Finding Paid Public Speaking Jobs

Helping you start your motivational speaking business and training you to make more money in your motivational speaking career is what I want to do. A question I get all the time is, "James, how do I get paid public speaking jobs?" To find these jobs you just need to know where to look, because these jobs are out there. A few ideas are:

1) Look for organizations that work with your specific area of expertise. Taking a look at DECA marketing organizations like FCCLA would be an example for the niche I'm in. Another example: if I was in the real estate industry I'd take a look at the national board of realtors, investor associations or even the local community associations.

2) Research public speaking jobs in related associations within your niche. Don?t be afraid to network yourself and get the contact information of the conference coordinator even if you weren?t hired as their keynote speaker.

3) Creating a database of potential clients who may be searching for conference speakers in the future can help increase your professional speaking success. You can do this by contacting universities, colleges and professors. Be sure to also try and contact your local speakers bureaus, non-profit organizations, corporations and even libraries.

4) You may want to check out the speaker forums for jobs when starting a professional speaking business. Many jobs aren't paid ones, you'll find, but they may be useful in helping you create credibility in your niche. It is key that you remember eventually go after higher and higher paying jobs instead of working for free.

5) You'll develop a system to keep track of all the places you'll market yourself to as you figure out how to get books for professional speaking. To provide contact information for organizations and conferences that are hiring motivational speakers the internet is going to be very helpful. You can get a large listing to work with just by searching for "calls for speakers" or "speakers wanted".

6) You can even find directories that are published with lists of all the paying markets within a niche. It will provide you with enough content to keep your business going, however keep in mind that no directory is ever complete. The National Trade and Professional Associations Directory, The Directory of Association Meeting Planners and the Directory of Corporate Meeting Planners are the three main directories that can be helpful with research. While these directories cost quite a bit they will make researching your niche that much easier!

7) The last key source of potential paid professional speaking jobs comes in the form of the referrals. Referrals will help bring your name to the forefront when event planners are looking to hire. You'll gain referrals as you build up a network of peers and clients in your niche market. One thing is for sure: the person who markets to event planner first is the one they will hire when they are getting ready for a job. You need to be the first one there!

And one last thing. Remember that you will always be able to find people who are willing to pay you to speak. With this number of resources you'll be able to start researching your niche market much easier. Don't be afraid to go after the big money, once you've got a few gigs under your belt that is!

Tags: public speaking jobs, public speaking examples, fear speaking in public, importance of public speaking, public speaking teacher, public speaking exercises