General

Julie Austin

Tax Write-offs for Speakers

By | April 10, 2017 | 3:16 am
Most professional speakers work as independent contractors and run their own businesses. With all of the business expenses speakers encounter, there are also plenty of tax write-offs for speakers. We asked the experts what expenses speakers were allowed to write off and which expenses they tend to overlook:

“In addition to the meals, travel, etc., here are some deductions that people might not know about:

Tax writeoffs for speakers

Educational materials – If you take classes, lectures, or online courses on how to become a better speaker, it’s usually deductible

Losses due to theft

Newspapers and magazines – You can use these to stay on top of the industries in which you speak

Prizes for contests –  This is a good deduction, especially if you run a contest to get some promotion”

James Pollard

TheAdvisorCoach.com

Speaker business deductions

“If you’re a professional speaker, most likely you are self-employed. Small business owners and self-employed individuals can write off almost any ordinary and necessary business expense that they need to keep their business running. For a professional speaker, some of these deductions might include….

Transportation for work

You can make deductions on any transportation expenses you incur for work, including any driving you do for business purposes (as long as you keep a detailed record of all miles driven). If you travel away from home for speaking engagements, you can also deduct travel expenses (as long as they are for business, not pleasure, and aren’t overly lavish or extravagant). If a trip is longer than a normal work day, then you can deduct lodging and meals while you’re there as well. You may even be able to deduct dry cleaning and laundry costs.

Advertising and promotion

Business cards, brochures, posters, and branded giveaways to promote yourself are all deductible. So is your website and any mailing list software or services.

Phone and Internet

You can deduct fees for Internet and phone service. If you use for both business and personal, then you must keep track of what percentage of the use goes to business and deduct only that amount.

Equipment and Supplies

Whatever supplies you need to be a professional speaker are probably deductible. This might include basics like pens, paper, and printer ink or it might include projectors, microphones, lights or other equipment for your speaking engagements.

Education and Research

Your education expenses are deductible. Any classes or seminars you take and books or supplies you need to buy are write-offs. You might also qualify for a tax credit. Some credits only apply to higher education (college) costs, while others will cover continuing ed and any other classes to will help you improve your speaking skills. Your student loan interest is also deductible.

Child care costs

If you’re the parent of a child under the age of 13 you might be allowed to claim a credit for money you spend on childcare while you’re working.

Charitable work

If you donate your time for a charitable event you can’t deduct the time spent volunteering, but you can deduct expenses you incur while volunteering, such as transportation costs.

Tax preparation costs

You can even deduct the fees you paid your accountant to prepare and file your taxes or the cost of tax preparation software.

Joshua Zimmelman
President
Westwood Tax & Consulting LLC
265 Sunrise Highway, Suite 1-411
Rockville Centre, NY 11570
Tele: (516) 792-0505
Fax: (516) 324-3136
Overlooked tax deductions

“Some of the overlooked tax deductions we see speakers miss out on are (1) software and online service subscriptions (2) Business entertainment and meals and (3) commissions paid by your business.”

Mark A. Wingo | Author of Wingonomics
President & CEO – New Beginning Financial Group, LLC
Toll-Free (877) 483-NBFG

And if you are a speaker who works on cruises, here are some cruise tax write-offs:

“Presently you can only deduct up to $2,000 per year for each person attending conventions and seminars on cruise ships, and only if the cruise trip meets all of the following requirements:

– The convention, seminar, or meeting offered on the cruise ship must be directly related to your trade or business.
– The cruise ship must be a vessel registered in the United States.
– All of the cruise ship’s ports of call are in the United States or in possessions of the United States.

– You must attach to your tax return a written statement signed by you that includes information about:

