I went from a terrified first-time speaker in 2011 to standing on over 350 stages. I’ve also earned more than half a million dollars in speaking fees and had priceless networking opportunities at these events. With live talks being more lucrative than ever in 2025, how do you build a career around your presentations?
In today’s episode, I share exactly what’s working right now if you want to get paid to speak. I’ll cover landing your first gigs, building relationships with event organizers, and positioning yourself for high-paying opportunities. While I also share tips on crafting great talks, this episode is all about leveling up your income through public speaking!
It’s no secret that people are starved for real connection in the age of AI. If you’re just starting out, tune in to today’s session to begin transforming your expertise into a public speaking business that serves others!
From negotiating your fee to creating a few signature talks, I’ll share the top strategies that have helped me along the way. Don’t miss out on this opportunity that can open doors, grow your authority, and support your freedom!
You’ll Learn
- My journey from terrified newbie to a six-figure speaking career
- Why live events are already booming in the age of AI
- The pros and cons of building a business around speaking
- How to land your first gigs and find more paid opportunities
- Building powerful relationships with event organizers
- Why every great speaker needs a signature presentation
- How to craft a great talk and be remembered on stage
- Figuring out how much to charge and negotiating higher fees
- How speaking can boost your authority and business growth
Resources
- Visit my YouTube channel for more tips on crafting great presentations
- Subscribe to Unstuck—my weekly newsletter on what’s working in business right now, delivered free, straight to your inbox
- Connect with me on X and Instagram
SPI 891: What’s Working as a Paid Speaker Right Now
Pat Flynn: It wasn’t eight hours ago that I just landed back in San Diego, back in my hometown, coming from a speaking event. And all of this stuff is very fresh in my mind right now. Stuff that can help you become a paid speaker and perhaps one day get paid a lot to speak on stage.
I went from a terrified first timer back in 2011 to now having spoke in front of 350 audiences and having earned over a half million dollars in just speaking fees.
So I’m very excited to share a lot of tips with you, and these are gonna be tips that aren’t just like, here’s how you make a great presentation. Actually, that that’s not what this is about. I’ve had a lot of that shared on my YouTube channel already, and I will share some of my top tips, maybe five tips at the end for onstage techniques. But I will be sharing some tips more so with you today about how to get paid at a speaker, how to get started, how to make a great first impression, how to get event planners to call you back, to come back and speak again, and maybe even get paid more. This is so perfect for right now because you know, ever since the sort of COVID situation, everybody was stuck at home.
As live events have come back, they’ve come back strong. Very strong. And even more so now in this world of AiI-ification of everything, AI is not terribly bad. I mean, there are bad parts of it, but it, there’s some good parts of it too. But what it’s doing is it’s desensitizing us to just automation, to the lack of relationships that actually are formed.
So many people are craving hitting up events to meet other people and to hear awesome speakers. And you could be one of those speakers too if you do this right, and by the end of this episode. I’m gonna hopefully have you walk away with a clear roadmap to turn your expertise into some sort of speaking income.
And again, it’s, it’s been 15 years and I know that exactly because the event that I just got back from was FinCon, which originally was known as the Financial Blogger Conference, and it started in 2011. And I’ve told this story before. I’m not gonna tell it in detail now, but I was actually, because the closing keynote speaker had to leave, Philip Taylor, the founder of that event, called me up and asked me to do the closing keynote.
And that was my very first talk in my entire life. And I was absolutely terrified, but I did it because he’s my friend, but I also did it because I knew it’d be great for my career. And it definitely has been, and it’s taught me a lot about getting up on stage in front of people, gaining that confidence.
I still get nervous, but I know how to deal with that nervousness now I know what that means. It means I’m excited for what’s about to happen. It means that there might be something amazing on the other end of that talk. It means new potential opportunities and partnerships. A lot of great opportunities have happened as a result of getting on these stages, but it was a very full circle moment for me.
15 years ago was my very first talk and having the opportunity to get invited back to go to Portland, which is where it was this time, to speak in front of the FinCon audience again, some of those people have been to every single FinCon like JD Roth and a few others. They remembered that talk and they said it’s been pretty incredible to see my journey as a public speaker throughout the years, but it was very special.
