How to Book Paid Speaking Gigs
You may think that since I work as a paid mental health speaker, I wouldn’t want to encourage others to do it as well. After all, by doing that I am creating more competition for myself. Even though there are quite a few of us doing this work, there is still an incredible need for more voices to educate the world on this topic. The more mental health speakers we have willing to share compelling stories, offer practical solutions, and provide crucial support to others, the better off everyone will be.
I am contacted every week by people who are looking for tips on how to become a professional speaker in the mental health industry. I do my best to answer all of the questions that I am asked, but with my work schedule, I often lack the time that I would need to break it all down. So, here is the information that I would love to share with you if you are interested in becoming a paid mental health speaker.
Understand your message
If you want people to hire you to deliver a presentation on a mental health topic, you need to be clear on what your specific message is. This might seem obvious, but most inspiring speakers miss this important first step. Some paid mental health speakers are mental health professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, or social workers. Then there are people like me who have what we call ‘lived experience’ with mental health challenges Lived experience may include a diagnosis that you received or supporting someone in your life who is struggling with mental health challenges.
Regardless of what qualifies you to speak, it’s absolutely critical that your presentation has a message that goes above and beyond your story. Get clear on what message you want to share and be able to explain it quickly to event planners who may be interested in hiring you. If you can’t communicate to the planner what your message is, and how it will help their audience, they are not going to be interested in hiring you. Period.
Tips on becoming a better speaker
Practice your speaking and presentation skills every chance you get. I recommend spending at least 20 minutes each day reading a book out loud. It doesn’t matter what you read out loud because the purpose of this is to develop better articulation and sentence structure in your speaking. Read as though you were in front of an audience trying to keep them entertained and engaged in what you were reading.
In addition to reading a book out loud each day, record yourself on video speaking every chance you get. When you play the recording back, you will learn so much about yourself. Take notes on your observations and look for ways to improve your performance.
It’s also important that you learn to memorize your presentations. If you are onstage reading your entire presentation off of note cards or slides, you will not be able to focus your attention on your audience. You want your message to come across like you are having a one-on-one conversation with each person in the crowd, while not leaving out any of your talking points.
Make the right investments
When you are just starting out looking to build a reputation as a paid mental health speaker you might not have a lot of money to invest in the process, and that’s okay. Starting with the first two sections above will not cost you a penny as long as you have a way to record yourself. I simply use my cell phone to record my presentations. Here are a few other investments that you should make.
Invest in your growth
The best investment that you can make when you are starting out is in your growth. When I was starting out, I invested time in educating myself. I read book after book on becoming a professional speaker and the speaking industry in order to know everything I could to improve my chances of succeeding as a paid mental health speaker.
I found the following books to be incredibly helpful:
- Paid To Speak: Best Practices For Building A Successful Speaking Business by the National Speakers Association
- Speak More!: Marketing Strategies to Get More Speaking Business by the National Speakers Association
- The Six-Figure Speaker: Formula for a Six-Figure Income as a Professional Speaker by Cathleen Filmore
- Speaking for Millions: How to Make REALLY Big Money as a Professional Speaker (Public Speaking is just the START!) by Fred Gleeck
Along with learning about speaking you will want to spend time learning about being an entrepreneur. Many people don’t think about this when they start their speaking career, but there is a business side to being a speaker. I credit The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It for helping me make that transformation to being an entrepreneur, which in turn has helped me grow my business.
As your speaking career begins to grow, you will meet more people than you can imagine. Keeping up with all of them will quickly become overwhelming if you don’t have a tool in place. Infusionsoft is the tool I use to help you manage all of my relationships, the store on this site, and my email newsletter. Basically, Infusionsoft helps your marketing, sales, analytics, and payments become more streamlined, plus much more.
Invest in a professional website
It is crucial to have a professional website for yourself as a paid mental health speaker. Your website will be the place where event planners go to find out more about you. Social media accounts can be useful, but they are not a substitute for your own website. In fact, if you don’t have a website, you won’t be taken seriously.
