Speaking As a Side Hustle

Professional Speaking Side Hustle

TRANSCRIPT

Today, I want to talk to you about professional speaking as a side hustle. The other day, I received an email from one of our members. He was telling me about the situation that he is in; he is a full-time employee of a successful executive in a well-known company. This company operates in the investment world, the world of banking, finance, and investment. But his real passion, the thing that he really wants to build over the next few years, is as a professional speaker. He has a message that he's really passionate about. He wants to gradually transition from a nine-to-five job to being a professional speaker, but he doesn't want to do it in a big jump. And I think that's really smart.

So, I wanted to use this video just to talk about how you might think about building professional speaking as a side hustle when you already have a current job. There are a couple of ways to do this. First of all, I've got to say, now is an amazing time to do this. Because now, unlike even a few years ago, we have virtual speaking, virtual keynoting, and virtual workshops; the whole world of virtual is now open to us.

You see, before, if you were an employee of a company and you wanted to go and give a keynote, it involved maybe taking some time off, flying to that city, giving the keynote, coming back, checking in with your co-workers. There might have been some issues about whether you were allowed to do that, whether you were allowed to take that time off, maybe using your vacation time. It was a bit of a pain if you had a nine-to-five job that you were also having to do. But now we have virtual keynoting. So it's really easy.

Now, most executives are spending a certain amount of time working from home anyway. So, as long as you get it clear with your employer, it means you don't have to take time out to travel to places. You could be working from your home on Mondays and Fridays, and maybe giving that virtual keynote on a Friday when you're working from home anyway. It doesn't really require additional travel time.

Now, there are a couple of ways that you can do this. The first thing I would suggest is, unless you're in a certain job which has a very high profile, to think first about seeking forgiveness, not permission, especially at the start. This is because you're not quite sure if you're really going to enjoy the work of speaking, even as a side hustle, and you just kind of want to get your feet wet a little bit. So I would start doing it, and in those early days, you start to experiment with speaking as a side hustle. And then, if things really start to take off and develop for you, then by all means, go and tell other members of your team. The only exception for that is if you have to take time out of your main job, your nine-to-five, in which case, you should definitely be communicating with your boss or whoever is your line manager.

Now, there are two ways of thinking about this if you're going to build professional speaking as your side hustle. The first is the 'under the radar' way. This works particularly well, I would say, if you're a speaker whose day job is not related to the topic that you speak on. For instance, in the case of the member I was talking with, if he was speaking at a lot of finance conferences, then that could be an issue, and he really would have to raise that with his employers. But if it's a very different topic that he's looking to speak about, not necessarily the financial services industry at the start, then there's not really a big issue there. So, you can do this under the radar to a certain extent. You can reach out to conferences, prospective clients, and put yourself forward to be that keynote speaker at their event.

The other way to do it is to go 'above the radar' and plant your flag in the sand. You say, "I am a professional speaker." You would create your website and your videos, showreels, and all the things you would need as a professional speaker. It's then very public that your main job is one thing, but you also do keynoting on the side as a side hustle. Now, if you're going to do that, depending on how well known you are in your industry and your company, and if you maybe hold a senior position, you might really have to get approval from Legal Affairs and other people, especially if you are speaking for the same industry.

That's the situation I want to put to you just now. If you're the kind of person that's maybe in demand, let’s say you are well-known in a particular industry, or you work for a famous company—I was talking to someone the other day who works for Amazon, and they're very high up in Amazon, and they wanted to do speaking on the side—so in that case, I'm actually suggesting, "Listen, you could already get fees in excess of $10,000 for your speaking because you're with a great brand already." You are in a job where you're very skilled at what you do, very knowledgeable, and you have a profile in your job; lots of people would want to pay you to come and speak and talk about that.

So, in that situation, I would try and find a bureau partner to work with. This works really well. I know people who are in the world of economics, for example, maybe they've been in politics, or maybe they work for a big business. They don't really want to do all the hassle of negotiating contracts and doing all that stuff, and thinking about logistics. So, if you're in that situation and you're likely to get fees over $10,000 and you have an established name in your industry, then I would try and find a bureau partner and work with them on an exclusive basis. This means that they can maybe sell you on to other bureaus who can sell you on to other clients as well. But it means that you have one single point of contact for your speaking bookings, and that's going to simplify things greatly.

I was talking to a bureau the other day; they do a lot of this for people that work in the world of technology, big tech firms. These people, you know, work for some of these firms and don't want to be giving 50-100 paid keynotes a year. They want to be doing maybe one a month, in which case they put that through the bureau partner, the bureau, and they can deal with that as well.

So, there are different ways of doing it. But what I would say is, if you're in that situation just now and you have a full-time nine-to-five job, and you want to maybe gradually, over time, transition to being a professional speaker, and having speaking as your side hustle—bringing in some nice revenue, learning your craft, developing your skills, developing your brand—then now is the perfect time. This is because we have virtual speaking, virtual keynoting, virtual workshops, and it allows you to build that professional speaking side hustle in a way that we've never been able to do before.

Would you like to know how to become a motivational speaker? Perhaps over the years you've considered becoming a professional speaker, getting paid to travel the world and share your message or expertise on stages? If so, I invite you

to learn from some of the best in the business. Follow this link to get more information on a step-by-step guide to becoming a successful motivational speaker. To access this free training, just go to Training.JamesTaylor.me That's www.Training.JamesTaylor.Me - Thanks for watching

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