I got a little emotional on stage because that. Event in 2011 definitely changed my life, and hopefully speaking can change your life as well. So let’s dive in the speaking landscape today. Let’s talk about it. You know, events, like I said, are back and organizers are hungry for fresh voices. During CVID, we remember there was a lot of virtual stuff happening.
Our kids were on Zoom. We were on Zoom. Events were still being held, but they were held. On Zoom and yeah, there’s an increasing demand now for in-person stuff and in-person speakers, especially great new fresh speakers like yourself. And corporate budgets for events and trainings are definitely recovering and a lot of people are spending money on having great speakers at their events.
So you could do this part-time, you could do it full-time, but I wanna set some expectations. You’re not gonna make a ton of money right away. It takes time. This is a long game, but this is where you win. You have to. Dedicate some time now to improve your craft, to get in front of people, to build relationships, and over time you can begin to start generating revenue.
In the beginning, I did several free talks and we’ll talk about how to do that in, in a moment, but over time I started charging a couple thousand dollars per breakout session, then up to 5,000. I did, I think a, a $10,000 keynote a few years later after that, and the most I’ve ever been paid for a keynote at this point was $50,000.
And you know, we should talk about negotiation and how much you’re worth and the, and the value you have to offer. This couldn’t have happened right away, but I kind of high balled a event organizer and you just accepted at the $50,000 range. So that was a one time thing. Now, on average, I get about 20 5K to 30 K per speaking gig.
There’s a lot to it. There’s a lot of pros. So speaking in a lot of cons, the pros are it’s a very high hourly rate, right? You can earn up to that much for just a one hour talk on stage, or 30 minute keynote or whatever the conference organizer might need. It provides some amazing travel opportunities. If you start to get paid, you can often include travel in that as well, not just for yourself, but.
In many cases for other people around you, your team, maybe even your family. I was invited by Darren Rouse to speak at Pro Blogger when was that? 2016 I believe. And I went to Australia, which is where Darren lived when he was hosting that event. And I just had asked like, Hey, can you pay for my family to come out and join me?
And so we were able to get a free vacation essentially because of it. I get paid to go and do that, which was really cool. And of course, the authority building that can happen. When you are on stages, pretty much unmatched. Of course, you can also record those talks or get the video recordings after. You can make sure you put it in the contracts that you have with these people, or you can have your own videographer there.
Or in the beginning, you might just set up your own phone in the back room or some other camera. You might have to capture that so you can start to build that reputation. Start to share those moments on social media, on short form video, even on long form to again, position yourself as an authority because not everybody’s gonna get.
Up and speak about a topic, but it is those who do, who are more likely to be seen as an expert, right? And in this world, we need to know who the experts are so we can know to learn from them, to take their recommendations and potentially take their offers as well. And that, again, could be an offer from you.
Now, of course, there are a lot of cons. I’d mentioned the high hourly rate, yes, but it’s not just the one hour on stage, there’s travel and the time to do that. And you can experience a lot of travel fatigue. The preparation required could potentially be hours, if not weeks, sometimes even months. The fatigue after you get back and the amount of time that it might take to recover from that travel could eat into potential earnings from other work that you could do.
There are seasonal fluctuations depending on the industry that you’re in. Different events are held at different times and and it could be all stacked or it could be pretty consistent. What’s nice about the entrepreneurial spaces is that’s not as seasonal. There are breaks in the middle of the year for summer and those kinds of things, and it picks up again in September, October.
As of this recording, it’s September 12th. FinCon was September eight to 11. In Portland, which wasn’t too far for me, so that’s good, and I was able to easily recover from it. I’m, I’m back in full motion, just nine hours after landing. And then, like I said, the prep time, it’s, it can be inconsistent income as well, so if you rely on it, you have to get these speaking gigs and that can provide a lot of pressure.
And if you’re not booked, it adds a little bit of anxiety. Right. So if it is in addition to what you’re already doing it, it could be great. But remember, when you say yes to one thing, you’re also saying no to something else. And I will say that in the beginning I did say yes to more, and that was great.
It helped me build my business, helped me build my confidence and authority, and it helped me build relationships. But at the same time, I did say yes more than I should have. It did put a little extra strain. If not, sometimes a lot of extra strain on April. My wife wasn’t there for the kids during those times when I was away, and I learned my lesson very quickly on what my decision to say yes as a speaker meant for April as she was staying home with two young kids.
