By Douglas Vermeeren 10X Your Speaking Business-
It seems that lately there are a gazillion and one people popping out of the woodwork claiming to be able to teach you how to build you speaking business. Some of these programs are good, some are terrible and a few are just down right crap. I’m being honest here. Just because someone is claiming to help you build a coveted career in the speaking industry does not me that they can help you.
Like everything else in life BUYER BEWARE!
Having taught the skills of speaking and the business of speaking long before most of these hucksters arrived on the scene I want to share a few things you should look for before you give away any hard earned cash. Before I share what to look for let me tell you why there are so many that have recently shown up…. ready for it… cash.
Teaching people who want to be speakers, desperate to build a business in the speaking career appears to be a relatively easy way for some speakers with minimal experience to make a quick buck. Most of the so-called speaker trainers in the marketplace today are out to prey on those who simply don’t know any better.
Let’s fix that. Here are 3 things that you need to know before you hire anyone to help you with your speaking business:
There is a difference between developing platform skills and building a speaking business. Most of the people calling themselves speaker trainers today have very little ability to build a speaking business. Most of those in the marketplace today focus on platform skills. Their efforts are primarily on helping you develop a nice presentation or what is popularly known as a signature talk. There are a couple of problems with this. Signatures talks don’t work in today's marketplace.
These monologue style presentations fell out of the successful way of doing things in the mid-1990s. However because they are the model often taught in groups like the National Speaker Association, Toastmasters and a handful of other groups most people
still think they work in todays marketplace. They don’t. They worked well when Speaking bureaus ruled the industry and corporate clients where the primary source of revenue for speakers. Times have changed. People expect more of a connection and a higher
level of engagement than ever before. Audiences don’t want to be talked to. They want to be included.
While presentation skills are important to learn and there are lots of great programs that teach that. (We do to.) What is really needed before understand what to say is the business of saying it. If you get the business right the time on stage becomes productive. We believe that until speakers think of the speaking business as a speaking business it is very difficult to create lasting success. Maybe that’s why most of the speakers (or people who are trying to be speakers) are broke. A recent statistic I read said that only 1 in 450 speakers actually earn enough to be considered full time. (Kinda crazy for a group that is typically thought of as teaching strategies for personal or business success.)
As I see many of our competitors out there calling themselves speaker trainers I almost cry. most of them are broke too. Most of them have never broken 6 or 7 figures in their own businesses. They have never spoken internationally or in front of large audiences. Most of them do not know how to fill their own rooms or sell from the stage. Most don’t know how to joint venture with other speakers and do not have relationship with any top speakers in the business. They are fooling themselves.
Lesson: If you are going to find help with your speaking career get someone that understands the business and is successful themselves.
- This one is pretty obvious.Effective speaking programs are focused on just teaching speaking and the speaking business! I am startled when I see how many “speaker trainers” teach entrepreneurship, customer service, sales, book publishing, social media AND SPEAKING. The old saying Jack of all trades master of none pretty much lets you know how effective these people will be for you.
There are many speakers who have added speaker training to their suitcase full of stuff they are trying to offer because again they see the cash. They think because they’ve spoken for a while that they are now experts on teaching others how to do. (And the funny thing is that even many well-known speakers are trying to do this too.) There are two things that always result from this warning sign regardless of where they are a big speaker or not.
1)You will get a watered down version of speaker training.
2)The training will make you a carbon copy of the presenter.
Who wants that?
If you are going to invest the money to learn a skill wouldn’t you want a teacher that is able to help you develop your gifts and enhance your natural personality and gifts. (Apparently not for some people.) Our philosophy that i believe makes us the top speaking training company in the business today is this: Find YOUR VIBE and you will find YOUR TRIBE.
I won’t mention any names but recently I was at an event in Las Vegas and I had one speaker tell me how they spent close to $50,000 to be in a certain speaker training program. I know the person she was taking the training from.
This speakers training program came from a guy who teaches entrepreneurship, considers himself a top business coach and is now involved in real estate training too. Where will this stop. Needless to say this person was very disappointed because they paid for a basic course that has not helped them to become better or make any money back. NO RESULTS.
When I probed further I found that it was really because this “Speaker Training” program was very unfocused. And through out the entire process this “trainer” was trying to cross pollinate everyone in his course to buying and attending everything he could dream up. Again JACK of all trades, Master of none.
One of the things I share with my students is to focus on one thing. Get good at it. Become so good you become a master. Because MASTERY = MONOPOLY. If you become an expert and known as the expert in that area you will never have to worry about competitors.
Lesson: Find someone that only offers Speaker training.
Final point for this article:
#3 You need real opportunities. Too many of these “speaker trainers” today put people through their training and then kick them to the curb. well… ummm… that’s not going to grow your business. If you are going to become a speaker you need opportunities to speak and they shouldn’t occur after you’ve left the guidance of a proper trainer.
One of the things we do with students in our program is to show them how to get gigs and often times we have gigs for them to begin right away. And not just any old events. Remember the old saying you are only as powerful as your network? We have the network. This year we have had several events where our students have shared the stage with olympians, celebrities and top speakers. Just last week I was in London, UK where four of my students shared the stage with Dr. John Demartini from the Secret. Before that we were in multiple cities in Canada with Marie Diamond from The Secret. we did a cruise with Bob Doyle from The Secret. (Yes, I’ve got a pretty good network to help my students grow.)
Good speaker trainers should be able to give you opportunities to speak and also to sell from the stage. The best learning isn’t just theory it is practice and improvement too. And that practice should occur in front of real audiences. If you want to be a top speaker it should be on stages with other top speakers.
Theory proves nothing. Results are the evidence.
Anyways that’s probably more than enough of a rant today. No doubt I am going to get hate mail from my competitors crying that they actually provide massive value and that I am wrong. Maybe that’s why they are struggling. The marketplace (people like you) have higher standards than “speaker trainers” with good intentions and certainly you don’t want to work with multi-program cash grabbers. You demand a higher level of support form someone who is focused and dedicated to creating success for speakers just like you.
And by the way if you want to see how I can help you send me an email and I’ve got some free resources to help get you started doug@douglasvermeeren.com
Douglas Vermeeren is the CEO of 10X your Speaking Business. His clients include beginning speakers all the way to celebrities, athletes, top business leaders and more. His focus is on helping them to develop high profit Speaking, coaching and training businesses. He is the author of three books in the guerrilla marketing series and filmmaker behind 3 of the most popular personal development films of all time. www.DouglasVermeeren.com