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Do you want to become a speaker? What would being a speaker allow you to do that you currently can’t? How do I continue to make money with speaking gigs off of the stage?
In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks about how to get paid speaking gigs with Brittany Richmond from The Speaker Lab.
Podcast Sponsor: Alma
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Once you’ve joined Alma’s insurance program, you can see clients in your state of licensure regardless of where you’re working from.
Learn more about building a thriving private practice with Alma at helloalma.com/joe
Meet Brittany Richmond
Brittany is a resident speaker and coach for The Speaker Lab. Brittany was a former school counselor turned youth mental health speaker 4 years ago. She is a former student of The Speaker Lab and has been working for the company for 2.5 years now! She is a highly paid, sought after speaker in her industry and also loves helping people step into the speaking space and starting their speaking business or scaling their current one!
Visit Brittany’s website and connect on Instagram and LinkedIn.
In This Podcast
- The winning speaking formula
- Selecting a problem to solve
- Preparing your talk
- Establishing yourself as the expert
- Acquiring paid speaking gigs
- Knowing when to scale
The winning speaking formula
What is your driving motivation to take the message that you have and put it out there into the world? This is what you need to figure out first before you can launch any successful speaking gig.
The winning formula is figuring this out is confidence, clarity, and a clear path. To break it down more, it’s SPEAK;
- Selecting a problem to solve
- Preparing your talk
- Establishing yourself as the expert
- Acquiring paid speaking gigs
- Knowing when to scale
Those are the five steps that have helped me create all of this income with speaking, with my message. This is [also] how we’ve helped people start speaking, [and] how we’ve helped people scale their current speaking that they’re doing.
Brittany Richmond
Selecting a problem to solve
This is always step one. You need to have the destination in mind of where you want to go to know what you can do best to get there.
What are your credentials and your passions? Where do they intersect?
And within this sphere of interest and professional skills, what do you want to use them for to solve, uplift, change, transform, or shift something in the world or the lives of the people within your community?
When you’re speaking to an audience, they want an action item to hold onto. They want to know what the problem is that you are going to solve for them, or help them to solve themselves.
Additionally, knowing the scope of what you want to do can also help you to weed out what you should leave to someone else with experience in another field. Stick with what you care about and what you know how to do.
I’ve even been asked before, “Hey, can you speak on this?” but I have turned down things and directed them to other speakers because while I could speak on that, it doesn’t mean that I should.
Brittany Richmond
Preparing your talk
The best marketing tool is a great talk!
You can customize a little bit with different stories, but your overall arching message is going to stay the same, and that’s what’s going to get you into that referral business [because] people are going to hear you talk and be like, “I need to you come to talk here”.
Brittany Richmond
Blend in that overlap of your passion with your skills and the problem that you are solving to create your signature talk. You can change it slightly depending on your audience, but keep the essential essence the same to maintain that consistency.
People will hear about it and they’re going to want you to come speak at their event or their organization.
Establishing yourself as the expert
This is all about product packaging.
Take the step further to combine your problem and solution, your passion and expertise, and put them all together in how you will present this to your audience.
When we say that packaging matters as a speaker, there are two key marketing assets that every speaker needs to have ready:
- Your website
- Your demo reels
The reality is that they are looking for these two things because these two things speak to them and say: “Professional speaker”.
Brittany Richmond
Events and hosts like to review you first before hiring you, and getting to see small previews of your existing work and how you present yourself are things that they take into consideration.
Your packaging is what will show them a snippet about you, and so it’s a box that they’re checking to be aware of.
Acquire paid speaking gigs
This is step four, not step one! Because steps one, two, and three need to be very clear before you can get a PAID speaking gig.
You can either:
- Passively get paid social gigs through social media, blog posts, podcasts, or videos
- Actively by going directly to decision-makers, which is what Brittany recommends!
Waiting and wishing is not a strategy. I’ve had people say, “I’ve got all these things, all these accolades, I’m out there, [but] nobody’s coming to me and booking me as a speaker.” … that’s because we have to do outbound too. We have to go directly to the decision-makers.
Brittany Richmond
However, don’t be in the business of convincing people to pay you. Go to places where they already pay people for speaking, and these can be transformed into long-term relationships, to work on them! It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Start making those connections and building those relationships now with the different organizations that you want to speak at.
Brittany Richmond
Knowing when to scale
Speaking on stage is one medium of delivering your solution:
- Write a book
- Sell e-courses
- Start coaching
- Offer consulting
The market will tell you what your audience needs and likes, so who makes up your market? How do they consume content and what are they willing to pay for?
Mental health is in demand right now. You can use your knowledge, offer skills, and help your audience in whichever way you can.
Sponsors Mentioned in this episode:
- 8 spots for one-on-one consulting with Joe! More time. Clear Vision. Future Planning. Make 2023 the biggest jump yet!
- Learn more about building a thriving private practice with Alma at helloalma.com/joe
Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Visit Brittany’s website and connect on Instagram and LinkedIn.
- Check out practiceofthepractice.com/invite to join Next Level Practice
Check out these additional resources:
- Treating Religious Trauma with Susanna Guarino | POP 892
- Apply to work together
- Events – click on the event’s dropdown
- Sign up to join the free webinars and events here
- Podcast Launch School
- Practice of the Practice Podcast Network
- Free resources to help you start, grow, and scale
- Apply to work with us — a decision-making matrix for your next steps
Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
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