The total days of the trip (not including the days of transportation to and from the cruise ship port),
The number of hours each day that you devoted to scheduled business activities, and
A program of the scheduled business activities of the meeting.You attach to your return a written statement signed by an officer of the organization or group sponsoring the meeting that includes:A schedule of the business activities of each day of the meeting, and the number of hours you attended the scheduled business activities.Accordingly, conventions and seminars offered on Caribbean cruises are not tax deductible since their ports of call fall outside the United States.  There is a way, however, to take a Caribbean cruise and deduct more than $2,000 in travel expenses:  simply find a convention or seminar held in any of the North American Areas sanctioned by the U.S. Department of State and travel there by cruise!  The North American area includes U.S. islands, cays, and reefs that are possessions of the United States and the locations listed below:
Territories
American Samoa
Grenada
Micronesia
Antigua and Barbuda
Guam
Midway Islands
Aruba
Guyana
Netherlands Antilles
BahamasHonduras
Northern Mariana Islands
Baker IslandHowland Island
Palau
BarbadosJamaica
Palmyra Atoll
BermudaJarvis Island
Puerto Rico
CanadaJohnston Island
Trinidad and Tobago
Costa RicaKingman Reef
USA
DominicaMarshall Islands
U.S. Virgin Islands
Dominican RepublicMexico
Wake IslandUnder this tax strategy there would be no need of restricting your travel on US vessels and to US ports of call, and of signing and of obtaining from the group sponsor detailed prescribed attest statements.  If your cruise does not exceed a week, simply attend a business related seminar or convention (even a one day event suffices for a one-week cruise), and you have satisfied the ordinary and necessary expense criteria of a qualified business tax deduction of your travel expenses.  Of course, on any business trip, document your business expenses by addressing the who, what, when, where, why questions, save receipts, and collect convention/seminar paraphernalia as IRS souvenirs.  If your cruise exceeds a week, you are still eligible to deduct the cost of the cruise as long as your nonbusiness activity does not constitute 25% or more of travel time. ”

Vincenzo Villamena, CPA

Online Taxman | 347 Fifth Ave. Suite 1402-171 | New York, NY | 10016 | vincenzo@onlinetaxman.com | (p) 646.400.0046 | (f) 815.550.8651 |

Don’t forget to include your Speaker Sponsor membership and any sponsorship courses you take!

Julie Austin

New Technology for Public Speakers

By | March 27, 2017 | 1:28 am

As conferences become more interactive, and audiences demand experiences over lectures, new technology for public speakers will take a front row seat. This is also true for sponsorship, and sponsors are asking for programs that are customized to fit their needs.

Speakers can integrate technology into their presentations before, during and after to give their sponsors the best return on investment for their sponsorship dollars. Here are some ideas of new technology for speakers:

 

“For meeting and event speakers, there’s so much new technology out there, that choosing the right path can be frustrating, time-consuming and expensive. However, the reality is, if you don’t tap into a strong mobile presence, you’ll lose valuable data and interaction with your audience. They expect it, they have their smartphones in hand, and they’re ready to be reminded that attending your session/event was more than worth their time and money.

Our #1 tech recommendation for speakers? Invest in (or ask your sponsor to invest in) a smart, well-designed, and easily operable app.

Whether you’re planning an international conference or regional corporate meeting, there is an overwhelming amount of information out there. The trick is, how do you make sure you’re gathering it efficiently while equally focusing on the content you’re delivering, ROI for before, during and after the event, and in-session attendee participation?

All event apps help speakers do at least one of those things, but in order to make a sound investment, you need technology that helps you achieve all three simultaneously. Here’s what we tell speakers to look for themselves or ask for from event planners (whether they choose our app or not):

  • An app that tracks user behavior as it happens and gathers critical data for future outreach
  • An app that promotes unique ROI for the speaker (e.g., Arcivr extends the life of sponsorship/speaker dollars (or internal promotions) through ongoing interactive ads).
  • An app that allows you to easily and efficiently access the backend so you can adjust your engagement efforts in real time, based on the behavioral data you’re receiving.

(more…)

Julie Austin

Meeting and Event Industry Outlook 2017

By | March 6, 2017 | 4:02 am

Anyone who is in the meeting and event industry already has their finger on the pulse of what’s happening, but it’s always good to look at some statistics on paper to confirm it. The more speakers know about future trends in the meeting industry, the better prepared they will be when a meeting planner calls. Or how to get the meeting planner to call in the first place.

According to the Meeting Professionals International, the industry is moving from a sellers market to a buyers market. For now, it still remains squarely in the middle, which is a much better place to be than strictly a sellers market, at least for speakers.

68.2% are optimistic about the industry in 2017, or at least expect no negative change. Half of government meeting planners and international planners expect conditions to be worse. They expect attendance at live events to rise in 2017, and a full 23% of organizations that hire meeting professionals to increase their employees.

