You’ve identified where you want to speak. You really want to be chosen to do a conference, or a workshop. You’re excited! So now all you have to do is send a glossy presentation package, right?
Not so fast. Maybe, but maybe not.
A while ago I took a survey of women’s ministry leaders, and I asked them to think back to the last speaker they had hired. How did they first hear about them? Word of mouth, internet, heard them speak before, or from a mailed package?
Do you know how many chose “they sent a package”? 0. That’s right. A big fat zero. The vast majority of them chose either word of mouth or they had heard them somewhere else before. It makes sense, if you think about it. A women’s ministry leader has put a ton of work into her event. She desperately wants it to go well. And the most important ingredient of that is the right speaker. She doesn’t want to hire someone boring or someone who doesn’t deliver a message clearly. And the only way she can know if a speaker really connects with the audience is to talk to people who already have heard that person. Then it’s not such a risk. That’s why no amount of promotional materials can make up for someone’s sister or best friend saying, “I heard this woman once…”
What does that mean in terms of preparing a package? To me, it says that sending them out of the blue is not really effective. It’s better to work at building relationships and becoming better known and easy to find.
Nevertheless, a package may be important at later stages of the hiring process, because what often happens is something like this:
The committee brainstorms ideas about names of speakers they could invite.
They research those speakers on the internet.
They approach the speakers and ask them to send some materials or see if they have that date available.
They look at the materials.
They make a decision.
In this case, a package is useful. A package mailed out of the blue, though, rarely is.
So what should be in such a package?
A DVD or CD (preferably a video, but a CD is perfectly acceptable) of a talk or retreat that you have given.
A speaker’s “one-sheet” with your photo, your speaking topics, and some testimonials.
A separate bio, if it’s not on your one-sheet.
A cover letter with your contact information, etc.
Before you start sending out these packages, then, you’re going to have to make sure you have a high quality edited CD or DVD. The other things are less important. A printed one-sheet is nice, but it’s not a deal breaker. The bio and cover letter, though, are easy to include, even if you don’t have a one-sheet.
That being said, I think I’ve only sent out these packages a handfull of times. Usually I’m just asked for an engagement, and there isn’t really an application process. Bigger engagements often ask for these packages, but even then it’s not necessarily standard.
The other time you may want to submit a package is to a booking agent (follow the instructions on their website, because they likely have detailed things they need), or to a denomination to be listed on their website. In general, such packages just aren’t sent out that often to secure engagements, and that’s because of what I told you above: the majority of speaking engagements are through word of mouth. Somebody hears you, they like you, and they pass your name along.
The take away from this? Invest in a good CD or DVD, so that if it’s ever requested of you, you have it. But in general, put your time and money into becoming better known and having more contacts through your newsletter, your website, and through conferences, etc. It is relationships that build your speaking business, not glossy promotional packages.
A while back I received an email from a woman who has been taking my e-course on launching your speaking ministry. She wrote this:
I am still struggling with how do I present to friends what I do and the cost of doing it. Locally seems to be an issue because there isn’t a lot of travel time and I usually receive a nice gift of some sort, picture frames, candles, corsages. None of which I mind and have enjoyed having the opportunity to speak. But now I would like to take it to the next level. I have a friend in ministry in MN. 633 miles away, about 11 hours if I were to drive straight through. They offered $200 for gasoline money plus travel meals. When I get there food and lodging will be provided. I’m having a hard time justifying financially this event. I want to do it because of our long time relationship, I feel so torn.
I would welcome anything you have to say.
Can you relate to that? As soon as you start traveling, speaking actually costs YOU money. And if people aren’t willing to pay, is it worth it for you? Especially since it takes so much time away from home?
I know when I speak, I often have to drive at least 3 hours to the engagement. That means if the engagement is from 7-9 p.m., and I have to beat rush hour traffic, I have to leave at 1 in the afternoon and I’m not back until midnight. That’s a long time to be gone!
