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About

My name is Jackie Gordon and I want you to get paid to speak.

Jackie Gordon Circa 2010

Let Me Google That For You

On Wednesday, January 5th, 2022 when I Googled “how to get paid to speak” there were  4,610,000,000 results in .58 seconds. Four billion, six hundred and ten million is a lot and that number is rounded! In 2024, you can’t easily tell the results, but believe me it’s A LOT!

When I started teaching, performing, and speaking in the early ’90s, the internet was still teething. There were no blogs or YouTube videos. If you wanted to do anything, you went out, found the right people to talk to and made it happen… old school. 

Google how to get paid to speak and you will get 4,610,000,000 hits.

I was living in Melbourne, Australia.

I got my first paid performing gig as a backup singer in a cover band based on the movie “The Commitments”. I was a pitiful backup singer because I couldn’t harmonize or dance in step. They kept me way longer than they should have because I was American, a woman of color, and I looked good on stage. Eventually, they kicked me to the curb. LOL!

I got my first paid teaching job there too. I decided I wanted to teach American cooking from the south. I pitched a local college that had adult education cooking classes and they gave me a shot. They made me take a Train The Trainer course. It gave me a solid foundation on the most effective ways to teach adults. I still use the skills from that training to this day!

Fast forward to 2022 – The internet is middle-aged. We have information overload. 4,610,000,000 hits!

What Are The Steps To Getting Paid To Speak?

Figuring out how to be a paid speaker by sifting through the internet is freaking overwhelming! I’ve got decades of industry experience and even my head was spinning from scrolling the net.

How do you figure out the steps?

Naturally, good information and misinformation came up in my Google search. There are magazine articles, blog posts, videos, courses, and even a conference or two. There’s a bunch of “my personal getting paid to speak” journey content. That was just on the first two pages. I went much, much deeper!

I find it interesting that quite a few of them missed the main point of how one gets paid to speak in the first place. Be valuable to the people who are willing to pay to hear you speak.

The information was all over the place.

There’s no one website based solely on how to get paid as a speaker. That’s why I created Speak Up. Get Paid.

I want to help you build a successful paid speaking business or side hustle.

My experience is teaching, performing, speaking, business coaching, and coaching speakers. I’m combining what I know with the best stuff I’ve learned from other people. I’m sifting through some of what’s online and culling the best info there as well. I want to make it easy to understand and follow on this website.

What Do You Know That You Can Get Paid To Talk About?

Are you creating something valuable that others value as well?

You can get paid for sharing the value you create.

If you help others by:

you can get paid for speaking about it.

What is the gift you're giving your audience?

I like to think of giving a speech as delivering a gift to your listeners. What you know is your gift. It can be in the form of knowledge, inspiration, entertainment, or any combination of these.

Whether you’re giving a five-minute pep talk or a half-hour keynote. Whether you’re in person or coming to them from your living room. Each time you speak to your audience, you aim for them to walk away with the gift and use it to make their lives better.

Why Speak Up. Get Paid.? Why Now?

I am creating Speak Up. Get Paid. to help people, like you, figure out how to get paid to speak about the gift you give your audience.

There has always been a bit of mystery around getting well paid to speak. The pandemic caused a shift in the speaking industry. The business had to change. Many of the traditional venues for public speaking closed for the time being. Some of them shifted online.

The Great Resignation also happened. A lot of people quit their jobs and decided to rethink how they work and how they want their lives to be. Many want to work for themselves. Some of them want to make money by sharing the knowledge they already have. This is a time of vast opportunities for skilled public speakers and content creators online (which is the same as public speaking).

Speak Up. Get Paid. is a one-stop shop for people who want to know how to become paid speakers. The same information applies to people who are already making money speaking and want to increase their income.

I Get Paid To Speak And So Can You

I’ve been getting paid to perform and speak for decades.

I’m a singing chef, a speaker, an entrepreneur, an event producer, and more. I’ve been coaching entrepreneurs and public speakers for over ten years.

I want to share with the Speak Up. Get Paid. community both the conventional and non-conventional ways that I and others monetize speaking.

Some of the suggestions I saw in my Google deep dive search made me furrow my brow.

GOOD ADVICE OR NOT? Wanna get paid to speak? Write a book!

If you already have a book and people have bought and want to buy it, this is good advice. It means you’re clear about what the value you create in the world is and how you’re valuable to people in your niche. But there are still steps you need to take to go from book author to paid speaker.

BUT what if you don’t have a book? What if you’re just starting out? This may not be the best advice. Books take time to create. You have to create a proposal, write it, edit it, sell to a book publisher or self-publish, promote it, sell it, and more.

I don’t want you to have to wait until you’ve written a book to get paid to speak if you have something valuable to say now.