Here’s some very good news for speakers. According to the Destination Hotels’ survey, 37% of respondents say they have more money to spend on meetings in 2017, 57% have the same amount, and 30% say they will be planning more meetings. The extra money may not be spent all on one meeting, but will be spread out among more meetings, giving more speakers more paid speaking opportunities.

One trend that is catching on is the experiential meeting. Hands-on learning is making a comeback, along with using different styles of learning for audiences who want their information in visual, auditory, and kinesthetic ways. Remember that when you plan your speech, and consider creative ways to integrate your sponsor within them.

Security is the number one topic on a meeting planner’s mind. According to the MPI report, “Forty-eight percent of respondents to the quarterly survey said they expected the costs of meetings to rise due to the need for greater security. Forty-four percent reported that they anticipated changes to the meeting and event industry due to the increasing prevalence and threat of terrorism. Cyber security is also a big concern for meeting planners.

Planning Pod, a top events blog, feels that niche events will become a hot trend in 2017. “events focused on smaller niche audiences to sub-events or tracks focused on select attendees to smaller sessions and audience sizes, events that are micro-focused will start gaining more momentum as attendees want more personalized experiences and seek out more intimate settings to learn and connect.” This is even more of a good reason for speakers to start honing in on their niche.

Building better relationships with the audience is going to become more important to meeting planners. More time will be spent getting to know who the audience is and what they want. As a speaker who is looking for sponsorship, this is important to you as well. If you’re asked to speak for free, hopefully the meeting planner will be willing to share some of that info with you so you can maximize your sponsor’s ROI. After all, sponsors are interested in who is in the audience, and not so much what you speak about.

 

Julie Austin

Small Business Sponsorship Outlook for 2017

By | January 19, 2017 | 5:08 am

According to the National Federation of Independent Business, a recent poll of over 600 small business owners determined that small business optimism has hit its highest level since 2004. These small business owners feel that business conditions will get better and that sales will increase by 20%. This is great news for speakers looking for sponsorship as businesses think that now is the time for them to expand. In fact, 36% expect to add jobs.

Community banks have seen more requests for business loans, and earlier in the year than normal. Banking regulation reform will bring relief to small community banks, who in turn will be lending more to main street.

Even though arts, education, entertainment, and cause sponsorship still only makes up around 25% of the sponsorship pie, it’s still good news for speakers seeking sponsorship. Unlike large corporations, small business owners spend less on sports and more on arts and education. In fact, the sponsorship pie is most likely flipped, where only 25% of small business sponsorship is in sports, mainly local community sports.

When small businesses are flush with cash, they need artists and other creatives even more. Whether it’s graphic artists to help with website design or advertising, or speakers who promote them to a targeted audience, this is good news for artists of all kinds.

One trend has been around lately and will continue into the future. Sponsors are asking for more customization from sponsees. It’s not a bad thing, it just means that you have to up your game if you want to attract a sponsor. Small business sponsorship is much less competitive than large corporate sponsorship, but sponsorship in general is still a competitive game.

Even with more cash to spend in an improving business environment, that doesn’t mean small businesses want to waste money. They still want to get the most bang for their buck, and sponsorship is a great way to do that. You are putting them in front of their target audience for less than it would cost for advertising in many cases.

Business optimism leads to more innovation, and business owners being open to new ideas. Now is the time to start adding sponsorship to your portfolio of ways to make money as a speaker.

 

 

Julie Austin

Simple New Year’s Resolutions for Speakers

By | January 3, 2017 | 5:08 am

It seems many people look at New Year’s resolutions as big changes, and either try to go full blast and fail, or don’t do anything at all for risk of total failure. I learned that putting too much pressure on myself to force big change never seems to work for me. So, instead, I just set small, attainable goals that I know can be kept. Here’s a way you can add small changes as a speaker in 2017:

  • Speak more – Yes, I know this sounds simple, but it’s something every speak can do. Some of the best speakers I know speak a lot. They don’t wait to get paid to speak, they just take every opportunity possible to do it, even if they aren’t getting paid. Whether it’s practicing in your own living room, volunteering to be on a panel, or giving a toast at a wedding. Don’t want to speak for free? Find a free speaking gig, get your expenses paid for, and get a sponsor to pay your fee. Speak locally so you don’t have to travel. Use these opportunities to test out new material and new power points.
  • Become more knowledgable about your topic – You can never know too much about your area of expertise. You should know your subject matter like the back of your hand and be able to get up on stage and speak about it for an hour. If it’s a topic you enjoy speaking on, this should be something you’re doing all the time anyway. Keep up with the latest information in your industry and incorporate it into your material.
  • Study other speakers – Watch speakers live whenever you can. Watch TED Talks and speaker videos. How can you differentiate yourself from speakers in your topic? Never copy, but be inspired by the good ones, and learn from the mistakes of bad speakers. What do you have to offer that other speakers don’t have? What topic can you speak on that no one else can speak on?
  • Learn a new skill – Take an improv class or a stand-up comedy class to add some humor into your presentations. Take an acting class to improve your stage presence. Or a dancing class. Singing lessons and breath technique will help you vocally. What skill are you weak in that you need to brush up on?

The new year is a time to start fresh and hit the ground running. What are some of your New Year’s resolutions as a speaker?

Julie Austin

What Keeps Meeting Planners Up at Night?

By | November 21, 2016 | 2:30 am

As a speaker, it’s helpful to know what the person hiring you to speak is most concerned about. You never know. You may have skills that can help them in problem solving, and that will go a long way when it comes to hiring and rehiring you. Always help make their job a little easier.

In a recent study conducted by Development Counsellors International, who polled over 200 North American meeting planners, over half of them are struggling with limited budgets and felt they were being overworked on top of it.

An article in Meetings and Conventions Magazine listed 25 ways meeting planners could cut their budgets. Two things on the list are of particular concern to speakers. The first one said to look within the organization for talent, offering them a free ticket to the conference in exchange.

This is something I’ve been hearing a lot lately from meeting planners, so it backs up what the article says. This is why it’s so important to have a portfolio of your own sponsors, so you can offer that to a meeting planner as an option when they don’t have the money in the budget. It’s possible they may find a good speaker from within to do it for free, but my guess is they would prefer to have a professional speaker with outside knowledge if they could.

The other thing on the list was to get more from your speakers by getting them to add a breakout session to their keynote fee. Another way speakers can add value is by helping to promote the event. This is something you should do anyway if you are working with a sponsor.

Here are other concerns from meeting planners:

“As an event and meeting planner with more than 25 years of professional experience, these are a few things that keep me up at night.

1) A speaker who manages to engage the attendees, but whose message provides no real teachable lessons — or the flip side — a speaker who  provides a plethora of good information, but goes too deep in the weeds and bores the attendees is a major consideration.

2) Attendees who pay a significant amount to attend a meeting or conference, but feel as though they didn’t get the value out of their investment is always a concern.

3) Equipment and tech failures with microphones, audio, etc., can keep one up at night. While you can test the equipment and conduct sound checks,it’s those phantom times when the PowerPoint and audio has a mind of its own and does not work properly.

4) Will the the meeting rooms be too cold or too hot? Will attendees be able to find their sessions? Will the meeting and seminars run on time? Will the speakers all show? There has been an occasion where there is a no-show.”

Greg Jenkins

PartnerBravo Productions

www.bravoevents-online.com

 

“My biggest concern: how to a leverage the event and how do I create an experience to get people excited to show up live.

 As far as an event, it’s never just the event. I have to consider if I live stream the live event, turn it into a podcast, transcribe it for blog post, turn into an article, pitch to media, create social media posts, and leverage every single second to justify the event cost. Some people just won’t attend a live event. I have many that will watch online so I have to make certain I’m on the platform and medium they desire and allow them to do so on their own time.

Experience. I definitely am more focused on creating unique events. How to I elevate the live event where people won’t want to miss it. Is it the mix of people in the room? Is it a special venue? Do attendees get something special? Is it going above and beyond to make people wowed?

Interesting example:

In 2011, I live streamed a four hour event via a rigged Go-To-Webinar trick. We had 100 in the audience, and we had 80 people show up from all over the country the entire time. After the event, I produced the video on our YouTube channel (with permission of all speakers). This one speaker, really used the video. She’s had almost 55k views on the video in five years. She still gets people that call her because of this event.