So when do you start charging for your time and expenses so that it more accurately reflects a fee that you could run a ministry on? At what point do you stop doing things for free (or just for expenses?). Here’s what I said to her:
I know what you’re saying about having trouble justifying the expense. Many of us, when we start speaking, join the “Sisterhood of the Potted Plant”. Are you part of that yet? That’s when you go speak, and afterwards the hostess asks you to the front to thank you, and she gives you a hug, and presents you with a plant. Probably a pansy, if it’s spring. Now I love plants, but your ministry can’t survive on plants!
Here’s what I would say: It is not a bad idea to invest say a year into building your reputation. Speak as much as you can, as long as you don’t LOSE too much money. Record yourself every time you speak. Create some videos to put up on YouTube of short little clips of you being either funny or really profound. Create that great website so you’ve got everything going for you. Collect email addresses every where you go through contests (I have some of this up on my blog and in the course).
And think of that first year as building relationships and connections so that you can start really charging. Also think of it as a time of preparation for you, when you get comfortable with your talks and can start to deliver them without relying too much on notes.
At the same time, there does come a time when you want to start charging enough to make it worth your while–let’s say $250 for a one-time engagement, plus mileage. I think that’s a pretty good starting point that pays for your time and for your preparation. I would say to start charging once you have several engagements lined up. In other words, once you’re not the one seeking the engagements, but others are coming to you, it’s time to start charging. They’ve heard of you from somewhere, so you have a reputation now. That’s worth something.
If each engagement can’t pay, then you can take it to the Lord and ask if He still wants you to go (because He might! I’ve done some engagements for free just because they’ve been such great opportunities to share the gospel). But you also have to be careful with your time and your finances.
The other time I might consider doing something free is if I have the opportunity to sell my books/CDs. If you have CDs of your talks that you can sell, and they’re designed with a nice graphic, you can often charge $10-$15 each, and then that can make you some money. If you’re talking to 200 women, and 10% of the audience buys, you’re making $200-$300 just in sales for something that doesn’t cost you very much.
So I guess what I would say is this: decide where you are on the ministry road. Are you still in the building phase, or have you left that behind? Are you receiving calls to speak, or are you still seeking them out? Once you’re receiving calls, it’s time to set a fee and tell people what that fee is.
It’s summer school for speakers! Learn how to market your ministry, grow your ministry, and share His message the most effective way possible!
I’ll be doing several more teleseminars over the next few weeks, and if you’re gearing up for a new year and you want to put some real effort into growing your ministry this year, I know these will help!
On Wednesday, at 9 pm EST, we’ll be talking “Creating Products to Sell“. If you need to generate income from speaking, product sales can go a long way towards allowing you to dedicate more time to your ministry. Generate enough income, and you may be able even to work part-time at your main job, or quit it altogether. But what can you sell? Do you need a book? And you don’t want to sell junk with no value, so what can you sell that actually HELPS people? In this teleseminar, we’ll look at these questions!
And we’ll also tackle internet sales. Can you really make money from your blog? And what products can you sell online? Whether you’re online savvy or just speaking at a few engagements and you’d like something more for your book table, this will help! And it’s only $10! Find it here.
Then, Tuesday August 24 we’ll be tackling “Perfecting Your Stage Presence”. You want to appear at ease, and you want to connect with the audience. A lot of that is based on figuring out what to do with your hands, how to handle a microphone, how to make eye contact, and that most important element of all: how to speak without notes (or with as few notes as possible!). We’ll delve into identifying your “filler words”, figuring out how to dress, and how to connect with an audience that seems very quiet.
Last week I held a vitally important seminar on How to Get Better Bookings. If you’re stuck doing free engagements, or engagements that don’t pay much, and you want to break out, I tell you how! You can’t listen live, but you can purchase the recording, which comes with a detailed 9-page handout and a PowerPoint presentation.
My aim in what I do is to help you launch your speaking ministry for under $100. Here’s how you can do it:
I really want to make this inexpensive and accessible to those who are just starting out. I hope this helps! And remember to keep checking back to this blog for key insights–perfectly free–to help you as you speak for Him!
You’ve been speaking for a while. You’ve done all kinds of women’s dessert nights, or women’s Bible studies. You’ve received a ton of potted plants and thank you notes. But you want to move on to something more. You want to speak to larger groups, and you want to start making some fees that cover your expenses and your time. How do you do that?
