115: How to be paid to speak with Jaimie Abbott
Do you have “paid speaker” on your current vision board?
I do!
So what do you do? How can you start? And what does it take to be a paid speaker? I know, all your burning questions will be answered in the latest episode of The Essential Shift Podcast with our guest, Jaimie Abbott!
This is a great episode to take inspired action!
If you LOVED the episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag me @essential.shift and @jaimieabbott!
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KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS
Tips to help business owners and aspiring speakers get gigs
The things you need to be noticed as a speaker
How to be more visible
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ABOUT THE GUEST
Jaimie Abbott is an award-winning media professional and international keynote speaker and has spent two decades in the industry working as a Radio and TV Journalist, political media adviser and candidate, Managing Director of her own public speaking and media training company and a Communications Adviser for the Royal Australian Air Force. She was an elected Councillor on Port Stephens Council in Australia for over 4 years up until 2021.
In 2011 Jaimie was deployed to Afghanistan where she worked as the Chief Media Trainer in Kabul for six months for Headquarters International Security Assistance Force. In this role, she trained over 100 international General Officers on how to master media interviews. Jaimie has an MBA, a Master of Strategic People Management, A Bachelor of Communication and is a graduate of the AICD Company Directors Course.
With over twenty years in the media and speaking world, Jaimie teaches business owners and entrepreneurs how to improve their public speaking skills and has a course called Paid to Speak, which teaches people how to sell from stage and how to become highly paid speakers.
Bless it be.
With love, Laetitia!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Laetitia Andrac 11:12
Hello, Jamie. Welcome to The essential shift podcast.
Jaimie Abbott 11:34
Hey, Laetitia, thanks for having me.
Laetitia Andrac 11:36
I'm really excited to see you and you're connecting all the way from Jamaica.
Jaimie Abbott 0 11:40
I am I ever it's 10pm. At night my time as we're recording this, it's still just blows me away because I've been here three weeks and people say you're in Jamaica like, oh yeah, I am. That's bizarre. Before we
Laetitia Andrac 11:56
get into your whole story, and what are you doing in Jamaica and all that? Can you introduce yourself to our listener and we love to introduce ourselves on this podcast with, you know, our origin, what is our astrology, design, things like that. So whatever you feel cool to share with our listeners? Yeah,
Jaimie Abbott 0 12:14
sure. So I'm Jamie. Abbott. I'm originally from Newcastle in Australia, and I'm a public speaking coach. Generally now I run I run my own business, my own membership called PR Club, which is for time for business owners. But I've basically got over 20 years of experience in the media in the military. In politics. So lots of time in front of the camera behind the camera. I went to Afghanistan for six months in the in the Royal Australian Air Force for a deployment as well. I was a local councillor. I'm a Leo and I'm a Leo to a tee and I'm also a manifesting generator although I always laugh because I don't feel like I fit that but then people who are right into human design will argue and say yes, I am managing to a tee. So I'll mention that because I know many people are listening to this probably going yeah, you are managing and I'll go with it. And then yes, that's my background, lifelong media, politics, military, you know all the things people do right. Now
Laetitia Andrac 13:20
of course, everyone does all the things right. So why? Why I've been one carrier a boring one on this podcast. We are multi passionate entrepreneur. So it's, you have your audience here. Thank you so much, Jamie, for saying that to us. So as we go back to your origin story as we go back to how you created this business of yours now, what is the story? How did you end up being a PR mentor for business owners? Like what happened? Thomas? Yeah,
Jaimie Abbott 13:51
that's a great question. I haven't really been asked that question before. So I mean, I set up my opinion business 10 years and I set it up as a side hustle because as a journalist, I saw people really struggling not only to speak on camera and get their messages refined, but also struggling to do press releases and get their message out there and make it newsworthy and just get straight to the point they would just overcomplicate things, and I used to think when I was a journalist, one day I'm going to set up a company to help people communicate, whether that be in person on camera or on stage in a written form. And I did so I ran for politics, and I was always training in Afghanistan. I was training people how to be on camera and we I trained over 100 star ranking officers from 17 Different countries over six months that I was there, and then came back and ran for politics. And I realized when I ran for politics, it actually wasn't as easy being in front of the camera and having that experience made me a lot more sympathetic towards people. So after my first political campaign as a federal candidate, I then set up my company