Aaron Norris,MBA, APR,CSPG

The Norris Group

www.thenorrisgroup.com

Julie Austin

Niche Speaking Topics

By | September 19, 2016 | 3:52 am

If there is a speaking topic out there, it’s a pretty good bet that someone, somewhere is making money speaking about it. Some speakers have a unique background in the topic or work in a particular industry, and some choose the topic based on a burning passion to learn more about it and share that knowledge with others.

Here are three speakers with niche speaking topics who have made a career out of a passion:

Tom Ingrassia – Motown

Tom is an example of a speaker who took a passion and turned it into a book and speaking career. He’d had a long, successful career in education, but in 2001 he decided to act on a lifelong dream of working in the entertainment industry.

Tom is an accomplished music journalist, with more than 25 articles printed in publications ranging from Billboard, Record Auction Monthly, and San Francisco Hot Ticket. He collaborated with Barbara Alston (of The Crystals) on her autobiography, “There’s No Other,” and Carl Gardner’s (of The Coasters) autobiography, “Yakey Yak, I Fought Back” before writing his own book “Reflections of a Love Supreme: Motown Through The Eyes of Fans”. Tom is also the host of  “The Motown Jukebox” on WCUW 91.3FM, in Worcester, MA.

His pop culture programs, “Motown and The Civil Rights Movement” and “Girl Power: The Supremes As Cultural Icons” have been presented at the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity, on college campuses, for performing arts centers, museums, senior centers, libraries, and business groups.

http://www.ingrassiaproductions.com/

 

John Granger – Harry Potter

John Granger is another speaker who turned a passion into a writing and speaking career. According to John, he became a Potter Pundit in response to the ‘Potter Panic’ of 1999-2007, during which it was widely believed that the popular series was “the gateway to the occult” and poorly written. His books and talks have overturned this narrative — and have earned him the title “the Dean of Harry Potter Scholars” from TIME magazine.

John is the author of several books on the subject of Harry Potter including “How Harry Cast His Spell: The Meaning Behind the Mania for J. K. Rowling’s Bestselling Books” and “Harry Potter Smart Talk”.

His speech “Why we Love the Harry Potter  Stories — Exploration of the Artistry and Meaning of Joanne Rowling’s Hogwarts Saga” has been given at universities, academic and fan conferences, and churches.

http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/johngranger/

 

Julianne Soviero – Sports Scholarships

If you read through Julianne’s website you will see that she is absolutely obsessed with pitching. In fact she says so on the first page! And she has the credentials to back it up. She was an All-County Athlete, the recipient of a Division I athletic scholarship, and an academic All-American.  She has over twenty years experience pitching and over fifteen years of experience teaching pitching.

She speaks on the topic of sports scholarships, which is a surprisingly complex topic and is usually hired by travel teams. She’s even written a book on the subject called “Empowered Recruiting”. She says she got started on this topic because of working with female pitchers, many of whom earned scholarships in an increasingly complex market.

http://www.flawlessfastpitch.com

 

These speakers have turned their passion into a lucrative speaking career in a specialized niche. Do you speak on a niche topic?

 

 

Julie Austin

The Conscious and Transformational Speaking Industry

By | August 23, 2016 | 4:54 pm

When I entered the speaking industry I thought it was simply about speaking to corporations on topics like leadership and communication. But the speaking industry is much more expansive than I imagined and covers many different markets. The conscious and transformational speaking industry is one I had never heard of. Here is an overview of what it is and how you can earn a living as a speaker in this lucrative business.

Transformational speaking

A transformational speaker’s mission involves impacting personal and professional evolution. Whether that’s mindset, spirituality, empowerment, wellness, personal growth, parenting or purpose-driven business success. Moving toward a happier, more high performance life.

Other speakers in the transformational speaking industry may focus more on business, leadership, sales and wealth building. Missions that are more focused on business development growth, corporate topics or personal finance. Transformational speakers and conscious speakers can be very similar. But a conscious speaker comes from a perspective of global oneness and is very aware of the transmission of energy by people and the universe.

Becoming a transformational speaker

To become a transformational speaker you need to have a body of work and experience that empowers people.  Higher levels of achievement. Clarity, business and life success. Internal and external peace. Relationship success, self-esteem and self-acceptance. Pursuing work that fulfills a passion, and positive engagement in the world. You’ll need a program or methodology that teaches people your path to success as you define it. Your speech must enlighten, provide value, motivate and offer people ways to engage with you as a guide for further development. Ideally, you will have a story arc that powerfully tells your own transformation, how you learned this work and how you have arrived at your method of success.