Now it’s easier now because the kids are a lot older, they’re more independent, they could take themselves to school, all that kind of stuff, and that’s taken years to get to. But in the beginning, I remember I was, I think it was at FinCon, I was. Speaking quite often. This was 2013. I’d come back to FinCon to do the opening keynote at that event a couple years after my first talk, which was really cool.
And I was at this very nice dinner that the speakers went to. I remember taking a photo of my food, ’cause I’m, I’m a foodie, my wife is a foodie as well. I took a photo of this beautiful steak with some green beans and garlic cloves and all this kind of stuff, and she sent me an image back of a half.
Eaten bowl of mac and cheese, and she said that’s what she had for dinner. So I got the message very quickly. So not only did I learn not to share those images with her, but I also learned empathy for my wife as I stepped outta the house and into work mode. And it was tough. You know, I’ll just speak on this a little bit.
I spoke with her years later about this. She said she felt a little trapped because what, what was she gonna say? No, don’t go. No, of course she was gonna support me going, but. I’d be lying if I didn’t say she didn’t feel pressure. An additional kind of just mom work needed and I as a husband should be here to support her, even physically, not just financially.
You know, I, after COVID was faced with a great reset opportunity and so I’d spoken a lot less since then and you know. I do say yes, it was very important that I did speak in the beginning, but I probably did say yes more than I needed to. And I just wanted to publicly share that and own that. And, you know, we’ve talked about it.
We have learned from it, and I’m very grateful for April. And her honesty with me. Yeah, there were certain ones that I shouldn’t have gotten to. They, they were very selfish moments for me. For sure, and I could play that. I’m the business owner, I’m the provider card, and that I feel very, very sorry for, but I’ve learned, and you know, April and I are closer than ever these days.
Alright, all that to say, communicate with those around you because your decision to speak is not just about you, it’s about those people around you as well. So let’s build your foundation for your potential speaking career. And again, if you are already speaking, these might be great reminders or ways to go back to, to the foundational items that maybe you skipped over because you kind of just jumped into it.
And if you’re already doing it. Great. You’re already getting your wheels turning and, and the rust off of, uh, whatever you might have as a onstage creator. But, uh, let’s talk about it. I think the most important thing is to know your worth, right? You wanna be strategic about it. And when, when we say know your worth, that’s a very difficult thing to wrap our head around because.
You might not know how valuable what you have to say. Your stories, your experiences are for others, right? So think about the unique knowledge and experiences that you do have to offer. This will immediately help you cut through the noise when it comes to competition getting on certain stages, right?
Every great speaker also has a signature story, and I didn’t know this early on, but it was very clear soon after I started speaking that. People love to hear my story of how I got laid off, and that was very relatable, especially at those events that I was speaking to, which was Blog World Expo, new media Expo, internet marketing events, traffic and Conversion Summit, and of course FinCon, which was for bloggers as well.
And talking about what it was like to get started in, in the messy parts of that and how I was able to come outta that very successful. So that became my signature story. And this is important not just for physical stages, it’s imperative for physical stages, but your. Digital stages as well, the podcasts that you are on when you’re a guest on another person’s YouTube channel.
Uh, having a signature story is great. Now, one thing that I remember is when I first started diving into the world of speaking and I hired a coach, shout out to Mike Paccione, who was my speaker coach back in 2013, when I really wanted to dive in and take this seriously. I didn’t know. That you could have just like one or two talks that you do over and over and over again, versus every new opportunity on a new stage should be a new talk.
That’s what I thought. And so it wasn’t until I had created at least seven or eight, it might even have been 10 or or 11 unique talks that were custom tailored to those audiences because I didn’t think, I was like, oh, well I’ve already done this one. I don’t wanna reuse it. I feel bad reusing it. No. Once I learned, I eventually landed on a few talks that became my signature talks, ones that I ended up packaging and selling, showing clips for, showing audience reactions for on, you know, speaker reels on my website.
Having other event directors kind of recommend me on my behalf for those specific talks, one of them being superfans, how to convert your Casual Audience into Raving Superfans. And that talk had been done. I’ve done that talk over 25 different times and, and have been paid for it over 25 different times, and, uh, it eventually became.
The book, uh, which was really cool and, and very easy to do, relatively speaking, especially compared to lean learning. My latest book, because it was already outlined, I already knew the stories to tell. I I just needed to turn them into book mode. Anyway, find your signature story. You should have one. You should land on one, and hopefully that becomes one that you can reuse and refine again and again and again.
