Public speaker? Here are hard-learned lessons from Covid-19

I've made my living from keynotes, talks, and workshops for four years. When the pandemic hit, most speakers weren't ready for their whole business to move online overnight. Here's what I learned patching through it.

I've made my living from keynotes, talks, and workshops for four years, while also building a startup and supporting a charity on the side. Most of us weren't ready for what the pandemic actually did to that business. We said we'd add a webinar, an online course, some virtual offerings. Almost nobody was ready for the scale of the shift. Here's what actually got me through it.

Build your online presence now, if you haven't. You don't need to code or hire anyone. I used Skillshare for mine, and I've since found Tilda.cc, alongside the more familiar Wix. Free tiers exist with real limits. The paid tiers are cheap.

Go live. Go online. Go now. Webinars feel old-fashioned, but the format still works if you make it your own. Pre-record and give it away free to grow your list. Sell cheap tickets through Meetup or Eventbrite. Go live weekly on whichever platform has your biggest following, even for fifteen minutes: a focused talk, a discussion, a Q&A. It doesn't need to be the whole keynote.

Try Clubhouse while it's early. It's audio-only, room-based, and built for exactly the kind of discussion and debate a speaker already knows how to run. Early is when it's easiest to build reputation and followers there.

Turn what you teach into an online course. Course platforms come in three shapes: monthly hosting fees, per-sale commission, or per-minute-watched. Unless your whole business is already digital, skip the hosting-fee model. If you have an hour or more of material, Udemy and call it a masterclass. Under an hour, or bite-sized ideas, Skillshare fits better. I have more than 20,000 students on Udemy teaching public speaking, and I'm now turning workshop material into shorter courses for Skillshare.

Start a YouTube channel, even now. It's late, growth is slow, but it builds credibility and searchability that nothing else does as well. Use archive footage if you have it. If not, take the core of your existing keynote, break it into ten-minute pieces, and shoot them on your phone with a simple light and mic. Don't wait for better equipment.

Be on every platform, including the ones you don't understand yet. Same handle everywhere if you can get it. If you're not confident on the design side, a low-cost freelancer from Fiverr or Upwork will set up your branding faster than you will. If you can't post consistently yourself, hire someone who can. I did.

Don't rely only on your agent. Even a good one is struggling to sell bookings right now. Be your own second channel, and don't depend on a single lead source for your income.

Offer consulting. You're already the expert, that's why you're the one on stage. One-on-one sessions, coaching, whatever extends the value you already deliver. Just don't fake expertise you don't have. Dig into what you actually know and adapt it into a different format.

And write. If it's worth an hour on stage, it's worth a book. It doesn't have to be a full one. A short, focused ebook, published in days, builds authority and a small income stream at the same time, and it's one of the highest-leverage things a speaker can have.

I learned most of this the hard way, flying between keynotes so relentlessly it nearly broke me financially before it built the platform. Following through on every one of these is what turned it around.

*I put everything I know about this into a public speaking masterclass, if you want the longer version.*