Million Dollar Speaking: The Professional's Guide to Building Your Platform

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As Alan Weiss states in his preface, this book was written for the professional career speaker (one who gets paid to speak), even though "amateur" speaking is also a worthwhile endeavor and an activity that the author recommends pursuing. After discussing the trade, the author discusses marketing, fee rates, and career management, followed by numerous topics associated with career growth and career challenges. If you have read other texts written by Weiss, you will find the same high degree of practical advice offered in this work. Some of the advice provided easily applies to areas of the consulting profession on which the author has written extensively in other books, but bear in mind that this book concentrates on professional speaking.As always, a review in such a small amount of space is difficult for a work such as this, since Weiss covers a lot of ground and there is very little of the filler content that many business books seem to possess these days. This reviewer especially appreciated chapters entitled "Establishing Your Market", "Establishing Fees", "Lean and Mean", and "Yawn: Passive Income". In addition to the practical advice that Weiss offers, the other qualities to which this reviewer is attracted is his humor and occassional sarcasm, together with his originality. In the opinion of this reviewer, it is the many succinct lists and original line diagrams the author provides that especially demonstrates this originality, and always provide value to the reader seeking to understand the material rather than simply going through the motions of learning.For example, in the first chapter referenced, which asks questions such as "Who are the members of your audience?", "Whose actions and behaviors do you wish to improve?", "Who are your buyers?", and "Whose condition can you improve by appearing in front of those audiences?", the author does not just talk about the three elements that are required to speak successfully, he draws lines representing market need, competency, and passion, and asks "Where do these paths intersect?". And in the second chapter referenced, Weiss visually shows how fees can surpass value as reputation or brand increase after remarking that "I once thought that as value increased, fees could increase. I was incalculably wrong. The lines actually cross as trust and a brand are developed, because people expect to get what they pay for!"List favorites of this reviewer include "40 Ways to Increase Your Fees", "Five Facts to Challenge Your Assumptions About Bureaus", "Techniques for Professional, Honest Feedback", "The Six Rules and Eight Steps for Creating a Speech", "15 Conditions that Support Raising Fees", and "20 Great Ways to Engage Almost Any Audience". Read this book alongside texts in this genre by other authors to get a balanced view. This reviewer also recommends the following books by the same author: "Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice", "Life Balance: How to Convert Professional Success into Personal Happiness", and "How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession: Powerful Techniques for the Successful Practitioner" (see my reviews).

Alan Weiss's books are an absolute pleasure and revelation to anyone smart enough to pick one up.I've just finished Million Dollar Speaking, a reauthoring of his "Money Talks" book on professional public speaking. Alan's work is logical, informative, persuasive, ethical and entertaining at all times. Based on decades of experience as a highly paid and internationally known professional speaker (and consultant), Alan focuses on what should be really important to professional speakers - both in how and what they say and in how they run their businesses and add value to their clients.This book is for those who wish to pursue a career or improve their success as professional business speakers, not for those looking for a little confidence or how to write an intro-body-conclusion for their local Toastmasters or for a special personal event.Personally, as a professional speaker, executive coach, consultant and public speaking coach I find Alan's advice to be absolutely spot on and would highly recommend his book(s) to anyone wishing to move past the nonsense of hyped up "motivational speakers", wannabee actors, NLP-like fads and whatever else that try to influence you to manipulate your audience instead of genuinely giving them real value and outcomes that they can take away and apply long after you've left the room.Since encountering his works a few years ago, I've become a big fan of Alan's writing, even though he definitely challenged some of my ideas about business. I always learn when reading Alan's material. Can't say that about many people. I wouldn't say that he walks on water, but he definitely makes sense!With Alan, process is king - even in speaking.Alan's combined backrounds in psychology, business and plain common sense provide great insight into:*Your motivations as a speaker*How to critically examine your own self-esteem issues*Building business results as a professional speaker*Getting past your own ego*Finding the economic buyer*Focusing on your buyer's needs*How to create value out of your speaking*The business case for speaking*Creating marketing gravity*Using great process in speaking*Learning from others (including your audience)*Overcoming different speaking challenges*The importance of (valid) platform skills*How to create great speaking events (keynotes, speeches, workshops, seminars...)*The business of speaking*Solid steps to take to build your business if you're a novice or a veteran*Etc. etc. etc.Alan has thoroughly reworked many of his sections from his old "Money Talks" book, updated the book in terms of the current economic environment, technologies and current challenges and added new sections. Yet he has maintained many of the stories and "the guts" of the original book. This is, quite simply, a better book than the original.It will be worth much more than you spend! Whether you're a veteran or a novice: buy it, read it.Peter McLean, Authentic Speaking(R)[...]

I read other books by Alan Weiss and I find only two of them somewhat interesting. This one is a hit and miss. There is useful info with regards to how to approach an economic buyer and how to upsell your services. On the other hand the carpet bombing approach alongside the demo video is a dated approach when compared to methods applied by successful international speakers like Brendon Burchard. Would I suggest buying this book? Yes if you want to integrate your knowledge in addition to the basic info provided by classic books like Speak and Grow Rich (which is very dated now). The "I know it all" tone of the author is very annoying and off-putting. I also did not enjoy the patronising approach towards the audience: the author says that all that matters is what the buyer thinks - reviews and feedback from the audience is not relevant (!). If you are looking for a more humble and modern approach I suggest purchasing Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port and Get Clients Now by Hayden and to "top up" the info with this book with regards to the relationship with the buyer and value based fees. For an innovative and modern approach check out Brendon Burchard

Get’s straight to the point. Great takeaways. Totally changed how I work with clients. Read this book if you are a speaker. It’s that simple!

definitely a must read for any public speaker, regardless if you are a brand new speaker or a veteran. you will get a lot out of this book.