My podcast this week is from the Effective Public Speaking book. I expect all the technical review comments back in about a week.
Enjoy!
The Podcast:
The Transcript:
This is 60 Seconds of Writing in Public with Johanna Rothman for May 30, 2025, where I read an excerpt of just a minute of some writing in progress.
This is from the Effective Public Speaking book.
Trap: We Can't Afford You
People who are not able to buy will ask you to speak. Those nice people are not the economic buyer.
I rarely say, “yes,” when someone asks me to speak. Instead, I use a discovery call to understand what a prospective client actually wants. That helps me understand all the boundaries of the potential speaking engagement.
Halfway through one call, I asked if there were any monetary boundaries on what they could spend for this speaking engagement.
“Yes,” the client said. “We can only spend $100.” (I made up that number, but it represents the order of magnitude difference between what I expected and what they offered.)
“I can't do anything for just $100,” I said. “My time is more valuable than that.”
“But we can't afford more money.”
Too often, people think they can't afford you because they're only thinking about the cost–the expense–of your speaking. They're not thinking about the value you can offer.
You now have choices, especially about offering more value, instead of decreasing your fee.
The Video:
The video link is here.