It just gets better and better. You can charge more and more over time. All that kind of stuff. And, uh, finally you wanna make sure you’re speaking topic, whatever it might be, aligns with your business expertise. Some signs and signals from things you might already be doing. Could be. Any conversations or information that you’ve shared already online that has gained some reaction, you could find out what those topics are on social media and see who likes or shares or who.
Just comments on those more. Those are great signals. Again, this is for you. If you’re just starting out to dive deeper, you might be able to experiment on live streams and tell some of these stories and get some practice in live. Streaming is an amazing strategy for just practicing your public speaking.
I went live. Every day for an entire year during COVID, and I gotta say, that was the most I’ve ever improved in the shortest period of time as a speaker, right? If you are a speaker and you are like, okay, speaking, once a month, you only have 12 opportunities to get better. Whereas if you go live, and it doesn’t have to be as polished, you don’t need slides every time.
You just tell stories and get better at storytelling. Uh, you have 365 chances if you practice that every day to get better and to learn, and to also get 365 points of data on which stories made the biggest difference or the biggest impact. Anyway, these are just tactics and tips to help you if you are getting started from scratch.
Now, when you are starting, free gigs are really important. Speaking for free is how you get your name out there. It’s similar to a musician who is on a street corner and playing their songs, hoping people will come by. Now, of course, you don’t just wanna speak in a random corner of the street, although.
That’s an interesting idea in fact, but there are a lot of events or workshops and other niche related opportunities that you might have available to you even locally to practice and to do it for free. A lot of event organizers and. And creators would be happy to have you come and speak for free. And the benefit to you is you get practice, you get a force function to come up with a talk and and you get to see the reaction of it.
You get to test it and get through those messy first moments without really worrying too much about, well, I got paid this much, so I gotta make sure I deliver. No, it was free. I mean, of course you still wanna deliver value. Where I would focus when it comes to those opportunities, those free opportunities.
Are relationships you already have. So I hope, please, I hope that you are already going out there into your market, your niche, your industry, and learning about who is there and building relationships with them. Who, who is there that’s hosting events. I wouldn’t have gotten on stage at FinCon in 2011 if it wasn’t for the relationship that I already had with Philip Taylor, PT money.
Who was creating this event called FinCon and now, 15 years later, really proud of him. Uh, go to industry meetups and go there as an attendee. That’s how I’ve landed a lot of talks by first going as an attendee, learning about who’s there and trying to meet the other speakers so I can get an in as well, or just find out who.
Is on staff and who the decision makers are, and the more that I can interweave myself as an attendee, the more likely I can then come in with some additional value. Now that I know who this audience is, now that I have seen the caliber of speakers and the kinds of topics they talk about, here’s what I can now bring to the table.
I know this as an event organizer myself. I host an event called Card Party, and it’s not the same as these industry events where there are speakers, but we do have creators who come, who come up and want to be on a panel and, and do talk about industry related things. So yeah, it is an event like that. It just happens to also have a buy sell trade kind of expo floor and all these other Pokemon and and activity related things, card scavenger hunts, artists alleys and, and all those kinds of things.
But as an event organizer, I can say that I am more likely to choose. Creators to come up on stage and be on the website and be a featured creator. If I already have a relationship with them, that, and if somebody who is already on my list makes a recommendation for me. It’s very difficult to sort of come in cold and say, Hey, this is me.
Look at me ’cause I don’t know who you are. And oftentimes my recommendation for people who do approach me, there was a Pokemon creator named Pokey Beard, B-E-A-R-D. ’cause he has a awesome looking beard. And he reached out to me a couple years ago. He’s like, pat, how can I get involved? I’d love to be a featured creator.
And I said, I, I don’t even know you, but I would love for you to come to Card Party and see and experience the event for yourself and see what you could do to provide value there. And then we can talk. And he did exactly that. He came to the event, he made sure to say hi to me to help me remember who he was.
And he didn’t ask me to do anything. He just was like, Hey, I’m here and I really wanna provide value here. Here’s the kinds of things I’ve done. He did some giveaways while he was there on his own. He shared a lot of videos on his Instagram that got some good eyeballs on it. And you know, the next year, guess what?
