A friend sent this funny video dispelling the myths of motivational speakers.  It has a good time poking fun at the occupational hazards of the job.  But let me take the idea here one step further.  There is no such thing as the job category, “Motivational Speaker.”  At least, there shouldn’t be, and you shouldn’t think of yourself as one, or even aspire to become one. 

Why, you say?  What’s wrong with wanting to become a motivational speaker?  Don’t they make tons of money?  Travel the world?  Get to stay in swanky hotels and meet interesting people? 

No, no, no.  That’s the wrong way to think about it.  Speaking is not a profession.  It’s an activity.  It’s a way to communicate your passion about a subject upon which you’re expert. 

I put it this way, because the passion has to come first.  The reason people will hire you to speak, and pay you lots of money, if you’re very, very good, and very, very well known, and send you around the world, and put you up in swanky hotels, is that you have something unique to say.  Something absolutely fascinating.  Something that no one else can put quite the way you can – and that propels audiences to do something different as a result. 

Maybe you can show people how to reach goals they think are impossible.  Maybe you can explain how the new economy works better than anyone else, guiding companies to succeed with innovative products and services.  Maybe you understand creativity and can share that understanding with teams, helping them become less stuck. 

So begin with the idea, the passion, the craft, the expertise.  Then write your book, give your free speeches, create your community, launch your blog, and create your platform of fans and fellow believers.  Once you’ve got all that down, the invitations to speak for money will come, and so will the rest of it.  But speaking itself is not a profession.  Yes, it’s a craft.  Yes, it’s hard to do well.  Yes, you can always learn to get better at it.  But focus on the passion that got you there and keep that alive, and you will indeed be a motivational speaker, not to mention colleague, worker, expert, thinker, writer, and friend. 

 

For my blog today, I'm pointing to a new eBook, How to Craft Your Elevator Speech, I've just written on those brief forms of business haiku known as elevator speeches or pitches -- why you need one -- or two, what they're for, how to create a good one, and some good and bad examples.  Here's the link -- at 99 cents, it's almost free!  Enjoy.

If a women dresses in masculine clothes, she’s more likely to be hired.  A teaching assistant who dresses up will be taken more seriously than one who dresses down.  The clothes make the woman and the man.  We’ve known these things intuitively for a long time, and studies have proved them.  Now there’s a study that suggests that what we wear affects our own internal thought processes. 

According to researchers Adam and Galinsky from Northwestern University, subjects who put on a doctor’s white lab coat thought more clearly and had better sustained attention than those who did not – and even than those who looked at a lab coat before taking a series of tests.  So putting on a lab coat makes you smarter.

That raises the question.  Does dressing well make it possible for you to give a better speech?

Anecdotally, we know this to be true.   No doubt people have told you for years to ‘dress for success’.  You naturally dress in your best for a job interview, or an important meeting.  It makes you feel better, and it’s a signal to others that you are taking the event seriously. 

We always tell clients to buy a suit or a dress that makes them feel like a million bucks when they’re giving an important speech.  If you feel great, you stand in a way that telegraphs that feeling.  And the audience picks that feeling up.  The audience gets your confidence.  You give a better speech, and the audience has a better experience. 

But now we have reason to suspect that, if dressing in a white lab coat makes you smarter, other high-status clothing choices will have a similar effect.  That’s something to think about when you get ready to give that important talk.  Are you dressed for success?  Are you dressed to get the most out of your brain? 

Authenticity is hard because it is hard to be open and honest about ourselves, warts and all.

Authenticity is hard because sometimes we want to hide our own less-than-perfect traits from ourselves.

Authenticity is hard because other people may seize on our weaknesses as proof of our unworthiness, rather than our humanity.

Authenticity is hard because we think what makes us human is our uniqueness, but it’s really our commonalities. 

Authenticity is hard because we can lose track of our essence in daily compromises, accommodations, and dealings. 

Authenticity is hard because most of us are growing into ourselves.

Authenticity is hard because we think it’s all about being, but it’s really all about doing. 

Authenticity is essential because it’s the only way to do good work.

Authenticity is essential because our children need to learn it from us.

Authenticity is essential because without it there is no core.

Authenticity is essential because if we open up about our weaknesses other people won’t bother. 

Authenticity is essential because it’s how we grow into ourselves

Authenticity is essential because otherwise we’ll compromise once too often and lose our way for good. 

Authenticity is essential because life is too short for anything else.

We expect a lot of speakers and presenters.  We want them to be witty, wise, and gnomic.  We want them to give us insights we’ve never had before.  We want them to change the world.  We expect a lot. 

But what about the audiences these speakers work so hard to please? Do we have the right to expect anything of them?

I think the answer is yes, and I think there are 3 ways in particular that audiences fall down.

“Just Give Me the Highlights.” 

I've all too often seen (especially) executives – but also conference organizers – ask hapless presenters, "We're running out of time; can you just give us the highlights?"  The busy executives use this as a deliberate technique to save them time and see how the presenters respond under pressure.  But this technique pushes the presenters into sloppy speaking as they rush to get as much as possible in the time left.  Besides that, it's rude.  The result is imprecision, confusion, omissions, bad feeling and more time wasted in the long run.  It will take 30 emails at least to straighten out the confusion created by one rushed presentation, you can be sure. 

“I'll Multitask While You Talk.” 

If we're going to go to all the trouble, expense, and time to get together, you should give the speakers your undivided attention.  Multitasking is for low-involvement, relatively unimportant tasks.  All the studies show that the more tasks you undertake simultaneously, the slower and more inattentively you do them.  Put away that iPhone or iPad or Android phone or Blackberry!  Pay attention if you've decided to be there in the first place. 

“I'll Come Early and Leave Late.” 

Both speakers and audiences owe each other the courtesy of showing up on time, starting on time, and ending on time.  Anything less is rude and disrespectful to those who do have watches.  That said, the speakers and conference designers must create moments, speeches, and conferences worth attending all the way through.  All too often, conference planners just fill in the time slots in the way they always have.  A conference should tell a coherent story, without filler, from start to finish.  It's not a series of time slots. You owe it to the audience to create something memorable.  And the audience owes it to you to show up on time and stay to the end. 

I think that audiences owe speakers the courtesy of paying attention politely for as long as the speakers hold their attention.  After that, audiences should still be polite.  What do you think? 

A number of readers have asked me to talk about iPad/iPhone apps for speakers, especially since I recommended giving that special speaker in your life an iPad as a present this holiday season.  So here goes – the iPad and its apps for speakers.

First let me say that I love the iPad for presenting.  Not every conference is ready for them – I just spoke at the PCMA conference in San Diego, and the organizers there wanted a DVD for my video clips (or embedded Power Point).  Because they were controlling the show, using their own computers, they didn’t want me just plugging in to their system.  So you won’t be able to use it everywhere.  But where you can, it’s great – light, fast, easy to use, and relatively crash-free.  I haven't myself tried to run an entire presentation off an iPhone or one of the others.  Have you?  I use video in my presentations, and I don't have enough room to store them on my iPhone, so I haven't gone that route.  But maybe you have and you've got good & bad stories to share. 

So how about those apps?  I’m an app junkie; I have over a hundred on my iPad, and I’m always swapping them out for shiny new ones when they come along.  But currently here’s what I’ve got in play.  Caveat:  Apps change daily.  This is not a list for all time or even an exhaustive one right now.  It’s just what is working for me right now. 

Pages, Keynote, Print Central

These are the basics from Apple.  Pages provides word processing for writing out notes, speeches, ideas, and so on.  Keynote allows you to create slides.  And Print Central lets you print stuff out that you can’t keep virtual. 

Office HD

This app is one of those combo apps that allows you to read or create a word processing file, or a slide deck, or a spreadsheet.  I like it because it is easy to use and saves you real estate on your iPad. 

Noteshelf

I love this note-taking app because you can hook it up to the projector and write in real time.  Voila – instant white board.  It’s great for capturing audience feedback, ideas, and so on in a way that’s visible to the entire audience (assuming you have those giant screens on either side of the stage). 

Goodreader

I looked long and hard for this app and tried a bunch of others before I settled on Goodreader.  Basically, it’s a way to store files on your iPad.  What’s the big deal?  You can easily store video, pdfs, slides, etc – and then play or view them with a click or two.  With the right adaptor, you’re set to play video clips with the least muss and fuss I’ve found so far.  And it’s real easy to move video files from computer to iPad with a drag and drop when your iPad is syncing. 

Evernote

I use Evernote on my computer, my iPhone, and my iPad.  It’s the single best note management system I’ve found.  You can take pictures, notes – information in any form – and store it for future use in a presentation or simply in your preparation for a presentation.  I use it to store ideas I run across – to ‘remember everything’ as the advert says. 

Dropbox

Great for moving large files around. And storing them in the cloud.  I’m sure this one is familiar to just about everyone. 

Presentation Clock

A giant timer, plain and simple.  Useful for making sure you don’t run over your time.

Prompster Pro

There are a number of teleprompter apps.  This is the one I’ve looked at most recently.  At $10, it’s a bit on the pricey side, but it seems to have all you need.

OK, so what apps do you love and find essential for public speaking?  The app world is constantly changing and new apps come out daily.  I don’t pretend to know all of them.  Please weigh in with your finds, and I’ll update this blog every now and then with new apps speakers can’t live without. 

And one final question.  Have you run a presentation off a smart phone?  If so, have you tried Apple's Remote app, and did it work for you? 

To kick 2012 off to a good start, public speakers need to take stock just like everyone else.  Following are my top New Year’s resolutions for speakers.  What have you vowed to change this year?  Share them in the comments.

1.  Resolve to use more video. 

This is the year to lose the Power Point, the clip art, the photos of your dog, and the cheesy jokes.  Get some high quality video clips to help tell your story.  With good video, you can bring the rest of the world (and recent history) into your speech and galvanize the audience.

2.  Resolve to stop the throat clearing.

Most speakers begin their speeches with nervous chatter thanking the group that invited them, telling the audience how glad they are to have sat in a cramped, grubby airplane seat for hours and slept in a strange bed in order to be with them in Anywhere, Planet Earth.  That’s throat clearing and it means you’re stalling for time.  Give the audience what it wants – start with a bang.  Start with something they’ve never heard before.  Tell them a story, a startling stat, ask them a question – whatever.  Just get going with something attention-grabbing. 

3.  Resolve to stop dumping data on the audience. 

Too many speakers think that giving a speech means telling the audience everything they know about the topic in question.  After all, the speaker was invited to regale the audience with his or her expertise, right?  Wrong.  The speaker was invited in to take the audience on a journey, respecting the audience’s need to hear the right things in the right order.  Audiences can only handle small amounts of information.  What they can handle is large amounts of insight and attitude. 

4.  Resolve to lose the traditional format.

Too many speeches begin with a joke, then an agenda slide, then an introduction explaining the speaker’s expertise and background, and then a commercial for his or her services.  We’re 15 minutes into the speech, and I haven’t learned anything I couldn’t find out from the program or the speaker’s web site.  Shake it up, mix it up, change it up.  Lose all that expected stuff and give us some surprises.  Think an action movie – imagine if it began with an introduction of the actors and an agenda.  Ridiculous, right?  Action movies begin with an explosion, a chase, a spectacular murder.  And they continue to deliver the unexpected for two more hours.  Do you the same. 


