How to Make Money as a Speaker

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1:33There's no safe like SimpliSafe. From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like, we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

1:58Eight years ago, a friend said an absolutely crazy-sounding thing to me. He said, Jason, you could make easily$10 ,000 a talk giving keynote speeches. And I said, that is ridiculous. That is absolutely impossible. I don't even know how to do that, let alone charge$10 ,000. Who's going to pay me that? Anyway, that was a conversation with a friend named John Beer. He owns a PR agency called Jack Taylor. He does not represent me. It's just an old friend. And I have to say, he was right. It took me some time to get into it. It took me some time to even get up the courage to charge that much. The first time somebody said they were willing to pay me and asked me how much I charged, I said$5 ,000 because it just seemed ludicrous to ask for 10.

2:48But now I ask for a lot more than that and get it. In fact, as you are listening to this in August of 2024, I'm on the road. I've got a pretty good lineup of talks to big corporations and trade associations. I'm gonna be in Vegas twice, in Dubai, San Antonio, Seattle, a bunch of other places. And people often ask me now, how did you do this? How did you get into this? And I stumbled my way through. I made so many mistakes that I don't really have a good, single clarifying answer to that, which is why today I wanted to answer the question through the lens of somebody else. So I'm Katrina Mitchell, and I'm the chief matchmaker of Franchise Speakers.

3:34Chief matchmaker there is just a really fun title for she runs the show. She does it all. She's a one woman operation. And Franchise Speakers is the only speakers bureau in the world that focuses exclusively on the franchise sector. And I personally started this business, this firm, 15 years ago from having been a franchisee myself. So my entree into the speaking world was through franchising, not through speaking. Which is one of the many reasons that I wanted to talk with Katrina about this. Now, this conversation isn't about franchising. it is about speaking. This is a conversation for anybody who's interested in getting into the business of speaking.

4:17The reason that I'm zooming in on Katrina and her ecosystem of franchising is because the thing that she does is so hyper-specific. And this is a really important thing, as we will talk about later, that speakers need to be thinking about, which is, who is your hyper-specific audience? And how do you serve them? And how do you get to know the people who are there. Katrina only works with franchising, which is to say that her clients, the companies putting on events are franchises. There are companies who have franchisees and they generally bring those franchisees together for some kind of franchisee convention.

4:54And then they book speakers. And Katrina wants to say, hey, I specialize in the kinds of speakers that belong at your events. And there's an interesting way that she got into this. Like she said, she didn't get into it through speaking. She got into it by being a franchisee and realizing... Oftentimes the speakers had no idea that we were not employees. Which is to say that Katrina was a franchisee of a franchise. She would go to these franchisee conventions full of other franchisees, people who own businesses inside of this franchise system. And then they would listen to a speaker who gets up on stage and addresses them and has no idea who they are, doesn't understand franchising at all.

5:37And Katrina thought to herself, there's gotta be a better way. I bet that I could find speakers who really understand this market and are really gonna add value to this kind of event. And so that's what she did. And as she got into this business, she came to understand one of the single most important things that you must know. If you're an agent booking speakers or if you're a speaker who wants to be on stage, One of the single most important things that you need to understand about what your role really is. We mitigate risk. I am responsible for finding the client the right speaker with the right message who will fit their culture at the right time at the right investment level.

6:22I really love that phrase she uses. We mitigate risk. It's something that I had been feeling, but I didn't have the words for exactly until she said it. And then I started applying it to the things that I do. And I realized, oh yes, that's functionally what the job is. So for example, I recently flew to Chicago for an event hosted by an energy company. And it was a customer conference. So this energy company was bringing together customers for a day of education. And they had hired me to open it up as a keynote speaker. and there's a lot of risk involved there. Think about that. I don't work for the energy company.

6:59I don't even work in energy. And they had an idea that I would be good or appropriate. They had seen some of my stuff. We talked a little bit, but until I got up on stage and started talking, they did not exactly know how I was gonna be in front of their audience. They were really putting a lot of trust in me. Everybody who hires a speaker is putting so much trust in the speaker, in the person who books the speaker. Like, I could have blown it. I could have made it a terrible experience. I didn't. I made it a good experience, but I could have. It could have been anything. There's a lot of risk.

7:35And so the number one starting thing that Katrina realized and that anybody who goes into speaking needs to realize is there is a lot of risk involved in this business. And when someone is hiring a speaker, when someone is looking for a speaker, they are looking to take on some risk and they want to mitigate that as much as possible. They want to be as comfortable as possible. They want to know their trust is in the right hands. Okay, today, this is what we're talking about on Problem Solvers. I am going to be asking Katrina what she looks for in speakers. How does she make those connections? What does she think speakers need to do to rise up to the level in which they are noticed, in which they are booked, in which they are making$10 ,000 and much more per talk?

