Bringing a speech to market can be a daunting and vulnerable process. It can feel—as in any creative endeavor—like it’s you that’s being put out there.
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It’s no wonder so many speakers invest so much time, energy, and effort into crafting an immaculate speech. They edit, polish, tweak, and fine-tune the speech until it’s exceptional.
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In the process, many speakers adopt a kind of “if you build it, they will come” mentality. And while that did work in Field of Dreams, it often doesn’t work for speeches.
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You see, speakers who develop speeches without a feedback loop likely won’t know if their core message is viable, if their ideas will be accepted, or if they’re even going down the right track to begin with.
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When they take their speech to the stage and it doesn’t land like they’d hoped, many are left wondering:
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Where did I go wrong?
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How do I break through to get more speaking invitations, more exposure, and more gigs?
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Will I be able to monetize this?
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The conventional wisdom out there is this: Craft a fully developed speech, get it out there, perform it onstage (and hopefully it works).
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And that might work for some. But for the majority of speakers, it leads to a speech that plateaus around the $1K-$2K fee range—making it harder to book gigs, harder to share their message, and harder to build a sustainable speaking business.
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Once a month, for the next four months, we’re diving into what it really takes to turn your speech into a $10K speech—no matter how much or how little speaking experience you have, no matter who your target audience is, and no matter what stage you’re at in the speech-writing process.
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We’ll be referencing visionary advice from HEROIC co-founder Michael Port to break down what a $10K speech needs to be successful, the essentials for crafting and delivering it, and how to make it saleable.
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And as surprising (or relieving) as it may sound, you don’t even need a finished speech to get started.
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What to Do BEFORE You Write Your Speech
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Where do most speakers go wrong? They write a speech first.
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They spend months, sometimes even years, putting their ideas together, crafting their opening and closing, and finding the best stories for their speech. But creation in a vacuum often leads to holes in your speech. It isolates you from the very feedback that fuels a successful, transformational speech.
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In the business and tech world, before developing, launching, and marketing a new product, companies take one essential first step: they test the market. Continuous testing—at the beginning of a process, during development, and after the product is put out into the world—allows for continuous improvement.
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They’ve discovered that one of the best ways to create exceptional products is to take a hunch or an idea, go to the market, and get feedback as fast as possible. That’s what Airbnb did. The company first started as a concierge service that helped travelers find cheap accommodations. When founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia opened their own loft to conference attendees by taking pictures of their apartment and putting them up on a simple website, they soon had multiple paying guests.
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After this small initial success they continued to iterate and pursue scalability. Through experimentation and customer feedback, they realized that the key component to getting booked wasn’t affordability, or even availability—it was the quality of the photos of the space.
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No matter how knowledgeable we may be, and no matter how many decades of expertise we have in an industry, there’s just too much information out there in the world to have a flawless, crystal-clear picture of your market at this very moment. Assuming your market will react a certain way—without actually testing it—often backfires.
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Product testing saves you time and money. When you test your market first, you can confidently launch a product you know your ideal prospects will want, buy, and benefit from.
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You Are Not the Product—Your Speech Is
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The same goes for your speech. Before crafting a fully developed speech, first create the minimum viable product, or MVP, for your speech. Test it with your target audience, and iterate it until it lands.
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Remember, you are not your speech. Your speech is simply a product you are creating for your target audience. Yes, you will be delivering it. Yes, it has your personal stories, experiences, and insights. But, you, the speaker, are not the product. Your speech is.
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Truly understanding this can help you separate yourself emotionally from the feedback you receive. You’ll be better able to subjectively analyze responses and apply them to your speech—leading to a successful, well-received, and in-demand product.
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