I’m going to let you in on the methods that I used to grow my ministry from free engagements to large retreats. And I’ll tell you some other ideas that I’ve had since, that I wish I had done earlier!
Tonight, August 11, 9 p.m. EST: Teleseminar: How to Get Better Bookings!
In this hour long teleseminar, I will give you TONS of extremely practical things that you can put in place TODAY that will help you land better bookings that may actually pay! I’ll also give you a handout with all of these tips written down, so you’ll find it easy to implement them.
We’ll look at:
How to Promote Yourself
How to Work Within a Denomination to Build up Bookings (even if it’s not your denomination)
How to Cold Call Churches
How to Find Places that Hire Speakers
How to Prepare a Presentation Package
How to Set Up your Web Presence
How to Develop a Speaking Tour
The whole teleseminar–with access to handouts, PowerPoint, and a recording afterwards–is only $10!
I began speaking in 2003, and now I find myself with a schedule that is pretty much booked. I started small, at local churches, and I’ve grown from there primarily through word of mouth, and by putting some of these key things that I want to teach you in place!
I want to share these with you so that together we can impact the world for Him!
How does a teleseminar work? You can watch and listen directly on your computer! When you pay for the teleseminar, I’ll send you out a link to the seminar room where you can come and listen. Afterwards, you can have access to the recording and the Powerpoint, so you can listen as many times as you want! And I want it to be interactive, so come with your questions! Type them in, and I’ll answer them as much as I can in the teleseminar.
If you can’t make it live, you can still come! Just watch the recording afterwards! And the price will go up after the teleseminar, so if you’re interested, it’s better to buy it now!
My goal with my speaking training is to provide you with everything you need to launch your speaking ministry for under $100! I have a variety of teleseminars and e-courses you can take, and I want to partner with you so that you can soar. God has given us all gifts, and I believe He wants to see those gifts used. If I can help you, then that is such a blessing to me!
This is the first of a series of 4 teleseminars I’ll be giving this summer, so I hope you can join me as we grow our ministries!
To register, head here and scroll to the bottom of the page!
Recently I wrote a post on how to handle gaps in your schedule. We all have them, because speaking is an insecure existence. You will find you are busy at times and very light at times, and that’s just the way the flow goes. I told you that I’m to the point that I accept when I’m going to be not busy. If there are no bookings, I just get grateful for the time to rest, because I know a busy season will always come down the road.
That being said, I now want to share with you a different strategy for planning a speaking tour, one that makes us more the active participant rather than the recipient, waiting by the phone or, more commonly, checking our inboxes for potential engagements.
Up to this point I have spoken mostly in Canada. I’m Canadian, after all, and I just don’t like to travel more than I have to because I have my kids at home. They’re teenagers now, and I know I only have a few more years with them in the house, so I want to take advantage of that. I live about 3 hours from about 90% of the major population centres in Ontario (I’m sort of in the middle), the most populous province, so I can get by without really having to venture too far from home most of the time. I tend to do retreats around the country that would require a plane trip maybe 3 or 4 times a year, but I’ve said no to many events because as soon as you get on a plane, you add a day to your schedule on either side. And I didn’t want to do that.
However, I have some new books coming out soon (more on that later), and it’s time for me to become better known south of the border (which to me means the United States, though when most of you hear that phrase, you think Mexico!). I partner with a ministry that’s taking me on a Pacific Northwest tour in October, probably to Washington and Oregon, but I’d like to plan another trip for the spring. I figure that if I can spend a week and a half speaking, with two weekends on either side, then I can do a bunch of speaking engagements and be gone from home in one large chunk, but then I’ll avoid some of the smaller engagements that take up a ton of time, and stay home the rest of the month. So I’m going to shake things up a little!
This is new for me, because I’ve never deliberately planned a speaking tour. I’ve only ever accepted engagements that came my way ad hoc, because it’s worked up until now. But what I want to do right now is plan a tour, where I know which weekends I want to book, which weekdays I want to book, and then I have to decide where I want to go.
That sounds a little pie-in-the-sky when you think about it, doesn’t it? I want to be busy for 10 days, speaking two weekends with three evening engagements, and I’m going to find people to hire me for that. And I’m going to do it somewhere that I’m not widely known. Sounds like a nightmare to plan!
