Boost Your Income with Speaking Gigs

The critical steps to elevate your speaker fees and assert the true value of your expertise. 

Follow Dr. Sheena Howards' socials:
@drsheenahoward | Power Your Research

Chapters

• 0:00 Maximizing Speaking Engagements for Academics
• 7:09 Elevating Academic Speaker Fees

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

And I know for a fact that there are entrepreneurs who don't have PhDs giving speaking engagements on the same things my PhDs are giving speaking engagements on, and they're charging $10,000 and up. I don't want my work to be stuck behind an academic paywall. I want to leave a legacy, I want to reach my potential and I want to change lives. This podcast, power your Research, is my attempt to help the smartest people in the world do that very thing. My hope is that you use the lessons I share to make more money than what your higher ed job can ever pay you. I've done it, my clients have done it, and so can you. My hope is that you'll apply what you learn here and one day join the Power your Research program where you can work with me one-on-one on. This particular video is on helping my academics and educators get more speaking engagements right. If you have a PhD, you already get people asking you to speak here and there without even trying. It's just that most of the time, they're asking you to speak for free or to speak for some honorarium, or maybe $500, $1,000 at most. Here at Power your Research, we teach you that you should not be doing a one-hour talk for less than $3,500. That includes a virtual speaking engagement. I have the opportunity to work in a few different kind of lanes, and one of those lanes is creative entrepreneurship, and I know for a fact that there are entrepreneurs who don't have PhDs giving speaking engagements on the same things my PhDs are giving speaking engagements on and they're charging $10,000 and up. I saw someone's website the other day. He charges $100,000 just for a one hour talk and yet my subject matter experts, my PhDs, my educators you're still doing things for free. You're still only charging $500. And I want you to make money doing this so that you can do it more, so that you can actually leave a legacy and impact the community that needs to hear from you, because when you undercharge, you experience burnout right, and a lot of times, as PhDs, we are experiencing burnout. Sometimes it really is because we're trying to do too much, but sometimes it's just we're just not charging enough, so we're doing the most because we're charging so little, and I can tell you from experience that now that I charge way, way, way, way, way more one, it gives me the opportunity for you to speak from a place of somebody that's actually charging way more than $3,500. But I can also tell you that it feels better to not undercharge, and so I'm going to go over a speaking engagement sales funnel the one that I actually use to get consistent speaking engagements. Right funnel the one that I actually use to get consistent speaking engagements. Right now I'm in a place where I'm doing less for more right, less speaking engagements for more money. But some of you that have been following me a while you have seen this document. It is basically my business plan, my operations manual for my personal brand. So in here we have my sales funnel for speaking engagements. Let me just walk you through this real quick, because this is the sales funnel that I implement to get consistent speaking engagements.

Speaker 1: 3:34

So social media content is a big part of this Posting content. One of the first things that my academics say to me when they jump into the Power Year research program is but I don't want to be on social media, I don't want to post content. If you don't want to post content and have an online presence, my content is not for you. Then right Power, your Research, is not for you. We are in 2024. People are on their phones. Your fellow academics are on their phone. Corporations, practitioners everybody's on their phones. So if you want to grow your brand, you have to be where the people are. And so that's posting social media content. Now I have a bunch of videos about social media strategy and what to post. You can go back and look at those videos or just jump on a free call with me to learn about the process.

Speaker 1: 4:16

But starts with consistent social media content. Hey, everyone, real quick. I don't run any ads on this podcast, so I have to rely on word of mouth. If this podcast has helped you in any way, please share it with a friend and follow me, dr Sheena Howard, on LinkedIn, where I give more free content on building your brand as an academic. If you tell me you came to my LinkedIn from the podcast, I'll make sure I accept your request.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Then there's an inquiry. Somebody will say, hey, I would love to bring you in to speak. From there, I send them to my booking agent. Most of you watching this probably will not have a booking agent. You do not need one to have this particular sales funnel. Then you book the speaking engagement. This is the part where you negotiate your rate. Most of these people, since you have a PG, listen. Here's, here's.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Here's something interesting I said in a meeting, actually at a university, that I won't I won't say what university and they actually have a system where if they're going to bring somebody in to speak, if the person is an academic, they pay them a thousand dollars, but if the person is not an academic and they have, like a booking agent, they'll pay them up to $10,000. So literally, literally, universities understand the game that an academic will speak for a thousand or less, but if it's not an academic or they have a representation of some kind, they can charge 10,000. And representation means like you can get your assistant to respond. You can get a virtual assistant to respond to the university asking you to speak, telling them your rate is 3,500. You don't have to have an agent. So here's where you do your negotiation. You negotiate your rate. You understand that in Power your Research we're teaching 3,500. That's even for a virtual talk.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Now here's the cool thing about this sales funnel when I do my talks, I use a tool that I teach in the Power your Research program that captures everybody in the audience's email address right. There's a whole method behind this and how it works, but it's super easy. And so if I speak in front of like 600 people or even 20 people. I'll get all those email addresses and most of the time there's somebody in the audience who wants you to speak, who enjoyed your talk. They might be in a position of power to book you for a speaking engagement. Or they can just walk into their event organizer's office when they get back to their location and say, hey, I heard this great speaker, we should bring him or her in. So now you have these email addresses who become leads. I have someone follow up on those leads regularly, let's say every three months, to say, hey, you filled out this form, you like Dr Howard's talk, you were in the audience, would you like to bring her in? And then you book another speaking engagement, and so this is a great way to build your mailing list but also to keep the leads coming in. Now, this is just one sales funnel and it's okay to have boundaries around your speaking engagements.

Speaker 1: 6:56

You don't have to fly all over the world if you don't want to. I have a seven-year-old. I tell my clients all the time I have a seven-year-old. I have a seven-year-old. I tell my clients all the time. I have a seven-year-old. I'm not trying to fly all around the world three times a month to do speaking engagements. I want to do less for more.

Speaker 1: 7:09

You already have a PhD. You have nothing to prove. You have nothing to prove You've earned the right to be able to charge at least $3,500. And when I tell you like $3,500 is the minimum, that's what college campuses. College campuses are paying $4,000 for speakers. They're purposely paying PhDs less because they know you'll do it, so stop doing that. All right. So I hope this helps somebody out there. Again. My name is Dr Sheena Howard. I'm the founder of Power your Research, an academic branding company. You have a lot of options to connect with me. You can book a 30 minute call. We can talk about the Power your Research nine-step system to increase your visibility, authority and income. You can join the academic branding community over on Patreon. There'll be links to all those things. I am here to help you get to the next level. Happy to answer any questions or comments should you have them. Thank you.