I shared a ‘Core Conversation’ yesterday afternoon at SXSW with the consummate professional speaker Tim Sanders , author of Love is the Killer App , The Likeability Factor , and Saving the World at Work . Aided by some great comments, suggestions and questions from the audience, we discussed some of the important rules to follow if you want to develop a paid professional speaking career. Of course, there are a variety of ways to break into the speaking circuit, and these rules can be creatively broken, but they will help you get started learning the system (if only to hack it later).

With all due respect, love and admiration, why do you, some of our planet’s best teachers (professional speakers) think that all you have to do is throw up a website to get invitations to speak? Can you imagine the response of a meeting planner if the author of the best-selling “how to” book actually picked up the phone and called the CEO of an organization to suggest a way in which she/he can solve at least three of the organization’s five challenges? 12 essential Steps to Attract Your Ideal Customers What’s with the trend to try to build

meeting planners who think conditions ahead are favorable has only bounced back Professionals International (MPI), one of the two big organizations of conference anecdotally I see and hear that business for professional speakers is picking up part of the meeting planners’ world, too.   It took a year for the conference world (and the traveling public) public) to recover from 9/11.