How Public Speaking Can Pay You Big Time

To celebrate the new month, I'd to resurrect an old post I worked on for weeks.

Here's a special post to wish you a happy new September. I call this post- Public speaking and making money!

Have you ever asked yourself why some of the top Rich and influential Motivational Speakers around the world today barely venture into any other business? The answer is simple. It is because speaking business is a very vast and lucrative business that everyone can do and at the same time, choose a Niche in public speaking where you will become an expert.

Have you been wondering if motivational speaking business is really a profitable business to venture in? Then this post is for you. This is going to be a long post so I advice you bookmark this page if you won’t finish it now or you sit back and carefully go through it.

 

Here I have given a detailed guide and steps to follow to become a well known, Rich and influential Motivational Speaker.

It’s true that some people tend to move mountains when they talk to people, but there are some who can’t even understand themselves. The question is:

Do people give you good listening ears when you talk?

Do you move people’s emotions and feelings anytime you talk?

Do people tend to ask you to talk or ask for your opinion when you are in a meeting?

Do you command and show authority when you talk?

If your answer to these question are all YES, this post might be your big opportunity to know all you need to become outstanding in the crowd, move and talk life into people and at the same time make good money as an influential motivational speaker.

This is an era where people make use of their talents to make good millions of money for themselves. Hope you are not going to sit back and wallow in poverty because you have refused to use your God given talent to earn something for yourself.

Currently most talented and award winning Musicians, actors, comedians, dancers, high business IQ guys, hand gifted crafters etc are smiling to the bank because they have stood up to take advantage of their gifts. Don’t you think it’s time you yourself as a speaker smile to the bank too?

All over the world, motivational speakers are hugely and equally earning big and some have built amazing wealth just by speaking to people the right words at the right time! They are great, rich and influential Motivational Speaker in Nigeria who have created space for themselves in the industry and are making millions of Naira from it. Prominent among them is Niyi Adesanya (The official speaker of ETISALAT NIGERIA) He has been able to go places, help people create wealth as well as himself, all through his ability to speak and motivate! The power of motivational speaking can never be over-emphasized! Any good motivational speaker can motivate a dying soul to live again and again, and inspire a dummy to perform like an Athlete. There is nothing as refreshing and reinvigorating as carefully chosen words spoken at the right time by a crafty speaker. 

Ever listened to Les Brown? If you don’t, then you should try that once you are done reading this post. There is no better time to speak to people and make money in the process than now that most businesses and careers are falling apart, families are being broken, and people roaming around the streets wearing sad faces. People need to be inspired now to reach their heights; lack of proper motivation could damage great potentials. A word spoken at the right time can change someone’s outlook towards life and help make their world a better place to stay. This is the right time to create value in people’s life by motivating and inspiring them and get rewarded with wealth. You will be very surprised at how many people out there are willing to pay for your services once you are good at it.

Do you know that some professional motivational speaker do charge companies and organizations about $25,000 (approx. 5,500,000 Naira) per session to motivate and train their staffs while some charge per head and peg their fees at $100 (20,000 Naira) per participant! Just try and research how much Les brown, Roberts Kiyosaki, Ken Katas, Niyi Adesanya charges for them to be in your program. For the bloggers and marketers reading this, Try inviting someone like Neil Patel or Harsh Agrawal to speak in your seminar, conference or events and you will understand what am trying to say here.

The amount of money you make depends on your expertise and your brand – that’s why the first thing you need to work on as an aspiring public speaker is your brand.

Now, here are the key things you need to do to sky rocket your Motivational speaking business:

1. Upgrade and Improve Your Public Speaking Skill:

 For you to have read this up to this point, that means you have considered yourself to be a natural good speaker, that’s why you’re giving this a thought but you must understand that a good speaker in a private setting may not be good enough when it comes to public speaking. If possible, get yourself close if not attached to an accomplished speaker to learn how motivational speaking is done both in delivery and in business sense. If you’re looking up to people who are not within your reach, Follow them across all their social networks, read about them, watch their videos and follow their guidelines but don’t try to imitate their exact method. (Just as some pastors in a church do and dress exactly like their general overseer. It’s not like that in motivational speaking) you must have to deviate from trying to be someone else if you really want to achieve your full potential as a rich and influential motivational speaker.

