Public Speaking As A Platform

 

Public speaking can be a powerful way to share your message and reach new audience, whether you’re in a corporate meeting room, a conference stage, or a webinar screen.

If we’re strategic, it can also be a viable revenue stream.

In this menu sprint, we’ll be focused on arming you with the information, tools and context you need to feel comfortable and confident taking your message to the stage.

 
 

🎓Masterclass 1 + Guide: Positioning Yourself As A Speaker

Mel & Jay talk about positioning yourself as a speaker, the types of talks that you can do, creating killer talk topics, titles and descriptions, and clarifying your audiences (both the ones you speak to, and the ones who select you to speak.)

 
 

🎓Masterclass 2 + Guide: Packaging & Pricing Talks

In this Masterclass conversation, Mel and Jay will discuss how to pitch yourself as a speaker, how to navigate pricing conversations, how to set pricing, non-cash compensation and value you can get from speaking, and what other things you might include or negotiate for as part of your contract.

🎓Masterclass 3 + Guide: Filling your pipeline

In this masterclass conversation, Mel & Jay will share how to get yourself booked, from which marketing assets you should prioritize, what to say on a booking call with an event organizer, where to look for gigs, and how to make sure you’re as referable as possible.

 

🔍 Links Tucker Shared for Finding Gigs:

 

🎓Masterclass 4 + Guide: Performance Tips

In this masterclass conversation, we talk about how to prepare for the stage: how to use slides and visuals, adjust for IRL vs virtual experiences, make your talks interactive, and rehearse/prepare.

⭐️ Guest CHef Interview:
Tucker Bryant

In this interview, Kitchen member Tucker Bryant shares his experiences and offers insights into how he built his speaking business.

Links Tucker Shared for Finding Gigs:

👨🏻‍🍳 Chef’s Table videos

Short tutorials going inside our work and how we apply what we’re learning in this menu to our platforms and projects.

📂 Other Resources

📚 “The Referable Speaker: Your Guide to Building a Sustainable Speaking Career”, by Michael Port & Andrew Davis. (⭐️ Jay is featured in this book!)

📚 “The Successful Speaker: Five Steps for Booking Gigs, Getting Paid, & Building Your Platform” by Grant Baldwin & Jeff Goins (⭐️ Melanie is featured in this book!)

📚 “Steal the Show: How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life“ by Michael Port

📚 “Find Your Red Thread: Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible“ by Tamsen Webster

🎙️ Melanie has appeared on & co-hosted 10+ episodes of The Speaker Lab Podcast. Listen here.

🎙️ Other speaking podcasts: Wealthy Speaker Podcast | Steal The Show |

✉️ SpeakingGigs.pro email newsletter for speakers

🔍 Links Tucker Shared for Finding Speaking Gigs:

 

💙 Creator Roundtables

Where public speaking was a major topic of discussion

👋 It’s Melanie. I had some fun with Canva’s AI image generator creating imagery for this menu. I requested yellow and black as dominant colors, said I preferred a hand-drawn style, and then riffed with some things like “stage,” “conference,” “keynote speaker,” etc. Here’s some of the results:


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Reminder: What are Menus?

Menus are suggested focus areas to experience creative growth and forward momentum in your work. You can discuss ANYTHING you like, anything you need, at any time with us — but if you’re not sure where to start, we’re always building out a new menu inside the Kitchen. As you experienced above, menus are like microsites of resources around one creative skill.

  • Menus are not medium- or project-dependent. They focus on creative skills that are personal and transferrable.

    1. Personal: It comes from you. It’s not something found through a quick google search or social media post.

    2. Transferrable: It helps you wherever you show up, not just in one piece, project, medium, or channel.

  • There’s no keeping up or falling behind. Again, menus are suggested focus areas. Member A might decide to watch the masterclass for a menu live, then join a roundtable to discuss their work in that area, but Member B decides the latest menu isn’t THE thing they want to focus on right now. That’s great! Member B shows up to the very same roundtable as Member A and discusses something entirely different — and perhaps we point them back to a past menu or specific resource therein, now that we know what they’re focused on.

Menus help you explore and improve in a given area in three ways:

  1. Immerse yourself in ideas and content that match your aspirations, focused on that menu’s theme. Each menu kicks off with a video masterclass to rethink something powerful and receive useful tools. Each week, you can also expect new behind-the-scenes videos with Jay taking you inside his process, showcasing how he’s executing against our shared focus area.

  2. Create better work, more confidently and consistently. Each menu comes with a set of guides, prompts, and templates.

  3. Get personalized feedback. Each menu offers weekly chances to attend office hours with Melanie or sit on small group roundtables with Jay to talk shop, swap notes, and feel inspired.

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