Steps to Becoming a Motivational Speaker

There are many people out there who look at keynote and motivational speaking, and think that it is a great job. Travel, interesting events, brilliant people, notoriety… all of this sounds great, but how does one actually begin to do that for a living? Read on for advice:

Have Passion:

Motivational and keynote speaking is not just getting up in front of a crowd and talking. It is about convincing every person listening. The idea is to open minds, to change them, to shift their perspectives. You can’t do that by just speaking alone. You have to be an expert. You have to be passionate. You have to know deep down in your bones that what you know is right, and possibly being overlooked, and others need to hear about what you know.

Be Yourself:

There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions in this world. You cannot get anywhere by telling people things that they have already heard. It needs to be creative, and unique. It also has to be better.

Be Better:

The way to get better is to reach out to professionals and colleagues, and give them your talk. Do not ask friends and family, who will want to be nice to you. You need to know, honestly, if you cough when you are nervous, or if you fidget with your sleeves. Seek out people smarter than you who can challenge the things you say, who can tell you what is spurious or in need of clarification. You need to know what is working and what is not working to improve it. Film it and watch it back yourself.

Start Small:

Once you have perfected your brilliant, insightful, expressive, consequential talk over hours of refining… Give it away. Find relevant groups. Deserving groups. Groups who would love your talk at their event but do not have the resources. Start local and in your area of expertise. This is where you get your crowd feedback. Where the pauses are. Does your joke get a laugh?

Keep it Free:

It is said in the industry that you can’t be paid to speak until you have given 300 free talks. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, maybe for you it’s 50 talks, maybe it’s 500. Maybe you have a low fee to cover the gas you used to get to their location. Find professionals in your circle that would like you to give a small workshop to their team. Tech startups love to have experts come into the office to speak. Go to university professors teaching your subject and guest lecture.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job:

Eventually, after a time, you will have someone come up to you and ask “How much would you charge to give that talk at my event?” That is when you become a professional. Word of mouth takes time to spread, and in the meantime the passion you have will carry you through. Do it because you believe in it, not to make a living off of it. Some speaking careers never become lucrative. Some are just lucrative enough to pay the bills. Some pay very, very well. It is up to you and the time you devote to motivational speaking. It will happen, but not passively.

Be Professional:

Once you are being paid, you have to be a value to those paying you. Show up early and prepared. Be courteous and quick. Be the kindest, the most hassle-free, the most insightful in the business. You are selling yourself in the keynote and motivational speaking industries, not any other product. You have to be committed to being the best of the best, every day.

Connecting with an Audience

From inspiring employees, to presenting to potential investors, to performing nightly onstage, at some point most of us will have to stand up in front of others and speak to them. But how do you make it an effective and successful moment?

Firstly, you have to want to connect with your audience. Understand why you are here. Are you looking for a promotion? Trying to build a company from scratch? Giving a toast at a wedding and want to let the bride and groom know how much they mean to you? Before you focus on what you are saying, know why you are saying it. Lighting a fire in yourself will help to ignite the same spark in others.

Next, you have to know who you are speaking to. You can speak about the same ideas with a room full of children sitting on the floor or partners in a boardroom. All you have to change is the way you get those ideas across. What was the last thing your investor invested in? Ask questions beforehand, stalk them on Google, chat with the organization on the phone. Everyone is flattered when they are understood, and just a little bit of knowledge can drive home a joke or alter a presentation for the better.

Be vulnerable. This is the most difficult, and yet most important step. More and more people distrust big brands, and feel like they are getting “a line” instead of the truth. In the digital age, people believe that what you are showing to the world is a carefully curated presence that doesn’t tell the whole truth. They crave a real exchange, a personal experience. So talk about a time when you were wrong, and learned from it. Share an insecurity or a flaw. Don’t beat yourself down in front of others, but a little honesty and self-deprecation can go a long way to get everyone in the room onto your team.

Use little stories to tell a big story. Telling someone what they should be doing is boring or insulting. Telling them what Jim did -or what you yourself did- allows them to observe the story and the moral of it from a distance. A great example of this is the Stanford commencement address Steve Jobs gave in 2005. “Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life,” Jobs said at the outset of the speech. “That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.” Jobs then used those three stories to tell his bigger message about “connecting the dots” in your life and how major life setbacks can be a blessing in disguise.

Ask questions. Engaging people and looking for input while you are talking makes what you are saying dynamic and compelling. You NEED them to say what you need to say. It helps keep your content fresh and makes people feel important. Make sure you are well-versed enough in your topic to be able to answer a curveball. If someone asks you a question back that is complicated, gets you off-track, or is irrelevant to the point you are making, all it takes is a simple “That’s such a great question I want to dive into it more. Let’s talk about that later.”