5.  Resolve to find your passion.

Too many speakers play it safe and say the expected, the ordinary, and the obvious.  2012 is the year to find your passion, and say something that no one else can say.  I hear that each human is unique, so share that with us.  Don’t give us received opinions, bland platitudes, and what we already know.  Life is too short, and plane rides too long.  Find your unique voice.  

Here's to a spectatular 2012! 

The author and book business is changing rapidly, and the news is not good for a lot of the players.  Fortunately, they can take a note from the music business and change their modus operandi to survive.  So what’s going on? 

Established publishers struggle to get attention for their books through traditional channels, and haven’t learned yet how to use the new social media channels well.  As a result, they take fewer and fewer chances on new ideas, books, and people, instead clinging to established blockbuster names and hoping that those will carry the firm.  And they put fewer and fewer resources into the books they do publish.  Gone are the author tours, the marketing blitzes, the ad placements in glossy magazines.  Authors who want that kind of exposure have to buy it from specialist PR firms or do it themselves. 

The new electronic markets are simultaneously limitless and fragmentary, making it hard to get the word out to people about your new work.  And the pressure is enormous to make your work free to all.  Never mind that you spent years developing your intellectual capital – the world expects you to give it away online. 

These trends make it harder and harder for new authors to get established, and make an honest living.  Some self-publish, and learn hard lessons about marketing and distribution.  Others work for years on brilliant books only to see them vanish without a trace in a huge, impatient marketplace.  Some books are remaindered the week after publication based on slow early sales reports.  How can a little-known author or an unheralded gem of a book get attention? 

The happy faces at the moment are on writers who have well-established followings already.  It’s a winner-take-all book world today.  If you’re a Seth Godin or a Stephen King, this is a good time for you.  You can play traditional publishers off various forms of electronic and self-publishing and keep more of the total book spend.  And you have a wide array of social media at your disposal to announce your latest to a waiting world. 

But what about the rest of the author world?  What can a consultant with a great new book, or an academic author with a wonderful idea, or a novelist with a heartbreakingly beautiful story do to get in print, and sell a few books? 

Authors today need to take a lesson from the music business.  It went through similar ructions beginning roughly a decade ago, and a new model has evolved that makes sense for authors too.  It’s not an easy way to go, but it does mean that you get to keep playing. 

Bands today have learned that they have to do three things simultaneously to survive and prosper.  First of all, they tour regularly.  That’s where most of them make their money.  And that's where they establish strong bonds with their audience.  Then, they sell music and merchandise at gigs, online, and wherever else there is a market.  And finally, they make time for the recording studio. 

Authors need to do the same.  They need to become speakers, going on tour with their stories and ideas the same way a band does.  They need to sell their books at gigs, online, and in traditional bookstores where they can.  And they need to make time to write new stuff. 

To accomplish this new multitasking prestidigitation, authors will need to learn how to create a platform via social media, as well as whatever traditional media approaches they can afford.  And they’ll have to learn the speaking business, which is highly competitive and intolerant of amateurs.  And with all this new work, they’re going to have to keep doing what makes them unique – writing the stories and capturing the ideas only they can wrest from the chaos.  It’s a tough new world, but at least the rock and rollers have shown the way. 

Are you one of the new authors making a living this way?  What have you learned?  What are the tricks of the trade?  How well is it working for you?  Share your news here. 

In an earlier blog, I asked – rhetorically – if you were worth $40,000 an hour (or up), the amount that a top professional speaker can earn in an hour giving a keynote speech. 

But what should you actually charge for speaking?  Most people at the early end of their speaking careers probably respond with “Gee, thanks!” when someone calls them to ask them to speak.  That doesn’t put you in a very strong negotiating position.   What should you ask for? 

And indeed, if you’re speaking primarily to promote your business – say, you’re offering a seminar on tax preparation in hopes of generating new clients for your accounting firm – then you should speak for free. 

But if you decide to make a paying business out of it, then you have to figure out what the market will bear, where you stand in that marketplace, and what you will charge so as neither to drive too many people away nor to leave too much money on the table.

Here are some guidelines to help you do that, in the US market at least, as you get started. 

Think like a real estate agent, especially at first.  Real estate agents are forever facing the delicate task of explaining to the proud homeowners that the home that they love isn’t worth as much as they want it to be on the open market.  Especially when you’re starting out, you don’t have much experience, and you haven’t established a track record of successful speeches, it’s better to begin on the low end. 

The issue is that if you price yourself too low, you’ll send out a message of low quality.  One way to get around that is to say, early on, “I don’t charge for my speaking, per se, but I do get paid an honorarium of $X,000 plus expenses.” 

When you’re ready to start really charging, then I would recommend beginning at the $5,000 level (plus travel), because that’s the level that serious speaking commences. 

Then publish your book.  As I’ve blogged about before, a book is still necessary to sustain most professional speaking careers.  Once you’ve got a traditionally published book out, then you’re in the $10K and up category. 

If the book sells well….  You’re ready to move up!  New York Times bestselling authors regularly command fees of $40K and up, which is where I began. 

Then think like an airline.  Separate out travel expenses from your fee.  You might also discount specific amounts for book purchases, or add the book purchases to your fee.  I tried to start a movement of giving out a comprehensive fee, since it can take time and bureaucracy to get your travel fees reimbursed, but the movement didn’t get very far.  People are so used to paying travel that I couldn’t persuade them to do without.  So instead, break those out of your fees. 

Finally, measure your fees by the market demand.   If people are coming to you to ask you to speak, that means there’s market demand.  That’s a far more persuasive position to negotiate from than if you’ve started the conversation.  Once you’re getting calls, then keep raising the fees until you get pushback more than, say, 20 % of the time. 

Please take these numbers as guidelines only.  For a whole host of reasons, this is not an exact science.  Any market in which one former president commands fees of $250K and another of millions is one for which money in the end is not really the motivating factor.  It’s the desire to have the face time with the speaker.  And that’s not about an hour’s work, or enough money to buy a car, or a really expensive house.  That’s about the right person providing an experience of the right kind for the right audience. 

What are your experiences charging for speaking?  How did you decide upon your fees?  I’d love to hear from you on this tricky pricing question.

Should you write an eBook?  Should you publish one?  What does that even mean?  I get asked these questions all the time by people understandably confused by the sudden explosions of options in publishing thanks to the Internet and the lack of a coherent response by the traditional publishing industry.  In this blog, I’ll describe some of the options that seem most promising right now, with a bit of background.  Because the publishing industry is changing so fast, I encourage you to weigh in with your experiences.  What has worked for you?  No one person can keep up with all the permutations of publishing, so let’s help each other. 

First, a brief bit of context.  Publishers used to do 5 things for authors.  They used to acquire, edit, print, distribute and market books.  Each of those activities is an important step along the way to fame and fortune for an author, and the bad news today is that traditional publishers now only consistently do one of those five activities:  acquire books.  They’ve outsourced the rest – for the most part. 

If you’re a celebrity author (think Bill Clinton or Shaquille O’Neal) then it’s still the case that a traditional publisher will pay you a huge advance based on your proposal for your book; that’s the ‘acquire’ step.  The publisher will assign you an editor that will help whip your prose into shape.  The publisher will print the book, distribute it to the 5 big wholesale distributors, and market it aggressively in the hope of earning that advance back.  The publisher, finally, will pay you royalties based on every book sold after you’ve paid back the advance.  That’s traditional publishing, and that’s the way it used to work for all authors. 

Today, after the more ordinary author receives an advance, no one edits the book, unless the author makes separate arrangements.  Someone called a line editor will proofread your copy and correct your most egregious grammatical errors, but that’s it.  Then, the publisher will ship the manuscript somewhere – perhaps China – to have the book printed.  The publisher will ship the printed books to those 5 distributors, and no one will market the book unless, again, the author makes separate arrangements.   Most of the traditional jobs of the publisher have been outsourced, and left up to the author.  

It’s this lack of activity on the publisher’s part that has driven people like Seth Godin to start self-publishing and experimenting with a variety of online options.  Since the publisher isn't doing much, why not keep more of the profits yourself?  But the difference between Seth and most authors – or wannbe authors – is that Seth has an enormous megaphone, and most authors don’t.  When Seth writes a book and tells the world, the world pays attention.  When another author adds her book to the 1,000,000 or so published in the US alone every year, the world only rarely and quixotically pays attention.  Yes, that is one million, not a typo.  

So what should the rest of us do?  Here are some of the current e-options that have sprung up around traditional publishing and self-publishing. 

1.  Write an e-book and put it on your own website or blog.  There are a variety of possible formats – pdfs, slides, and even Word.  You can charge for the book, or give it away free.  The issue here is that you need to find some way to distribute and market your book, since the web is vast and growing faster every day.  How are people going to find you?  Perhaps it’s enough to use the book as a marketing tool itself, and perhaps your network is big enough that you’ll get all the distribution you need.  And of course, sometimes these things do go viral . . . .

2.  Write a book and self-publish it with a print-on-demand site.   Amazon and others now offer a print-on-demand option, which is a step forward from traditional ‘vanity’ publishing.  With the old model, you had to contract for a certain number of copies, like going to Kinko’s – 5,000 or 10,000, say.  Then you had to store them while you tried to sell all those copies you’d bought.  Now, Amazon and its competitors will publish them one at a time, as people order them.  No issues of storage, and the system appeals to the environmentally-minded, since presumably there are fewer wasted books.   You still have all the challenges of marketing, so this option makes sense if you have a way of getting the word out, and you don’t need the implicit endorsement of quality that traditional publishing brings. 

3.  Write an e-book and sell it through Amazon or one of its competitors.  You can make a deal with Amazon only to sell the book (or mp3, or video, or whatever) electronically, to Kindle or Kindle-like devices.   The same questions arise as with the print-on-demand options.  How are you going to market the book?  What’s your plan for getting the world’s attention? 

4.  Write an e-book and give it away through an online group like 800-CEO-READ.   800-CEO-READ began as a traditional bookstore that offered a service to busy executives – telling them the best business books to read.  Over the years, the company has earned a reputation as a smart purveyor of the best business books.  A few years back, it began its Change This manifesto series, which are short e-books, in pdf form, distributed for free through its strong marketing channel.  The author gets editing, marketing and distribution, but of course no money. 

5.  Write an e-book and publish it through a non-traditional online publisher.  A relatively new option is growing up amidst the wreckage of the traditional publishing world.  Companies like New Word City are acquiring ebooks, editing them, marketing them and distributing them – all online via Amazon and iTunes.   If the book does well, you and the publishing will share the profits, much like a traditional publisher in the old print world.  

Which of these options will dominate in the future?  Will all most content become free, as some argue?  Will that reduce most authors to penury?   Will paying models endure? 

And finally, what should you do?  The key questions to ask yourself are, how can I distribute and market the book?  Do I want the implicit endorsement of a third-party publisher?  And what do I hope for the book?  Do I want to make money, or simply share something with the world?  As in most things, it’s up to you to define success, and then pick the option that will make your success possible.  

What have you tried?  What has worked – or not?  Where do you think the publishing world is headed? 
 

Are you worth $40,000 an hour?  How can you be worth $40K per hour?  That’s the question people often ask of the top public speakers, the keynoters, the ones who have written bestsellers and whose names you probably know. 

In fact, celebrity speakers, like former presidents and prime ministers, make considerably more -- $100, 000 - $250,000 per speech.  Malcolm Gladwell, with bestsellers like Blink and The Tipping Point to his credit, asks $86,000 per speech.   President Reagan was famously paid $2 million for a speech he made shortly after leaving office.