 

Improving your speaking skill doesn’t mean memorizing popular quotations and churning them out in public as if that will impress anyone! People tend to love motivational speakers who really speak from the trench of their heart. You see them talk with references. It’s good to put out useful quotations here and there during your speech but don’t make your speech all about quotations. Try to be distinctive and avoid making the mistake of making noise in the name of being a speaker. Be sure you know who you are. A gifted speaker may not need much training in this regard. Just know your skill is not too good if at the time you are on session, and the people who are listening to you are dozing off or sleeping instead of jotting down something; or not expressing any feeling of remorse, enthusiasm etc. When you are in such condition, all you have to do is to pause whatsoever you are saying, play a music that depicts the type of speech you are giving (playing “Champion by Fred” in a session or talk on how to become successful, Re-branding or encouragement is a good way to start), after the song, you can crack a joke and then try to make your talk interactive. Don’t be a reader during this time but be a speaker. Don’t read everything you are saying from a book, say it from the bottom of your heart.

2. Read Related Books And Blogposts:

As a motivational speaker, you are bound to know something about everything and that’s how you will make yourself appear not only as an intelligent speaker but a smart, experienced and expert speaker. Try to have good knowledge in various sectors of life but most importantly, read more of the books that are related to what you are doing. You can also read plenty of books on any topic not just on public speaking. A good speaker is someone who is well read and experienced in various businesses. Frankly speaking, “it takes many books to write one book and speaking is like writing a book”. Read many books and blogposts to learn how to write your own book in the sense of public speaking.

3. Listen To Audios and Videos:

Les Brown said in one of his Audios I got from YouTube (will be back with the link), to keep that burning motivation alive, you need to listen to good tapes every morning. You need to listen to good public speakers and learn how they speak and manipulate words.

If you are planning on becoming a motivational speaker and you don’t listen to motivational tapes, then you are already missing something big.

Here are suggested steps for you to get good audios right away:

Step 1- Search for a list of the top 10, 20 or more motivational speakers in the world.

Step 2- Write down the list from any of the blogs you got it from.

Step 3- Go to www.youtube.com and search each of the names you have written down from step 2 above.

Step 4- Kindly save or download the videos and audios you like from the results shown to you. (I recommend downloading at least 5 videos or audios from each person and saving those videos because you will probably watch them again and again). You can also do the same search for your favourite speakers on YouTube and get their videos and audios too.

4. Package Yourself Well:

 Packaging is a very huge factor in motivational business. That is why most companies pay big for their product branding and packaging because how people see it will give the first impression if it’s worth buying or not.

To a greater percentage, the appearance of their product determines whether they will get a new buyer or not. Don’t think it is only products that are packaged, humans providing services also package themselves. That is why you see musicians and entertainers living a luxury life out of the money they have. They are all packaging and most people have failed to understand the reason why it’s like that.

Here is the logic:

1) Companies with products package their products and not themselves, that is why you will see a man looking very common in the street but has so much money in his account made from those products. Product providers often don’t appear too flashy when compared to Service providers.

2) Service providers with no product to sale often package themselves. Example is what you see in the music and entertainment industry. As a motivational speaker, what you’re selling is your good and encouraging words. You can’t be teaching people how to become rich when you are standing before them looking like a poor man. You have to look good and responsible. Look like what you are talking about. Even the commercial s3x-hawkers know this business technique very well and that is why they dress to attract and seduce people and not dress like someone going for a job interview!

Buy new clothes, shoes, good perfume etc for yourself. Take good care of your hair and use white and clean handkerchief if possible.

5. Speak Simple:

By now, after listening and watching all the audios and videos in your playlist, I believe you must have learnt some things on how to speak well. Do make that speech of yours simple and use understandable language as well as avoiding confusing your listeners with onomatopoeic words! i.e thoughtless use of high sounding words. You have to learn to avoid too much use of proud and flamboyant words if you don’t want to be alienated from your prospective audience.

Though as a speaker, you need to brag in few cases but not in most cases. Don’t speak too much and avoid using huge and big grammars like one of my Nigerian senators from Delta state (lol).

6. Brand Yourself:

Professionally, in business, brand is everything! You need to sell yourself first using the points above before you could sell anything. Motivational speaking is a business and should be seen as such; you need to brand yourself perfectly if you hope to sell your services to your potential clients.

Here are the various ways you can promote yourself in this business of being a motivational speaker:

 

1. Use Social Media:

The use of social media cannot be over emphasized. The world is gradually going towards the internet and that is why you need social media accounts to be on track. You have to create an attractive and compelling Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram and many other social media accounts and pages. Take enough time to edit your pages and make it look good, professional and attractive, Add pictures of your previous, current and even future programs/events if you have any – you do not need to talk much here if your photo albums tell stories about you in a professional and positive way. Use the best of your photos as profile picture and page covers. Let people see who you are by just seeing your profile picture. Take time to carefully describe who you are and where you are coming from in your “about me” page. Whenever you make a post, reply a comment or send a message on your social media accounts, try to write with correct spellings and in polished English (or any language you choose). Do not follow the current craze on social media on abbreviated spellings and style of writing. Example- Jst tryin 2 stay kul, Pls can I mit u? Sup bro, hw is lyf ova der? (ewww) And please!!!!! stop using “K” for “OKAY” or “I” for “HI”. You may not know it but they will all affect you when a serious client comes to your wall! If you must use it, let it be in a private chat with someone you already know very well.

