Chapter 1

Speaking and Training
for a Living: The Ups
and Downs

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Examining why you want to become a public speaker
• Good things and not-so-good things about professional speaking
• Creating your own cycle of abundance

 

Professional speaking and training is a phenomenal and exciting business to be in. I have loved it from day one and I think you will, too. That said, it is imperative that you understand just what you are getting yourself into. I’ve been an insider in this world for years, and I can tell you that the more you know going into it, the better your chances of experiencing success, personal satisfaction, and overall happiness.

This career can be both tremendously rewarding and tremendously disappointing at the same time. I’ll explain: It’s a roller coaster, pure and simple, and if you don’t have the stomach for the sudden drops and sharp turns that are sure to happen on this crazy ride, then you may not be cut out for the speaking and training profession.

I want to point out the good, the bad, and the ugly of building a profitable speaking and training business in the 21st century. You already began assessing your desires and the talents required of someone in this career in the introduction to this book. That’s when I asked that you take time to review and respond to the questions in the So You Want to Be a Professional Speaker and Trainer self-assessment toolkit.

Remember, your assignment was not to have all the answers, or even the right answers. The goal was to use the toolkit to start revealing within yourself your individual strengths and weaknesses, the hurdles you may face, and the real-world issues you could encounter along the way as a paid presenter. This self-assessment is offered in the introduction to help you establish a mindset for tackling the rest of the information in this book and then start moving your plan forward to build a profitable speaking and training business.

You’ve already examined and provided answers to the four critical parts of what it takes to succeed as a professional speaker and trainer. Let’s review them here:

1. Attitude, Ego, Self-Motivation, and Your Unique Personality

2. Confidence and Self-Esteem—Support and Encouragement

3. Family and Friends

4. Your Talents and Professional Side.

Completing this exercise first is a good start. Now it’s time to reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly of what it means to get hired to speak and train at a professional level and what is required to build a profitable speaking and training business.

This business is fun and that’s good! A lot of professions are not fun. Whether you are on a stage speaking before an audience of 500 people at a sales meeting in Dallas, or facilitating a small group retreat for a dozen or fewer business executives in Palm Springs, standing before an audience giving your presentation really gets the adrenalin flowing and gets the endorphins to kick in. And that is very good.

Professional Speaking and Training Is Holistic

Having fun is a good ingredient to have in our careers, because having fun is actually holistic. Having fun and a good time while speaking and training stimulates the pituitary gland, which produces endorphins and enkephalins. These are pain killer equivalents that are 100 times more powerful than morphine. The deep-down good feelings you will get from speaking and training can have great physiological benefits that can actually make you healthier and keep you that way. And that’s good.

Seldom in this business does boredom seep in, because there’s nothing to be bored about. Every gig is different, every audience is unique, every client and industry becomes a learning experience.

The other good part about this kind of work is that you get to touch others’ lives and influence people from all over the world. If you’re really good at what you do, you’ll travel for free—yes free—from Tennessee to Timbuktu. You’ll experience and learn from wide and varied cultures you may have never dreamed you’d visit.

And here’s another exciting spin-off and really good thing about being a speaker and trainer. You may get a book deal! That’s right. Remember, as a paid speaker or trainer, you are the subject matter expert on your topic. Your speech or training program may well become the catalyst to becoming a bestselling author. And then guess what happens? From those published books, you get more speaking and training engagements. There are a lot of moving components to this business, and they all feed into one another and create the synergy required to catapult you to speaker and trainer stardom.

You may have heard of Harold S. Kushner’s bestselling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In this business, like any other, bad things do happen and they can happen to anyone, even really good speakers and trainers.

Professional speakers and trainers are free agents. They work for themselves and they depend on being able to do the job in order to get paid. Frankly, no one cares if you’re sick or if you’re stuck in a blizzard at O’Hare International Airport. The client has 900 delegates flying in and they expect their keynote speaker or workshop leader to be there—no matter what.

I think this is the hardest part of this work. There is no calling in sick, or let’s just say, it is rare. It’s not like holding down a regular job where you have paid sick days or bereavement time off. In this business, if you don’t speak, you don’t get paid. If you don’t conduct the training, you don’t get paid. Hardly anyone talks about this side of the business. But it’s the real deal and I am telling it to you now.

In more than 15 years, I’ve had only two times when I was simply too ill to work. Each time, it cost me thousands of dollars, plus I knew I’d disappointed a lot of attendees at both events.
It’s no wonder highly successful speakers, like Tony Alessandra, bestselling author of The Platinum Rule, always come through when it’s show time.

I heard Tony Alessandra speak years ago at a National Speakers Association (NSA) presentation for up-and-coming speakers. His speech was awe inspiring on every level. I’ll never forget when he referred to how the show must go on, even when a speaker is ill. He then told his own story of having a 105-degree fever and chills and still presenting as the headliner. He delivered the program and nearly collapsed when he got off the stage. No one ever knew how ill he was. But he knew he couldn’t let his audience down, no matter what. I never forgot that story. The pressure can be tremendous in this business. That’s why successful professional speakers have an amazing amount of fortitude and ability to rise above their own crises.

