Getting a speaking career off the ground is a labor of love. Consistently scaling it over the years is a huge accomplishment. I discuss how to do both with my guest, Jim Cathcart.
Jim is one of the most award winning speakers in the world. He is past president of the National Speakers Association’s National Board of Directors, a member of the Speakers Hall of Fame and the Sales Hall of Fame in London. His TEDx video has over 3 million views (TEDx top 1%) and he’s written 28 books! Jim has been a full-time speaker for 50 years.
We dive into topics including:
How to get focus when you’re just starting out.
- What the cornerstone of your speaking career should be.
- How to pick the best niche in the beginning of your career.
- The first three things you need to decide about the direction of your speaking career.
- Where to start getting speaking experience (and according to Jim it shouldn’t be live events).
- Why being a problem solver is the highest paid role in the industry.
- What the beginning of scaling looks like and what to do to get started.
- How to stay relevant as you scale over the years.
- The best way to spend your professional time between Christmas and New Years Eve.
- The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to successfully build and scale your speaking business.
…and other golden nuggets of advice!
The Cornerstone of Your Foundation as a Speaker
The cornerstone of your foundation is your life’s purpose.
Why do you want to speak? Do you just enjoy being a trainer? Are you just going to memorize something and teach it to people? Or do you have a mission? Is there something you want to accomplish through your speaking? Are you trying to make a difference in the world? You need to be VERY clear on what matters most to you. Once you find a purpose, you’re ready to move ahead.
Start Marketing Yourself!
Pick a lane! You need to grow like a tree. You must grow where you’re planted before you send out roots and explore a new location. Discover who your natural target market is. What market exists that can you already get in front of?
Show your expertise and what you can do for your audiences. Then ask them for guidance about who you should be talking to about your next speaking engagement. At this point, don’t focus so much about going out and making sales. Focus on going out and having conversations with people. Ask, “Who should I be talking to about my subject matter expertise?” And then follow those referrals.
Earning Your Wings as a Speaker
The first things you must do is have a message, a market and a way to get mileage. That’s what you do after you start getting in front of audiences in the early days. What is your message? Who is your first market? Then you can expand and get mileage, by getting in front of people in ideal scenarios as well as not-so-ideal scenarios.
That means sometimes you’ll speak in a room where the room is too cold or too hot. A room where the speaker before you spoke too long, used up all your time, and now you’ve got 40 minutes to do a one-hour talk. Sometimes you’ll speak in a room where the introducer insults everybody and then immediately announces you by saying “Maybe he can motivate you.”
There’s SO many potential scenarios. You end up in a room where you are sick and you don’t feel like showing up, but you still have to do it. And so on.
Until you get the mileage, you won’t know how to deal with scenarios like that.
Tips for Getting Your Mileage
Jim suggests beginning online. He wouldn’t begin with in-person events. Instead, focus on getting onto podcasts, doing interviews, and creating webinars. Do that and create content that shows the value of what you do.
Don’t try to show off by being another performer on a stage. Focus on reaching your audience. At the end of each of his promotional recordings, Jim always says, “Come with me and let’s discover how much more successful you could be.” Focus on your audience and get your message out there in ways that when people find you and are checking you out, they can see the value you can add to their lives.
Be a Problem Solver
If you are a problem solver, you’re in the highest paid role in the industry. Problem solvers are pure gold, and if you want be paid more, solve a bigger problem and solve it better than your competition.
Scaling Your Speaking Business
The first thing you need to do is to consider each engagement; to realize you’re in the beginning of a long-term process and let the customer be the one who determines where should ultimately end up instead of second guessing yourself.
With every new meeting, every person you coach or counsel, someone you had lunch with and gave some advice to, think of that as an entry point into your speaking business pipeline. Over time your pipeline could include books, training programs, mastermind retreats, seminars, workshops and collaborations such as co-authorship. There are also custom versions of your programs that you will present to individual companies and so on.
At that point it’s all about finding the medium that best delivers the message that people are willing to pay you for because it solves a problem for them.
Then you’re really ready to scale!
And that is just the beginning…
Watch the interview to continue this story and get more golden nuggets of advice!
You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”
About My Guest
If professional speakers dream of doing it, Jim Cathcart has done it! He has held every major position and received every major award or distinction in the profession of speaking. In fact, he is the man who designed the Professional Competencies that are used for the Certified Speaking Professional, CSP designation.
Jim started his career as a trainer and quickly rose to be featured on main stages around the world. He’s spoken on ten trips to Australia, twenty trips to twenty five major cities in China, throughout Europe, across Canada, Central and South America and in all 50 US states.
His 28 books have been published by St. Martin’s Press, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, McGraw Hill, Nightingale Conant, Leading Authorities Press, Dartnell and many more.
Today he mentors independent experts to earn the Certified Professional Expert, CPE designation.
His awards include The Golden Gavel, The Cavett Award, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, Sales & Marketing Hall of Fame, TEDx top 1%, Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), Legends of the Speaking Profession, Honorary Business Degree from High Point University, and Lifetime Achievement Award from NSA So Cal.
Jim has been happily married to Paula since 1970 and lives a life far beyond his early dreams.
Now he wants to help others do this well in their own lives!
Learn more about The National Speakers Association of Illinois!
Want to learn more about creating a successful speaking career? Check out “How Speakers Can Create Amazing Experiences for Their Clients“