8:20That is what's coming up today on Problem Solvers, right after the break.

8:50to millions of customers by signing up on marketplace.walmart.com slash solvers. That's marketplace.walmart.com slash solvers. Head over and get started today. All right, we're back. Today I'm talking with Katrina Mitchell, the owner, the chief matchmaker, whatever you want to call it, of franchise speakers. And let's just get into it. Here is how I started the conversation with Katrina. You know, let's say that there's someone who's listening right now and they say, I know X space really well and I have a lot to share with them. But I have no idea how to get somebody to say, yes, we'll put you on stage.

9:34Where do they start? That's a great question. And you hit on something when you said, I know X space really well. I think that's so important. I think one of the biggest mistakes that individuals who are just starting out in the speaking career make is wanting to be all things to everyone. When I'm at an industry event and I'm speaking to a new speaker and they'll say, what do you speak on? Oh, I speak on customer service and hiring and retention and leadership. And oh, I can do time management about the first and maybe the second and. I've already tuned out. I think you are not actually an expert on anything.

10:19And you are unable to tell me clearly what you do and how you affect an audience for improvement. Yeah. Somebody recently told me, I can't remember who said this to me, but they said product that does one specific thing really well is more valuable than a product that does one specific thing really well plus anything else. And you're totally right. I've heard so many people when they ask me about speaking and I say, what do you speak about? And they say, I'll speak about whatever the client needs me to speak about. I do anything. I'll just get up there. And that's not what it is. So that's really helpful for people to hear.

11:02So you got to pick something. You got to pick a very specific thing and double down on it, right? Use your lane and be unique in that lane. For me, so this is a little bit difficult, Jason, because we are so laser focused on our niche, right? So I, it's - You can speak about franchising because I think that it's - I'll recommend what to do for people who would like to start speaking in the franchise space and then let folks - We can universalize it, absolutely. Let folks extrapolate. But because we are so niche focused And for anyone who's listening, there are speakers bureaus. There are Christian speakers bureaus who are only booking Christian speakers.

11:43There are education speakers bureaus. There are health and fitness. There are government. Like, really, there are speakers bureaus. There are the really large, powerful, successful. I feel like they're a big, I don't know. I don't know. I can't think of the right word. but they're the large, really wonderful, successful bureaus who we often partner with. And then for individual sectors, there are these very focused bureaus. For us in franchising, the thing that I'm looking for first and with an emerging speaker is the uniqueness of the content. I really, there are hundreds of culture, thousands, 10 ,000 culture speakers or leadership speakers.

12:30leadership how? What is unique about that message? What is your special angle as an expert? What is the way that you're coming at it that no one else has delivered it that way before? And then extrapolate on that. Make that your moniker. Yeah, it's great. I'll fill in. So I've come to call what you're describing ownable IP, which is to say you can't just speak on a subject because anyone can speak on a subject. If you want to be in demand, then you have to have a particular point of view, perspective, philosophy, argument, framework that you have developed, that you have owned, so that when people think of who they want on that stage, they don't just want any person who can talk about leadership.

13:18They want the person who can talk about the four phases of whatever. I have found personally for me as a speaker that the big turning point for me was when I went from being someone who just talks about change management, which is my area, and I used to sell myself, I can talk about change. I'll talk about how your organization can change to where I say what I found by traveling around and learning from the most impressive and accomplished entrepreneurs and leaders is that they have all developed a unique personal relationship with change. And that unique personal relationship enables them to grow and build in ways that others can't.

13:57And so what I do when I am on stage is that I help people develop that unique personal relationship with change too. That phrasing, which I use in sales calls to clients and which I use on stage helps define me in some way as a specific kind of value. People are like, ah, that's really interesting. Tell me more. And then I do. Well, okay, first we have to start with the four phases of change, which is the thing that I came up with. Panic adaptation, new normal wouldn't go back.

14:28And anyway, it is the more in which I created these ownable, deliverable concepts that felt like they were positioning me as a specific authority with a specific perspective in that subject, the more my booking started to pick up. So hopefully that's an example of the kind of thing, is that an example of the kind of thing that you're talking about? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Really know the value that you bring. Be able to succinctly and clearly and very quickly say what that is. Yeah. And don't make it hard. And don't use a lot of, don't use a lot of spinny corporate speak. I really just say what you do.

15:08When people ask me at an IFA event or at a show, what do you do? We help franchisors find great speakers. I can mostly never finish the sentence before someone is asking me for their car, for my car, or taking a picture of my badge or whatever, because it's so simple. It's like, this is what we do. Don't make it hard. Don't make it hard. We help franchisees embrace the constant and rapid fire change experience. Like every franchisor out there would be like, yes, please send. That's great. And I love that phrasing. Like what you just said there is fantastic. So yeah, that's really helpful. So it's not just we're really drilling down here, right?

