Choose your Best Speaking Business Model | Episode 18

Speaking Business Models: Pay-to-Play, Keynotes, Visibility, Competitions, Corporate Training, and Hosting Events, oh my!

The episode of Mic Drop Mindset breaks down major speaking business models and how to choose a fit. Jenn Espinosa-Goswami reflects on early, unprofitable experiences relying on Facebook groups and virtual summits, then explains 6 different speaking business models to consider on your speaking journey. These 6 business models are

1) pay-to-play/sponsored stages 

2) the paid keynote/enterprise model 

3) visibility or “free dinner” speaking 

4) speaker competitions for “vicarious authority” 

5) corporate training

6) promoter speaking (with a cautionary disclaimer about those who may promise more than they can deliver)

Would you like my support with finding speaking opportunities for paid, visibility or corporate training? Join my masterclass on July 21 on Finding & Booking Speaking Engagements. This includes a deep dive using resources on where to start and who to connect with. These aren't your typical "free dinner" speaking!

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/finding-and-booking-paid-speaking-engagements-tickets-1991070988926

00:00 Speaking Models Overview

00:33 Early Speaking Lessons

01:30 Pay To Play Stages

05:00 Keynote Enterprise Model

07:37 Visibility Free Dinner

09:21 Speaker Competitions

11:43 Corporate Training Path

14:13 Host Your Own Events

15:55 Recap And Final Advice

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

Speaking Models Overview

SPEAKER_00 0:05

You asked for it, and now I'm gonna deliver a topic that you told me you wanted to hear more about. Today's episode of Mic Drop Mindset is all about speaking business models. Because there are as many different business models for speaking as there are blades of grass in a field. So let's demystify some of these crazy different speaking business models, and maybe somewhere along the way we can discover which model might be a good fit for you. Let's dive right in. When

Early Speaking Lessons

SPEAKER_00 0:33

it comes to speaking business models, and this is something I wish I had learned 15 years ago when I first started speaking, was what is the best way to grow my business? What is the best way to get in front of stages? What I didn't know at the time as an online business owner who spent most of my time on Facebook was that you don't build a speaking business on Facebook. So my early experiences with my speaking business were responding to different requests on Facebook groups for participating in virtual summits. Now, at the time, that was a really popular way to grow your business, especially for people who built mostly online. And the types of people who would show up for these speaking events would be people in the health and wellness space, people who offered coaching, very few consultants, but some product-based businesses. I thought that that was a good place to spend my time. Unfortunately, that is not a profitable speaking business model, at least not the way I teach business today.

Pay To Play Stages

SPEAKER_00 1:30

So let's talk about sponsored stages or pay-to-play stages, because there was a lot of misinformation there and there's a temptation to buy before you're ready to buy. A pay-for-play stage or a sponsored stage, there's a little bit different from each other's distinction between these two. A pay-to-play stage is where you pay for the opportunity to be on stage for any amount of time. So this could mean you're a sponsor of a major event, which includes having a table at the back of the room at the end of the event or during an expo as part of a multi-day event. Or it could mean that you are just sponsoring the food, the beverage. This happens a lot at industry conferences where you might pay $1,000, $2,000, sometimes up to $10,000 if you're a platinum sponsor, and you get stage time for that. So the stage time could be two minutes, it could be five minutes, you could even pay your way into a keynote speaking opportunity. There are some events that only allow people who pay stage time. So this is a pay-to-play stage. Now, the benefits of having that stage time are you're most likely speaking at an event in front of your ideal customers. Usually this type of model happens with groups of entrepreneurs. Sometimes it can help with ancillary businesses or parallel business referral type businesses. If you're part of a membership group, sometimes you pay for a speaking program that basically curates your opportunity to get on stage. So they might include some light coaching, they might include some advice or presentation skills feedback. This is helping that organizer grow their business more than it's helping you grow your business. Another hallmark of how these pay-to-play stages work is they tend to be smaller rooms. There are some people who might bring 10 or 15 people in the room. You pay for your spot to speak in front of them, but they are more likely to buy from you. And often because you're paying for the opportunity to speak, you can offer a program. So this makes more sense if you're someone who offers a program, and especially if that program is high ticket. And when I say high ticket, I mean probably, you know, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000. If you're paying at least that much to speak on stage, you probably want to recoup at least your investment, not including travel, lodging, costs to get to that event, and or things that come out of your own pocket, such as printing materials, bringing copies of books for everyone in the audience. You might have quite a few expenses on the front end, but you could also sell from the stage and earn a bunch of money on the back end. You could also include other things like sometimes as a sponsor, they might put you in a newsletter. They might give you access to the attendee lists. There are many benefits, but it's not good for beginner speakers who don't know that they are capable of selling from stage. Selling from stage is an art form. I won't say I'm particularly great at it. And there are some people who build their entire business around selling from the stage. That's often a visibility kind of market. So pay-to-play stages are rather an advanced technique. And they're when you have a program that you're pretty good at selling and you know you feel comfortable connecting with people at an event, selling at an event, tabling an event. Those are skill sets that may or may not be in your wheelhouse. But it doesn't just include speaking, it also includes selling and tabling an event. So that's a pay-to-play stage.

