My client, James, just recently did his first-ever talk to his old high school 🥳
Based on working together with him to achieve this milestone, let me share with you the three lessons that we learned about how to start your career as a speaker.
Lesson #1: There is no such thing as a perfect talk.
During the time that James and I worked together, he wrote his brilliant talk and was happy with it… Until one week later when he said to me “I just want to add a paragraph here.”
A week later again, he was came to me again saying “Actually, I want to take out that part”.
And then another week later, he was came to me confused, “I’m not even sure about this whole thing”.
And that is the thing: You’ll be waiting forever if you wait until it’s perfect.
So write your talk to a point that you feel good about it. Know that this means it’s now good enough to go out there and deliver.
Lesson #2: You are much better off delivering your talk with cue cards rather than never delivering it, because you are waiting until it is memorized.
Now, at the start with James, we were aiming to have the talk memorized. However, when it got to the point that this was the one thing that was delaying the talk being delivered, I revealed to James “Don’t worry about memorisation. Instead of waiting forever, you’re much better off using cue cards while getting experience, learning from the process, getting great feedback, and having an impact on your audience.
And this is exactly what James did!
Lesson #3: Start with your own network.
A lot of people forget that they are already sitting on a gold mine of opportunities from the people that they know in their current world and from their past.
Don’t feel like you need to start from scratch if you want to get your first speaking gig: Reach out to old colleagues, acquaintances, or old high school friends.
This becomes a great launchpad for your very first talk that can then lead into even more opportunities down the track.
Are you, too, interested in kicking off your speaking career?
Apply here for coaching and strategy sessions from Trang, who will help you with each step of the process of building your speaking business.
From positioning your unique brand as a speaker, to getting booked or negotiating your speaker fee, Trang will give you the step by step process so you know exactly what to do, without the overwhelm!
See you on the inside,
Trang 🙂