15:51We're saying a speaker isn't just someone who can speak about anything. We don't want Swiss Army Knives on stage. But then it has to go beyond that. It can't just be that you've picked a topic. It has to be that you have then developed a very specific, deliverable, ownable, recognizable perspective inside of that topic. Yes, with actionable takeaway. So again, in my market, my market is not, we're not having a high level conversation about the philosophy of change. This is how do I get more comfortable with change? Yeah, that's right. If I'm resistant, how do I do that? Help me, show me, teach me and let me take this back to my team so I can teach them in my own franchise unit or units that look, this is life.

16:44We're going to be in a constant stream of change. Let's embrace it. What you just said there is reflective of something that someone told me early in my speaking career, which was that the way to measure success is, does someone take a thing that you taught them and then use it after the event? Because if they do that, then they're talking about you. And if they're talking about you, then you're getting more work. So being as actionable as possible is really important. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, they've positioned themselves. Actually, pause. Katrina, it is 4.03. I know you book. Okay, so let's just, we'll go to 4.10 and then I'll land it.

17:22Does that sound good? Or 2.10, your time. Okay, we'll unpause. Okay, so we've talked about how to position. Now the next question is how to actually get on stage. You must, for example, you must get a bazillion emails every day from speakers. And maybe that's the way to do it. Maybe the way to do it is just to email you until you give up and respond, but there's got to be another way. What is your advice for someone once they've positioned themselves properly to actually start getting these gigs? We, as a bureau, we're a little bit different than the larger bureaus. Most larger bureaus won't really touch anybody who's in the lower fee range and hasn't done the hard work themselves and have the heavy lifting themselves to really hone their signature keynote and build their client list and have a very well put together demo reel, which in some circles, the conversation about demo and sizzle reels, the words are used interchangeably.

18:22I don't think that they're the same thing. A demo reel to me is you showing me what I would be buying as the buyer. Right, which is to say at least one complete segment or story showing that you're compelling on stage, that you can string a number of sentences together all at once, which you don't actually learn in a sizzle reel because it's just, boom, you could take any bumbling idiot and cut them tight enough that they look good in a sizzle reel. Yes. And so a sizzle reel, I think, is more a marketing. I almost, I don't use them. So I don't care for them because I feel like it's just all fluff and polish.

19:03And what clients, what our clients want to see is If I'm paying Jason X amount of dollars to come in and help me help my franchisees in a meaningful way, what does that look like? What are my franchisees going to experience? And so those demo reels are very important. I think it's important in a demo reel to have it professionally done. But I also personally believe, and not everybody believes this, but my belief is that you don't have to spend$18 ,000. You don't have to. We have a great referral partner that we send everybody to, and it's a few thousand dollars, and he can get you a demo reel.

19:48Drop in the lower thirds. Put in your franchise testimonials. Establish your credibility. the first five seconds of your reel is critical real estate and so often i will get speakers who send me reels and the first 15 30 seconds are all the places they've spoken and all the we've been in 32 countries who cares i don't care i'm a franchisor and i'm hoping to help create change for my franchisees right like i want to manifest i know it's funny that's your topic but I want to inspire. I want to, so from a franchisor perspective, not from mine, they want to inspire, educate, inform, excite. there's this i'm going to take a step back and say that my passion for franchise events is extreme and i believe that an annual franchise conference is the franchisor's opportunity to get the franchisees to fall back in love with their brand and that two and a half days or two days or three days, every moment counts.

21:00So the speaker who gets that precious 60 minutes better affect that audience in some meaningful way. Right. And when you say it like that, you understand that the franchise is not going to take a risk on that. They want to know what is this person going to say on stage and how are they going to say it? Are they going to put people to sleep or are they going to make them stand up in their seats, which means that you need to be able to see that product in a good video. Yeah. And that's stagecraft. So let's back up. So there's a few major components to being able to getting booked consistently and establishing traction.

21:43So you've got to have the unique content and the expertise and that perspective that no one else has, that special positioning. And then you've got to have the stagecraft. And I actually just spoke to a speaker yesterday. One of my very first questions on an interview of a prospective new speaker is, who's your coach? Soon as I get from that speaker, oh, I don't need a coach. I've been speaking since I was 10. That's great. And probably you're not growing. And that particular speaker, I had noticed that there was a tonality issue, that they spoke in a very high volume, high pitch, 60 minutes of that would be really weirder.

