Monday, November 4, 2013

New Book Celebrates 40 Years Of The National Speakers Association


I came across a copy of Paid to Speak: Best Practices for Building a Successful Speaking Business, written by dozens of members of the National Speakers Association (NSA). It includes lots of suggestions, strategies, and tips on how to launch, build and maintain a successful speaking career.

Readers will learn to:

·         Work with speakers bureaus
·         Convey a professional image through dress and body language
·         Create compelling presentations via humor and story telling
·         Sell themselves effectively
·         Establish themselves as an expert in their niche
·         Hone their facilitation skills

Perhaps the most important part was right in the beginning, in the introduction, written by the 1988-89 NSA president, Jim Cathcart, CSP, CPAE. He identifies eight core competencies that speakers should adhere to. They include the following:

1.      Display good platform mechanics, such as staging, lighting, choreography, and sound. Whether you appear in person or via video, audio, online, or via satellite, make sure the dynamics of your physical presentation are tuned up.

2.      Present well by knowing how to reach your audience in the manner that will achieve your desired effect. This calls for a little psychology, but you need to develop stories, insert humor, control your voice, and find ways to tailor your message to the specific audience that you perform for.

3.      Good business management is needed: Know how to deal with the administrative side of speaking -- contracts, systems, money negotiation and collection.

4.      Sales and marketing: know how to secure speaking opportunities with corporations, associations, and other groups. Design good promotional materials. Think of how to convert speeches into seminars, products, branding, and media coverage.

5.      Topic development and the selection/expansion of what you talk about is important. Use your goals, interests, skills and the marketplace to dictate what you speak about.

6.      Develop authorship so you can convert your words into books, audio, video, articles, and a learning library.

7.      Have an understanding of the speaking industry, who the players are, what issues they confront, and how others present themselves.

8.      Develop professional relationships and know the interests, needs and issues in dealing with clients, colleagues, suppliers, and co-workers in the speaking profession. Understand those who serve the meetings industry -- meeting planners, agents, speakers bureaus,, and venue owners

NSA Turns 40: Great Opportunity For Authors

The National Speaking Association (NSA), the country’s leading organization for professional speaking, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. NSA, with 3,000 members, is also a member of the Global Speakers Federation. Founded in 1973, NSA offers the highly acclaimed Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) certification, online education programs, Speaker magazine, Voices of Experience audio publications, conferences, research, and networking opportunities.  Authors looking to grow their brand and their business should look into attending NSA events and joining the group. For more information, 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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