teaching people how to master media interviews. I then fell into the PR sphere from that I didn't set it up to be a PR agency, but there was just so much demand people to have someone write their blogs write their press releases the traditional PR stuff. You know, podcast guesting wasn't a thing 10 years ago, it was what it is now. Anyway, so I would do that I had lots of clients on the go was always a bit of a side hustle while I still had the political thing happening, and I worked full time for the Department of Defense and other government agencies. For many, many years as well. I did this on the side. And along the way I was speaking so I would speak for free most of the time in exchange for getting free publicity for my business. And it was actually just under two years ago, it was December 2021. And whenever you're listening to this, however, long ago that was, and I was asked to speak for a corporate client, and I had no time in my diary. I've got two little boys, two little toddlers as well. And so what I did was I quoted the client $30,000 Because I knew that was ridiculous and I knew then I didn't have time for it anyway. And it took the client 46 minutes and they hit Accept on the quotes. And I thought, Oh my goodness. So of course I made time for that. But what I then did was I created a course teaching other people how to find these gigs, how to have that negotiation conversation. After I did that gig. I made a decision to not speak for anything less than 10,000 per gig. And it's worked for me and I'm very passionate about teaching other people how they can get paid to speak and importantly, how they can promote themselves. That's really the key in getting these gigs. putting yourself out there, building your brand, focusing on newsworthy communication messages, whether you're going on someone's podcast, putting out a social media post, putting out a press release, it's all the same really let you see it's the messaging. It's the hook and it's just communicating clearly. And so now, I have the online course in my online membership where I teach people how to do their own public relations.
Laetitia Andrac 17:15
That's beautiful. I love how you know we always say that it's not something that arrive by accident one day, oh my gosh, epiphanies. This is what I'm going to do. But it's actually different threads that I weave together across a carrier across time following different paths, and it's something I like to be doing. And that's yeah, I love it. Yeah. So take us through if anyone is listening to this, and they're like, Okay, great. I want to get on stage. I want to be a paid Jaimie Abbott. Can you take them through 1235 Step, whatever you want to take them through, without of course disclosing everything you teach in your space, but what are the key steps that they can start taking because we have a lot of Intrapreneurs while listening here, and some of them they have businesses which are definitely newsworthy, which are definitely innovative and impactful for the environment for the planet for the people. So how might they go about that? Like, Oh, I'm so inspired. I want to make some money speaking on stage. How can this sound that?
Jaimie Abbott 0 18:27
Well, okay, so many things, but I guess I'll start off with the low hanging fruit and if you're listening to this right now, at the word speaker to your bio, add it to your Instagram profile, your LinkedIn profile your Facebook, then take it to next the next step and add a speaker page to your website. So mine's Jamie abbott.com.au, forward slash speaker. Then create a one sheet like a one page PDF or I have a four page speaker bio, which I just did on Canva. I PDF. And I have that on my website for people to be able to download because it's all about boosting your brand. But of course that's ensuring people are going to come to you which you can't rely on you need to start pitching yourself so doing searches of different speaking gigs hashtag searches such as speakers wanted environments because wanted Sydney speakers wanted London and and really finding these events where maybe your competitors are speaking at or importantly your ideal customer, your ideal customer avatar, where are they attending? What events are they hanging out at? What podcasts they listening to, and you get a bit of a hit list together on who you want to pitch to. And then you start pitching, putting yourself forward, attach your bio, use chat GPT whatever it is you need. To be able to craft a personalized pitch for that podcast host or for that event, and then putting yourself in the right place at the right time. It's so funny. I've had over 140 people go through my paid to speak course now and I've just welcomed my 76 member in PR club and I've only been operating since February this year 2023. And the difference between those people who are getting the gigs, the clients, the corporate clients or the more money they've been in my club is really their pitching themselves. The ones who are getting these gigs are pitching themselves and the ones who are not pitching themselves and not getting the gigs and it doesn't matter. You don't have to be the best you don't have to be the most experienced the most prettiest, the better looking the best well dressed. It's not about that. It's about your messaging and pitching and just putting yourself out there. And that's really is all there is to it a lot of the time.
