Considering Professional Speaking? Read This First.

For many individuals, the biggest question in life is not "What am I going to do today?" but rather "What legacy will I leave behind?" or "How can I make the world a better place while I'm here?" While there are countless answers to these questions, an increasingly popular solution is sharing one's message with the world through professional speaking.

If you are reading this, you are probably at least somewhat interested in the potential benefits of becoming a professional speaker, or you may already be a speaker looking to expand your speaking business into a full-time career. Both scenarios provide an ideal starting point to consider venturing into professional speaking or advancing your existing position. Furthermore, speaking is constantly evolving, offering both excitement and challenges as part of the speaking community.

Nonetheless, before launching into professional speaking, there are several things to keep in mind - both good and bad. Here are five reasons why you should consider becoming a professional speaker, followed by three important caveats to consider before making the leap to full-time speaking. Without further ado, let's delve into the details!

What is professional speaking?

For starters, what exactly does “professional speaking” mean? In a nutshell, professional speakers are people that are paid to share their expertise, insight, and/or motivational content with other individuals in their chosen line of work. Also called “thought-leaders,” professional speakers can speak full- or part-time and can offer a wide variety of services as a part of their speaking business. Some of the most common offerings include keynote or guest speaking, executive coaching, professional development, and consulting. 

Basically, the phrase “professional speaking” is a blanket term for a range of skills, all of which incorporate speaking and leadership to some degree. Running a speaking business full-time also demands that you combine your offerings with content creation. You can share videos, blog articles, podcast episodes – anything you like. The goal is just to use your content to share your ideas and attract attention for your business. Then, use it to upsell interested people into a speaking contract or other offering.

The “Pros” of Professional Speaking

All in all, professional speaking can be an incredibly rewarding experience and a relatively easy way to make an impact greater than you might at a “normal” job. It also comes with a handful of added benefits that any experienced speaker would mention as a reason they stuck around. Below are five of the most common “pros” our team has heard in working with speakers. 👍

It allows you to share your message with a global audience. 

First and most importantly, professional speaking gives you a platform for you to share what you’re passionate about, the areas in which you want to have a leading voice. If you’re concerned about climate change, for example, speaking gives you a chance to share with others why they should be concerned, too. If you’re an expert and know your professional insights could benefit others in your field, speaking lets you educate them and spark their own research or creativity. 

In short, your message can be informative, argumentative, or motivational. But, regardless of how you choose to speak professionally, doing so allows you to positively impact audiences worldwide and make a broader mark than you might otherwise. It also tests your message and your own beliefs, as you meet more audiences through speaking experience. That way, you grow personally and professionally as well as those you seek to serve.

You’re in complete control of your schedule. 

The third “pro” of professional speaking is also about flexibility, namely having a flexible schedule. Although it doesn’t always apply for part-time speakers, speaking full-time allows you to be in complete control of your calendar at all times. No more missing holidays or important family milestones because you have to be at work. When managing a speaking business, you’re your own boss. So, if you want to block time off for self-betterment, vacation – anything, really – you absolutely can.

Admittedly, while this sounds awesome, it’s important to keep in mind that a flexible schedule doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of free time. Especially if you’re speaking full time, having speaking engagements in the books means more revenue. It also means that, while you can speak as little or as much as you want to, it won’t be until you’re well-established (and can charge higher fees per gig) that you can take large amounts of time off. 

You’ll be asked to speak for free a lot, initially. 

Last but not least, the final “con” of professional speaking relates to sales. For some people, selling comes naturally. In some instances it’s even related to what they already do for a living. This makes selling their services as a speaker an easy hurdle to clear and includes part- and full-time speakers alike. 

More often than not, however, most new speakers have to work to develop a sales mindset. This means learning to argue for your worth, take rejection often, and balance free speaking gigs with paid ones.

You may be thinking, “Well, that doesn’t sound unreasonable in the short term,” but free speaking is kind of a trap. While you may have to speak for free, initially, to get hired and gain experience, after a while, it can be hard to charge more. For many speakers – including some of our clients – it gets harder and harder to sell themselves for what they’re worth because they’ve gotten into the mindset of free speaking. 

In the end, building a sales “backbone” can be tough, and getting past the free speaking phase can be tougher. When you’re weighing the pros and cons of professional speaking, bear in mind the consistent sales efforts that speaking demands and how much you want to delve into sales long term.