Last weekend, I wrote an end of Q1 letter to members of MicDrop. At the heart of it, was a provocation…👇

When I look back at the talks that have changed the trajectory of my life (let alone my business), every single one of them was a free talk.

In some instances I actually paid - a very unpopular take these days!

The biggest ones?

1. A talk at Google Campus launched my business 🎤
   I was jobless (except for curating TEDxClapham). Had no reputation or no audience and no clue what I was doing. So I approached them with the idea of running a workshop on how to land a TEDx talk.
   
   160 people signed up.
   80 showed up.
   
   I had nothing to sell so I didn’t sell anything.
   
   Two weeks later dropped them an email saying I was going to run a 6 month coaching programme mentoring people to land one.
   
   10 people signed up.
   £200 each.
   
   Talk Revenue: £2k
   
   It’ll be 10 years to the day soon.
   
   —
   

2. A one-off guest webinar to a private community 💻
   5 years later, thanks to some word of mouth, I was approached to run a session on storytelling for some start-up Founders.
   
   18 showed up.
   It was a 45 minute virtual session.
   It was during covid so I delivered it from my bedroom.
   
   This time I was ready, I had a system in place.

   
   Talk Revenue: £70k
   
   —
   

3. A workshop in a tent at Ideas Fest 🎪
   That’s how MicDrop was born.
   
   Talk Revenue: It kickstarted a six-figure business
   
   The most rewarding, fulfilling decision I’m made in my professional career.

The point is…

Every speaking opportunity should drive business results.

I have so many conversations with people seduced by the idea of becoming a paid speaker. So much so that they miss the bigger opportunities on the table.

Most of us don't have the personal brand clout to get paid £20k, £30k for a keynote.

But generating that kind of revenue is from free talks is entirely achievable - IF you know what you're doing.

An extreme example? Daniel Priestley.

His first episode on Diary of a CEO generated in $10m of revenue. Suddenly, chasing that £40k keynote fee becomes an expensive distraction.

When I mentioned this on LinkedIn the other day and he replied…

Speaking for free gets a bad rap but it shouldn’t.

There are always exceptions to the rule. But if speaking for free:

1. Triggers you, or
2. Feels like a waste of time,

It might not be a free talk problem, it might be that you've never had a system to make them count.

I share this because so many of the conversations we’ve been having inside MicDrop this year has been about making speaking work harder for us.

1. Lead magnet strategy,

2. Landing advisory roles,

3. Starting/scaling newsletters,

4. Leveraging podcasts for ROI (coming up this month!)

So we’re already doing this work inside MicDrop. And we’re going to go much deeper in this newsletter too.

Big announcement incoming… 🍿!

Alex

P.s. Found this article useful? It would mean the world if you’d give us a one-liner testimonial.