I’m not saying don’t write a book. Good books help build your authority and credibility as a speaker. Books can be another income source for savvy speakers.

My friend, Denise Vivaldo, a now-retired, expert food stylist calls her book a very expensive business card. LOL!

Books open doors, but in the digital world, there are faster ways to build and find your audience.

If you have something valuable to say and you communicate it to the right audience, you don’t have to start with a book.

Initially, I prefer the idea of getting to know your paid-speaking audience. Find out what they really need and then create books/products tailored to them. Sell directly to them because you will make more money. PRO TIP: If you do this you’d have a built-in fan base who can help spread the word about and buy your book.

GOOD ADVICE OR NOT? Wanna get paid to speak? Start cold calling for gigs.

I loathe cold calling (both giving and receiving). Of all the ways to market yourself, it’s my least favorite, but some people are good at it and if you are and it works, DO IT!

Make sure you have a strategy to cold call for paid speaking gigs.

Reaching out to speaker agents and conference organizers who don’t know you can be very hit or miss. If you’re already a known speaker in your niche, you’ll have a better chance. I don’t think cold calling is the most effective use of your marketing efforts for beginners.

If you have something of value to say and you’re able to communicate with the right audience, opportunities to speak can come to you.

One way I market myself is by creating things that are valuable and resonate with an audience that I built. When other people hear about it, they seek me out and offer me opportunities to get paid. I prefer it when I don’t have to hustle for gigs.

MY ADVICE: You wanna get paid to speak? Be valuable and tell your people.

Getting paid to speak is more of a strategy than steps. This is the strategy that has consistently worked for me except for the lapses that I call WIFU*.

An image of bricks that shows the components of how to build a paid speaking business.

How To Build A Profitable Paid Speaking Business Or Side Hustle

That’s it.

Where Do You Start To Get Paid To Speak?

I see these components as bricks, not steps. Building a speaking business is like building a wall. It’s strategic, not linear.

Every person who wants to be a paid speaker starts from a different point depending on their experience. You need to figure out which bricks you already have in place. Then decide which ones you need to build a profitable income as a speaker. 

Whether you’re starting from scratch or are further along, the first three bricks are 100% essential.

These are the foundation of your speaking business. All the decisions you make about the rest of the components will be dictated by these three.

You can get on my mailing list to help you answer the first two . For the third one: LINK to goal worksheet

The next three bricks are critical but not chronological.

How you tackle the rest of the bricks depends on what you need to achieve your goals. They are not in order. You can do them some of them simultaneously. Some will need more work.

Don’t let this overwhelm you. Break it up into doable chunks.

I took some courses about building an online business even though I had studied it years ago. The gap between what I knew and what I had to learn got BIGGER! Aargh!

I’m a creative person. A lot of the architecture of building a brand new website is very lateral. That’s not in my wheelhouse and tends to make my head hurt.

I also had to relearn software that I hadn’t used in years. At points, I thought, “Why am I even doing this? This is a ton of work!”

But then, I’d hear a friend complaining about not being able to figure out the exact thing I’m teaching here. If I build Speak Up. Get Paid. it’s going to help them. So I kept going. Also, if people I already know have this problem, then what about the people I don’t know? That inspired me to keep going.

You may have to use muscles that you don’t usually use to make this work for you. There may be points that are not much fun, but the rewards will be worth it.

When you pursue a challenging goal what you want has to be more important than what you have.

*WIFU? aka “Where I F**ked Up!”

For years, over and over different people advised me to be specific. Pick a specific niche for my speaking business.

I didn’t listen.

I’ve done so many things that I wound up speaking about a multitude of subjects to various audiences. I didn’t have a clear platform. I was all over the place. I made it hard for people to suggest me for gigs and people to hire me for gigs.

This is a BAD STRATEGY.

It was piecemeal and I knew it. I didn’t like the idea of choosing. I decided to stop taking speaking gigs because I didn’t have a clear platform or purpose. I thought long and hard about which of my niches I could focus on.

Finally, I picked Speak Up. Get Paid. It’s a very specific niche where I already have decades of experience. I can take all I know, learn new stuff, and tailor it to this audience.

I picked one lane. I’m catering to a very narrow niche. <== DO THIS TO GET PAID!

Jackie Circa 1998

What I Learned From My Successes And Failures And So Can You

At some point, I’ll add a link to the many things I’ve done. I don’t want you to fall asleep reading it now.

I’ve gotten tons of press, amazing reviews, played to sold-out crowds as a performer. I’ve won awards. I’ve helped entrepreneurs, bloggers, business people, speakers, and more! YAY ME!

And YES, I’m old.

The good thing, and there’s not a lot of good things about getting older, is I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve learned a lot, some of it the hard way. That will help you. If you heed my warnings!

