Interview With Stacy Tetschner, CAE, FASAE
CEO Of National Speakers Association
1. As the CEO of the National Speakers Association, what do you
believe is impacting or influencing the speak-for-pay industry? There are a variety of factors that are
influencing the speaking profession today. Since the last recession, we
have seen a decline in the overall number of meetings and when there are less
meetings, there are also less opportunities for speakers. Within that
decline we also saw less focus placed on paid speakers in an effort to cut
expenses. As meetings return, they are bringing back paid speakers,
however, not at the levels we had seen before. Many times meeting
planners are opting for one paid speakers vs. three and they are filling in
with industry speakers and/or vendor partners who are willing to speak for no
fee. The challenge for our profession is to both show the value in what a
paid professional speaker can bring/add to a meeting and to help speakers
identify additional ways to earn revenue from speaking beyond the traditional
fee for a speech.
2. How has NSA managed to grow into the nationwide leading
speakers educational and networking group, now celebrating its 40th year? NSA was blessed to have a founder with
incredible vision to bring a profession together. He was followed by
amazing leaders who continued to focus and refine that vision for the last
forty years. Today we are very clear on what we want to be best in the
world at doing and that is providing the best education/learning opportunities
and creating professional community for those who speak for a fee. With
that focus it becomes easy to expend our resources on achieving those goals and
remaining relevant to today’s speaking professional.
3. What advice do you have for authors exploring how to turn
their words into profitable speaking gigs? First and foremost, know your material to the point of becoming
an expert in your specific area; and make sure that what you have to say is
what those who hire speakers are willing to pay for. You can be the
world’s best story teller, but if there is not a point or take away value to
your story for your target audience, then you likely won’t get hired.
Identify the audience that is right for your message and also identify which
audience is not right for your message. Not every paying speaking
opportunity is the right one and nothing is worse than being in front of the
wrong audience with the wrong message. Once you have everything in place,
take every opportunity you can to speak in order to hone your message and your
craft. If you want to get paid to speak then speak more often to become
the best at your message. Word of mouth is the best marketing in this
business – and those that plan meetings and hire speakers do talk about the
good and the bad.
4. What trends are you seeing today in the public speaking world?
We are seeing speakers
having to become more diverse in their offerings around their area of
expertise. There are not as many keynoting opportunities as there used to
be and as a result keynoting has become one of many different speaking
opportunities that include training, consulting facilitating among others.
Additionally, the more successful speakers are finding ways to engage the
audience in their presentations so it is not so much a talking head
presentation, there is also audience interaction and engagement where so of the
learning includes from other audience members as well as from the speaker.
5. What does NSA do for those looking to further their speaking
career? Within the vision I
mentioned earlier, NSA helps speakers to speak more, speak better and make more
money. For those who are interested in getting into the business we
tailor that message to a curriculum within our Academy for Professional
Speaking, a monthly subscription and education program. For those who are
already speaking and ramping up their business we take those same three points
and tailor the education to where you are within your career. And the
beauty of it all is that we come together as a professional community and learn
not just from the sessions, but also from each other. The road becomes a
lot less lonely when you can benchmark yourself with your peers as well as
learn and share among colleagues. That is why we are here.
6. What are the traits you most admire about the best speakers
out there? The passion that
speakers bring to what they do continues to inspire me. Speakers are so
passionate about sharing their message with the world and affecting change in a
positive way they have literally become the change agents and hope merchants of
the world. The messages they deliver motivate, teach, inspire, and create
change every day.
7. What speaking topics or industries are more lucrative/popular
these days? I am not sure there is
one topic or industry that is more popular than others. What most
audiences and those hiring speakers are demanding is relevance. Ensure
your message is relevant to the audience you are in front of. And be sure
that the message incorporates the fact that there are five generations that are
likely included in that audience. How is your message relevant to each
one?
8. How is NSA helping its member speakers to adopt the use of
technology and speak via the Internet? We continue to offer a wide array of education around the
different technologies that are integrating into the speaking business.
There are Webinars, Teleseminars, Videos, and many others. NSA has
recently signed on as a partner with LightspeedVT to deliver some of our
educational components on desktops and smart devices. This new technology
is allowing NSA to not only deliver education in a new way, but also to model
this new technology and help our members shorten their learning curve as they
choose their virtual delivery platforms.
For
more information, please consult: www.NSAspeaker.org
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Brian
Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and
not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter.
You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when
discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©
2013
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