But still, $40K per speech?  How can that be justified when the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour? 

Three points about that apparently obscene compensation.  First of all, the hour you see is not the whole story.  To get to that stage, a speaker at the $40K level has to have written one or more books.  That speaker has to have achieved success in her field, enough so that the public wants to hear about it.  And that speaker has to create the speech, rehearse it, and travel for days to hard-to-reach places in uncomfortable airplane seats to get to the venue, where she has to try to please a roomful of strangers so that the whole process can begin again.  In fact, there’s a lifetime of hard work leading up to that golden hour in the spotlight. 

Second, $40K is the cost of a coffee break at a moderately funded conference for 500 people or so.  Most of the money – a million or two – for that conference has gone to the venue, for room and board.  The entertainment is a relatively small part of a typical meeting budget.   

Finally, if you’ve ever been inspired by a speaker to change your thinking – or your life – you know that a speech can indeed get people thinking and doing in new ways.  Speeches can topple governments, launch careers, and inspire movements. 

Speeches can change the world.

And that’s worth $40K an hour.  That’s why the market pays it.  Every time. 

In June 2010, I posted a blog about an apparent speaker scam.  A friend of Public Words received an invitation to speak at a prestigious university in the UK.  There were a number of inconsistencies and oddities with the email and we all guessed that it was a scam.  Since then I have received numerous updates from -- especially -- religious folks being invited to speak at purported religious conferences in the UK.  Different venues, different pastors doing the inviting, but it all adds up, again, to scam.  Don't send out any information in response!  Especially don't send any financial information -- bank account numbers and the like. 

I get weekly inquiries, sometimes several a week, so this scam is still very active. 

Here's the original posting.  Click on the link to see the dozens of comments of people who have been approached.  And don't be fooled!

The original post from June 2010:

A good friend of ours at Public Words, a successful public speaker, recently received a speaking inquiry from a prestigious university in the United Kingdom.  The request came via email, and there were a number of indications that it wasn’t on the level.  The email address was a Gmail account, not the university’s email.  The sender purported to be a professor at the school, but there was no record of such a professor in the university’s online database.  Of course, he might have been newly appointed, but his command of the English language was so bad that our friend was immediately suspicious. 

On further investigation, there was no mention of the conference our friend was supposed to speak at on the university’s website.  In addition, there was an unusual request to “get a work permit” from the “British embassy” (via another Gmail account).

All signs seemed to point to fraud.  And, in addition, the amount of money offered for speaking was unusually large – the final straw. 

My question to everyone is:  have you run across anything similar?  What’s the point – would the scammer have asked for bank information at a later stage if our friend had continued?  If you’ve run across speaker scams like this, please let me know.

Click here to see the commentary. 

If you’re a professional speaker, you need a video showcasing your talents; it’s an essential part of your marketing.  You want that video to show you delivering a fantastic talk in front of an engaged, appreciative audience.  What are the ins and outs of creating such a video?  I recently had the opportunity to interview ace cinematographer Geoff Birmingham of Reflection Films.  Geoff has prepared a number of such videos, and has some great advice on how to make them work.  You can learn more about Geoff and his team here:  http://www.reflectionfilmsonline.com/ 

Q.  Geoff, thanks for talking with me.  From your perspective, what does it take to make a great speaker video?

Two things come immediately to mind:

1. A successful video will only show the good stuff.  There's no rule that says your video must be totally true to how you performed that day.  Were you flat in the middle?  Edit it out! 

2. A successful video won't just be you on camera; it will also have a variety of good audience reaction shots.  The audience shots will include plenty of close-ups of people laughing at your jokes, nodding in agreement with you, or showing some other facial expression that demonstrates they're engaged.

Q.  If something goes wrong during the speech as it's being filmed -- like a serious verbal stumble, or a hostile question, or something more mundane like a problem with the sound -- can you fix it in the editing room?

In the film and video world, there's a saying: "It'll get fixed in post."  Translation: Mistakes during filming can often (but not always) be corrected during editing.  So speakers don't need to feel like they must be absolutely perfect in front of the camera.  There are plenty of ways to edit out most mishaps that may occur during a speech.

Q.  What makes a speaker visually interesting from your point of view -- the point of view of a filmmaker?  Should I emote a lot?  Jump around a lot?  What should I do differently when you're filming me?

  I think the answer to this is subjective, so I'll just share my own opinion.  I would never encourage a speaker to do anything differently than he/she would do if there were no camera - I think it would come off as unnatural and forced.  Having said that, however, I recently talked with a speaker who realized that, after watching herself on camera, her presentation needed to be more dynamic.

So perhaps the short answer is this: don't do anything that is unnatural or forced, but do your best to bring an authentic energy to your presentation.

Q.  If I use slides (or video clips) in my presentation, how do you include those in the video? 

If you use slides or video clips, just make sure to deliver the source material to your producer to edit directly into your video.  They will be much more legible that way, versus asking your cameraman to capture shots of the slides or video off the screen during your presentation.

Q.  How much does a good speaker video cost? 

Filming a speaker's presentation doesn't need to be an elaborate production.  Still, you want to make sure that you hire people who know what they are doing.  In most cases, I think two cameramen - one recording the presenter, and one capturing audience shots - would suffice.  And one of the cameramen also must be responsible for hooking the speaker up with a wireless lavalier microphone. 

Depending on what kind of existing lighting your location has, your crew might need to bring in a small light or two to add extra illumination.

To hire a two-person crew, pay for the camera and sound equipment rental, and have someone edit your video will probably cost about $2,500 to $3,000.  This is assuming that you are creating a video that is approximately 15 minutes long from a single presentation.

Q.  Can I draw from a number of videos of different qualities and different dates if I've got the video archives?  Is that a good idea? 

I think this is certainly an idea worth considering.  It may not work so well if you hire a professional crew to record a big or important presentation, but have asked a friend to help with the "smaller" ones.  The difference in quality will be significant, so it could be hard to edit those together and maintain a consistent look.

My suggestion would be to hire a professional crew for an important speech, and then for other, smaller presentations seek out help from students at a local college or cable access station.  If you go the student route, just make sure he/she brings the right audio gear - sound recorded off of the camera from the back of the room will not work.

Q.  How soon do I need to think about starting all over again to update my video?

There's no one answer to this, but here are some times that a speaker might consider creating a new video:

* when you have new presentation

* if you have a different or interesting venue that will enhance your profile

* if you speak in front of a unique audience or one that will add greater credibility to the work you do

Q.  Thanks, Geoff.  I've worked with Geoff and his team a number of times and I'm delighted to report that they are professional, reasonably priced, and great people to collaborate with. 

 

 

For my blog today, I'm pointing to a new ebook on Amazon and iTunes that I've just written and published thanks to New Word City:  5 leadership lessons from The King's Speech.  I was inspired by the vivid portrayal of the relationship between the King and his coach to recall relationships with my 'coachees' and to derive 5 lessons about the journey leaders need to go on to find their unique voices.  I believe that a unique voice -- think Steve Jobs, Gary Vaynerchuk, or Chris Brogan -- is essential.  Without it, you won't be able to get people to pay attention to your leadership long enough to lead.  This ebook shows you how to develop yours.  Enjoy!

Occasionally I comment on the business of public speaking in this blog, and one of the key pieces of any public speakers' kit is a great video.  Of course, if you're just starting out, it's hard to get a cool video.  And if you are getting the speaking gigs, you're always chasing better sound, better lighting, a better venue, even a better performance or a better audience.  Late last year we started talking to David Meerman Scott about a new way to conceive of the speaker video in the Age of Twitter and Social Media.  David threw in some ideas, we threw in some ideas, and a whole bunch of other people also contributed.  What David came up with is a great new video, worthy of an Oscar if only they gave them out in this world.  What's innovative about it?  David gave out flip cams to a dozen audience members, to get their perspective.  He included the live Twitter feed at the bottom of the video so you can see what people were saying about him as he spoke.  And then he cut the whole thing to give you a remarkable feeling that you were there.  Risky?  The result is a very different take on the genre.  Check it out.  Here's the trailer, and from there you can watch the whole speech.  Enjoy!

 

 

What do you get that public speaking family member or friend?  Following (in no particular order) are 10 suggestions for anyone who speaks, presents, or just worries a lot about speaking in public.

1. Note cards for thanking meeting planners

If you speak professionally, meeting planners are your customers, your lifelines, your best friends.  Their on-the-ground knowledge can save you from embarrassment and worse.  Much worse.  So thank them with a personal note when they help you get through that speech without incident.

2. Pictures of loved ones for focusing before a speech

Your loved ones are the reason that you leave home, stay in indifferent hotels, and answer questions from cranky audience members.  So give that public speaker a portable set of pictures so that she can focus on it just before a speech to crank up the energy and emotion.  The result will be better speeches and stronger families.

3. A year of Improv lessons

Great speakers are able to focus in the moment on the audience and the message – not themselves.  They don’t get distracted by extraneous things like wondering if one’s fly is zipped up or if there’s spinach on one’s teeth.  And nothing improves a speaker’s ability to focus on that all-important moment like a year of Improv lessons.  Improv is hard to do, very hard, but you don’t have to become an expert to benefit from the increased ability to be present on stage.   And once you’ve done Improv in front of an audience, public speaking will seem comparatively easy work.

4. A photo shoot

Those headshots are out of date, face it.  And the temptation to do it on the cheap and get your kid to take some shots in the living room with a point-and-shoot will yield cheap-looking shots.  Give your speaker the gift of a professional photographer and get it done right.

5. A pen for signing books

If you’re going to sustain a paid public speaking career, or if you simply want something of yours in the Library of Congress, you’re going to have to write a book.  Your loved ones can’t give you the book already written, but they can give you a pen to sign them for adoring fans.  And that should at least help you focus on the end goal.  You might even write the book with that pen.

6. A lucky tie or pin

Many speakers are superstitious, and once a speech goes right, and you’re wearing a certain tie or pin, you want to wear it every time thereafter.  More importantly, that suit that makes you look and feel great will help you deliver a great speech.  People stand more confidently when they’re in clothing that fits well and looks good.  So spring for a fabulous suit for your public speaker – or at least a great-looking tie or pin.

7. Best book from 2010 for public speakers

Since I can’t nominate my own books, I’m going to propose Nancy Duarte’s Resonate as a great read for public speakers.  The book is full of tips and suggestions for creating wonderful speeches.  Don’t stand up and speak without reading it first.

8. Flip cam to record speeches

The best way to improve your craft as a speaker – besides hiring a coach like me – is to record yourself speaking and then review the tape thoughtfully and honestly.  Flip cams make it easy and inexpensive to do so – no more excuses!

9. iPad and apps

Many speakers are wed to their (clunky) laptops; the iPad gives you a stylish, lightweight alternative.  And there are a number of apps that will allow you to show slides, take notes, and use the iPad as a teleprompter-like device.  (I’ll evaluate them in another blog later on.)  All very cool and up to date.   Bring your public speaker into the 21st century with this ultimate gift of the latest technology.

10. Travel medical pack

Speakers live in fear of colds, flu, and other diseases that seem so easy to pick up while traveling – from that person sitting next to you on the plane, or that audience member who insists on shaking your hand despite holding a wad of tissue.  So give them all the throat lozenges, ibuprofen and decongestant you can pack into a travel-size case.  And throw in a love note or two while you’re at it; your public speaker misses you when she’s on the road.

