If You’re A Public Speaker – New Rules Are In Effect

The major trade association for public speakers, the National Speakers Association published a major survey about the public speaking industry in 2007.

The survey concluded that “NSA speakers are involved in many types of speaking engagements” including: Seminars, Training Events, Breakout sessions, Keynotes, Consulting

The two main audience types for their work was corporations and associations.

Then like a perfectly thrown bowling ball, the economy tanked and took out every pin in the public speaking industry. The reason for that, in my view, is that professional public speakers ignored the new rules.

What do I mean by that? Well simply put, when the economy was fine, speakers sought speaking engagements, showed up and delivered their message to whomever was in attendance. Some then offered their books or other products to the audience and others tried to position themselves for consulting or training work with the companies in attendance.

Most speakers spent little time thinking about the attendees who were passionate for the topic being presented, and building relationships with them. Instead they focused on the companies that were there and on getting more speaking engagements. They never thought that the companies or associations could cut their budgets and reduce their speaking opportunities forcing them to need a new way to sell their products and services.

For the speakers who have really struggled in the last year or so, following the new rules of public speaking may have been a major help.

The new rules tell us that we’re publishers first and foremost. Speaking is just another way of distributing our content to the people that are seeking information on our topic.

Because of the power of the Internet, we can market to a targeted audience in countries all over the world. While we’re not likely to speak in all of these countries, we can still serve our followers and fans everywhere who’ll read our information, hire us to deliver our services and buy our products.

While the market for speaking engagements is sharply reduced and may never return to what was, there is a hunger for information that is stronger than ever. So take on the role of publisher, seek and build relationships with those who are passionate about your topic and offer them information (content) in multi-media formats.

The logical place to start is to have a video produced and then re purpose that video into audio, a book, a series of articles, some blog posts and more. If you need some help with this, reach out to me and let me know. I have a professional speaker training program that will make this all as easy as A-B-C for you.

Speakers marketing mentor Scott A Dennison is exploringthe future of Professional Speaker Training at his website. You are also welcome to claim a copy of his newest report “Public Speaking is Dead!” and a series of Public Speaking Tips for free.