Keynote Enterprise Model

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Then we have things like paid to speak. So this is the keynote, the traditional keynote stage or speaking business model, also known as an enterprise version where speaking is an investment for you to drive consulting contracts. So you're building a speaking program, a suite of services, and your keynote is the entry level into that bigger speaking program. You might also focus on client acquisition. So if you're working B2B and you have a certain service that benefits someone who offers a similar service or has a certain client market that's similar to yours, that would make more sense. You have enterprise sales, so maybe there are some tools that go into that, or you might use that as a standalone revenue source. So you might think of big keynoters who do this, but they also offer ongoing training programs or coursework that people can license or purchase on an ongoing basis for their employees. That's what that model looks like. The challenge with keynote speaking model, and I think that this is true for many of my clients, is you have to be on the road a lot. You probably have to have a team to support you with the administrative pieces and the logistics that are required for that. You also want to be on planes. Sometimes you have back-to-back speaking engagements and you have to fly a right eye to go from one to the other. Maybe you don't get as much sleep. Maybe you're just jumping from place to place, you're not seeing your family as much. When you're doing this type of model, you're probably doing 60, 70, 80 engagements per year, which can be a lot for people to be on the road for that long. So you must be interested in travel, being on the road. It also requires you to market yourself constantly. So if you don't have a process in place for marketing, you don't have a follow-up system that continues to leave clients in your doorstep, then this may not be the best model for you. Also, another thing to pay attention to is once you're booked with the same organization, they're not going to book you year after year. There are time periods where they won't book you at all because they just heard from you. So they will not offer you year after year business unless you're really good at offering downstream services to their team members or their employees after you're done speaking. So it requires a lot of upfront paying attention to what the next steps are in the process. It requires a lot of travel and probably a team member or two to assist you with the logistics and the planning of that. So that's the traditional keynote or enterprise speaking model.

Visibility Free Dinner

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Next, we have visibility speaking. I call it free dinner speaking. You can call it free coffee or free breakfast speaking, breakfast in bagels speaking. You know, these are the very common model we see today. This is common amongst chambers of commerce, uh, regional networking groups, local networking groups where they're always looking for programming. They're always looking for speakers. They don't pay you. Sometimes they will give you other things that are of value to you, such as video footage. Sometimes they'll give you attendee lists or allow you to offer a gift, which is usually a lead magnet or a free download of sorts, so you can continue to follow up with people in that audience. Sometimes they'll give you a shout-out on social media and help build your platform together. So you might receive some benefits from that visibility speaking. Also, I think it's important to recognize that as a speaker, you have to get those repetitions in. If you're not speaking but once every quarter, you probably need to find some visibility speaking to keep yourself in practice and keep yourself fit, if you will, for the next stage you're going to be on. So if you're not already participating or finding those stages on your own, there are rehearsal groups you can participate in, whether that's through Toastmasters, through my mic drop moments program. There are ongoing ways you can practice if you're not already out there on stages. Free dinner speaking is one that is difficult for a lot of clients I work with, not because they're afraid to be on stage, but because they don't have a follow-up system in place or they hesitate to offer a call to action that leaves people continuing the conversation with them. So that's something that I help people do. But it has its time and place just like anything and can help you get those repetitions in. Now,

Speaker Competitions

SPEAKER_00 9:21

the next one is one that is not a specific speaking business model, but may add or complement some of the speaking business models you're doing. And that one is one that I call audition or competitive speaking, or could also be known as vicarious authority. Now, this is something that I'm aware of different speaker competitions that exist out there. I think NSA has one called last Last Story Standing. I know of one up in Canada called Speaker Slam. I know Grant Cardone teamed up with Pete Vargas and they did a 10 10X speaker competition. These competitions exist. Usually, these are programs that again add to the bottom line of the people who are organizing them. They bring you to a certain city or certain location. They might train you on what to talk about, how to build that signature speech. But it is at the end of the day an audition. I've auditioned for some of these events in the past. And if you really are competitive and like to see how you compare to other speakers, it might be worth your while. My insights and observation around this, though, are they are looking for very specific types of speakers. And in my opinion, from some of the things I've experienced, they want heavily motivational and a little bit humdrum kinds of speakers. So people with super high energy, people who use a lot of alliteration or a lot of really interesting phrasing. They're not necessarily looking for polished speakers, but they're looking for very energetic speakers. So this is for you if you really love competing, if you maybe want to get some of the vicarious authority from the people who are hosting the competition. Sometimes they offer other things like marketing and branding around your speaker kit or things of that nature, which might be useful for you as you're first building your business. You might also be a part of big promotions or people getting your name out there. So if you're someone who doesn't spend any time on social media or marketing your own business or that feels uncomfortable for you, this might be a good opportunity to get the word out there about what it is you do and get those backlinks from SEO and other things like that. You might also have to purchase a program to participate in these competitions. So again, if you want to purchase and invest in yourself as a speaker, it might be a good fit for you if you especially want to add that vicarious authority through other well-known people within the business.

