How to Find Paid Public Speaking Jobs
Helping you start your motivational speaking business and training you to make more money in your motivational speaking career is what I want to do. A question I get all the time is, “James, how do I get paid public speaking jobs?” To find these jobs you just need to know where to look, because these jobs are out there. A few ideas are:
1) Start by looking for organizations that serve the niche you’re in. An example: in my niche I’d look at DECA marketing organizations such as FCCLA. Take a look at investor associations, the national board of realtors or even local community associations if you’re in the real estate industry.
2) Research public speaking jobs in related associations within your niche. Don’t be afraid to network yourself and get the contact information of the conference coordinator even if you weren’t hired as their keynote speaker.
3) Creating a database of potential clients who may be searching for conference speakers in the future can help increase your professional speaking success. You can do this by contacting universities, colleges and professors. Be sure to also try and contact your local speakers bureaus, non-profit organizations, corporations and even libraries.
4) Before starting a public speaking business, you should check the speaker forums for jobs. To help build your credibility as an expert in your niche you may have to take some unpaid jobs. Always remember that the goal is to go higher and higher and not settle on working for free.
5) You’ll develop a system to keep track of all the places you’ll market yourself to as you figure out how to get books for professional speaking. To provide contact information for organizations and conferences that are hiring motivational speakers the internet is going to be very helpful. You can get a large listing to work with just by searching for “calls for speakers” or “speakers wanted”.
6) In order to find all the paying markets in your particular area of expertise you can use directories. Do try to remember however that no directory is complete, but it will help provide enough contact to keep your business up and running. The three main directories that are helpful when trying to do research: The National Trade and Professional Associations Directory, The Directory of Association Meeting Planners and the Directory of Corporate Meeting Planners. They’ll make researching your niche easier than ever however these directories do cost a bit to acquire.
7) The last source of potential paid public speaking jobs are referrals. As you build up a network of peers and clients in your niche market, referrals will help bring your name to the forefront when conference planners are looking to hire. One thing I know is that the person who markets first to the conference planner when they are ready to hire will get the job. Your job is to be there first!
And one last thing. Remember that you will always be able to find people who are willing to pay you to speak. With this number of resources you’ll be able to start researching your niche market much easier. Don’t be afraid to go after the big money, once you’ve got a few gigs under your belt that is!
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