Public speaking always comes up as something universally loathed. There are a few people, myself included, who have no adversity to public speaking. If you put 2 and 2 together, it stands to reason the there must be money in it - there’s always money to be made doing what nobody else wants to do. I scoured Monster.com, and could only find a few measley offerings from Microsoft shilling their wares for short change.
I’m inexplicably doubtful that there isn’t a pile of money to be made based solely upon the willingness to speak in public, though at the same time, I’m baffled at what one could possibly be engaged to speak about. Are there opportunities? Is it just show business and Snake Oil Sales? Well?
If you are already famous for something, you absolutely can make boatloads of money for public speaking engagements. Ex-politicians, ex-pro-athletes, celebrities of all kinds do it all the time. As far as I recall, they all just tell “their story” in whatever context that might apply to the group they are addressing.
As to how “Joe Average Guy” does it and what he says - that’s a good question. If aren’t afraid to get up in front of people and say something, but you don’t know what to say or whom to say it to, I guess you’re SOL - or you could try to start in broadcasting or something.
My mother is a professional international speaker in education. She was once an acclaimed teacher in a poor, rural, largely black school district in Louisiana. She knew that she could retire from that fairly young so she started working on a second career early. After she retired from teaching at 45, she got her doctorate and became a college professor while building her speaking career at the same time. Once her speaking career was well established, she started doing it full-time.
From where I sit, it looks like one tough job but she seems to love it. She travels about 200 days a year. She has spoken in all fifty states and 8 foreign countries. Her reputation is everything and she must continually strive to distinguish herself and evolve so that she can get both repeat and new business.
She does everything from focused talks to keynote speeches to thousands of people. It has taken her almost two decades to build up to this this. She started out just giving speeches at small local schools for little or no money. Her second book just got published and considers doing that critical to her speaking success.
I don’t know how much money she makes but her standard rates range up to $10,000 per day. I am not sure it is something that someone can walk into without tons of time, energy and connections.