Well, we’re going to see! Over the next few months I’ll report on my progress. But let me tell you the steps I plan to take, because I’m sure you can use these steps to plan your own “speaking tour”!
1. Advertise to everyone you know in the target area that you’re looking for speaking engagements.I’m going to put up several announcements on Facebook, for instance, that I’m looking to do some women’s retreats in April of 2011. I’ll advertise this on Twitter and Facebook, and ask people if their church plans women’s events, to let me know a contact so I can send a package there! I’ve already done this just once and I already have a few leads! (by the way, if you live in the U.S. and you’d like to book me, email me!)
2. Make a YouTube video introducing yourself and explaining what it is you’re trying to do and what you can speak on. People are always more willing to hire people that they have seen, and so video is a great way to do this! I recently created a video to help me sell a book proposal, showing potential publishers what I do. Here it is:
But this video doesn’t work as well for speaking engagements. So over the next few weeks I’m going to put one up where I’m speaking directly to the camera, and telling people what it is that I can speak on and what I would like.
3. Follow up any leads you get from Facebook, email, etc. using the methods in this post on cold calling churches. Send them a link to your YouTube video so they can “meet” you!
4. Try to book one retreat first. Try to nail down the biggest thing before you accept the smaller engagements. Once you book the one retreat, you now have a date and a place. Now you can narrow your search and start booking around that.
Let’s say, for instance, that I book myself for the weekend of April 8 and 9 in Texas. Now I know that I also want to book myself for the weekend of April 1 and 2, or the weekend of April 15 and 16. That’s the next big thing to book. And then I can start filling in smaller engagements around it.
5. Once you know WHERE you’re going for one event, advertise again on Facebook or Twitter or through an email/newsletter blast that you’re looking for engagements in April in Texas. The more specific you can get, the better, because when people are browsing their Facebook/Twitter updates, they tend to pay attention to those that mention the area where they live.
Repeat the above steps until you have both weekends booked.
6. How do you fill up the week? You can try the same thing, contacting churches and asking about women’s events. But there is another option.
Several big groups have affiliates that meet across the nation, and you can search for their meeting times and places on the internet. Stonecroft, for instance, which operates Christian Women’s Clubs throughout the world, has chapters in almost every city. MOPS, or Mothers of Preschoolers, does too. If you can get known as a speaker for both of these organizations in your own area, then you are now a speaker for MOPS or Stonecroft. Whenever you go to a different area, you can approach the group leaders in that area and say, “I’m a speaker with MOPS, or with Stonecroft, and I’d love to be considered for your group for this meeting date.”
Neither MOPS nor Stonecroft pay very well, but the advantage with Stonecroft is that the meetings often have women from a variety of different churches, so you get great visibility, in case you want to do a return tour next year! Those women who heard you at a Christian Women’s Club luncheon may then turn around and hire you to do their women’s retreat at church next year.
Also, their events tend to be during the day, so they don’t take you away from the prime speaking time in the evenings where you can perhaps get bigger engagements. Plus, it’s wonderful to be able to share your testimony the way you can at Stonecroft!
To find their meetings, just go to www.mops.org or www.stonecroft.org, and follow the links to search for a group “near you”. Type in the area where you’re planning on speaking, and see if any of their meeting dates correspond.
7. Do an internet search for the largest churches in the area. Another way to find engagements is to look for the large churches in the area which are more likely to organize women’s events. Spend some time looking for churches near where you’re speaking, and peruse their websites. What do they offer for ministry? Do they have women’s Bible studies during the day? Do they have frequent women’s events?
Once you’ve identified a list of churches that look like good potentials, use the methods here to contact them.
There you have it. That’s my plan to book up for April! You can use the same plan to book yourself for a local tour or for a tour far from where you live, to enlarge your target market. If your’e planning on trying it, or if you’ve done something like this in the past, let me know in the comments how it worked out for you!
If you’re just getting started on speaking, my audio download: Launch Your Speaking Ministry, is a great blessing! It will save you tons of money by telling you what NOT to do, and how to get free publicity. Find out more here.