What gifts have you thought of for that favorite public speaker in your family or group of friends?  Let me know and we’ll get the word out before Christmas

The world of speakers’ bureaus in 2010 – after the economic crash – is a perilous one.  A number of forces are combining to make life more difficult for them, and some of the trends appear to be long-term changes.  Some bureaus have had lay-offs, and some have disappeared altogether.  One firm is thriving, however, and it’s instructive to see the reasons.  Speakers’ Spotlight of Toronto is doing quite well, thank you – indeed, it’s growing – and the firm founded by husband and wife team Martin and Farah Perelmuter looks well-positioned for the future.    I recently spoke with them to find out why. 

What’s going on? 

First of all, the conference business took a hit.   Thanks to the recession, conferences were canceled, postponed, and downsized.  That hit the speaking business hard, and so of course speakers’ bureaus suffered too. 

Second, meeting planners got tough.  The conference business has bounced back – part of the way – but meeting planners have a new attitude toward fees as a result of tightened times and budgets.  They are much more interested in bargaining a speaker down, and that means the percentages taken in by speakers’ bureaus go down too.   And once the planners realize that speakers will bargain, they’ll expect to always be able to bargain. 

Third, meeting planners got canny.   Thanks to the Internet, meeting planners can find speakers directly and easily, and a number of the planners are doing just that – going straight to speakers, cutting out the middleman bureau.  That’s a trend that’s likely to be permanent, too.  Once planners get the hang of dealing directly with speakers, they’re not likely to stop. 

Fourth, the conference business shortened its cycle time.   This is perhaps the most startling change, and it has been coming for a while, but was accelerated by the downturn.  The lead time for conferences used to be 6 months to a year.  Now, we often hear of conferences that are planning 2 months out.   In the last couple of weeks, I’ve even heard of conferences being pulled together for September.  September 2010.  A few years ago, that would have been September next year! 

Shortened lead times puts pressure on the speakers’ bureaus to respond more quickly and to get out of the way.  The result is that the bureaus have to become far more nimble. 

Given all these stormy seas, how is Speakers’ Spotlight navigating them so well? 

It’s focused on a reasonable number of speakers.   Many bureaus have responded to the tough times by greatly expanding their pool of speakers.  Like the retailer who sells t-shirts at a loss and responds by saying, “I’ll make it up in volume.”  But having too many speakers on your list means that you can’t really represent any of them well, because you can’t know them and their strengths and weaknesses in any detail.  And that is the primary reason for speakers’ bureaus in the first place.  Speakers’ Spotlight has focused on a reasonable number of speakers, and as a result, they know them well. 

Speakers’ Spotlight has never failed to pay a speaker.   Unfortunately, because of the tough economic client, some bureaus have slowed their payments to speakers, and some have stopped them altogether.  That’s breaking the basic trust of the middleman, and Speakers’ Spotlight has never done it. 

Speakers’ Spotlight knows its marketplace very well.   Speakers’ Spotlight is based in Toronto, and most of its business is in Canada, though it does book worldwide.  But in a rapidly changing economic climate, it is very important to know at least one marketplace very well. 

Speakers’ Spotlight is focused on the future.   A chat with Martin and Farah will quickly convince you that they’re always looking ahead to where the market is going, not where it has been.  Speakers’ Spotlight is very thoughtful about the future of conferences and conference planning, and the firm has some interesting ideas about where it’s all headed.  Stay tuned! 

What does all this mean to you if you're a bureau, a meeting planner, or a speaker?  Bureaus, now is the time for some serious strategic planning.  Assume that these trends will be permanent -- how are you going to make money and add value in the new environment?

Meeting planners, your life -- at least in one respect -- will just keep getting better.  Planning will have to be faster, but the opportunities to book top-notch speakers at good prices is here to stay.  

And speakers, you're going to have to figure out ways to form deeper relationships with meeting planners, and a smaller number of bureaus.  More on these trends in later blogs. 

I often blog that the way to a successful speech is via the audience -- in other words, start with understanding your audience, and make the speech about its issues.  Solve the audience's problems and they'll reward you with fierce loyalty.  But over the long term, a professional speaker has to take care of at least one other 'audience' just as carefully:  the meeting planners that hire her. 

Your customers are indeed the meeting planners, and you'd better treat them well.  Too many professional speakers play the diva and alienate the folks who hire them.  I once was planning a conference for a client, and booked a speaker -- nameless -- whose talk was all about, let's say, getting along with other people.  And yet the speaker behaved badly from start to finish, making unreasonable demands of the meeting planners and complaining about everything.  The irony of the mis-match was not lost on any of us.  

Accordingly, the list below is something of an honor roll -- it is a list of public speakers nominated by meeting planners as favorites -- delivering good speaking value and also nice to work with.  With many thanks to Simon Bailey and Nancy Friedman who located the source for me:  Meetings and Conventions Magazine, July 2010 issue. 

These professional speakers deserve to be celebrated for not behaving badly.  The meeting planner works long hours, puts up with lots of abuse from his or her colleagues, and only gets noticed when something goes wrong.  The last thing they need is poor treatment from the speaker.  

I've removed a few political names from the list, since they're inherently controversial and will certainly alienate roughly half of your audience. 

Congratulations to those who made the honor roll:

Planners' Favorite Speakers

Simon Bailey (achieving individual and organizational brilliance; simontbailey.com)

Tony Bennett (business speaker, individual and organizational effectiveness; tonybennett.org)

Ken Blanchard (customer loyalty, employee engagement, leadership, organizational change; kenblanchard.com)

Walter Bond ("The Accountability Leader"; walterbondseminars.com)

Nancy Goodman Brinker (founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure; premierespeakers.com/nancy_brinker)

Marcus Buckingham (executive coaching, strengths-driven performance, leadership; tmbc.com)

James Burke (science/technology historian, TV personality; k-web.org)

Charles Carroll (chef, culinary leadership/teamwork, career development; chefcharlescarroll.com)

Dr. Lowell Catlett (futurist, economist at New Mexico State University; lowellcatlett.com))

Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire (retired Canadian senator/military official, human rights activist; romeodallaire.com)

Mike Ditka (former coach of NFL's Chicago Bears; mikeditka.com

)

Dr. Sophia Dziegielewski (social work, human behavior, health care; siripro.net/SophiaBio.htm)

Ryan Estis (sales strategies, leadership skills; ryanestis.com)

Durwood Fincher ("Mr. Doubletalk," humorous take on corporate culture, customized for client; doubletalk.com)

Nancy Friedman ("The Telephone Doctor," motivational business topics; telephonedoctor.com/keynotes.php)

Patricia Fripp (executive speech coach, presentation-skills trainer; fripp.com)

Dr. Benny J. Gallaway (marine ecologist; gulfbase.org/person/view.php?uid=bgallaway)

Tim Gard (humor as a business skill, professional enthusiasm; timgard.com)

Christopher Gardner (rose from being homeless to best-selling author/entrepreneur; chrisgardnermedia.com)

Barbara Glanz (improving employee morale, retention, productivity; barbaraglanz.com)

Dr. Al Gobar (real-estate economist; gobar.com)

Doris Kearns Goodwin (presidential historian, political news analyst; doriskearnsgoodwin.com)

T. Scott Gross (performance management consultant; tscottgross.com)

Erin Gruwell (educator, inspirational speaker, author of The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them; freedomwritersfoundation.org)

Jeremy Gutsche (creativity, leadership and innovation strategy; jeremygutsche.com)

Keith Harrell (motivational speaker, "attitude coach"; keithharrell.com)

Lou Heckler (motivational, management training, customer service; louheckler.com)

Regina Herzlinger ("The Godmother of Customer-Driven Health Care," Harvard Business School; reginaherzlinger.org)

Art Holst (former NFL official, speaks on business topics, motivation, change, football; artholst.com)

Lou Holtz (retired football coach, sportscaster, author; washingtonspeakers.com)

Brian Jones (laws of dating, building better relationships; gettingtheloveyoudreamabout.com)

Dewitt Jones (professional photographer, speaks on creativity, passion and vision; dewittjones.com)

Leland Kaiser, Ph.D. (health-care futurist; kaiser.net)

John Kasich (candidate for governor of Ohio; kasichforohio.com)

Don Keady (CEO of Australian Institute of Sales, Marketing & Management; aismm.com.au)

Rich Kizer & Georganne Bender (business success, branding, customer service, generational differences; kizerandbender.com)

Keith Krach (business entrepreneur, technology pioneer; keithkrach.com)

Mike Krzyzewski ("Coach K," Duke head coach, motivational/sports themes; coachk.com)

Paul Laudicina (A.T. Kearney chairman, global business policy isssues; atkearney.com/index.php/About-us/leaders.html))

Allison Levine (team captain for the first American Women's Everest Expedition; daredevilstrategies.com)
 

George Lucas (sales consulting, training and recruitment; lucasselect.com)

Clay B. Marsh, M.D. (pulmonary disease expert, Ohio State University; internalmedicine.osu.edu/603.cfm)

Josh McDowell (Christian faith, humanitarian efforts; josh.org)

Dr. Johnny Miller (motivational/inspirational topics; drjohnnymiller.com)

Mike Mullane (U.S. astronaut, author; mikemullane.com)

Dr. Kjell Nordstrom (business speaker and author on corporate strategy, leadership and globalization; internationalspeakers.com/speaker/546/kjell_nordstrom)

James Oberstar (Minnesota congressman, transportation policy expert; oberstar.house.gov)

Dawn Penfold (meetings industry career specialist; meetingjobs.com/index2.php?aff_id=&page=aboutUs)

Bertrand Piccard (balloonist, topics on pioneering spirit, overcoming stress, finding inspiration; bertrandpiccard.com/eng/index.php)

Charlie Plumb (former Navy fighter pilot/POW; charlieplumb.com)

Aron Ralston (rock climber who amputated his own arm; aronralston.blogspot.com)

Mike Rayburn ("World's Funniest Guitar Virtuoso," blends music and comedy; mikerayburn.com)

Susan RoAne (motivational business topics, how to work a room, connecting with people; susanroane.com)

Patricia Russell-McCloud, J.D. (work/life balance, education, diversity, leadership; prussellmccloud.com)

Mark Sanborn (leadership development; marksanborn.com)

Tim Sanders ("The People-Centric Business Expert," CSR/sustainability, leadership; timsanders.com)

Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation; barclayagency.com/schlosser.html)

Dave Schwensen (communication/presentation skills, personal creativity, humor; davepresents.com)

Bradley Seitz (CEO of Topaz International, business travel topics; etopaz.com/team.html)

Randy Siegal (fostering dynamic leadership; buildyourleaders.com)

Sam Silverstein (creating a culture of accountability in business; samsilverstein.com)

Jack Sims (marketing, business growth, brand awareness; goldstars.com/speakers/sims_jack.html)

Stan Slap (corporate strategist, business speaker; www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers.aspx?name=Stan+Slap)

Michael Tchong (future trends, insipiration; ubercool.com)

Phillip Van Hooser (leadership development strategist; vanhooser.com)

Erik Wahl (artist, presents on untapped potential, leadership, empowerment; theartofvision.com)

Mikki Williams (work/life balance, change, communication skills, creativity; mikkiwilliams.com)

Larry Winget ("The Pitbull of Personal Development"; www.larrywinget.com)

Bill Whitley (attracting and engaging clients, achieving top sales performance; billwhitley.com)

Peter Yesawich (chairman and CEO, YPartnership advertising/marketing/PR agency; ypartnership.com)

Gayle Zinda (cancer awareness, motivational messages; gaylezinda.com)

 

IN THIS SERIES

• Why does a speaker need to be introduced? Part 1
• Why does a speaker need to be introduced? Part 2

I’m going to post this (short) blog a little earlier in the day in case you’re heading off early for the 4th.   Yesterday I talked about how important a good introduction is for setting up a speaker for success.  Today I’m going to offer you a way to guarantee that happens every time. 

