Monetize Your Professional Speaking Engagements
A professional speaking engagement can be an intimidating task to conquer, as even those who excel at getting up in front of others and giving an amazing speech may find it difficult to render the entire endeavor profitable. Speakers who don’t find a way to earn a buck from their professional speaking engagement often struggle to dedicate the needed amount of time and resources that are required for sustainable speechmaking that will turn you into a star. Rather than throwing your hands into the air and giving up, you should be studying tried and tested monetization strategies that will help you.
Here are 5 ways to monetize your professional speaking engagement, what to avoid as you attempt to do so, and why it’s worthwhile to pursue these strategies in the first place.
- Offer consultancies
One of the easiest ways to monetize your speaking engagement doesn’t even require you to major significant changes to the content of your speech. By noting that you’re a talented and sought-after consultant, for instance, and by clarifying that you’re open to offering consultancies to others in the future, you could be convincing some of your audience members to hire you in the future.
If your speech is riveting and informative, audience members who leave the auditorium thinking about what you’ve said will likely consider hiring you as a consultant in the near-future. It’s thus seriously worthwhile to add in a consultancy element when drafting your speech, as this could lead to future job opportunities and will help lend your speech more credibility all the while by establishing yourself as a reputable expert in a certain subject area.
- Promote your blog
While offering consulting services, you should also consider promoting your blog or a similar digital medium that helps you generate income in the form of advertising revenue. Knowing how to promote your blog is more complicated than paying for advertisements; sometimes it requires in-person marketing, and there’s no better time or place for this when you’re giving a speech about something that your blog or digital platform is concerned with.
Don’t be afraid to turn your audience towards your blog to find information that you elude to in your actual speech. Make sure your blog is industry specific. A dental firm like Drescher & Cohen DDS should have very specific dental related articles to help their customers. In some cases, you can even begin a tantalizing story only to end it by pointing your audience members to your blog, where the exciting story culminates. If you’re not using your public speaking opportunity to monetize your blog, you’re missing out on an ideal way to generate some additional side income for yourself.
- But don’t disrupt the flow of content
An important thing to remember when attempting to monetize your professional speaking engagement is that disrupting the flow of your speech’s content by suddenly inserting a reference or ad that has nothing to do with the topic at hand is a terrible mistake to make. The ins and outs of content monetization demand that audience members never be thrust into uncertainty and feel jarred and out of place.
You should thus ensure that your speech’s natural components flow smoothly together and that nothing is suddenly shoehorned in towards the end. If you make that mistake, your content monetization strategy will never take off.
- Leverage past experiences
If you’re someone who had a daring experience in the past that’s relevant to the potential future experiences of others, don’t be afraid to bring those memories up in your speech. It will be easier to convince someone to spend on Yoga sculpt if you can demonstrate that your previous experiences with fitness clients were defined in no small part because of your training. By drawing a connection between your past and their potential future, you’ll be leveraging your former experiences to ensure that your future is more financially secure than it would otherwise be.
- Sell a recording of the talk and merchandise
Selling merchandise is an ideal way to drum up some money for yourself when you engage in a professional speaking arrangement. If you’re drawing the line at books, however, you need to realize that there are other things which can be sold to reap in tremendous profits, too. By recording your speech and selling that recording, for instance, you’re turning a single professional speaking engagement into a commodity which can consistently generate your income for years to come.
Ensure that your speech is transcribed when you’re giving it if it’s not already written down, and don’t refrain from selling audio recordings to those who prefer to listen to things. A video of your speech can also be easily monetized, especially if you post it on your website or social media feed and see it go viral after some user engagement. By remembering to sell merchandise and realizing that this includes copies of your actual speech, you’ll be earning more from your professional speaking engagements in no time.