Laetitia Andrac 20:45
Yes. And I love what you said and first of all, that's why you're on this podcast because you pitched yourself to me. I speech I receive so many pitch that are so shit. And I'm like no like it's just a copy and paste is just you haven't really listened to my podcast. You don't know my vibe. So really when I received your pitch and then of course I went and searched and I saw we were connected in so many ways. And then we started discussing and those like, okay, let's make it happen. Let's do this podcast. So it really works. If you're like, oh my gosh, it's not working. It really works to pitch when you do it well when you do it with a great angle, and when you do it with care, but also, you know, I'm pitching myself a lot in the midst of my book launch and all of that like I've never been pitching myself as much being prepared also to handle the no because it's not because you have like a beautiful pitch and a beautiful messaging and all that you will always get a yes but you have more chances to get a yes. If you get many noes, right. It's like the rule of if I go for more than I will get more than if I go for nothing. What is your take on that?
Jaimie Abbott 0 22:01
Oh, absolutely. In fact, I made that mistake in just blanket pitching when I first started and I was actually really embarrassed because I got my VA two. Oh, these are all podcasts. I want to go and go and pitch. And this one particular podcast host Canelo Kabul, I had a couple of incidents. The one that stands out in my mind is a podcast host said can you just confirm that you have ADHD because if you listen to our podcast you know that we are for ADHD entrepreneurs. And I mean I probably do have ADHD as a side note, but I certainly didn't know diagnosed with it and it was just such a bad example of not personalizing the pitch and it was just a waste of time and now I've got my own podcast as well and you've been a fabulous guest online. I know when it's a blanket pitch and I think you need to really focus on the value that you're going to provide someone's audience. You need to listen to that person's podcast and really get a feel for what they're about. Because otherwise you're wasting your time and their time if you're not a right fit and you're not going to be focused on the value and really tailoring your messaging to that person. But learn that the hard way and also you need to be as you said not afraid to to have a no rejection when we first started pitching. And this is what I've only been in online business for two years and started with nothing and a cup, you know, a couple of 100,000 a year. But when I first started I was probably only getting one yes 250 knows and that would put a lot of people off Laetitia people will go I can't handle this rejection. I'm just going to give up and don't give up. Keep going. And now I probably get one yes two, three knows.
Jaimie Abbott 0 23:52
Maybe actual learning I had to know in a while. Maybe it's 100% strike rate these days. But it's quality, not quantity as well. I think you know there's no point me because it's we're taking an hour or probably out of our time you know to to do this. I don't want to waste your time, your listeners Time, My Time. And so it's really just mastering the message being thinking about what do I want people to think feel or do as a result of hearing me speak. Therefore, who's my key audience and like if was what you would say to maybe self funded retirees is going to be different to what you would say to young female entrepreneurs. And so once you've worked that out, then you can work out your key messages, you know your key phrases, words that you need to say calls to action, all that sort of thing. Definitely.
Laetitia Andrac 24:38
And what I love about what you said it's like you refine your craft and like everything I love to say and I say that in my book a lot mastery at a time. There is nothing like you know, putting lipstick on a pig and then boom, you're a wonderful speaker. It takes time it takes work, it takes grit, it takes resistance, resilience and resistance as well indeed, but really getting you know this kind of work done but also getting the right people to help you right I think there are a lot of people out there which are helping entrepreneur get on stage get speaker get podcasts and so on. But what is your unique value proposition? How are you different to all of this other noise out there? And you know, I can answer the question as to why I said yes to your pitch and why you're on the podcast but to your point of view. What is unique about Jamie about oh
Jaimie Abbott 0 25:41
well I teach people how to get paid to speak and I think I've learned the hard way because I spoke free for so long. I also share my mistakes and I guess with my membership, they love that I've just an open book I share my mistakes with everyone as well. But just back to your point about your unique selling proposition. I say this all the time. If you try and market to everyone you market to none. I have a lot of leaders and so to you a lot of leadership sort of coaches that come into my world, whether they join my course because they're a subject matter expert, and they want to get paid to share their knowledge on stage or even in my PR club. I've got a couple of leadership coaches and business coaches, financial coaches, and the ones who are doing well are the ones who have really niched. You get you know that rather than just saying oh how to be a better leader, they're how to be a better leader and use finish work couple of French way experts to and use feng shui to improve your leadership skills, things like that. That's probably a very generic example. But you see what I'm saying? They're really niching down their audience and I think that I have done that. And even when I was a public speaking coach, I was getting more bites of the cherry than I was when I was trying to pitch myself as a PR coach teaching people how to do their own PR teaching people how to do their own media releases. I didn't know that until I started pitching that people were more into the paid the public speaking, but then I've niched down even more I'm now teaching people how to get paid to speak. So yeah, I can teach you how to be a paid speaker and I do do that people get me all the time to help them improve their public speaking skills. But what makes me stand out is I've trademarked paid to speak now as well. That's what I'm all about, you know, backing yourself, especially women don't undervalue don't speak for free and I think when people think of paid to speak, I like to think they think of me and it's really what sets me apart from any other communication or media trainer coach out there. Yes.
