How Much Do I Charge?

I was asked how much I charge to speak yesterday? OMG! Someone actually thinks I'm worth paying! That in itself is worth all the anxiety and preparation. I need to stop putting off practicing and assume someone will want me to do it again tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm still working on the business end of speaking. I'm still learning from Darren and Steve.

I looked at the criteria for the next few steps to DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster), and I'm surprised to see that I'm about 3 speeches away from ACS (Advanced Communicator Silver) and 7 meeting-related projects away from CL (Competent Leader). Once I apply for CL, I can apply for ALB (Advanced Leader Bronze) because I already did the projects required for that. The next steps past ALB and ACS will be more involved, but I already have those balls ready to roll. I talked to our Division Governor about what I need to do to be Area Governor, and I have the manuals for the High-Performance Leader project.

It just dawned on me that I have a group of 3 ladies that I meet with weekly that I could maybe use as my master-mind group for a Emmaus-related project. I could also approach our rector about something at my church. We just had 2 scouts do Eagle scout projects either at our church or requesting help from parishoners. Maybe I can help set up a volunteer board so people who want to do something can make one call to find out what is available or so those in charge of different volunteer groups can have a resource to draw from. Anyway, it's an idea. I was wanting to do something that would profit me personally, but I'm beginning to think outside myself now. Is this a sign of growth?

The author I worked with a few weeks ago is back. He wants me to help him publish the book to Amazon as a print-on-demand book, he has a family Haggadah book he'd like to publish to Kindle and Amazon as well. I feel I need to adjust the margins to his Kilimanjaro book, so I'll look at that today, because we'll publish it to Amazon tomorrow morning.

In addition to my speeches, I should write a "paper" that I can publish to Kindle about communication skills. I could charge for that to help defray travel expenses until I can actually start charging for speaking in the corporate world.

As a matter of fact, Steve Siebold talked about that in his lesson yesterday. Do I want to be a corporate speaker or a public speaker. Public speakers don't get as much money, they have a larger audience, and they can can start there easier. Whereas the corporate speakers can make much more money, and they have smaller, more discriminating audiences. Steve says to do both. Darren LaCroix does't charge for Toastmasters-related gigs, but he does charge for other speaking engagements. Life is full of possibilities!