Corporate Training Path

SPEAKER_00 11:43

What's another speaking business model? This is my favorite, and one that I think is coming back in a real big way in the next few years is a corporate trainer. So a corporate trainer is guaranteed repeat business. You offer workshops, maybe they're all day workshops, maybe they're half day trainings. You have a defined price point, you have a very specific problem you're trying to solve, and then you go to different companies, different groups within the company and sell yourself. This is difficult to find the right people to connect with. Certainly, I can help you get started with who to contact or how to do prospecting on LinkedIn for different people within corporations. And the good news is you will get repeat business because once you have that model proven and you've delivered great training content, they're going to keep asking for you back. They're going to keep asking for the next level workshop. Now, I did participate in other companies before as a vendor or a contractor where I told them here's what I could talk on. And then they would coordinate the logistics with their clients. And then I would show up and let them know if I had that data available. Now, those had defined price points that I could not control. So sometimes if you're doing it as a vendor or a contractor, your pricing is not going to be where you want it to be. But if you're doing your own sales and lead prospecting for that, you could certainly name your price point. And it's all about the sales at that point, whether you can keep getting that repeat business. But the good news is it's not a one-and-done keynote where it's an event that only comes around once in a while. You can literally schedule the date whenever it works for you and for the client you're working with. So corporate training can be very lucrative. And in a room full of eight to ten people, you could then sell even more business from there. So you might charge $5,000 for a corporate training. It could be anywhere from an hour to three hours. And then you could also offer an ongoing coaching or consulting group where you're working individually with people or you're offering group program plus individual coaching. You can close very big contracts using this type of model. So speaking is the entry point for that, or you prove the model through your training and your speaking. Another speaker business model. And these are not my speaker business models. I've used some of my own language around these. These are things that I've observed, I've experienced, I've offered in the past, or I've read from other speakers who are out there. So if you've never heard of these, know that they exist. And there might even be some that I'm not catching here. So if you're listening, let me know if I missed anything that you personally use or know

Host Your Own Events

SPEAKER_00 14:13

of. Last, let's talk about promoter speaking. This is where you host your own events. I host virtual events on Eventbrite. I've done it for several years, usually low ticket, so under $100. Sometimes I offer it for $200 or less. I've also hosted my own in-person event, which had way high overhead. I had to pay a lot of things ahead of time: the room, the lodging, the food, all of those things were things I had to pay for ahead of time. So depending on what your event model could look like, you can certainly price to make it profitable for you, but there will be some high overhead costs. The good thing about when you host your own event is you get to bring whoever you want into that room. You get to control all of the aspects of marketing, logistics, you get to create the vibe for that room, invite whoever in to partner with you. That is totally on you. You get to control the agenda, but also everything is on you. And if things don't come forward, if you have low attendance or if you don't sell out the space, it can be uncomfortable if you don't have enough people showing up in the room to participate with you. And if you were hoping to sell a program from stage, which I think most people expect if they're attending someone's event, there will be something of value being sold there. You may or may not be able to upsell people again from that stage because that is an art form and it's hard to do regardless of whether you're hosting your own event. I will say when I hosted my own event, the founder of the company that I was partnering with showed up at the event. And I feel like I didn't do a good job of leading from the front of the room. I feel like I took a backseat to her, and that was on me. It was nothing about her. That was just my feeling of showing up as a second-in-command and supporting her mission. But at the same time, I had a mission with hosting that event.

Recap And Final Advice

SPEAKER_00 15:55

So as we recap the speaker business models, let's take a look at what we talked about. We talked about pay-to-play or sponsored stages where you're paying to speak in front of your ideal clients where you could potentially upsell into a profitable program that you offer. We talked about the pay-to-speak or keynote model, also known as enterprise model, where you're perhaps on the road quite a bit. You're missing out on family time, you're getting paid big gigs though, but you still have that long period of time before they'll pay you again because they don't keep bringing you in. We talked about visibility speaking or free dinner speaking, where you just speak for the reps or you speak to get experience. You speak to potentially make connections or follow up via email or other ways for getting that program. We talked about vicarious authority or participating in speaker competitions or contests, those opportunities still do exist, but again, they're adding to someone else's bottom line and you just get the experience and the vicarious authority. We talked about corporate training. A lot of corporate training opportunities are out there. If you know where to look, let me know if you want support around that. And then finally, hosting your own events. I just want to put this disclaimer out there. If somebody who's hosting their own event is telling you that they can introduce you to decision makers, be a little wary and cautious of that. Because if they're hosting their own event, they're not working with independent event planners and they may not have the names that they're saying that they can introduce you to. So if someone has built their business through hosting their own events, they may or may not know how to do the keynote speaking model. So that's what I'd like to leave you with as we conclude today's episode is as you look at what speaking business model makes the most sense for you, and it could be a combination of these. Look at what type of support you need from that model. And if you're looking to work with someone around that, make sure they have experience in that particular business model and that it fits what you're hoping to do within your work. Today's episode has been all about speaking business models. What mix of speaking business models makes sense for you, or what have you tried in the past? Let me know and don't forget to subscribe. Until then, I'll see you on stage.