This year. He’s coming in as a featured creator. And uh, actually last year he did the same thing. So I, I was able to quickly understand who this person was and he did it the right way. And a lot of people, it’s funny ’cause I get a lot of people who after my event, kind of don’t even reach out, but they complain publicly and they say, oh, I didn’t get the invite from Pat.
Like, he doesn’t care about the creators. And I’m like, how am I supposed so supposed to even know who you are? I didn’t even know you existed yet. Is it my job to hold everybody’s hand in this space and kind of give them a silver platter? No. My job is to provide the best experience possible, and the way that I know how to do that is through people who I know already.
So let’s get to know each other first, and of course, it’s a great first impression. I’m being sarcastic here when a person who doesn’t know me starts to complain about me. Good luck on your chances. It’s all about relationships. Read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Rant over.
So to speak for free. There’s a lot of local business groups that you might have as well. Rotary Clubs, chamber of Commerce, go to industry meetups, corporate lunches and learns. You can, you can do it that way too. Nonprofit events, and yes, virtual summits can help if there are industry events that are online and you can’t travel there.
That’s great. That’s fantastic. A good, again, a great way to build a relationship with somebody before they. Or somebody in the audience has a in-person event. But yeah, that’s how you kind of find those events that you could speak for free app, and then you have to sell yourself. You have to sell yourself on the value that you have to offer.
Not, Hey, look at me. I’m the speaker. I’ve gone and done these things. I think you’d love me. Versus, Hey, I’ve noticed this about your event. You’ve had these speakers and you’re missing this stuff that I have expertise, and I’d love to come in and provide value to your audience. It’s just like landing a podcast interview.
Relationships first, and then make sure that you know who those audience members are, and of course, what is a value to the conference and the conference director, and kind of work backwards from there. All right? A lot of these event coordinators as well, when you go to these events. They all know each other, right?
I know some of them have masterminds with each other and they share who is great at their events with each other. And I remember in 2015 when I was kind of in the middle of, of my speaking circuit, I said to myself, you know what? When I go to these events, I wanna be the most memorable speaker I want.
When people get the survey who are attending that event, and that survey asks who? We’re your favorite speakers. I wanna be number one on that list. That’s how I approached my speaking. And so when I got up on stage, I wanted to be memorable. I wanted to deliver value on stage and create moments that were relatable and and interesting for the audience members there.
But in addition to that, I also wanted to be involved with the audience. I didn’t just come and speak and leave. That says a lot about you when you do that. Now, there are some people who can’t help that because they have another speaking gig tomorrow and they have to travel out. But. I took a little bit of extra time to be a part of that audience to go to the networking events.
Even though I was a speaker, I would go and do the things that the audience members were doing too. I’d walk the floor, I’d meet a lot of the other people who were in the expo hall with their own businesses and had their, you know, little sponsor booths. I met those people too. I spoke to audience members.
I did what I can or could to get interested in what they had and to understand more about what they needed help with. In fact. That was a huge value add for me as a speaker to not just get invited to these events to talk, whether it was free or then later paid, but to go and actually have a direct connection, real relationships and conversations with that target audience who aligned with my target audience.
I could get to know them a little bit better, and some of those people have eventually created their own events and then invited me, and were quick to do that, right? So again, relationships. Relationships, relationships. Understanding who the event organizers were at these events was important to you. So I could meet them and do similar to what Pokey Beard did, uh, for me with Card party and just kind of.
Introduce themselves, get to know each other. Now, I did a few other strategic things as a speaker that I did that maybe not a lot of people talk about. But you know, I would, after my talks, I would position myself in spaces where I knew the staff would be to then talk to the people who wanted to talk to me after.
I wouldn’t just do it on the side of the stage. I would go to where maybe the registration table was or where a lot of people could see it provided a little bit of a, just not a spectacle. It just showed the the people who I wanted to see that I was still there, that I was communicating with the audience, that I was doing what I could to help make sure their audience had a great time, that I could be a part of the team, even though I wasn’t in a sense, and I did this even recently.
As a Pokemon creator, I was invited to Worlds in Anaheim and I didn’t have an official meet and greet or anything like that. I wasn’t an official partner, but I had come because they know who I am and they wanted me to kind of enjoy the experience, which was really kind of Pokemon. And one day I. I think it was the last day of the event, I started a little impromptu meet and greet line.
