“Conference speaking and corporate training, quickly offers Makana Risser Chai, are just two income streams for speakers.” I’m sitting at a Speakers Association of Hawaii monthly meeting listening to Makana as she shares her stories of how she has created a rising trajectory in the public speaking space.
She has been a professional speaker for more than 30 years. From this deep base, she begins telling stories, while peppering her audience with multiple ways she has made money as a public speaker.
Makana Risser Chai
In general, she suggests to leverage yourself, your wisdom, experience and knowledge. If you cooperate with others, through partnerships with other speakers or creating a virtual company with affiliates, or forming a group of consultants, you can succeed beyond your abilities working alone.
However, should you like working alone, then she advises becoming an entrepreneur. For example, as a speaker entrepreneur, you might develop your own sponsors, put on public programs, organize your own conferences and create webinars. Last but not least, she suggests founding and leading a mastermind group on your chosen topic.
One of her tips is to join the National Speakers Association. She tells the story when she joined NSA. Fortunately for her, she joined their Mentor program and was assigned a mentor by the name of Alan B. Willey, a financial planner. He taught Makana about revenue streams.
As she tells the story, he asked her, “How much money do you want to make in a year? Let’s say it’s 100,000 dollars.” While that number could be kind of overwhelming, breaking it down into ten revenue streams, each of which brings in $10,000, seems a lot more achievable. Then, he suggested, if one of your revenue streams goes dry, you have nine streams still working for you.
He wasn’t just talking about speaking income because he was a financial planner. He was a coach. He encouraged Makana to invest in real estate. She created a second unit in her home that she rents out. Her tenant pays her mortgage. So, for her, that’s like having another revenue stream in the form of avoided costs paid out of her pocket. This allows her to spend more time working on her public speaking and training business development.
Always say Yes to opportunities
Then, she told us a story about how she got her first gig as a trainer. She was an attorney in Silicon Valley. She joined the Chamber of Commerce to get more clients. At her first chamber mixer a man asked her, “What business are you in?” She said, “I’m an attorney.”
To her surprise he then asked, “What’s a nice girl like you practicing law?” She gave him a big smile and replied, “I sue men for sexual harassment.” After his jaw returned to his face, he told her he had a client looking for sexual harassment prevention training.
He asked, “Do you do that?” She said, “Sure,” even though she had never done it before. The most public speaking experience she had was in Toastmasters in high school and a speech in college. She went into business with the man. He helped her create a workshop. She did a dry run in front of a Rotary club and did the workshop for the group of professionals. So, she suggests always saying yes to opportunities folks might offer you.
Write a book
Next, she got a position teaching in University of California Extension Program, human resources management class for HR people looking to get ahead. As a teacher for the University of California, she wanted to assign her students a book to read. At that time there were no books on employment law for students and laypeople. They were all written for attorneys.
So after a couple of years of teaching she wrote a book. She put together a proposal and sold the idea to Prentice Hall. The book was published and had a great impact on her public speaking career. First, she got an advance but that’s not the most important part. She did receive about $25,000 in royalties. But, the most significant reason to write a book she says, is to build your brand, your credibility and access to years of future clients who will pay good money to hear your unique perspectives and teachings. So, one of her best tips for public speaking is to write a book.
More ways to make money Speaking
Makana shared so many ideas with us that night. Many of them have been shared in this post. I suggest you contact her to schedule time with her to understand how you might become an engaging successful public speaker.
Makana Risser Chai has been a professional speaker for more than 30 years. She is a Certified Speaking Professional of the National Speakers Association, where she presented at national meetings 26 times. She founded a training company based in Silicon Valley, which had annual sales in excess of $1 million. She is a speaker, author, attorney, consultant, coach, humorist. Or, on Facebook.com/MakanaRisserChai
Speakers Association of Hawaii offers island based speakers and those interested in the speaking industry an opportunity to come together in a spirit of support and encouragement. You are invited to come to an upcoming meeting and experience the power, benefits, and fun, of positive association with other professional Speakers.
