveness is very important as a professional speaker.

That is one thing that is not a myth, having that SpeakerKit ready to go, if it's not on your website, that's okay. It can be in your back office. It can be on the backside of your Google Drive. It could be a working draft document in Canva or in Word. It doesn't matter where you keep it, just so that you have it.

And the elements you need to have in that speaker kit are a professional looking headshot, not something your kids took when you were at a park or something like that. A professional headshot done by someone who knows lighting, who knows backgrounds, who knows how to give the essence of movement as you're standing there has you naturally shine.

[00:13:00] That's important. You need at least a few headshot and please make sure they're within the past few years. That's a reminder to myself. I need to update mine. It's been about five. Years for me. Make sure you have that. Then you need an intro. An intro is introducing your specific speaking program. So again, we mentioned it could be a keynote, it could be a breakout, it could be both of those things, but a proper introduction to that content so that the person who's introducing you to the stage, it might be an mc, it might be the person who hired you.

They know exactly what to say. Do not let them guess that, or off the cuff, impromptu do that. They don't know you well enough to, to give you a proper introduction. You provide the introduction for yourself. Then there's a short and long bio. Now, these are typically used for event purposes to create an event, to create some buzz and hype for the people who are gonna be attending the event.

The short bio is gonna be the one that's more important because it's short and sweet. A hundred words are less is ideal. The long bio is something you [00:14:00] might use as part of a bigger program or a schedule or something of that nature is less important, but that might be something you already have. On your About Me page, on your website, and most importantly, your Speaker Sheet.

So your Speaker Sheet should have your bio, your headshot, all of the things we just talked about, but you should also have a description, a title, speaking topics, testimonials, and or logos of happy customers who've worked with you in past. If you don't have logos, that's okay. You can use testimonials from a number of different places

It's okay for people to tell you how amazing you are, but make sure you share that with other people. That is the basics of how you build a professional speaking business and determining what your ideal stages look like. You don't have to follow what every other professional speaker is doing.

Let's be real. A lot of the speakers out there who are commanding these huge stages are white guys, usually older white guys, and you may not look or sound like these people, and that's great. There is a stage for [00:15:00] you. So conquer all these myths of the professional speaker and create your own professional speaking journey using the tips we talked about on Mic Drop mindset.

Until then, I'll see you on stage.

Thank you for tuning in to Mic Drop Mindset. If you enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to leave a review on Spotify, Apple or share a comment over on YouTube. Stay tuned for biweekly episodes and subscribe to Discover your own unique mic drop moments. Leaders don't just talk. They also listen.

I'm listening. I'll see you on your next stage. In the meanwhile, don't forget to visit my website, Jen with two Ns spin go.com.