If you’re a speaker, you’ve been down this road:  you get introduced by a VP of Marketing, and he starts by saying, “I’m not going to read the intro they sent me.”  That’s the intro you’ve carefully prepared.  He adds some irrelevant comments about how he met you the evening before over the Spilled Bloody Mary Incident (his fault, not yours).  What’s supposed to be charming self-deprecating humor is awkward and goes on too long.  The rest of the ad-libbed introduction gets lost in the verbal shuffle, and the VP gets key facts wrong, stumbling over the sentence structure and some unfamiliar words.  He leaves out mention of your book, and ends with another half-hearted attempt at humor.  You walk on stage to the sound of a lot of single hands clapping. 

In order to avoid this sort of disastrous incident, which happens more often than you’d believe possible, create a DVD intro that creates some drama and excitement, puts you in the best possible light, and gets the audience keyed up to see you.  You can do this in a carefully scripted 3-minute video, and the cost can be quite reasonable.  In any case you should mentally amortize the cost over all the introductions that won’t be botched from here on. 

What should go into those 3 minutes?  Answer the question why?  -- Why are you cool, why is your speech important, why should the audience care.  Give a few salient details about your accomplishments, and end with the music amped up and the cheers already rolling in.  Have the last words of the voice over be, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome (You)!”  and the applause will follow naturally.  The great thing about video (with a compelling soundtrack) is that it can touch the emotions in a way that's much harder for the VP of Marketing to do, statistically speaking. 

It’s all about quality control.  Create your own intro DVD and you’ll never have to suffer a botched intro again. 

Happy Fourth!

IN THIS SERIES

• Why does a speaker need to be introduced? Part 1
• Why does a speaker need to be introduced? Part 2

We live and work in a casual age, and you might be forgiven for wondering why that rather old-fashioned custom of the formal introduction for a speaker still takes place in meetings and conferences around the globe. 

Old-fashioned or not, an introduction is a very good idea – in fact, without it a speaker must work much, much harder and is even set up for failure.  The reasons lie in the audiences’ expectations. 

Audiences want several things from a speaker, and some of them right away.  First, audiences begin by asking why – why should I pay attention?  Why should I care?  If a speaker is successful, they’ll start asking how – how do I get started?  How do I make this my own?  That’s success for a speaker – moving the audience from why to how.

Second, audiences test speakers for a few things:  trust, credibility, and likability.  On these items, they’ll give a speaker a little time, but they make unconscious decisions very quickly, and those unconscious decisions are hard to turn around.  So it’s better to get it right from the start.

That’s where the introduction comes in.  An introduction can help answer the why question.  And an introduction can help establish credibility, especially, but also trust and likability.  The result of a good introduction is to greatly increase the likelihood that the speaker will do well.  At least, she’s off to a good start. 

A good introduction should answer 3 questions:  why this speaker, on this subject, to this audience?  A little humor is permitted, but an introduction should never denigrate the speaker, even in fun.  The idea is to build the speaker up in the audience’s mind. 

I’ve often noted that a celebrity speaker can be mediocre and yet the audience can report that it had a good time.  The reason is that the celebrity has already been ‘introduced’ to the audience – the audience knows the celebrity.  The work of a good introduction is to raise the speaker to celebrity status for the purposes of that occasion. 

A couple final points.  Always end with applause for the speaker, to allow her time to get up on the stage and ready to go.  And it’s a very good idea to shake the speaker’s hand as he or she goes by on the way to the lectern.  Shaking another person’s hand is grounding and comforting, and will help the speaker get off to a good start.

So don’t neglect the introduction.  And speakers, prepare a good one.  Don’t assume that the folks in charge will have a credible intro ready to go.  Make it easy for them and write it yourself.  You need the boost so that you can show up in front of that audience with credibility, trust, and likability. 

As I’ve blogged before, professional speakers need books in order to sustain a career over the long term.  And that means books published by traditional publishing houses for the most part, though there are exceptions.  The exceptions are speakers who already have a strong market for their speeches and can sell the books ‘in the back of the house’. 

But for most speakers, the book helps generate the speaking, and so traditional publishing is important.  At the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010 last week, two speakers held forth on how publishing is changing, what function agents perform, and how to navigate your way through the publishing maze.  Once again, guest blogger Sarah Morgan gives us the scoop.

 

Writers often imagine a published book as the end of a long journey.
  After years of work, finally you’ve handed your masterpiece over to a 
prestigious publisher, and now all you have to do is sit back and wait
 for them to organize your book tour and your interview with Oprah. But 
if that model ever worked – and that is doubtful – it certainly doesn’t work now,
 Harvard Business Press editor Jeff Kehoe said at the Public Words 
Speaker Forum.

Harvard Business itself is adapting to this new reality, Kehoe said –
combining the magazine, book publishing, and website divisions of the 
organization into a unified Harvard Business Review Group that
 takes a more platform-agnostic approach to working with writers and 
thought leaders.  Writers, too, should think of a book as just one of a
 “constellation” of ways to get their ideas out, Kehoe said.  “It’s a 
fundamentally instrumental view of the book,” he said.

Speakers have an advantage in this shifting publishing landscape, said
 Esmond Harmsworth, a literary agent with Zachary Shuster Harmsworth,
 because they’re already thinking about their audience and honing their
 message.  But for some speakers who’ve built a strong relationship with
 an audience, self-publishing may actually be a better choice than
 working with a traditional, mainstream publisher, Harmsworth said.
  Bulk sales earn lower royalties, so a speaker who’s out selling his
 book on his own could be penalized in a traditional publishing deal.
  And authors who see a large portion of book sales from Amazon may be 
offered smaller advances for future books.

Kehoe, too, stressed that for an entrepreneurial author who will drive
 a lot of sales herself, self-publishing might be the best choice. But 
both said the traditional publishers still enjoy a reach and an access 
to a mainstream marketplace that nobody else can match. 

If you decide your book needs to reach that mainstream audience, start 
with a simple 3 to 5 page proposal that includes 3 key points:  (1) an explanation of
 your idea and its value, (2) your intended audience and (3) how you plan 
to reach them.

If you’re looking to work with a large, brand-name 
publisher, look for a literary agent first, Harmsworth said.  

“My job is almost like being a matchmaker,” Harmsworth said.  He looks 
for a publisher that can supplement the author’s skills and provide
 the guidance that a particular writer really needs, whether it’s close
 editing or marketing savvy.  And then, of course, comes the stage where
 the publishers “throw clouds of Monopoly money into the air,” as
 Harmsworth put it. (Sadly, that’s a joke, not a promise – Harmsworth
 actually noted that advances have fallen about 25% as a result of the
recession.)

 

Authors should be looking for a publisher who’s willing to engage in a partnership, Kehoe said. You’ll want to build a relationship that’s based on trust and two-way communication so you can work with the publisher to create a customized plan for how to sell the book and promote your ideas.

As the e-book landscape heats up, authors should start thinking now 
about how their work could take advantage of what will soon be a much 
more dynamic format, with the ability to offer customized versions of 
a book for different audiences, or revise a work to reflect new
 developments or incorporate audience feedback. We’re just now starting
t o see e-books enhanced with audio-visual content – another area to 
watch, Harmsworth said. (Check out the “Alice in Wonderland” iPad app 
for an example of what’s already possible.)

A good friend of ours at Public Words, a successful public speaker, recently received a speaking inquiry from a prestigious university in the United Kingdom.  The request came via email, and there were a number of indications that it wasn’t on the level.  The email address was a Gmail account, not the university’s email.  The sender purported to be a professor at the school, but there was no record of such a professor in the university’s online database.  Of course, he might have been newly appointed, but his command of the English language was so bad that our friend was immediately suspicious. 

On further investigation, there was no mention of the conference our friend was supposed to speak at on the university’s website.  In addition, there was an unusual request to “get a work permit” from the “British embassy” (via another Gmail account).

All signs seemed to point to fraud.  And, in addition, the amount of money offered for speaking was unusually large – the final straw. 

My question to everyone is:  have you run across anything similar?  What’s the point – would the scammer have asked for bank information at a later stage if our friend had continued?  If you’ve run across speaker scams like this, please let me know. 

Continuing with the theme of insights from the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010, one of the standout talks was from Pam Slim.  Pam’s generosity and openness made a deep impression on me and everyone else at the conference.  Thanks, Pam, for the inspiration!

Once again, I welcome guest blogger Sarah Morgan. 

The title of Pam Slim’s talk was “How to Use Social Media to Find an Audience That Wants to Hear You Speak” – but that’s not really what 
she was talking about.  She left aside a lot of the “how” questions most of us tend to get hung up on when thinking about social media – should I use Twitter or Facebook? How often should I tweet? How do I get more followers or fans? – and focused on 
the underlying “why” questions:  why am I trying to reach these people 
in the first place? Why do they need to hear what I have to say?

For Slim, the answer to all those questions is Jon the ballplayer:  a
 young guy trapped in a job he didn’t care about who’d had an offer
 to play pro baseball in Germany. His parents didn’t approve and he
 wasn’t sure if he should take the offer, but when Slim sent his story
 out to her audience through social media, the resounding “yes” that
 came back helped convinced Jon and his parents to take that leap.

“The tools of social media were just a way to begin to get the story
 out and also to begin to connect Jon with the community,” Slim said.

  In order to use social media to build a community around your
 work, you first have to understand the essence of what that work is –
the change you’re trying to make, or the meaning that you’re making in 
the world, Slim said. Then think about the specific kinds of people 
you need to reach with that meaning, and what those people need – the 
inspiration, connection, knowledge, or skills you can offer them.

“That’s about you as a human being engaging with people who are 
interested in your work, and using the tool of social media to do it,”
 Slim said.

  Don’t use social media just to endlessly promote yourself.  Write about
 things you’re truly passionate about, and use whatever platform you 
have to advocate for others, Slim said.  Build an “ecosystem of smart,
 generous peers” with whom you can connect and cross-pollinate and help 
each other reach different audiences. 

If you’re truly connected to your community, you’ll not only become a
 source for other authors or speakers, but also for the media.
  Journalists are always looking for sources, and if you have an
 authentic connection with an audience, you’ve got an endless supply of
 people grappling with the issues at the core of your work.

“I’m not a 
publicist, I don’t get a dime for that, but I know I’m doing my job,”
 Slim said.

 

The bottom line: don’t think about the bottom line.  Forget about
 numbers – how many followers, how many fans – and focus on authentic
 connections.  Use social media to do three things:

1.      Connect with people.

2.      Amplify their voices.

3.      Advocate on their behalf.

“When you’re acting in this way, not saying, ‘here’s a picture of me 
in front of my jet,’ but saying, ‘here’s the cool things my people are
 working on,’” Slim said, “people will fall over themselves to help
 you.”

