Earning Money as an “Expert Who Speaks”

By Janet Switzer (Guest blogger)

How would you like to travel to the world's most exciting places, help others with business advice and personal development, earn thousands per day selling your services, and hear the applause of a crowd sitting on the edge of their seats?

If your answer is "Yes!" you should consider adding professional speaking to your medical writing business.

How to Market Yourself as an International Expert Who Speaks

On any given day, thousands of conferences, workshops, meetings and other training events take place -- most of which need experts to deliver information the group can use. There are a number of different types of individuals and groups which hire speakers:

• Independent Meeting Planners are hired by companies to organize events including conventions, trade shows, workshops and conferences. They are also responsible for hiring the speakers for those events. Corporate meeting planners, on the other hand, are employees of a company who've been given the job of putting together the annual sales meeting, executive retreat or other event.

• Trade associations also hire speakers. They hold annual conferences and training events and want to bring good, solid information to their members in order to provide value for the association dues members pay every year. Trade associations look not only for high-profile motivational speakers, but also for experts who speak on their subject matter.

• Non-profit organizations, educator's organizations and charities also conduct a lot of training, hold conferences and have a need for speakers.

• One of the biggest buyers of speaker's services are network marketing and direct sales organizations -- not only the parent companies, but also individual "leaders" with large downlines of distributors or direct sellers.

• Other trainers, training companies and seminar promoters can also be customers for your speaking and training services, especially if you can deliver expertise they’re not able to provide.

Two Ways to Get Paid Speaking…

There are two ways to get paid when you speak -- either by being paid a fee to deliver a speech or by speaking for free in order to sell products at the back of the room. Typically, fee-based engagements require a lot of outbound telemarketing -- either by you or by your commissioned salesperson, which may include any speaker's bureaus that represent you. Speaking for free, on the other hand, makes "getting hired" much easier because you simply need to offer your services by phone -- or perhaps via a short written proposal letter -- to the person or organization holding the event.

If you're willing to speak for free or for low fees, a resource called www.SpeakerMatch.com can help connect you with hundreds of companies and organizations who are holding meetings and looking for speakers. You get to communicate directly with the person doing the hiring, so it's a lot easier to provide the organization exactly what it wants or needs.

There's no dishonor in speaking for free, by the way. This is particularly true if you can speak at a trade association meeting where everyone sitting in the audience represents a company who could buy your information product or pay for your advice.


Janet Switzer is the marketing strategist behind some of the best known celebrity authors in the world: Jack Canfield of The Secret and Chicken Soup for the Soul, One Minute Millionaire author Mark Victor Hansen, personal finance guru David Bach, motivational speaker Les Brown and others. Subscribe to her FREE series of info-marketing special reports here.