My successes, failures, and experiences have made me wiser. I would love to say that I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but I’d be lying. Wouldn’t it be freaking nice for the life lessons to abate at some point?

Well, they don’t. As you age, you realize that life is a series of lessons and more lessons, every day and then you die. LOL!

There are brief moments to bask in the glory so YAY!!!

This Seems Like A Lot Of Work Is There A Faster Method?

There is a faster track to being a paid public speaker. 

You have to do something HUGE like be the president of the United States or at least married to him. You could be the head of a bazillion-dollar tech company. You could be a rock star or G.O.A.T athlete or an incredible humanitarian. You could try safely crash landing a plane in the East River. You could create the hottest word game during a pandemic.

If you do something that’s legal, legendary, and gets lots of media coverage, you do get to jump the line.

But, people who come to public speaking by these means have a strategy and systems and possibly a team to help them make bank as a speaker. They still have to learn the nuts and bolts of speaking before an audience.

Speaking For Free Yay Or Nay?

I’ve spoken for free in exchange for experience, exposure, networking, swag, and feeling good about my own generosity.

I can categorically say that I prefer getting paid with cold, hard cash. It’s even better when it’s a lot of cash!

[Psssst! Speaking for free is definitely part of getting paid to speak. You have to be smart and strategic about it.]

What About Toastmasters?

I’ve belonged to one of the top-ranked Toastmasters clubs in New York City (SEC Roughriders) for many years. I love my club!

I have a love-don’t love relationship with Toastmasters.

Toastmasters International helps people become better at public speaking. It provides a generous platform for practicing and getting feedback. I encourage fledgling and even experienced speakers to join a Toastmasters club to practice speaking.

Toastmasters does not teach you how to earn money as a speaker. I also question their standards of achievement. You can move up through the Toastmaster system and still not be a speaker who creates value for your audience or yourself.

If you know that going in, Toastmasters is helpful for speakers. They switched their educational system to Pathways several years ago. Personally, I find is not clear or easy to use, but other people like it. To me, their manual system was more effective.

That said, Toastmasters is valuable. I know a lot of tips and strategies to help you get the best use out of being a member. I will share them on Speak Up. Get Paid.

Ask Yourself: Am I Being Valuable?

What’s driven my success is always approaching everything I create by asking myself, “How can I be of most value to my audience?”.

When I’m writing a speech, producing a show, creating an event, devising a workshop, or even creating a brand new platform from scratch, my goal is to make it the best for my listeners, attendees, users, etc.

It’s not a secret. There’s no trick or black hat strategy.

Be valuable to your listeners and be valuable to your community.

Once I’ve delivered my gift to my audience, I seek out and consider their feedback.

Many speakers, even well-paid ones, don’t do this. SMH

Be Valuable & You Can Command Value

When I coach speakers, I always look through the same value-driven scope:

Speak Up. Get Paid. is a work in progress.

I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned from my own experience. I’m sharing what I’ve taught and learned as a business and public speaking coach. I’m going to be bringing in paid speakers to share their stories, strategies, and systems. I’ll be sharing what I learn from the people in the Speak Up. Get Paid. community.

Speak Up. Get Paid. is not for everyone.

I created it for people who:

I don’t want every person who wants to get paid to speak coming to Speak Up. Get Paid. I only want people who resonate with my personality and strategies.

I want you to make a lot of money for getting paid to speak.

What If I Don’t Want To Get Paid For Speaking With $$$?

Speak Up. Get Paid. will help you if you want to reap the rewards of speaking in ways other than earning money. READ: Why Are You Talking? Warning: If You’re Mystified By This Question You’ll Have A Tough Time Getting Paid To Speak

What If I’m Afraid Of Public Speaking?

You are not alone. Experts believe 77% of the population fears public speaking. I’ve helped people go from paralytic to poised at the podium. I love seeing shift speakers from

Speakers seeing this change in themselves is the best!

There are people who speak despite feeling uncomfortable.  [LINK TO NERVES}

If you want to see this change in yourself as a speaker start with the Find Your Paid Speaking Niche Cheat Sheet that you will get by signing up for my mailing list.

How Do I Monetize Speak Up Get Paid?

I share a lot of free information on Speak Up. Get Paid. I’ll be doing live-streamed events and webinars for free. Some people who see my work for free will hire me to work with them.

What you need to get paid as a speaker?

I’d Love To Talk To You.  Let’s Do It!

I’m inviting you to have a 15 minute CONNECT WITH ME call.

Grab a $97.00, laser-focused, 15 minute session. Tell me what you’re struggling with and I’ll give you at least 3 things to fix it, guaranteed or your money back. https://calendly.com/speakupgetpaid/15min

Chow for now,

Jackie