Making money in transformational speaking

So, if you’re wondering whether you could make money as a speaker in this industry, here are some stats:

According to Brandongaille.com: “Up to $500 million is spent on personal development products every year. Including market segments from holistic approaches, motivational speakers, inspirational websites, personal coaching, and other forms of personal development. The net worth of this industry is estimated to be almost $11 billion. This market is also beating global economic trends as it is averaging over 5% growth each year.”

Speak to enroll market

Just like the speaking industry in general, the “paid” speaking market for transformational and conscious speakers is diminishing. But the “speak to enroll” market continues to grow. Meaning that a speaker doesn’t get paid to be on stage, but instead uses a non-paid speaking engagement to invite or enroll the attendees into their programs.

If the offer is right, and the target demographic in alignment, a speaker can make a lot more money “speaking to enroll” than at a fee-based speaking engagement. And if you don’t yet have your own programs you could also get sponsors for those free speaking engagements. There are plenty of sponsors who would want to get their brands in front of those types of audiences.

If you think you fit into this market, there are many places you could be speaking. A few of them include centers for spiritual living and Unity Churches, women’s organizations, fraternal organizations and service clubs. Chambers of Commerce, libraries, bookstores, wellness centers. Yoga and retreat centers, mind-body spirit expos, health and wellness groups, vitamin stores and book festivals. If you don’t want to research and submit to all of these places individually, check out Jackie Lapin’s Speakertunity, Transformational Leads Tip Sheet.

Julie Austin

School Sponsorship

By | July 27, 2016 | 12:09 am

In the past, many schools have had a chilly response to corporations inserting themselves into the school districts. But with budgets being cut, what’s a school to do if they want good, interesting programs for the kids, and no money to pay for them? Corporate school sponsorship!

I can understand why there would be some resistance to having corporate sponsorship in schools. After working in sponsorship for almost 20 years, one thing I know is that sponsorship is not charity. Any company that pays money to sponsor a school, athlete, speaker, artist, or anything else, wants a return on their investment. Wouldn’t you if you were putting up good money to get your brand in front of a target audience?

But good sponsorship is a win-win for both parties. The schools get money (or speakers) they need for specific programs, and the businesses get a targeted audience and new marketing avenues that build trust with the community. Businesses big and small are getting more involved in corporate social responsibility. It’s not just a buzz word. It makes good business sense.

And good sponsorship is non-intrusive. Think of it like NASCAR. NASCAR is one of the biggest sponsorship entities on the planet. Every inch of the cars, racetrack, uniforms and pit crew are covered in sponsors. But it doesn’t detract from your enjoyment of watching cars zoom around a racetrack at 200 miles an hour.

Big corporations have been sponsoring arts and education for a few decades now, but school sponsorship is brand new. You’re starting to see it more and more across the country since school budgets have been cut. And schools, who would never have considered corporate sponsorship before, are opening up to the idea of sponsoring everything from football stadiums and libraries to the high school prom. Many communities are taxed out, and sponsorship seems like a logical answer for schools who want better programs for the kids.

There has been a 248% increase in corporate school sponsorship since the early 1990’s, and that trend looks like it may be here to stay. Big corporations and small community businesses are all getting in on the action. Schools provide a captive audience of future customers with disposable income and future employees.

IBM and Microsoft are roping those future employees in early by sponsoring high schools of their own.

The City University of New York, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and IBM are sponsoring a school from grades 9 to 14, where kids will graduate with an associates degree and a guaranteed job at IBM. It focuses on computer science and molds students into the IBM culture. It’s basically a very long corporate training program.

Microsoft is doing the same thing in a sponsor partnership with the Philadelphia School District. They’ve created The School of the Future that combines a high school education with real world life skills.

Before, if schools wanted more money they would have to have fundraising events. But it would take an enormous amount of fundraising to come up with the million dollars three high schools in Texas have each raised just for the naming rights to their football stadiums.  The Brunswick High School football stadium in Ohio is bringing in $750,000 for the naming rights for 10 years. It’s been renamed the Brunswick Auto Mart Stadium.