Always tweet and update your Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp or Instagram status with good and inspirational quotes or photos and motivational excerpts. maybe once in a while you can try to update some funny status so that you don’t appear to be too official. Just add humor to your wall.

Social media holds more prospects than you can ever imagine, the people you meet online today might turn out to become your clients in the nearest future or be the ones to recommend you to clients that will pay for your services.

2. Start Blogging:

The best and most powerful brand building tools online is your website or blog, and blog has a way of giving you credibility as well as another source of income. Build your expertise online and watch how people will be calling you after some months. All you need is to give your blog a good attention. Once you start blogging, make sure you follow people like Neil Patel of QuickSprout and Kissmetrics, Brian Clarks, Jon Morrow and the rest of them for the best search engine optimization (SEO) advice and how you can easily rank on Google search results.

Get yourself a custom domain name if you don’t have. This will make you look more professional! It can be your own name (eg www.rosyomeje.com -my name), or anything that will clearly show what you are in a glance. After that, you can host it not compulsory but advisable).

Some speakers are just making more money using their blog than the normal service demand they get. Set up a blog today and write inspirational articles regularly, there is no better way to build your brand than this! People will read those articles and if they are inspired, they may want to go the next step with you!

3. Go On Air:

For you to become a fulltime, professional motivational speaker, you must go on air. The media has got a lot to give you if you use it the right way. If possible, negotiate regular slot on Radio and TV and talk to people. Let them hear you talk, the quality of your speech will be the connecting factor between you and the prospective clients and the public in general. There is no faster way to build and market your brand than the radio and television and maybe newspaper. When people hear and see you, they get to like and get connected with you.

10. Start Seminars:

If you are skilled in anything, it’s an advantage for you. All you have to do is organize and host seminars and charge people to attend. Below is a rough Estimate price of what it will cost you to host a seminar on a small scale.

This is an estimate of a seminar I organized myself.

Venue: #40,000

Publicity: (Poster, transport and advert) #5,000

Sound: #15,000

Invited Guest: #10,000

Refreshments: #19,000

Materials sold: #27,000

NOTE: The estimate above is gathered in Nigeria. Please refer to your local event planner for a rough estimate of your country location.

From the total number of people that attended, I got #146,000 from those who paid. So, looking at te above expenses (#89,000), I still have roughly #51,000 left. If I add the #27,000 from the materials sold, I have #78,000 left. This is a rough estimate of what I got from a single seminar I organized just to create awareness. Trust me, since then, I have been receiving invitations and comments from that single public appearance.

It’s simple, one thing you must know is that people have different problems and they are all looking for solutions. As an Influential motivational speaker you must be a problem solver or else you will not do well in this business. To throw yourself into the light, you can start by identifying a problem (economic, social, natural etc) in your environment which you know you can solve. Check to see how many people it affects and how many are ready to learn a solution to the problem. Once you’ve done all these, it will be time for you to sit back and watch money rolling in. How much you charge depends on your demand, start small but don’t portray yourself as being too cheap. Set your price and begin your publicity (use social media, banners, fliers, radios etc to create awareness about your upcoming seminar). When a lot of people get to hear about it, you will not need to worry about the money for running the show. As more people indicate interest and begin to pay, you can use their money to get the necessary things you’ll need for the seminar. But, DON’T touch their money if you know there may be a flop at the end! Just wait a week to the event when you are sure it will still hold before you use their money to pay for what you need. If you spend all the money you get arranging for it and there was a problem which can cause a postponement or cancellation; then you will live your remaining days of that month paying back their money.

At this point, all I can say is best of luck as you enter the world of being a motivational speaker.

 

 

Finally, speaking is power and there is real power in the words you speak with your mouth. If you are gifted in this, you can use it and create a multi-million brand for yourself.

Just follow the steps above and watch your motivational speaking career skyrocket to the next level. Know that all the influential Motivational Speakers in the world understand the right use of powerful words to speak into people’s spirit and as a potential speaker, you can leverage this huge opportunity too.

Best wishes as you start your motivational speaking business.