If you have ever stood on the 10 metre bed in the indoor swimming pool, then you have probably felt it before: the jump is the most difficult. It will be the same for you if you are already working in a company as an employee or manager and you want to dare to start your breakthrough as a great keynote speaker after many years of work.
It doesn’t matter whether you want to be a keynote speaker alongside your regular job or at the same time.
In this article I will make it easier for you to start your career as a professional speaker, so that you can avoid possible stumbling blocks from the outset (these are mainly stones I stumbled over myself in the beginning). Therefore this will be a first hand article exclusively for you:
Choose a topic and occupy it
This is a simple philosophy that almost resembles a rule in chess. On a topic field that is still unoccupied, you can freely unfold as a keynote speaker according to your wishes and ideas.
If you come from a different industry or company and want to immerse yourself in the profession of a professional speaker, it is easier to find a foothold in an untouched complex of topics.
You can imagine it to be always easier to go your own way than to choose a subject area that is already well occupied, so that you would probably only step into the footprints of other speakers. The competition is many times greater.
If you can’t think of a topic that you want to talk about freely and effusively as a keynote speaker, please don’t panic at this point (after all, there are 4 more to come). Since I do not assume that you have already quit your old job, you still have enough time to find a topic that will interest you and others.
Also the fact that you (assuming you are not yet a well-known personality) first have to make yourself public and sell your name in connection with your skills as a speaker speaks for choosing a topic that not a thousand others have chosen before you.
Always ask yourself: Do you want to be just one of many who painstakingly stands out or a pioneer right from the start?
Let others feel your enthusiasm
Another important point, which I don’t think is appreciated enough, is one’s own passion and passion for the things one does in life. Before you want to make the leap from your company into the world of keynote speakers and successful speakers – even if only as a small lucrative extra income – you have already asked yourself why you want to do this?
Is there only a gentle interest and youthful curiosity behind your project or are you simply convinced of what you want to tackle? The big difference between the two types is that both will make the jump, but only the last of both with expected success.
But what could be the reason? It is your own enthusiasm that will be transferred to your audience during your lectures as a speaker or keynote speaker. Such a transmission and such an interplay in interaction with your audience is only possible, however, if you yourself bring these sincere feelings for your project with you.
You can almost say that successful speakers are only secondary to what they say. The most important thing is that you stand behind what they feel.
It is an important rule of thumb, which has come true over and over again in my years of independence: Only those who are convinced of their idea are able to inspire other people with it.
Actually, I don’t need to tell you much more about this point, because in the course of your professional life you certainly must have heard a lot of good, but also a lot of bad speakers. And our or your goal should be the feeling that all good speakers have triggered you to pass it on to your future audience.
Bring in your experiences with little stories and anecdotes
No one in this world has become a successful speaker from now on, just because he wanted to reorient himself professionally with it. Just as well as never before a person has won the jackpot without buying a ticket. What I would like to tell you is that, as in any profession, a career as a professional keynote speaker is a strenuous one that requires a lot of diligence and stamina.
