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As an entrepreneur, you probably have your hands full with your primary business. But if you’re interested in generating a side income while networking and building your audience at the same time, you should consider getting into public speaking. The side hustle.
What exactly does this involve and how do you get started?
Monetize your public speaking
Let’s start with the most important topic: How do you make money as a public speaker? If you look around your city, you will find many events that will allow you to speak for free. So how do you monetize this?
Direct payments
In the later stages of your development, your personal brand will be strong enough and popular enough that you can make money from speaking alone. Businesses, universities, or other organizations may be willing to pay you thousands of dollars for just a few hours of your time. Unfortunately, when you’re first starting out and have little reputation, you probably won’t make much money this way.
Related: 8 Reasons A Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful
Book sales
Consider printing a book on your speaking topics that you can sell while giving public addresses. If people are moved by what you say, they will probably buy your book.
Networking and marketing opportunities
Public speaking is also a great way network And also meet others while promoting your business. You can potentially meet new customers, new business partners or even new investors. You will also increase the visibility of your brand giving your business more sales power.
Related: How networking is essential to effective entrepreneurship
Consulting
Some public speakers also offer consulting services. If business owners or other professionals enjoy your insights and want to learn more, they can hire you as a private consultant.
Online courses
You can also consider creating online courses for your fans and followers, presenting them with more information and more lessons in exchange for a monthly subscription.
How to become a public speaker
So how do you become a public speaker in the first place? These are some of the most important steps to follow:
Develop specialized skills
Most people don’t want to hear from the average person. They want to hear from someone who is truly an expert in their field, whatever that field may be. If you want to be an effective and in-demand public speaker, you need to develop those specific skills. What subject or area can you study that no one else covers? Do you have years of experience in a particular field that you can use? Feel free to use your creativity here; You can always apply what you learn in one field to another. What matters is that you have a set of knowledge and experience that most other people don’t have.
Improve your public speaking skills
If you want to become a successful public speaker, You need a specific skill set. You need to be able to hold yourself confidently, project your voice, articulate your words well, and make gestures without looking like a crazy person. Refining these skills takes practice, so spend some time practicing with friends, family members, or in front of a camera if you need to.
Establish a personal brand
You will be a more effective public speaker (and marketer for that matter) if you have your personal brand behind you. who are you? How do you market yourself? And how do people find and interact with you?
Be active on social media
One of your best tools for marketing yourself and finding new public speaking opportunities is social media. Make sure you claim your personal social media profile on a wide variety of different social networks and consider joining groups related to your area of expertise. Meet and connect with others interested in public speaking.
Related: 5 Keys to Creating a Social-Media Strategy for Your Personal Brand
Look for low hanging fruit
Chances are, you can find some “low-hanging fruit” public speaking opportunities in your area with some basic searching. Even if these are not paid opportunities, they offer valuable experience and opportunities to meet new people.
Show up on the podcast
In line with this, try to get featured on podcasts related to your area of expertise. There are millions of podcasts out there, and hosts of niche shows are constantly looking for new people to interview.
Network aggressively
It’s hard to overstate how valuable professional networking can be in any career—and in public speaking, it’s even more important. Take the time to build relationships with venue owners, event planners and other public speakers like yourself; These relationships can lead you to better opportunities and help you master the art.
Work your way to bigger and better opportunities
Keep pushing for bigger and more prominent speaking opportunities. It may take some time, but you can eventually reach higher levels of reach and popularity this way.
Even if you’ve never envisioned yourself as a public speaker, it can be a wonderful money-making opportunity for you. With more refined public speaking skills, more experience under your belt, and a more prominent personal brand, you can even turn it into a full-time, lucrative gig.
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