Having your own website also improves your chance of being found if event planners are searching online for a speaker to hire. Your site must provide the critical information that planners will want to see before hiring you, including:
- Your programs and what they include
- Video samples of your presentations
- Your bio that can be included in pre-event marketing
- Your contact information
This is not as difficult to set up as you might think. Platforms like BlueHost make it easy to set up and run a WordPress website. Their customer service is phenomenal and they can help you every step of the way. If you don’t have the time or don’t want the stress of building your own website you can hire a freelance web designer to do it for you. Sites like UpWork allow you to post jobs that freelancers will bid on. You can see samples of their work and communicate what you are looking for.
Followup with event planners after an event
After you deliver a presentation, free or paid, you need to have a system in place to follow up with the event planner. As they say, “Word of mouth is the best advertising”, so you want to take advantage of this opportunity. Ask the planners for a testimonial letter or event just a short testimonial to include on your website. Encourage them to leave feedback on your social media accounts as well. Most event planners may also know other organizations that you should be contacting.
Most importantly, don’t forget to thank them for providing you the opportunity to speak and get your message out to their audience.
Tips on customizing your presentations
To set yourself apart from other speakers, it’s important to customize each of your presentations to the audience that you are speaking in front of. Your story and the message will always be a large part of what you are sharing, but you need to always be thinking of your audience. When you tailor your message to the audience it helps them easily connect with you. Always remember who you are talking to and why you are doing it.
Your goal is to provide this specific audience with valuable information that they can apply in their life, whether they work with others who struggle with mental health issues, or if they need the information personally. In order to tailor your message the right way, you need to learn about your audience. Talk to the event planner and find out all that you can about their particular audience. Find out who will be attending and why are they attending. For example, your message to a group of new college students is going to be different than a presentation you give to mental health professionals.
How to establish fees
This may be the toughest challenge for you. At the beginning of my career, I spoke for free at many events. It provided me the opportunity to practice my message, improve my speaking skills, and build my contact list. If event planners don’t know who you are, this is important to do at first.
As you get more experienced, there are many factors that will contribute to what you can charge as a speaker. This includes your popularity, your reputation, and the types of events you are marketing to. I’ve heard that the average professional speaker averages around $90,000 in revenue annually, but don’t expect that kind of income if you are just starting out. It is something that you will need to put time and work into.
How to find speaking jobs
There are many ways to find opportunities as a paid mental health speaker. For starters, you can begin looking online. Check with organizations and non-profits in the mental health industry. Look for opportunities when they hold regional and annual conferences. Many colleges and high schools will bring in paid mental health speakers to bring awareness to their students. And, there are also businesses, software, and websites that have been established to help speakers find jobs speaking. Here are some that I recommend checking out:
- Gigmasters – This is a membership site that provides you with loads of benefits. They will notify you of paid speaking events based on the membership level that you sign up for. You can find gigs that are close to your home or around the world. Gigmasters will also collect your payment for you and provide you with the ability to allow your customers to leave feedback and reviews for you right on your own website.
- Gig Salad – Gig Salad is also a membership site that helps you find paid speaking engagements. You can list your profile complete with video samples of your live speaking engagements. There are different levels of membership based on the amount of visibility that you want. They do offer a free option if you want to get your feet wet and see how you like it.
- eSpeakers.com – eSpeakers exists to help simplify your life as a speaker. Looking for speaking gigs that are a good match for what you are looking for can be time-consuming. A membership with eSpeakers helps you get the time back that you were spending on these administrative duties. You can give it a try for 60 days for only $10.
- Speaker Match – When you use Speaker Match you won’t have to look for chances to speak because the event planners will be able to browse the profiles of speakers, find the best match, and then contact you. They email you speaking engagement opportunities several times a week.
You improve your chance of being hired for a paid speaking job by getting your profile out there.
Putting it all together
As you can see there is a lot that goes into becoming a paid mental health speaker. The information included in this article will give you important action steps and stepping stones to get you started. Do you feel passionate about getting your message across and feel that you have what it takes to get paid? If you would like additional resources, check out my resource How to Book Paid Speaking Gigs. This includes over three hours of training to help you begin your career as a paid speaker.
Working as a paid mental health speaker has its ups and downs, just like any other profession. I have had my share of struggles along the way. However, I am committed to helping others. If you have moments of feeling discouraged along your journey, just think of all the potential people that you can help when you have the chance to share your message.