I once went on stage before hundreds of people to do an all-day workshop after receiving word that my husband was admitted to a hospital. Talk about being distracted. But as a professional speaker, I know how to re-focus on the spot when called for, even in the toughest times. That’s when you weigh what to do next. In this case, because my husband assured me he was in the best of hands, I did the job and then took the red-eye home that night. A big part of sustainability in this business is always having a plan B for when bad things happen. That means being prepared for anything.

For example, my plan B includes that I have back-up trainers I can call in a heartbeat to take over my training sessions in the event of an extreme emergency. These are people who know my programs, my style, and what my clients want. They are the perfect pinch hitters. Every professional presenter needs a back-up plan for every event. I also know how far I can push myself if I am not feeling well. I certainly don’t want to get on stage and faint, but I know when I can keep going and keep up a good front. All good speakers know their limits when it comes to putting on a good appearance, even in the face of feeling lousy as hell.

The Cardinal Rule of Travel

Unforeseen situations can play a very bad part in your speaking career. So why take chances? I never fly into the city where I am speaking on the actual day of my presentation. Never. Even if I am to speak that afternoon, I will not fly in, drive, or take a train that morning. There simply are too many factors out of my control that can delay my arrival, like severe weather, an accident on the highway, a bomb scare at the airport, and many more things that make life’s odd occurrences happen.

I learned this lesson the hard way, and now I always arrive the night before a presentation. That way, the next morning I am right there in the hotel where I am speaking, or in the city near the event ready to go. One way or the other, I will get to where my audience is waiting.

I do a lot of speaking and training in the Winston-Salem and Asheville areas of North Carolina. Both locations are only a four-hour drive from where I live, but I always arrive the night before my speaking. I also can tell you that my clients always appreciate that I am there and ready to go the evening before their big event! And remember, even a small event is a big event for the client.

Just remember, bad things really do happen to good speakers and trainers. And they can and eventually will happen to you, too. If you have a back-up plan, however, for your work and for your clients, you will have a much better chance of keeping a solid reputation for showing up, and you will be able to keep your momentum, even in tough times. And that’s what the best-of-the-best speakers and trainers do—they keep moving forward.

The ugly part of this industry is that there is fierce competition. You must be an extremely competitive person to survive and thrive. If you think you are the most compelling, entertaining, or humorous trainer out there, think again. There are probably dozens of trainers and presenters out there who do what you do, and probably better, and maybe even cheaper. He or she who gets the booking survives. This is a business, not a hobby or a game.

Another ugly part of this business is seeing people go out of business. Getting one paid engagement is not enough to sustain you and pay the bills. All sorts of unexpected things can happen that can quickly change the course of your entire career. For example, after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, every speaker, meeting planner, and speaker bureau owner I know was greatly affected, and not just for a week or two, but for years.

I watched several meeting planners and speaker bureaus go out of business within months, not to mention all of the speakers and trainers who lost so much work that it forced them out of the business as well. This was ugly indeed. Personally, it took me almost two full years to recover and to build back the business I had lost in a flash. Thank goodness I had a lot of work in the pipeline and several published books under my belt, which helped greatly. But it still stung, and stung badly.

Never Take Your Business for Granted

On 9/11, I personally lost more than $45,000 in bookings for that following six-week period. One of my bookings was to take place two weeks after 9/11 for a major financial institution one block off of Wall Street in New York City. I was to stay at the Marriott that was connected to the World Trade Center and is no longer standing. I saved my hotel confirmation number to remind me of how life and business can change so profoundly and suddenly and to never, ever take my bookings or my practice for granted. A business that you take years to create can all be gone in the blink of an eye. Mine almost was.

Of course, we know 9/11 affected the national as well as the international economy and businesses too numerous to list, but in this case, I am referring strictly to the professional speaking and training industry. It was a difficult time to be a professional speaker and trainer. It hit our industry particularly hard because so much fear had set in for the clients who pay us and pay our agents worldwide. Plus, no one wanted to fly. And this business is all about getting to wherever the engagement is, and that is rarely in your own backyard.

I have discovered that for those speakers and trainers who are consistently successful at what they do, there seems to be what I call
a cycle of abundance that surrounds them. It’s not a cycle that
happens accidentally—to the contrary. It’s a cycle that is perpetuated by a speaker’s or trainer’s own ability to generate synergy in their lives and their businesses. This synergy comes from several things—their unstoppable energy, their consistent momentum in how they work, their genuine spirit that is audience
centered at all times, and their magnetism in attracting loyal clients, meeting planners, speaker bureaus, and the support that comes from building relationships.

I know that there is no abracadabra or pixie dust to sprinkle when it comes to being successful. There isn’t a rabbit’s foot big enough to ensure that your engagement will be the hit of the conference. I’ve yet to uncover a special formula for success that can be duplicated. What I have uncovered is a cycle of abundance, and it is within this cycle, which we ourselves create, that we find the greatest opportunities for ongoing and continuous success in our hard-knocks business environment. Figure 1.1 conveys my personal experience within this cycle.