Speaking on stage is a privilege. But being a road warrior can be a nightmare. And giving one keynote speech after another is not a sustainable business model whether you are a professional speaker or want to be one.
Keynote speaking is not a business. It’s one revenue source. When you build a business exclusively with keynote speaking, you are the business. You only have 24 hours a day and that puts a cap on income potential. It’s also economy dependent. When the economy is slow, meetings and conventions get cut. Without another source of income, a professional speaker can go broke. In a good economy, it means you are constantly on the road which can lead to burnout. If you burnout, your ability to generate income will be compromised.
There’s a better solution. By scaling your business you’ll have additional streams of income, which will give you more time to enjoy your life and you’ll ultimately have peace of mind during an economic downturn.
Allison Mason, author of Scale or Fail, identified five stages of scaling:
The Seeker
The Pioneer
The Ringleader
The Co-Creator
The Visionary.
Once you decide to expand beyond keynote speaking, there are a number of ways to add revenue streams to your business. Here are 8 ways to scale the stage:
Digital products-A digital product can be an Ebook or audio file that customers can purchase from your website.
Online classes-These classes are usually a series of videos and require some back office technology. A quicker and easier alternative is to offer videos on an existing portal that sells online learning.
Membership Programs-This requires building a community. Customers pay a monthly charge and meet with you on a weekly or monthly basis to learn from your expertise and to share knowledge and feedback with their peers. It requires an all-in-one platform that can create email funnels, create pdf or audio files and track the database.
Licensing-A speaker can sell programs to a company and then train them to do it in-house for a fee. The company pays to use the intellectual property.
Certification-A speaker or expert can train others in their process. Let’s say a keynote speaker wants to learn coaching skills. They can pay you for your knowledge and they’ll receive a certificate. They’ll then be able to start coaching their own clients with their newly acquired skills.
Subcontracting-Here is where the speaker can duplicate themselves by hiring other trainers to deliver their programs. The speaker who owns the program pays each subcontractor and takes a percentage of the fee.
Sponsorship-A speaker may offer a public program where other experts would love to have access to the audience. The speaker can then charge the experts to give a commercial or buy an ad.
Franchising-When a professional speaker has a robust, growing business complete with employees and replicable systems. it may be time to consider a second location by offering a franchise. This allows for expansion nationally and internationally.
The time to start scaling is now. By scaling the stage you’ll have additional revenue sources and greater opportunities to grow.
How will you scale?