Get Paid To Speak, Because Your Message Is Worth It

March is the month we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Besides wearing green, there are leprechauns. Leprechauns as we all know, have a pot of gold. It’s a trait they share with successful speakers. You could say that this month’s meeting of the National Speakers Association  Mountain West Chapter  (NSA-MW), Get Paid to Speak, Because Your Message Is Worth It, was about finding your own pot of gold as a speaking professional.

An additional two hours was added to this month’s meeting as a cast of thousands (more or less) gave presentations on how to find your pot of gold as a speaker.

First up, and making an appearance multiple times throughout the program, was Brian Walter. Brian is a funny and engaging presenter who flew in from Issaquah, Washington to share his wit and wisdom with us. Brian is a communications consultant, speaker, infotainment expert, and multi-media producer.

Each time Brian made his appearance throughout the afternoon and evening, his focus was on teaching methods for involving your audience with interactive activities. Brian taught and demonstrated the Celebrity Twin, What’s Your Speaker IQ, Speed Interviews, and Fluffy, Fluffy, Deep techniques for engaging your audience. Brian was the final and featured presenter of this month’s meeting with a couple of extended presentations on how to make your own presentations both a “spectacle” and “sticky.”

Karen Eddington took center stage to teach us how to connect with our audience with emotion. Karen typically speaks to and works with women, mothers, and teens. In other words, she is a pro at using emotions, not to manipulate, but to build her audience.

Since speakers speak, learning how to use one’s voice better improves the product. Kent Whipple gave a presentation on how to more effectively use one’s voice. He also talked about the importance of emotion when speaking by using emotional content.

Following Kent, Dian Thomas entertained and taught us all how to obtain free publicity. No matter what you speak on, you don’t get clients unless they know you exist. Publicity can be as extensive as a spot in the media or as subtle as a referral from a satisfied client. The point is that those who can hire you need to know about you and what you have to offer them. Publicity helps to increase those who fall into that category and Dian is a master at what it takes to generate it and how to do it, for free. For some reason, fire always gets attention and Dian didn’t disappoint. Thankfully, no fire alarms were set off.

Sam Bracken stepped up to the front of the room after Dian to share his insights on using your life story to create a book, a speech and a career. Sam has successfully created a career based on what was originally a book he wrote, My Orange Duffle Bag. From there he created a keynote speech, workshops, and consulting materials. Although he made it sound easy, he shared the details of how he did it. Let’s just say overnight success is usually the result of a lot of very long days of hard work over many years.

The Saddle Maker’s Daughter, Jeri Mae Rowley presented on making money through training.  Jeri Mea trains in the area of human resources. Rather than train those at the meeting on human resources, she taught us her process for training. Jeri Mea creates a customized workbook for each presentation she gives, which she did for this presentation. Being an educator, she not only tells you what you need to do in your presentation, but why it should be done.

Lots of people have lost weight, a few actually keep it off but even fewer make a successful business out of having done both. Colleen Cook is one of those people. Having had bariatric surgery a number of years ago, Colleen became more than a patient advocate, she become an expert in the field. She shared how she built her speaking and consulting business, now with a worldwide reach, on her expertise.

Brad Barton demonstrated to us the importance of adding a little magic to each speech we give. In his case, as an accomplished magician, he really does add magic. No, we don’t all have to become magicians, but we all should be incorporating object lessons that get our audiences’ attention in our speeches. Brad had several people come up during his presentation to tell us what their magic was. One was country singer Eric Dodge, who graced us with one of his songs and as well as his own story of his struggles and success.

It was at this point that a catered dinner was brought in from the Lion House Pantry. Besides grabbing some grub, we were given time to peruse the silent auction offerings and make a bid. Proceeds went to the club for scholarships to be offered to the next generation of up and coming speakers – many of whom were there that night as the guests of our club President Elain Witt, who teaches speech at Brigham Young University.

When we settled back in our seats after dinner, Tyler Herd addressed us on the benefits of membership to NSA on the national level and as a member of our NSA-MW local chapter. Tyler shared his personal story of how he was inspired to pursue a career as a speaker, and it wasn’t even for the money!

As previously mentioned, the evening concluded with Brian Walter giving a more extended presentation on even more techniques for engaging our audience with the purpose of entertaining them, i.e. making a “speckle,” but go away actually remembering the message we had for them—the “sticky” part.

Even though there were no pots of gold being given out at the meeting, the tricks, secrets, advice, and know how shared and taught were just as valuable. Fortunately, if it’s a pot of gold you want from a speaking career, then March’s chapter meeting was like the rainbow that would lead you there.