Wednesday, October 10, 2012

How to Start a Speaking Career: 4 Lessons Before You Start ...

If you are trying to start a speaking career, then there are some key lessons that you need to keep in mind. (If you?ve already started your speaking career, you may be aware of these lessons, but maybe you?ve forgotten them?)

I recently read a post on The Creative Penn on this topic. The site is targeted towards writers (predominantly of fiction) and gives them lessons on how to write and self-publish their novels. The owner of the site, Joanna Penn, has written two novels while working as a full-time IT contractor. About a year ago, she left her job in IT and went full time as a writer.

Her most recent post is titled, Lessons Learned From 1 Year As A Fulltime Author Entrepreneur, and I was struck by how directly those lessons apply to people in the first year of starting a speaking career as well.

In a nutshell, the four lessons are:

  1. It?s much easier to have a day job
  2. Defining your own life is a huge adjustment
  3. You need support through a physical network
  4. It?s absolutely worth it!

What I appreciate most about her post is her honesty and ?realness.? She doesn?t talk theoretically about how to make a million dollars as a writer. She openly explains that she makes about an average salary for a woman in the UK, and that it is actually a pay cut from her IT job.

As speakers, we can learn a lot from this. When you start a speaking career, it?s easy to have dreams of being a highly-paid, highly-sought after speaker who earns thousands of dollars for one hour of work. That can happen, but when you start your speaking business, it?s much more likely that you?ll start with an average income that may be less than what you?re making at a job, and it will take time. If you?re not ready for that, you may get discouraged and throw in the towel.

Even if you have no desire to write a novel, you should give the article a read. The lessons apply very directly to anyone who wants to start a speaking career as well!

***
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Tags: getting started, how to be a professional speaker, speaker training, the business of speakiing

Source: http://www.speakingexpert.com/blog/2012/10/09/how-to-start-a-speaking-career-4-lessons-before-you-start/

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