Public Speaking: We Promise You Won't Die

Maybe it's because we both have an obsessive need to be the center of attention, but we live for speaking in public.

Understandably, this gets a lot of weird looks and comments from our friends, because most people hate public speaking. Hate, hate, hate it with a fiery hot passion reserved only for snakes, tobacco executives, and Commies. (Our apologies to any snakes who may be reading this book.)

We speak in public for three reasons. First, public speaking is essential to building our brand and establishing our credibility. If we want companies and colleagues to realize we're experts in our field, we need to find ways to share that expertise with others. When we are seen as experts in our field, bigger clients are more willing to hire us for larger fees.

Second, we enjoy sharing knowledge with large groups of people. A big focus for Kyle's company is providing social media training; Erik taught public speaking for three years at the college level, and he very nearly went into education. So we both share a teacher's heart. (Kyle keeps it in a jar under his bed.)

Third, we like public speaking because people pay speakers to share their wisdom and knowledge. We were staggered to learn that organizations pay someone anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars to come in and tell their people about stuff they do for a living. It could be a keynote at a conference, a motivational speaker at a national sales meeting, or leading a day-long seminar, but professional public speakers are well-paid to talk about what they do for a living, and to teach those skills to other people.

Think about what you do right now. Whether you're a purchasing agent, a marketing coordinator, a chef, or a license branch manager, you've probably found several shortcuts that help you do your job better, or you have some thoughts on the direction of your particular industry. Now imagine if someone handed you a check for, say, $2,000 to talk for an hour to a group of your colleagues about these shortcuts or thoughts.

Staggering.

You've probably thought about a number of ways you can do your job better. You likely think that if you had a chance to share this knowledge, your job, your company, or your industry would be a good and happy place. The fact that you bought this book is proof of that: You want to learn how to share knowledge and thus create or grow your personal brand.

But, although it seems like getting $2,000—or whatever you charge—for an hour's worth of work is the ideal job, you're not really getting $2,000 for a single hour. You're getting $2,000 for the hour you speak, the hours you prepare, the weeks and months you've spent writing about your topic, and the years you spent learning your craft. It only works out to a few pennies an hour, but it's $2,000 more than your nonspeaking colleagues are going to get for the same amount of work.