I'm delighted to welcome a guest blogger to this space:  Sarah Morgan, a writer for SmartMoney.com, attended the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010 and is writing up some of the speakers and sessions.  (Full disclosure:  she's my daughter.)  Welcome, Sarah, and thanks for this insightful piece on how to ensure that your book is a success in the marketplace!  Public speakers take note, because a successful book is still the ticket to a sustained public speaking career. 

It’s every author’s dream: a debut book that bursts onto the national
 stage as an instant bestseller. Rebecca Skloot has been living that dream 
with the publication of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack, winning 
glowing reviews everywhere from Science to Entertainment Weekly and appearing on “Fresh Air” and “The Colbert Report.” But as Mark 
Bloomfield explained at the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010, Skloot’s story isn’t 
quite that simple.

  What looks like instant success was actually the result of 10 years of
 work cultivating relationships with magazines, book review editors,
and other key readers. Skloot also arranged her own 50-city book tour.

Similarly, Chip and Dan Heath did a lot of legwork that helped make Made to
 Stick a success that publishing insiders didn’t see coming.  Anita
 Diamant used a relationship with a female rabbi to spread the word
 about The Red Tent to a core readership of Jewish women.

A book is “a 16th-century technology with a 19th century business
 model trying to operate in a 21st century time,” Bloomfield said – but 
it’s still the most powerful tool for connecting with an audience.
  Even as e-books gain popularity, the book as a physical object retains 
its power. People display them in their homes and offices as signals
 about their identity, and their identification with groups, causes, attitudes and so on.

“Publishers have a privileged relationship with retailers and with the 
media, but authors have a privileged relationship with readers,”
 Bloomfield said. Especially in today’s interconnected world, an author
 needs to think beyond the front-of-store display in Barnes & Noble and
 identify a core group of readers she wants to reach, and a plan for
 converting her fans into advocates for her book.

“Don’t worry about bookstores,” Bloomfield said – worry about readers.
 Only 5% of book sales are made through bookstores now. “People know
 where to buy books, people know how to get them – if they want them. You have to make people want them.”  Once an author builds an audience, readers will
 find his book whether or not it’s got that front-of-store display.

Bloomfield outlined a five-step process for any author developing his
 own word-of-mouth marketing plan for a new work:

1.  Identify and define your brand as an author.

2.  Define your goals. Whom do you need to reach?

3.  Identify your circle of advocates.  Whom do you know, and how can 
they benefit from affiliating with your ideas?

4.  Design your campaign.  How will you engage with these advocates in
person and online?

5.  Plan for turnover.  Understand what the publisher’s marketing plans
 are, and how your work can be coordinated with theirs.

“Publishers who give an advance to an author essentially are seeding a
 new business,” Bloomfield said. “The author is the CEO of the book.”

We were thrilled to have a great group of speakers at our recent Public Words Speaker Forum.  As I continue to blog about takeaways from the event, I thought I’d provide some quick reads on some of the most useful talks.  Three are below; I’ll continue with David Meerman Scott and others tomorrow.

Esmond Harmsworth is a super literary agent.  He has represented interesting people from Governor Deval Patrick to Keith McFarland to the estate of Louisa May Alcott.  I first met him when he was in the middle of striking an incredible deal for a Public Words client. You want him on your side. 

Esmond held forth on the subject of what makes a good book proposal, unwrapping that particular mystery for speakers who want to get that book project underway.  What I particularly liked about Esmond’s approach was its simplicity.  He argued that book proposals should consist of three parts:

1.  What’s the idea
2.  Who’s the audience
3.  How are you going to reach them (marketing, platform, reach)

From personal experience with many book proposals, I can heartily concur that these are the essential questions.  If you can answer them in a fascinating, convincing and lively way, your book proposal will sell. 

Pam Slim, consultant, speaker, author, and generous soul, spoke on building your audience, through social media and other means.  She invited us to rethink how we approached the question of audience.  Rather than looking around for people to attract to our individual causes, Pam said we should first connect with people authentically, then amplify them – helping them find their passions and further them -- then advocate for them.  I like that so much I’m putting again here:

1.  Connect with them
2.  Amplify them
3.  Advocate for them

Third, the amazing speaker, author, and California dude Steve Farber spoke on building a lasting speaking career.  His insights came from an introspective look at how his own career has unfolded, and they were counter-intuitive and fascinating: 

1.  Have the passion (that comes before everything else)
2.  Develop the chops (meaning the speaking chops)
3.  Strengthen your point of view (a life-long work)
4.  Develop a body of work (what you do instead of hunting for speaking gigs)

Steve’s point was that any professional speaker is first and foremost a content expert.  That’s how you get hired.  As another speaker I know is fond of saying, “Speaking isn’t a profession.  What you do is a profession.  Speaking is an activity.” 

(This blog is based on the talk I gave at the opening of the Public Words Speaker Forum, June 11-12, 2010.)

Why is most public speaking – especially in the business world – so awful?  And how can we raise the bar, which is set distressingly low.  I think there are three principal reasons. 

First, speakers make it about themselves, and their information.  Too many speeches are data dumps.  But the oral genre is an ineffective format for dumping information.  We only remember 10 – 30 percent of what we hear in speeches. 

And of course, because public speaking is a self-conscious activity, speakers naturally focus on themselves.  Often from the best of intentions, speakers try to tell the audience everything they know on the subject (whatever it is).  They’ve prepared exhaustively, thinking that they have to know everything and are not allowed to say, “I don’t know,” in response to an audience question. 
 
Second, speakers fail to focus on the passion – something they really care about – and so the emotion doesn’t come through, either in the text of the speech, or the delivery.  As a result, presentations are too often boring.  Whether it comes from a mistaken belief that passion is out of place in business, or simply a fear of opening up, the lack of passion makes all too many speeches unbearable. 

Third, there’s Power Point.  Too many people use Power Point as a speaker outline, asking their audiences to read the slides along with them.  That’s idiotic, off-putting, and counter-productive.  And it happens every day.  Probably every hour of every day somewhere in the world. 

What are the alternatives to each of these grave public speaking offenses? 

First, make your speech a journey that you take the audience on – to what you want them to do differently.  Audiences come into a speech asking why – why is this important, why should I care, and so on.  If you answer that question for them, they’re happy and they move on to asking how – how can I get started, how can I make this my own, etc.  The ancient Greeks understood this well, and suggested a good speech should start with a problem the audience has and then lead to a solution.  If you do that well, you will move your audience to action. 

Second, make the speech both an intellectual and emotional journey.  To change our minds, we need to have both intellect and emotions engaged.  Telling stories is the best way to engage the emotions of the audience, since we respond easily to stories with characters that we can identify with. 

Third, use Power Point sparingly, and only for images and video.  Images and video both can convey emotion and clarify, for example, complicated data and concepts.  The goal should always be to simplify.  What’s the one point you want to make?  Make that and get off the stage.

When you do that, it’s fun for everyone, and it’s fun for you – and that’s the Zen insight for success in public speaking:  it’s not about the speaker, it’s about the audience.  That’s the way to move an audience to action and the way to change the world. 

I’m going to do a series of blogs on what we learned from the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010.  If you attended, please add your own takeaways! 

We felt extraordinarily lucky in having a wonderful group of participants.  There was a generous vibe in the air, and the conference was memorable for the enthusiasm and wholehearted participation of the attendees.  Before the conference began we were vowing we’d never do another one, because of the intense amount of work involved in getting it off the ground.  By the end, we were already talking about next year.  That conversion came thanks to the participants.  Thank you all for bringing so much joy and generosity. 

For this first blog, I’ll lead with some headline quotes.  In subsequent blogs, I’ll go into more depth. 

Why are most speeches so boring?  Three reasons:  #1 They’re all about the speaker; #2 The speaker lacks passion; #3 Death by Powerpoint

To make speeches better, have an intellectual AND emotional component.  Well-told stories bring emotion. 

It's your job to know your audience. What are their dreams? What are they afraid of?

All good speeches should take the audience on a journey through a valley of despair before they climb a mountain of hope. 

All entrepreneurs, and professional speakers, have to learn to focus and say no. 

Social media tip from David Meerman Scott:  take advantage of things that happen in REAL time and capitalize on the moment.  Don’t wait for the lawyers to give you permission to act. 

Steve Farber on success: have a deep desire and love for your work; hone your chops to speak about it and get clear on your point of view. 

Pam Slim on your audience:  Whom are you meant to serve? What do they need from you?  Your job is to connect them, amplify their message, and advocate for them. 

Mark Bloomfield on authors:  Authors are the CEO's of their books and publishers are the investors.  Authors should use that that investment to promote your book.

Steve Farber on identity:  What's your life's work? Answer that question, deepen that question, and it becomes a magnet for you. 

Mark Bloomfield on Publishers and Authors:  publishers have a privileged relationship with retailers. Authors have a privileged relationship with readers. 

Steve Farber on new speakers:  New speakers often focus on getting gigs, but that’s the wrong question; instead focus on your body of work. 

Christine Carlson, meeting planner, on how to get invited back as a speaker:  1)  Do your homework.  2)  Understand how the company works.  3)  Speak to as many people in the company as possible

Martin Perelmuter, Speaker Bureau CEO:  The three most important things to remember when working with a bureau:  1)  Be responsive – get back to a bureau right away when they call.  2)  Be transparent – don’t try to do an end run around a bureau.  3)  Be a partner with the bureau to grow the business together. 

Martin Perelmuter, Speaker’s Spotlight CEO:  To connect with a bureau, first get introduced.  Then invite the bureau to a speech.  And then ask them to handle a booking. 

Mark Bloomfield on the book publishing industry:  “books are a 16th Century technology, under a 19th Century business model, trying to operate in the 21st Century.” 

Pam Slim on Social Media:  Before you use social media - think about what's at the root of what you do, who you serve and what people need. 

Ever wonder how you can launch your own (paid) public speaking career or take your existing practice up to the next level?  Here’s your chance to get the straight story from one of the best:  Martin Perelmuter.  Martin launched Speakers Spotlight a few years back and has already managed more than 12,000 speeches in over 30 countries.  In an industry that suffers from shady practices and indifferent quality, Martin is a standout for integrity and transparency.  He’s also a warm, funny, delightful speaker himself. 

Now you can hear the bureau guy speak on the record on the state of the industry, how to launch or improve your own career, and the secrets of the industry.  Who gets hired, and why?  Who are the best working today?  And how much money can you make?

Sign up today for the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010 and learn from one of the industry leaders. 

A few years back, a writer inspired us all to take a remarkable leap of faith as leaders, in two books:  The Radical Leap and The Radical Edge.  Steve Farber carved out some very original territory as a speaker, writer, and thinker on what it takes to lead successfully today, while sticking close to your values and leading from the heart.  His books have become bestsellers and his speaker career has exploded, as his no-holds-barred, brash, direct, and honest approach has inspired audiences around the world to leave the ordinary behind and seek the extraordinary everyday. 

Recently, Steve has published a new book with some equally challenging ideas in it:  Greater than Yourself.  The book is all about how you should commit to lifting someone else up by mentoring them in a new, more focused way, to become greater than yourself. 

Like all of Steve’s books,  Greater Than Yourself is written in the form of a story, and the author is masterful at creating characters and situations that draw you in, keep you involved, and inspire you to try this at home. 

Steve’s speaking at the Public Words Speaker Forum on June 11-12, and he’s going to reveal how he’s created a career for himself and inspired millions of others about his ideas of service, heart, and authenticity.  Don’t miss him!  Sign up today!

