Explanation of Ways Speakers Make Money - Succeed in Public Speaking by Ron Kurtus. Also refer to professional, fee, ticket sales, book, CD, DVD, back-of-room sales, seminar, presentation, School for Champions. Copyright © Restrictions
Ways Speakers Make Money
by Ron Kurtus (revised 8 December 2011)
There are several ways that professional public speakers can earn money through their public speaking. One way is to charge a fee to give their talk. Since many professional speakers have books, audio CDs and other products concerning their presentations, they can make money selling products after the speech. Other speakers use some combination of the two methods.
Questions you may have include:
- How does a speaker get paid for speaking?
- What do product sales consist of?
- What are some combinations of the two methods?
This lesson will answer those questions. There is a mini-quiz near the end of this lesson.
Getting paid to speak
A common way professional speakers make money is to charge an organization a fee to speak at one of their functions. Another way is to promote the speech or seminar and sell tickets to the event.
Get paid a fee
Most professional speakers will book a series of speeches with organizations and companies for a set fee. Typically it is within an industry where you have expertise, although it can be for entertainment events also.
Charge for tickets
If you are a well-known speaker, promoters may set up an event where tickets are sold for the general public to hear you speak. You would then get a percentage of the ticket sales.
Some speakers promote their own events and seminars, doing all the marketing and gaining a greater profit. Typically, this type of event is something that is of extreme interest to the general public. One example of a topic of interest is "How to get rich overnight."
Selling your products
A professional speaker usually has written one or more books on the topic, as well as had recordings made of past presentations.
You can make money from speaking by selling your books, audio CDs or video DVDs of your material. This is often called back-of-room sales, since you would have a table at the back of the room where the sales could be made during a break or after your talk.
You can mention your book or CD during your talk to let the audience what you have available. Some speakers have been known to spend most of their speech trying to sell the audience on their product, although this is typically frowned upon by event organizers.
Combinations
There are various combinations for making money.
Fee plus sales
As mentioned above, you can collect a fee or charge for tickets and make extra money with the product sales.
Fee includes products
In some cases, the fee or ticket price is set higher and will include your book, CD or other products. In such a case, you are guaranteed a higher number of product sales, although your fee rate may be less.
Fee and no sales
Some organizations will not allow speakers to sell their products after the presentation. You simply get a set fee.
No fee, just sales
There are speakers who will do a speech for free, provided they are allowed to sell their products.
Summary
There are several ways you can earn money through public speaking. One way is to charge a fee to give your talk. If you have books, audio CDs and other products concerning your presentations available, you can sell your product after the speech. There are also several combinations of the two methods.
See Side Menu for more Speaking topics
Be creative in ways to satisfy your customers
Resources and references
The following are some resources on this topic.
Web sites
Books
Top-rated
books on Public Speaking
Top-rated
books on Professional Speaking
Mini-quiz to check your understanding
If you got all three correct, you are on your way to becoming a Champion in Public Speaking. If you had problems, you had better look over the material again.
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Also see Answers to Readers' Questions.
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Ways Speakers Make Money