I do get recognized quite a bit at these events and sign a lot of autographs, so I positioned myself in front of where the staff offices were down the escalator. If anybody on the staff had to come down and leave, they were going to see me. And there was this giant line of people who were there and I was just signing autographs for about three hours.
And it worked. People on the Pokemon staff noticed and sent me emails and thanked me for that. They also said that, Hey, next time we’ll make sure to get you an official meet and greet. So it’s organized a little bit better. And not only that, the other people who were there also saw that I was there doing that and I saw a lot of comments from people saying like, look at this guy, pat.
He’s working overtime and he’s not even getting paid for this. And I, I wasn’t. But I also know that this was of value to that audience and the Pokemon company to provide a better experience there for them. And so again, I just, I know what works in these realms and I can bring it to different niches. And I wanted to pass on this kind of thing to you.
A lot of people ask whether you need like a speaking kit or a speaker reel or anything like that. Yes, those things do work. A lot of speaker decision makers want to just ensure that you’re gonna be good on stage or at least decent, right? So having some sort of page on your website and or a PDF file pages always work really well.
You can also benefit from a little search engine optimization for that, but when people come to your website, oftentimes it’s because they wanna learn more about you. And if they’re speaker decision makers. They’re gonna want to see you. So some sort of video, or at least testimonials from conference directors or event organizers that you’ve worked with before, that could be great.
And again, the whole purpose there is just to make sure that I am confident that this person who I’m hiring or who I’m inviting to this event to speak for free isn’t going to bomb. Now, of course, speaking is very nerve wracking. I’m not gonna get into the, again, the art of speaking. I do have some tips here more toward the end, but let’s talk about making the transition from free.
To paid, right? Most speakers start at around a thousand to $3,000 range, right? If you’re gonna command some sense of, or some number of minutes on stage, you know, 1000 to $3,000 is where most speakers start. Now, there’s a lot of different factors that are involved with that fee. There’s travel requirements, there’s the audience size at that event.
The event prestige and how long it’s been around, of course, their budget, your expertise level, how often you’ve spoken market demand for what you have to speak about and to land your first paid speaking gig. The easiest thing to do is to speak again at a place that you’ve already spoken at. This time ask for a fee.
You can just position it. As you know, I’ve been speaking a lot more since then. I have now started to charge for my work, and I appreciate having the opportunity to speak for free last year or the last time. I’d love to come up and deliver even more value. Here’s my current fee for what I speak about, and I’d be happy to deliver even more value and come back again.
Promote the event. All that kind of stuff can help with that decision, and then you can negotiate from there. Every event organizer is different. Every person you know has a different. Thought for who they want to speak at their event. And so it’s important to, again, utilize those relationships that you have.
Ask past organizers for referrals. You know, connect with them on LinkedIn. Perhaps you could potentially, yes, one day get on a speaker’s bureau, right? But there’s a lot of pros and cons to that. There’s the sharing of the revenue with them, but they’re also booking it for you. But then you are already busy and you want somebody to do that for you.
It could be somebody on your team who, who does it on your behalf. I know Jess, my. Business manager on my end, former executive assistant, but we call her her, my business manager now. She does a lot of those negotiations for me now because she understands who would be a good fit and, and not. I think it’s important.
Also, before you just dive into, I wanna speak at this event again. If you can show interest in what would be of value to them, they’re gonna show more interest in you bringing that value to them. So ask questions. For the client. Your client is the event and the event organizer, right? You can customize your pitch to them specifically.
Even though you might have a signature talk, you can fine tune it and tailor it to that particular audience. And the fortune is in the follow up. Follow up when you ask. If you don’t get a response, try again. A lot of times event organizers with especially cold outreach, they won’t even look at you if you don’t follow up because they wanna see that this stuff actually is important to you and that.
Their event matters to you. So follow up. Don’t be annoying though. Use common sense and if at all possible, have them make the first offer. This is always, this is just negotiation 1 0 1. You don’t wanna be the first to, to make an offer. It’s not always possible. And again, it’s just negotiation. We’re not gonna get into these strategies there, but focus on outcomes for your audience and for them, not just like.
How much time you’re gonna be on stage. But if you can position yourself as somebody who will also be there for more of the event, to participate in certain things in the networking, to be there in the hallways and meet people and, and go to the dinners or whatever it might be. And then of course you can create package deals for travel, your travel, multiple sessions, maybe you do a breakout and a keynote, a workshop.