You can read Steve’s blog here, find his books here, and see him on video here. 

Want to meet the most creative person on the planet?  His name is Josh Linkner, and he’s speaking at the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010 on June 11-12 in Boston.

Josh has started 4 Internet-based companies, sold the first 3, and built the fourth into a powerhouse presence that does 300 times more business than its nearest competitor.  The company is ePrize and it has transformed the prize and sweepstakes industry. 

At the same time, Josh has pursued a career as a jazz guitarist. In fact, he’s been playing professionally for more than 25 years, and still gets to regular gigs, even as he’s launching his next endeavor:  to save the business world from its creativity deficit. 

Josh has achieved his extraordinary success by constantly and passionately applying creativity to everything he does.  Early in its successful run, ePrize was already dominating the competition.  Josh wondered what could be done to keep the energy and enthusiasm going when the temptation to rest on the company laurels was becoming more and more tempting.  So he came up with Slither.  Slither is the company that is always one step ahead of ePrize, always making aggressively competitive moves to keep ePrize off balance, steal away its customers, and put a dent in its market share.  Of course, Slither is an imaginary company, invented to keep ePrize focused.  But it has become a fun way to come up with new ideas, stay energized, and keep growing. 

Now Josh has written a soon-to-be-released book on creativity, Disciplined Dreaming, and he’s launching a speaking career to help other companies and teams re-charge their creativity and keep ahead of their competition.  As Josh puts it, creativity is the only competitive advantage companies have left.  Everything else can be copied by a teenager with access to the Internet. 

Catch him now, while he’s still on the way up, speaking at our Public Words Speaker Forum 2010.  Check out his blog here, and see him speaking here. 

David Meerman Scott has ridden the wave of social media with the bestselling -- and best -- book on it, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.  David is in hot demand as a speaker around the world, talking about the New Rules, the World-Wide Rave, his second book, and generally educating people from Dubai to Dubuque on the intricacies of social media. 

Now he’s about to launch a third book, Real Time Marketing and PR, which takes the concepts in his first book a light-year or two further.  David’s insights will change the way you think about how businesses should be managed and run in this instant Internet era. 

David is debuting the speech on the new book (due out  in October) at the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010.  Register here to get the first hearing on David’s revolutionary thinking.  David is always a great speaker, and this opportunity to hear him talk about his new book for the first time just may help you launch a new business or revolutionize the one you’ve got now. 

Check out David’s blog here, his currents books here , and his speaking here.  And don’t miss the chance to hear him live on the subject of his yet-to-be-released book. 

A few years back, a worker bee got fed up in corporate America, quit her job, became an entrepreneur and consultant, and later on wrote a direct letter to CEOs everywhere, telling them in no uncertain terms how badly they were living up to the ideals of leadership, caring for their people, providing meaningful work experiences, and living their values. The open letter struck a chord that reverberated loud and long around the Internet and the traditional media. It was picked up everywhere from USA Today to The New York Times. 

Before very long, Pam Slim was writing a book and speaking around the world on how to “Escape from Cubicle Nation,” start your own business and become an entrepreneur. Not long ago, the book by the same name was published, to genuine and generous acclaim.

Pam is an inspirational figure for entrepreneurs, wannabe entrepreneurs, women, and worker bees trapped in dead-end jobs everywhere. She has been extraordinarily selfless as a coach, using her platform and social media savvy to help many other people in their quest to escape from cubicle nation and launch their own businesses. We’re very pleased to be featuring Pam at our conference June 11-12 talking about her experiences and presenting that genuine, caring thoughtful insight and help that has earned her a legion of fans and followers. You can sign up for the conference here. You can read Pam’s blog here, buy her book here, and become one of her Twitter followers or Facebook friends here. See her speaking here, get inspired, and don’t miss Pam live at the Public Words Speaker Forum 2010.

How much is a public speaker worth?  A fellow blogger recently tabulated the top ten here: http://bit.ly/9kSPj1

Who are they? 

Following is the (short) list with their per speech speaking fee: 

Donald Trump, $1-1.5 million

Ronald Reagan, $1 million

Tony Blair, $616,000

Bill Clinton, $150,000- $450,000

Rudy Guiliani, $270,000

Alan Greenspan, $250,000

Lance Armstrong, $100,000 and up

Al Gore, $100,000-150,000

Richard Branson, $100,000 and up

Sarah Palin, $100,000 and up

It’s an interesting list.  All but three are former politicians, thus confirming the idea that it may be public service at the time, but afterward you can cash in.  The others are celebrity CEOs or sports figures. 

Do the numbers appall you?  I often get incredulity or indignation from people not in the speaking business when I talk about how much more down-to-earth business speakers make (anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 per speech and up). 

But just looking at the number itself – for an hour’s worth of work! – is not thinking about the money in the right way.  Those speakers earn their money, and here’s why. 

Think about a typical business conference.  Let’s say there are 300 – 500 attendees.  It’s held at a nice hotel in some destination city, like Boston or London or Vegas or Paris or New York or Tokyo or San Francisco.  A typical budget for the entire conference is $1.5 to $2.0 million (USD).  So that speaker fee that seems so high is something like 2 % of the total.  Barely even figures.  As one meeting planner told me once, when we were haggling over a client’s $25K fee, “OK.  That’s less than we spend on coffee and donuts at the 10:30 break!”  And yet, for that sum, a headliner will leave his or her family, fly in coach long distances with an unpleasant airline, put up in a lonely room at the hotel, eat indifferent food, and then do his or her level best to charm a roomful of strangers, before heading home again. 

You may well attend the conference because of that headliner, so the drawing power of the person has to be figured in the fee.  If an extra 100 people attend because former President X is speaking, at $3,000 per, that’s another $300,000 in the coffers of the organizers.  And that’s probably on the low end.  It’s not hard to see how the relatively small investment in a headlining speaker pays for itself quite quickly. 

Now think about what it takes to become a headliner.  There are years of preparation involved for a speaker to be able to cash in on his or her fame.  Ideas, research, books, public service, inventions, innovations, businesses – real accomplishments that take time and perseverance.  You don’t just start speaking.  You come to it because you’ve starred in some other world. 

So that $40K is not just for the hour of speaking – it’s for the lifetime of preparation. 

Speakers earn their fees if they change the world by moving an audience to action.  If you’ve been in one of those audiences, you know what I mean.  An hour spent with a great speaker can set you off in a new direction, opening your life to new thoughts, experiences, and ventures.  What’s that worth? 

I get questions all the time from speakers and wannabe-speakers about the infamous speaker DVD.  I’m beginning to think that somewhere an angel loses its wings every time I answer the question, because the speakers usually look so crestfallen.  So in an effort to save a few angels, here’s the lowdown on the speaker DVD. 

If you want to be a paid speaker and get hired by meeting planners and through speakers bureaus, you must have a speaker DVD.  What does it look like?  Let’s say what it’s not first.  It’s not a series of clips of you on TV shows sounding witty and looking great.  It’s not a hand-held, back-of-the-room, lousy-sound DVD your brother-in-law shoots with his camcorder.  It’s not a film of you talking straight into the camera in a studio (or a hotel room). 

It is a 20- to 30-minute excerpt from a real speech given by you in front of a good audience, in a similar setting to what you’re hoping to get hired to do.  The DVD is done with 2 or 3 cameras, professional sound, good lighting, and audience reaction shots.  The look and feel should be like a presidential news conference, or state of the union address, with most of the camera attention on you, but with occasional cutaways to the audience.  That’s why you need the second camera – to catch the question, the laugh, the audience clearly engaged in your brilliant insights. 

The camera shouldn’t simply focus on your head and shoulders and leave it there for the 20 -30 minutes.  That’s what your brother in law would do, and it looks bush league.  Instead, it should close in occasionally, but stay wide, or at a 3/4 shot most of the time.  We want a sense of the room, and the magnitude of the occasion.  But no waiters walking in front of the cameras!  And, in spite of the fact that most highly paid speeches are given in ballrooms to people sitting at rounds, (a format that is deadly dull and which I particularly loathe), what shows up best is the auditorium style.  That’s because rounds always make the room look empty and the crowd sparse. 

Of course, the hard thing about all this is that if you haven't yet been hired to give these kinds of speeches, how do you get a DVD of one?  It’s a Catch-22. 

The good news is that we’ve worked out a solution.  Our Public Words Speaker Forum 2010 conference has a couple of slots left on Day Two for speakers who want to record their speeches and get a DVD.  We’ll got a two-camera film crew on hand, with professional sound, good lighting, and an audience, and we’ll edit the DVD for you afterward to the specs that work best for meeting planners and speakers bureaus.  All you have to do is show up with a great speech.  Register here so no more angels have to lose their wings!

For my blog today, I’m linking to a couple of great people:  Maureen Anderson, of the Career Clinic -- http://bit.ly/dyEpaq -- and Steve Farber, author of several cool books -- http://amzn.to/aaQ9xb -- on leadership, and a wonderful speaker.  Here’s Steve speaking recently at a massive venue in Vegas: http://bit.ly/9AWXwW.  Note that he’s working a (nearly) 360-degree audience, and doing it with aplomb.  To make everyone in a theatre-in-the-round or thrust stage feel loved, a speaker has to put out more energy than usual, and keep moving to face each aspect of the audience.  Steve accomplishes this well in the clip. 

Maureen blogs about the Public Words Speaker Forum, and Steve will be the keynote speaker at our June 11-12 event, giving you two reasons to put it on your calendar.  Register before May 15 and avoid the price increase! 

Based on actual events.  Don’t try these on your audiences.  Please feel free to nominate the worst cases of audience abuse you have witnessed. 

10.  The speaker who comes out on stage and says, “Good Morning. . . . GOOD MORNING!. . . .  I can’t hear you!. . . . GOOD MORNING!!!!. . . . Until the audience responds with a sufficiently loud form of that banal salutation to satisfy the speaker. 

9.  The speaker who buries his head in a text, reading behind the podium, never once looking up to connect with the audience, for 10….30…..60 minutes. 

8.  The speaker who presents a dense slide of data to the audience, saying, “You can’t read this, but what this slide shows is…..”

7.  The speaker who begins her talk with, “But first, let me tell you a little bit about me, my company, and how we got to this point….”

6.  The (male) speaker who spends the entire 60 minutes talking to the attractive woman in the third row.  (Or vice-versa.) 

5.  The speaker who talks down to the audience, saying, “You don’t need to understand this; suffice it to say that….”

4.  The speaker who is so fascinated with his subject, say, the low-light hydroculture of Paeonia lactiflora, that he tells the audience everything he knows about it, believing that the audience is just as interested. 

3.  The speaker who begins her talk saying “I have 235 slides and only 30 minutes, so I’m going to move very fast.  But don’t worry, I’m e-mailing the deck to everyone at the conference.”

2.  The speaker who presents the results of the multi-year study….in total, on several hundred illegible slides, including the assumptions and statistical models used to analyze the data – and insists on going over every single slide. 

1.  The speaker who runs 20 minutes over time. 

I’m very excited to announce our first annual Public Words Speaker Forum (2010) for June 11-12, 2010.  The professional speaking world is changing rapidly, the book business (speakers need published books) is changing even more rapidly, and we need to get some smart minds together to sort it all out.  The event will be held in conjunction with The Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School, in the historic Taubman building on the Kennedy School campus in Cambridge, MA.  We’re also going to give a select number of speakers a chance to show their stuff in talks that will be recorded so that we can create professional-quality DVDs for them. 