Laetitia Andrac 27:47
And you know, for me what really because I love to cross check people and I don't know if you know that about me, but I'm huge on cross checking people. So I love to go on LinkedIn and checking what they've done and all those kinds of things, and your journalism background, your political background, all of that is also giving you you know, like my background as a strategy consultant for over 16 years. Give me the background of I understand innovation, I understand for business strategy. So I'm not just one of 1000 business coaches out there. I am a pure strategist, innovative, visionary person, which we have intuition with it. And you are an expert. At speaking and helping other be paid to speak so. And I think this angle for anyone who's listening to this, we know our craft because we spent time working and refining our unique value proposition. So this is also an invitation for you as you're listening. What is the unique value proposition of your business of yourself if you want to say you know, step on stage like, what is the thing that makes it so unique that then people think about you and you are the thought leader in your field? Because I think many people are just not really clear about this. Yeah,
Jaimie Abbott 0 29:03
I think I mean she want to share my story. People kind of go well, and I think it's not one thing. It's not the fact that I'm an ex military or still I'm still in the Air Force Reserves. I think the political thing does get people's attention a lot because a lot of politicians and I was a local politician but also ran state and federal lobbying big high profile campaigns in Newcastle and Port Stephens in the Hunter region of Australia. And a lot of politicians are when they finish their careers, they'll go into board positions or high executive CEO positions, they'll run lobbying firms and all that sort of thing. Whereas I'm turning my attention to helping other people sharing what the mistakes that I've made, and I've made it you know, I've been up on stage and not handled it. Well. I've done political debates where the audience hates you before you even open your mouth. And I've not handled that. Well. I've lost my cool i've gone off track. I've lost my train of thought I've fallen over. I've been aggressive because, you know, I was 29 and I was a candidate. And but I think because I'm I've gone through that experience and I share what not to do and I share that behind the scenes. People love that. They love that I'm giving back and using that exposure. I went through that and now I'm teaching people what not to do. And that includes everything from what not to stuff up on stage. To what not to charge and that's minimal, you know, I because I was I shudder to think you know, at the all the free speaking gigs that I've done over the years when I could have been charging 10s of 1000s I know that now because I'm doing gigs that I will charge 10,000 for 10,000 Australian, where I was charging nothing to do the same event five years ago, three years ago. And I just think I'm a bit of an open book. You know, I'm really passionate and also I haven't very much an abundance mentality. Laetitia there are genuinely so many more speaking opportunities out there than there are speakers. And there are also I'd rather teach people how to write a press release, teach people how to do a pitch how to use LinkedIn, how to do partnerships, how to get corporate clients, I mean, at the moment, I'm teaching my PR club members how to enter awards. I won the Online Business of the Year Award this year, the Australian Small Business Champion Awards, and I'm giving them my actual award submission. Word for word giving it to them. This is what I won. We use it copy and paste and make it your own. I'm giving them a list of awards they can enter I'm just an open book and you know, people will say the best business coaches in the world have said to me giving too much away for free but that's just been my philosophy value value value share, because that's what people pay me for is to cut through the make the shortcuts to cut through all those lessons learned and I feel like that's what sets me apart and that's what I love doing. Yes.