A q and a is very, very easy for some people to do where you just have to show up and then it’s q and a. A lot of people do that. Then scaling after maybe 10 to 15 paid speaking gigs or strong demand, increasing your price accordingly. You know, you need to ask what justifies, you know, a 10 K speaking fee, right?
This is more of a keynote. This is more of a, you’re actually bringing in customers at that point. If your name or your expertise is actually known in the industry, in, in the niche that you’re in, because you’ve built a little bit of a platform for yourself, which is. Again, the benefit of building a following and, and building super fans, you’re able to then command more of a fee because not only will you be there to deliver value to the audience that’s there, but you’re going to help bring more audience to the event, right?
That’s of value. And you can justify out a price by having your name as the headliner if you do come with that authority, which again, can’t happen immediately from the start. Over the years, I’ve been thinking about like where most of my revenues come from and it’s come from mostly just repeat talks.
There have been a few conferences that have paid me. I’m not gonna mention any names of conferences. Some of you know which ones I’ve been to. FinCon, obviously you know about, ’cause I spoke about it already. But this past deal we did was a, as Rory Vaden, who you might know, he is a very popular recent guest here on the podcast.
He helps people sell books and he taught me about bils. Books in lieu of fee, B-I-L-F-S or bis, plural, books in lieu of fee. So for FinCon, I didn’t have my normal speaking fee. I asked them to purchase a certain number of books and they did. And that helped me with selling book versions of my book for the New York Times list and all that kind of stuff.
So that was really cool. And so again, a big thank you to FinCon for helping and being a part of that book launch. Going back to the same clients over and over again is, it’s easy and you can kind of. Over the years justify the increase because you’ve spoken more, because you’ve gotten better because your platform has grown.
All those kinds of things, right? Your happy clients. Also become your best salespeople. So whatever you can do to make the event better, that is directly a result of you being there. Whether it’s your time on stage, whether it’s the moments you spend with the audience, maybe going above and beyond in some way, shape, or form those clients notice, right?
Those event organizers notice, and like I said earlier, they talk to each other. Connect with organizers and key attendees if there are other speakers there. This is another benefit of being a speaker. You get access to what’s called the green room. This is the room where speakers sort of hang out before the talks and you know, just to kind of escape the the crowds for a little bit.
You can meet a lot of amazing people in there. Potential partners. I’ve met best friends. In the green rooms because we were both kind of on the speaker list for that event and got to know each other there. There’s oftentimes event organizers will throw like special speaker dinners. Go to those. Those are the most valuable moments.
Not just you on stage, but you before the event or after the event or after the first night where whenever it might be, go to the speaker dinner because that networking is priceless. And very, very rarely will you get a chance to have that many amazing people who you know are amazing because they were invited to speak at this event in one room together.
Along the same lines, after you speak at these events, follow up. Share your appreciation for coming and of course if they paid and there was travel, like definitely thank them for that. And then also make sure that you want to speak and they know that you want to speak the next time. I had such a great time.
I’d love to come and provide value to your next event as well, whether it’s next year. If you have another event, please keep me in mind. I’d be more than happy to to come back. That’s all you need to say again. Yes. It’s sort of the formalities of this. But again, not everybody who speaks is going to do that.
And the ones who do are the ones who get remembered. Those are the ones who when another event organizer asks like, Hey, who do you remember who was great at your event? I wanna expand my speaker list this year at mine. Oh, it was Pat? Yeah, because I followed up because I made sure to build a real relationship because I worked a little bit harder than others to make a lasting impression.
Right. Repeat business is gonna be great. And that’s where you can like now. I don’t normally do a lot of new talks. I do a lot of the same ones. I’ve spoken at Social Media Marketing World every single year, you know, those kinds of things. They’re, they’re just not now built in. And I get asked every single year because we have been on that cadence.
Let’s see what else to do. Just kind of set yourself up for success at these events. Get to know who the sound crew is. If, if you have a rehearsal, great. Give a little gift to the sound people, you know, the technicians, if you have something. Small, even you, you don’t have to buy ’em anything crazy or, or even just a card that makes a very lasting impression.
And we’ll make sure that they want to go above and beyond to make sure you sound good and you look good. Make sure these are just kind of a, a bunch of tips here at the end to help you. If you are getting introduced by somebody, oftentimes it’s not even the event organizer that’s even on stage. It’s some mc and an mc may be the person who introduces.
