Do you have a passion for what you speak on? Are you
persistent in pursuing your speaking goals? Here are some
steps to take to get you to the economic buyers who will
hire you.
1. Join toastmasters-an international club that helps people
speak more effectively. Club members usually meet weekly in
groups of 20 or less: http://www.toastmasters.org
2. Enhance your speaking career by networking with 50 or
more other speakers. They become your referral sources. Join
the Nation Speakers Association, a 4,000 member organization
that holds conferences and has local chapters to help you
with your marketing skills and networking.
www.nsaspeaker.org
3. Prepare yourself by collecting material 24/7/365. Carry
around a mini-cassette recorder as you would your cell
phone. Record your personal stories, your mishaps, your
triumphs and struggles. Your stories will transform people’s
lives.
4. Become familiar with groups that hire speakers. The
American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) is the
worlds largest society of executive planners, who,
collectively, book some $56 billion in conventions each
year. The 16,300 members of Meeting Professionals
International (MPI) coordinate 800,000 meetings annually and
book many professional speakers.
5. Hire a speech coach. The Olympic Games remind us that a
world-class athlete is surrounded by a number of people
whose function is to keep him or her on track. No serious
athlete or professional speaker would expect to progress
very far without a coach.
6. Create a list of “advocates” who will know what you offer
and pass you on to prospective clients. Contact this group
at least once a month with updates about your speaking
career progress. Make them your cheerleaders! It is way
too hard to do this alone.
7. Finally, feel reverence for the work you do. It is a
privilege to be on the platform. And with this comes an
awesome responsibility to your audience. Live/speak from the
inside out.
Publishing Guidelines: You are welcome to publish this
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of charge, as long as you include my full signature file
for ezines, and my Web site address ( http://www.schrift.com )
in hyperlink for other sites. Please send a courtesy link
or email where you publish to sandra@schrift.com Thank you.
COPYRIGHT: ©2006 by Sandra Schrift. All rights reserved
Sandra Schrift 13 year speaker bureau owner and now career
coach to emerging and veteran public speakers who want to
"grow" a profitable speaking business. I also work with
business professionals and organizations who want to
master their presentations.
Buy the audio CD (available as an MP3 download).
"POWER PRESENTATIONS FOR PROFESSIONALS" at
http://www.schrift.com/Power_Presentations_for_Professionals/
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