Jaimie Abbott: Welcome back to Pitch Perfect, the podcast where we turn your voice into your most powerful and profitable asset. I'm your host, Jaimie Abbott, your public speaking coach, PR queen, and your favourite hype girl when it comes to getting you paid to speak. Speaking of which, if you haven't yet got onto it, speak and Earn. My free three day challenge kicks off on June 10, 2025. you can go to SpeakandEarn.com and register. It is free three days for an hour each day, 12:30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. And I'm going to teach you how to put together your speakers toolkit, your speakers bio. I'll even give you a template. I'm going to show you how to pitch yourself as a professional speaker and I'll also show you how to find those lucrative paid speaking gigs. So, speakandearn.com, June 10th. See you there. But in the meantime, today's episode is a juicy one. We're going behind the scenes of how I landed my first ever $5,000 speaking gig. Yeah, that's the moment that I kind of realised, wait a second, I actually can make some serious money from this. Now, before you think it was all glamour and applause, some of you may know my story. I landed a 30k one day speaking gig, but then after that it just kind of kept flowing in and from the next one after that was 5k. and so before you sort of think, look, you know, wait a second, that's, that's not sort of in my real. I just want to take you back to how it all actually went down from start to finish. Now, picture this. I've done dozens of speaking gigs, keynotes, panels, workshops, facilitation, am seeing, but most of them have been unpaid. Well, up until this point a couple of years ago, or I maybe get a fruit platter or a bunch of flowers, maybe a lukewarm coffee. And, the classic line was always, we have no money in our budget to pay you. and like, it was so annoying because, I mean, you probably can relate to this. They often will say, we've got no budget. but, you know, it's great exposure for you. Insert role here. so one day I decided enough was enough. I'd been pouring years into developing my craft and women are particularly bad for this. But so are men. You know, you spend years learning, studying, working for free, making mistakes, juggling being a parent, all the things it takes to build up the knowledge in your head. And so you don't want to give that Away for free. In my case, I had a professional website. I had a fairly strong speaker reel, I had lots of testimonials, I had a ##load, of media coverage, all the things, but I was still saying yes to free gigs. Like I was collecting them for bloody frequent fly points. so the first step is I shifted my mindset and that was probably the first domino. You know, I started telling myself, I don't do free gigs anymore unless there is an R or a clear ROI. And whether that's leads, footage, media exposure, there just had to be value beyond a standing ovation. Secondly, I then created a, like a killer speaker kit. This included my speaker bio, my topics and outcomes, a pricing guide. Yeah, I actually put some numbers on there. A, show reel with clips from previous talks and then testimonials from past events. It made me look and feel legit. Not sort of that maybe will give you a free gift card. Energy. more like here's your invoice energy. I started pitching intentionally. so I sent out targeted emails to organisation that I wanted to speak for. Not random cold calls. I found events in my niche. I reached out to the organisers and positioned myself as a solution to their audience'problem Then I got the email. A national company, in Australia had seen my content on LinkedIn. They loved my approach and wanted me to present a keynote on confident communication the workplace. So he jumped on a zoom call and when they asked my fee, I just said straight off the bat, my keynote fee is $5,000. These days it's 10,000. But back then this was, I said it's $5,000. I think this includes a pre event briefing, a 45 minute tailored presentation, Q and A from the audience and post event resource materials. So you can give something away for free. Might be a course, might be a workbook, whatever it is that you want to do. If you do similar to this, and you know what they said, that works for us. And I wish that I could tell you that I played it cool. but the moment I hung up, I did sort of a silent scream. and then I danced like I just won the VYs. So that gig changed everything. It wasn't just the money, although that was pretty awesome, it was the validation. It proved that when you package yourself professionally, you can charge what you're worth. So, nice quick episode today. Let me leave you with three big takeaways. Number one, if you don't value your time, no one else will stop saying yes to free gigs that drain you. Number two, position yourself like a pro. Your materials matter. Put effort into your branding and speaker kit. Ask for what you're worth and then shut up. Say your price and just let them respond. Confidence is key. And if you're listening to this thinking I want that too. I've got you. My speak and Earn challenge is going to show you how to do all of that. How to position yourself like a professional speaker, how to pitch yourself, how to show up with that professional speakers s toolkit. And on day three, which is the best day, how to find those lucrative paid speaking gigs. So go to speakandearn.com if you want to check it out. And just remember, your voice is valuable. You just need the right audience and the right invoice template. Until next time, keep speaking boldly, charging confidently and collecting more than just applause. You've got this. Have a great week.