You get to know them a little bit beforehand. I always do this. I want to build a quick relationship with them. I wanna have them make sure that they know. More about me and ask them like, Hey, how are you gonna set me up there? I wanna make sure that you have the right notes. Oftentimes, right before, maybe an hour or two before, during rehearsal, I speak to that person and I say, oh, you should mention this because this pertains to the audience and you didn’t have it in your notes.
It can go a very long way. And it like, that’s the first impression of you. It’s not even you, it’s, it’s that person. Right? So that’s really important. Start your talks with a story this immediately. Helps the audience sort of relax a little bit and kind of dive into some scenario that you’re speaking about is where you can bring relatability.
And you’ve heard me say this time and time again, and I’m gonna say this every single time I can, it’s story. Story is where the magic happens, and you might have this expertise or these experiences and misinformation. But a lot of people can get that same information elsewhere, but they’re not gonna get it from you, and they’re gonna remember you if you tell a relatable story.
So work on that story. The first words that come out of your mouth, what are you gonna say? Don’t thank the person who introduced you. Don’t thank people for being there. They know that you’re thankful for that. Dive right in. Help them go from, I wonder if this person’s gonna be good, or, oh, I don’t even know who this person is to the story.
If you can get your audience to participate, that’s always great. I always try to inject some sort of audience participation because it was FinCon and I was there for the 15th year anniversary. You know, there were a lot of people who were at FinCon for the first time, so I thought that was kind of cool that there were first timers there, and this was like the 15th year.
So early on I asked the audience, who is a first timer here at FinCon, and everybody who was a first timer raised their hands. I said, okay, keep your hands up if you are not a first timer. High five, somebody who has their hands up, boom, boom. Everybody’s high fiving each other, and that was just a great way to sort of.
Mark the importance of community at this event, which is exactly the point of my story was the community and my talk, uh, the community of FinCon, the community of Pokemon, and how we’re in this together. So that was cool. Again, there are a lot of tips and strategies I have for making a great talk and making a great impression on stage.
You can find ’em on my YouTube channel, Pat Flynn on YouTube. The last thing is don’t forget to give them a clear call to action. Could be. Something specific, like signing up for something you have gotten their attention for so long and you wanna make sure that you can utilize that attention and continue that conversation later.
But more than that, make the talk that you do. Kind of zoom out a little bit. You do the same thing with these books at the end of books that you write. It’s not just like, Hey, the book’s done. It’s like, what can you now do with this information? How can you now take this home with you? Give call to actions around that?
That is what makes this now takes all of this stuff, the story, the information that you share. The moments on stage, the jokes, et cetera. That’s what brings it back to, here’s now how this relates back to you. So don’t forget to do that. I see a lot of creators and speakers, especially first timers, who forget to do that at the end.
It’s a perfect way to end because it kind of ties everything together. And it’s that lasting impression that you make before you leave the stage and then afterwards do what you can to give yourself some buffer of time to speak with people in the hallway afterwards and kind of create that scene so that people know that you are still there for them and that, you know, just that connection is really key.
And it’s great for the event organizers to see as well. I hope this was helpful for you, kind of a brain dump of what’s working right now. Speaking is a huge opportunity and there are so many amazing things that can happen as a result of it, but you kind of have to get outta your comfort zone for sure, especially if you’re an introvert like me, and I don’t, and I don’t think I’ll ever will get rid of that nervousness that happens, but I’ve learned to change my thoughts about it and.
My thoughts about it are, it’s just a sign that I’m excited that I care about this, that I’m going to do the work required to make sure that it’s the best talk possible, and I make the best lasting impression, and I help that audience and that event organizer the most in the best way possible that I can.
That’s all that that nervousness means. I find that if I’m not nervous, that’s when I’m actually most nervous, if that makes sense. That’s what I’m gonna be most worried, because I feel maybe I’m. Too confident or I’m too complacent and I don’t care. No, I’m nervous because I care and so are you. So care. Go out there.
Make it happen because the world needs to hear your voice and they don’t wanna just get the same information that they can get on a ChatGPT prompt. They want you, your stories, your excellence up there on stage, and the stories that can relate to them. Good luck wishing you all the best. Make sure you subscribe because we got a lot more stuff coming your way that’s gonna help you in your career and in your path to success right now.
Cheers. Thanks so much.