You can’t speak on any and every topic. I mean, you can.. but as a Public Speaker you really shouldn’t. It’s better to narrow down it down to two or three topics that you put all of your focus on. Why? Well that’s exactly what I’m going to get into in Tip #31, but per usual… let me paint a picture. Have you ever run into a “know it all”? You know, the person who seems to have an answer to everything and anything under the sun. The person who behaves as if they know everything. Of course you have. We’ve all been around someone like that. You might even have a few in your family. Plus, maybe you’ve personally been guilty of being a “know-it-all” at one point in time. Sometimes it’s funny and then at other times it can be very annoying. In the regular world, you may get a pass and people may agree with you. But in the speaking world, people will start to look at you funny. If they see that you can speak on 9 or 10 different topics, a red flag starts to go up. Why? Because the reality is that you can’t possibly be superb at speaking on so many topics. To someone looking to hire you, it shows that you are all over the place and you don’t specialize in a specific area. It shows you have no area of focus.

You can’t give a keynote presentation on any and every topic. Why would you want to? You need to speak on what you know. Try to find what you are passionate about and what comes most natural for you. Speak on what you truly know. And if you don’t truly know the ins and outs of what you want to speak on, ask yourself if you are willing to dedicate years of practice to constantly growing your knowledge base and getting better at your delivery of the topic. With that said, if you are just starting out, you should focus on two topics. Make it as simple as possible for yourself, because in order to be deemed a true thought leader on a topic, it can takes years to perfect your talk. And even then, there is no perfect speaker, so there is always content you could be adding in and taking out. It’s not a one way fits all solution. Each audience may require you to tailor your talk differently and if you truly want to be a master on a certain topic, starting out with just two with prove to be more than enough.

It may be hard to balance wanting to talk about the topics you are passionate about vs. the topics that will pay you because they are in demand. In actuality, there’s really a fine line. You can speak on what you are passionate about all day long and there will be people that will listen and soak it up. But are you looking to get paid? Are you looking to keep a roof over your head and food on the table for your family? If so, you need to be willing to serve your audience and that means figuring out what’s going to help them in the long run. What are they looking to learn? What can they benefit from? That’s what you need to be speaking on, because you can speak on the topic that’s very close to your heart and not get paid a single penny for it. Think about what’s life changing and impactful. If you still having a hard time coming to terms with this, then think of yourself as an audience member. You are listening to a speaker who is speaking passionately about a topic, but you can’t relate to it and it doesn’t interest you at all. Do you see yourself paying to listen to him/her speak? Would you feel like that would be a good use of your time?

If you know you want to speak, but you aren’t sure what’s in demand, then a great way to get started is to visit a speaking bureau website and see what topics are being hired for. This will give you a great idea of where to begin. Be warned, that doesn’t mean you go copy exactly what you see on the website. You still need to figure out how to make the content your own and throw a fresh perspective on it. Another tactic you can use to spark you creative juices is to look at the best sellers list on amazon. That’s a clear indication of what subjects people are willing to pay to learn more about. If you are trying to speak a local conference, look at past conferences and view the different topics people talked about. There are many ways to go about finding what you can get paid to talk about. But remember, narrow your focus down to one or two topics. Then constantly perfect your content. As you become more established, you can entertain branching out. But ideally, by the time you are ready to branch out and add another topic,  you would have at least mastered two topics already!

Make your next presentation, your best presentation!

Sincerely,

Julian A. Leonard
(Founder of The JLeonard Group LLC)

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