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By Patrick Combs For More Information on Patrick's Speaking Services, contact: (619) 291-4743 pcombs@goodthink.com www.goodthink.com/keynotes.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How I got my first paid speaking engagement: I began my speaking career by attending the National Speakers Association's national conference; three eye opening days in a hotel where I discovered what I really needed, the book Speak and Grow Rich by Dottie Walters. I didn't become a member of NSA because membership was $300. At the same time I bettered by speaking skills by joining my local Toastmasters Club. Through Toastmasters I was able to practice speaking weekly. Two years prior, Levi Strauss & Co. had paid for me to take to three day intensive speaking course called, Speak Easy. (The teachings in this book are detailed in the book Speak and Get Results by Sandy Linver). I researched my topic, both at the library and on Compuserve's magazine database. The Compuserve searched costed me about $75. Using guidelines laid out in Speak & Grow rich, I created a speaker's kit, which included a cover letter, a bio, a tip sheet, and a fee schedule. For stationary I used paper products by Paper Direct. Lastly, I made a 10 minute demo cassette with the help of my friend who owned music recording equipment. Duplicating 50 cassettes costed about $75. Next I hired a photographer for $75 to take a headshot of myself. Then I created a black and white flyer describing my speech, and saved graphic design money by creating it on my Macintosh computer. I printed up 3000 on glossy white paper at cost of $250. I spent three evenings in a row stuffing these flyers, along with a cover letter, into envelopes (then there's the licking and stamping!). Stamps and envelopes costed about $300. I mailed to 1200 colleges and got 40 responses. I mailed speakers kits to these prospects and did my best to sell my services of the telephone. After four months, I converted 1 of the 40 prospects into a full paid speaking date. (Important note: success rates will vary. I feel my initial success was below average.) The taker was a small school in Wisconsin. During the four months of sales follow up, I also wrote a draft of my speech and two 600 word articles about my topic. To make them appear more legitimate, I desktop published them to look like newspaper columns (However, I didn't claim that they'd been published anywhere). I also improved my audio cassette twice. During this launching time my expenses, both business and living, were being covered by a credit card. I improved my speaker's kit by taking it to a university marketing class for feedback from the students. This led to my being invited by a professor to speak to three classes of her students. These three lectures were my first and I used them as an opportunity to get written testimonials. A month later, I used these testimonials to make a brochure. The next month I flew to Wisconsin and did my first paid speaking engagement successfully. Then over the next two months, with a combination of mailing and telemarketing I got myself another four engagements (some, but not all of them, fully paid) for the remaining school semester. * 1998 UPDATE 1. There are two recently published books that a tremendous MUST READS for professional speakers: Success Secrets of the Motivational Superstars, by Michael Jeffreys Leading Out Loud, by Terry Pearce 2. Mark Victor Hansen, the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, conducts a two day seminar titled Building Your Speaking and Writing Empire. I attended in 1998, at a cost of $390 and found it to be WELL worth the money. Call 800-433-2314 for info. 3. Presentations magazine and website (www.presentations.com) have great articles about the craft of speaking. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How I got a publishing deal: To my surprise a conversation with a friend one day left me feeling like I had a book in me about college success. I began writing two pages a day in January '92. Crucial to my writing process was the fact that my wife would read what I'd written immediately, and then hand it back to me with positive (and only positive) comments written in the margins. This was very motivating. (Because I started off very insecure about my writing skills, we agreed in advance that she would not make any negative comments.) As my confidence improved, I got feedback from close friends. After producing twenty-five pages, someone told me about a book titled, How to Write a Book Proposal by Michael Larsen. I bought the book and used it to guide me in writing a 6 page book proposal. I also rewrote the twenty-five pages into two stronger sample chapters. All in all, completing a ready-to-go proposal took me three months. However, I didn't mail the proposal to any publishers for an entire year because I felt that launching my speaking career was a better use of my time (I was appalled when I learned publishers get 90% of the profits and authors get 10%). The reason I finally mailed the proposal out has a lot to do with chance. In March of 1993, a woman who's partner was Don Asher, an author for Ten Speed Press, approached me after my lecture to ask questions about my speaking career. A short while later I ended up getting together with Don and, after reviewing my book proposal, he strongly suggested that I send it into Ten Speed Press. He told me who to send it to and offered to put in a good word for me. Before mailing it in I rushed to rewrite the proposal since I'd learned a lot in the past year. In the meantime a young woman, Lisa Ryers, from Ten Speed's publicity department called me to request my speaker's kit so that she could use it as a guide for creating a publicity kit for Don. While I had her on the phone I took the opportunity to pitch her on my book proposal. Being able to speak to her in advance and in person about the book was very helpful; she agreed to be on the lookout for it - especially since Don had put in a good word on it. After I mailed it in it took about a month to get a response and when I did it was very enthusiastic. Lisa Ryers and Ten Speed's vice president liked the book idea and took me to lunch to discuss it. At lunch they said they wanted to publish it, but first they needed two more sample chapters. It took me a month to write the additional sample chapters and while doing so I cold called an author, Scott Edelestein, who wrote a very good college guidebook called The Truth About College. I called on Scott to praise his book and ask questions about the publishing business. To my surprise he was also the author of The Indispensable Writer's Guide, the definitive guidebook for writers. I suggested that we could swap expertise - I'd teach him about the speaking business and he'd teach me about publishing. He said yes to the swap and that's how I got a literary agent. Once I completed the sample chapters it took two months and Lisa Ryers urging, to get final approval from the president of Ten Speed. However, once I did Scott took over as my agent and did contract negotiations for four months. At the end of the negotiations I officially had a book deal and a $10,000 advance. I wrote for a highly concentrated six months. My book was in book stores six months later (January 1995).