The Forum will begin with a day devoted to exploring the current state of the public speaking world with some of the smartest minds in the business.  In a series of discussions and talks, we’ll hear from a successful speaker, marketing and content experts, a social media expert, literary agents, publishers, speakers’ bureau representatives, and meeting planners.  There will be opportunities throughout the day for networking and detailed discussions with experts in the public speaking business, as well speakers themselves.  We’ll close the day with what we hope will become a Speaker Forum tradition:  an improv demonstration and contest that will encourage all speakers present to develop their ability to respond in the moment to whatever an audience sends their way! 

The second day will feature a showcase of some of the most interesting speakers currently on the circuit.  David Meerman Scott is our first headliner who’s signed up.  These presentations will be taped, and a panel of industry experts will review the speeches afterward.  Participants will receive professional-quality DVDs of their speeches to use in their marketing.  In addition, for those who don’t want to attempt an entire speech, we’ll be recording 3-minute clips for promotional use on the Web.  

Attendees will gain an insider’s knowledge of the speaking business and an understanding of what it takes to establish and sustain a successful public speaking career. 

Let me know if you’re interested – click on the link and sign up. 

And please make any suggestions for content you’d like to see discussed, and ideas for making the Forum a success. 

Here’s a tentative (evolving) agenda: 

June 10, Thursday:

Drinks and dinner for attendees who arrive in time

June 11, Friday:

Day One Agenda:

8:00 – 9:00:  A Successful Public Speaker Tells How He Did It

9:00 – 10:00:  Messaging and Content Development:  How to find your audience (Mark Bloomfield)

10:00 – 11:00:  How to Structure the Content and Deliver the Best Speech of Your Life (Dr. Nick Morgan)

11:00 – 12:00:  Traditional PR or Social Media?  How to Create an Audience that Wants to Hear You Speak
 
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch

1:00 – 2:00:  A Literary Agent’s Perspective:  What It Takes to Get a Speaker’s Book Published (Esmond Harmsworth, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency)

2:00 – 3:00: A Publisher Speaks:  What You Should Know about the Publishing Business (Jeff Kehoe, Harvard Business School Publishing)

3:00 – 4:00: The Speakers’ Bureau and You:  How to Work Well with the Best (Martin Perelmuter, CEO, Speakers Spotlight)

4:00 – 5:00:  A Meeting Planner Dishes on Speakers:  What You Need to Know to Get Hired Again (Christine Carlson, V-P, PrudentialFoxRoach)

5:00 – 5:30:  Improv and Public Speaking (Steve Kleinedler, ImprovBoston)

Dinner reception

June 12, Saturday:

Agenda:

9:00 – 4:00:

The day will showcase some of the current top speakers and each speaker will be reviewed by an expert panel of industry insiders.  (Lunch and refreshment breaks included.)

Including:  David Meerman Scott

IN THIS SERIES

• 1. Basic rules to follow.
• 2. How much energy it will take.
• 3. Where to find gigs.
• 4. How to achieve long-term success.
• 5. Essential marketing materials.
• 6. The importance of social media.
• 7. FAQs.

I’m closing out this series on your paid public speaking career with some FAQs. 

1.  So I need a book – can I self-publish?

The answer is no.  At this point, self-publishing just doesn’t measure up in the eyes of the speakers bureaus and meeting planners who will be hiring you.  There’s a pecking order; at the top are certified New York Times bestselling authors.  Then there are writers of popular and influential books.  Then there are writers of books.  Then there are self-published authors.  At the bottom of the heap, and it’s a very big heap.  Don’t put yourself there. 

2.  How much money can I make public speaking?

The folks at the top make as much as $100,000 and more per speech.  If that seems like a lot, it is.  But remember, those folks got there by being really successful doing something else.  So they’re busy, and they can’t be speaking all the time.  For the rest of us, NY Times bestsellers make $40K and up per speech.  Authors of popular books make in the $20-40K range.  Other authors make $10-20K.  And everyone else makes….expenses. 

3.  I’m retired; can I make this my second career and earn a little money while I’m at it?

No.  It’s not a part-time pursuit.  It’s too demanding.  Think of it as a full-time job, with a lot of travel, and then decide if that's what you want. 

4.  What should I speak about?

Something you’re very, very passionate about. Something you’re prepared to repeat up to 100 times a year. 

5.  Should I go with an ‘exclusive’ speakers’ bureau?

No.  Get to know as many bureaus as you can – well.  For most people, that means a half-dozen or so.  The idea is to keep yourself top of mind with them. 

6.  How do I get started getting paid for speaking?

Start by speaking for free.  Speak to small groups, volunteer groups, Toastmasters – anything to get some practice and to find out how good you are.  Then, work your network to get a paid invitation.  Perhaps at an association of which you are a member.  Perhaps at an industry convention where you’ve helped in some way.  Start out with a breakout session, and work your way up.  To be a keynoter, you need a book.  See #1. 

7.  Is it a good idea to have as many speaking topics as possible?

No. See my earlier posting on the importance of a brand.  You should become known for speaking on a few, related topics.  The world simply won’t believe that you can be expert on 20 things.  Even if you actually are.

8.  Do I need a website?

Of course.  It’s the second place a meeting planner looks (after your DVD) to see what kind of speaker you are and how much you should be paid.  A cheesy looking website will limit your earning potential absolutely. 

9.  Why should I blog – isn’t that just giving it away for free?

It’s all about building up a platform and a community – what used to be called a reputation.  Blogging is a whole lot more effective in today’s world than trying to get an article in HBR or an appearance on the Today Show.  You can control how often and how well you blog.  You have very little control over Harvard or NBC. 

10.  Do I need a manager?

Not until the calls and emails are coming in faster than you can handle them.  Then, maybe, depending on how well organized you are.  Managers will take anywhere from a small (5) percent of your earning to a lot (30%).  Think it through before you decide you need one.  That said, it is far more effective in the long run to have someone else negotiating on your behalf than doing it yourself.  Most people tend to ask for too little on their own behalf, and cave in too easily. 

IN THIS SERIES

• 1. Basic rules to follow.
• 2. How much energy it will take.
• 3. Where to find gigs.
• 4. How to achieve long-term success.
• 5. Essential marketing materials.
• 6. The importance of social media.
• 7. FAQs.

It’s difficult to imagine maintaining a public speaking career these days without a social media presence, a blog, or YouTube videos, but some do.  The range of comfort, expertise, and experience with online marketing is enormous amongst public speakers.  But the truth is that the world is moving too fast today to rely on (even) FedEx and marketing materials that only exist on paper. 

So focus on the social media you understand best – perhaps creating a Facebook fan page, for example – start your blog and contribute regularly to it, post some YouTube videos in your channel, put your slides on line, create a pdf version of your press kit – just get started.  If you don’t have a least some of this kind of marketing going on, you’re going to look like a troglodyte, and they don’t get hired much.

The real purpose of all this social media and online marketing is to create or join a community of people, developing and extending a platform of your area of interest and your brand that like-minded people can respond to, comment on, and generally help you get the message out. 

It’s important to understand that it’s not really about you.  It’s about the message.  That’s why people will respond, comment, and help – because they care about the same thing or things.  So get the word out, and create ways for the world to join you in the cause you care about.  If you do that passionately and well, the world will invite you to speak about it, and you will be able to sustain a public speaking career.

I’ll conclude this series next time with a roundup of most frequently asked questions about the business of public speaking. 

IN THIS SERIES

• 1. Basic rules to follow.
• 2. How much energy it will take.
• 3. Where to find gigs.
• 4. How to achieve long-term success.
• 5. Essential marketing materials.
• 6. The importance of social media.
• 7. FAQs.

Let’s talk about the marketing materials you need to develop a paid public speaking career.  There are a few essentials:  a DVD, a website, a book, a one-sheet.  And a number of should-haves: a social media presence, a blog, a press kit, handouts, YouTube videos.  And after that, the only limit is your imagination.  The Carrot Principle authors sent 4-foot stuffed carrots to speakers’ bureaus to catch their attention (it worked).  A speaker we know sent live goldfish to speakers’ bureaus for the same reason (the goldfish mostly died).  Seth Godin reaches out to his base with promotions, seminars, special deals, unique offers – almost daily.  He’s a brilliant marketer, and it shows (and it works). 

But let’s talk about the essentials first.

First, the DVD.  Many people have the wrong idea about what should be on a speaker’s DVD.  It really needs to contain one thing and one thing only:  a 20-30 minute excerpt of a speech similar to the kind you want to book.  The sound should be good, the lighting should be adequate, and it should not look like your brother-in-law held a flip cam on you from the back of the room.  It should include audience reaction shots, so you need a 2-camera shoot, maybe even 3.  It should not focus on your head and shoulders exclusively, and it should not show waiters walking in front of the camera. 

This is not a “greatest hits” or “sizzle” reel.  That kind of thing – brief clips of you in front of a variety of audiences, or on TV – is not much use to speakers’ bureaus and meeting planners, because they figure that everyone can be brilliant for 30 seconds at a time.  They want to see you holding an audience (preferably a large audience) for 30 minutes, because then they know that you can do the same thing for them. 

This little object is harder to acquire than you might think.  Having worked with many clients, conferences, video crews and so on, I’ve learned that everything that can go wrong will.  The lighting will be horrible.  The sound will be worse.  Your message will change.  The audience won’t cooperate.  Waiters will walk in front of the cameras.  You’ll wear black in front of a black background and be invisible.  You’ll wear light colors in front of light colors and look like an animated fruit tree.  Everything that can go wrong will. 

Nonetheless, get the best DVD you can and get on with life.  Here’s how to approach the subject.  Imagine that for the rest of your speaking career, you will be looking to acquire more video footage of yourself.  Every time you give a speech, bribe the A/V guys to give you a copy of the master tape.  If you’re always in video acquisition mode, you’ll get plenty of chances to improve your DVD. 

Second, the website.  The next place a meeting planner goes after watching your DVD is to your website.  He or she will get a good idea of how much you’re worth, how current you are, and whether or not you should be hired, from the website.  So, it’s worth putting a good deal of thought into, and (get used to it) plenty of time.  Amateur-looking websites these days mean amateur speakers.  Here are some good ones:  Steve Farber: http://stevefarber.com/.  Susan Ershler: http://sueershler.com/.  Adam Hartung: http://www.thephoenixprinciple.com/.  Notice how having the blogfeed (and other social media feeds) on your home page keeps the site fresh. 

Bottom line is that you simply cannot be hired at $20K per speech if your website looks like it was designed by your kids’ former babysitter. 

Third, the book.  I just did a whole series on the public speaker’s need for a book, so I will be brief here.  You must have a published book (not a self-published book, under most circumstances) to sustain a public speaking career.  It’s a way for audiences to continue the relationship with you, and for meeting planners to feel secure that you are an expert in the field that they’ve hired you speak about. 

Fourth, the one-sheet.  Called a one-sheet because it used to be one page, this document has pictures of you looking great, your speaking topics, a brief bio, testimonials, any media hits, a description of your book, and anything else that is relevant for potential bookers to know.  It should be designed, almost certainly not by you, unless you’re a designer (and even then) and while you probably should print a few up on expensive stock, usually you’ll send it out as a pdf.  This document should be irresistible, fascinating, and delightful.  It should motivate your reader to reach for the phone and hire you.