22:29Some, right? Really weirder. So working with a coach will give you gestures and pacing. And oftentimes, oftentimes many great speakers have different coaches for different things. One might be storytelling. one might be the platform skills. But things that I look at when I'm watching demo reels is that guy's yelling at me. That's something that happens a lot. The volume is so high all the time. I'm like, stop yelling at me. I made a very similar mistake earlier in my career where I thought that energy by itself was valuable. So I would get on stage and I would turn it up to 11 and I would keep it there.

23:15And then my wife happened to attend one of the talks, which she didn't usually do because she's at home traveling. And she said, you are so high energy the whole time that it becomes its own kind of monotone. And I said, oh my God, that is a really powerful point. Yes. So pitch and tone and pausing, taking a moment, giving the audience a chance to breathe will add so much more to the overall impact of the messaging. And then keeping the stories tight. Yeah. So knowing what your core expertise is and how to differentiate yourself, knowing how to actually deliver it on stage, and in 60 seconds, let's just land this, which is, how do you get the first gig?

24:08In franchising, what I recommend, and I get this call a lot, we, at my firm, we actually have a separate program called CEO Speaker Launch, where we help senior executives from the franchise space become paid professional speakers if that's something they're interested in. It is an invitation-only program because it's so one-on-one, and I want to make sure that whoever we take into the program is going to be extraordinary. successful. I would say with our program aside, I would suggest that the more you speak, the more you speak. So develop your signature keynote, gather your testimonials for places that you have spoken.

24:56Be sure that everywhere you go, you record. Everywhere you go, because one of the biggest hurdles that these iconic executives who call me and want to start speaking, they all have the same hurdle. I speak all the time. Show me your demo. Oh, I don't have any clips. Yeah. You can't be marketed or sold. People aren't going to buy. And I have a great example of a really iconic, I won't mention his name, but a beautiful, wonderful human and an iconic industry executive that probably has more knowledge in his pinky than I will ever have about franchising. And when I spoke to the client, I said, oh, I have the perfect person for you.

25:40And I used his name and she was thrilled. She was like, he's perfect. You're right, he's perfect. And she said, send me his demo. I said, he doesn't have a demo. She goes, oh, Katrina, I have to run this through our leadership team, our Franchise Advisory Council, our convention committee. there is no way that they're going to sign off on a speaker if they can't see as real. And so even though she knew him, I knew he was perfect. She knew he was perfect. He didn't get the opportunity because he didn't have the tool that the ultimate tool that he needed in place. So I would say in my world, get out there, speak, call your friends.

26:24Yeah. We're in franchising. If you're a franchisor executives call your friends and say hey i have this new keynote i will speak for free at your conference if you'll cover my travel and then get it recorded the recording will do a lot of things for you one of our top speakers that we work with and and book is troy hauser he's an amazing franchisor authority uh franchise authority i should say he's been a franchisor or franchisee and Troy always records and even though it's, he said once, it could be incredibly painful, he always watches the full keynote and he's watching every, I should have not made this gesture, I was too slow here, I didn't pace right there, I didn't have the tonality, So he's always in a state of constant improvement and constant self-reflection and getting, even if you, like, even if you have your wife go sit in the back of the room with a video camera on a tripod, at least do yourself that.

27:32That won't apply for your demo reel. You can't use that for your reel, but it's not going to cost you anything. And you'll see what the audience is seeing and you'll be able to hone and improve. Okay. Hello. So abrupt ending to this interview because after Katrina said that, we had like a weird browser issue and the recording stopped. And anyway, we both had to go off to our next call. There is no moment here where I say, Katrina, thanks so much for talking to me and sharing this great insight. She says, thanks for having me. So you can just imagine it and now it's happened. Anyway, thanks to Katrina Mitchell from Franchise Speakers.

28:08This was so useful. I hope that it has inspired you to get out there and speak and make some good money doing it. And I guess I should say, if anybody is interested in having me speak at your event, please do get in touch. You can learn more about me at my website, jasonpfeiffer.com, J-A-S-O-N, F as in Frank, E-I, F as in Frank, E-R.com. And that's our episode. I would love to hear what you think and maybe even about a problem that you solved. You can find me at my website, jasonfeifer.com. J-A-S-O-N-F-E-I-F-E-R.com. Also, I have some more useful stuff for you. I write a newsletter about how to future-proof yourself and become more adaptable and optimistic.

28:54I would love for you to sign up. It is at jasonfeifer.bulletin.com. Also, check out my other podcast. It's called Build for Tomorrow. In each episode, I take on some belief that we have that holds us back from progress and show you why it is not as bad as you think. Problem Solvers is a production of Entrepreneur Media and comes out every Monday morning. So make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss an episode. Thanks to Deepa Shah for production. My name is Jason Pfeiffer. See you next week.