And it’s not just football stadiums that are getting a boost from corporate sponsorship. Arts and education is also starting to recruit sponsorship for their programs. The San Diego County Office of Education has dipped their toe in the sponsorship water too. Kaiser Permanente is sponsoring a program to teach kids about food.

I know there is a problem with schools being able to get good speakers because I hear from speakers every week saying that they would love to present great programs to the kids, but they simply aren’t able to work for free. Sponsorship for school speakers is an innovative way for them to get great speakers for free, while the speakers get paid from the sponsors. As long as the school agrees that the sponsors’ brand isn’t harmful to the kids, like alcohol or cigarettes, it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

There is a great deal of debate on both sides of the issue from parents and educators. Here are some responses:

“As an educator, corporate sponsorships can be great if their missions align with that of the schools. It becomes a problem if a school is funding deprived and may have to kowtow to certain companies who may have a harmful effect if their brand might be affiliated with certain questionable behavior or endorsers.”
Remi Alli
Educator

“In Texas, we already have corporate sponsors for many of our events and facilities. Football stadiums are an obvious location where a sponsorship would be highly visible and potentially profitable. Recently, my family and I attended a playoff game at a large stadium and there were multiple corporate (some local and some national) sponsorships that were recognized by constant being played over the video screens as well as through other marketing avenues. Signage and other ads.

Some school districts may be reluctant(due to lack of understanding/familiarity) to work with and secure corporate sponsorships for fear of loosing local control of funding, access, or governance of facilities that have “naming rights” to their facilities. I, however, am fascinated by the idea of school districts and corporate entities working together to develop & foster that win-win.

Tony Hancock

School administrator/former teacher

www.tonyhancockspeaks.com

www.drtonyhancock.com

What do you think about corporations and small businesses sponsoring schools?

Julie Austin

5 Ways Mark Cuban’s Advice Can Help You as an Entrepreneurial Speaker

By | June 5, 2016 | 10:27 pm

As an inventor who has been through the entire process of inventing a product and getting it on the market, I think the best education for future inventors and entrepreneurs is watching Shark Tank. I love the fact that the sharks are all bootstrapping entrepreneurs, so they have already been through the learning curve.

Entrepreneurial speaker

I’ve put together 5 pieces of valuable business advice from Mark Cuban that could also help you as a speaker. Because these days, if you’re not an entrepreneurial speaker, making a living at it will be tough.

  • Don’t be afraid of failure – Speaking is a performing art. It’s not something you can learn by reading a book. You simply have to get out there and do it. To become good at it you need to constantly be doing it. And in the beginning you probably won’t be very good at it. But by taping every performance and getting feedback you learn how to improve. If you’re afraid of failing you’ll never even take that first step.
  • Work harder than everyone else – This is one of Cuban’s biggest tips for entrepreneurs who want to become successful. As a speaker no one is going to do it for you. Not an agent, not a speaker bureau, not a manager, no one. Being on the other side and working with speakers and artists, this is the one thing I see all the time. Most speakers and artists want someone to get them the paid jobs so that they can focus on the creative side. If you happen to be lucky enough to have someone to do that for you, great! But that’s not the way it works for most speakers and artists. Which brings me to my next point.
  • Learn how to sell – Cuban first learned to sell as a 12 year old when he asked his dad for money to buy new shoes. His dad said if he wanted them he would have to work for them. So at 12 he got his first job selling garbage bags door to door. He learned how to connect with people and solve their problems, so it would be a win-win for everyone. If you know how to sell, you can do anything. As Cuban says “every no gets you closer to a yes”. That’s the way it is with speaking and also with sponsorship. It’s simply a numbers game, so get used to selling and learn to love it.
  • Love what you do – If you love what you do, selling should be easy. I’ve never been able to sell anything I didn’t like or believe in. I know what you’re thinking. “I love speaking, but I hate selling”. Well, if you really believe you have a message that needs to be heard and you have proven that it’s valuable to other people, then just think of it as communicating your passion to someone else. Which leads me to my last point.
  • Put yourself in the customer’s shoes – A meeting planner’s job can be stressful, and they are usually having to please everyone, sometimes on a limited budget. Put yourself in that person’s shoes and think about how you could help them. Find out what they need and offer to lend your support in the best way possible.

Today, being an entrepreneurial speaker is a necessity. But if you follow Mark Cuban’s advice, you’ll see that opportunities to make money as a speaker are everywhere.