How Speakers Can Add an Extra Stream of Income with Coaching

Coaching as an addition to your speaking engagements benefits your clients and benefits your business. What is it? Something you can do? Where do you start? Listen to the next 8 minutes and you will be on your way to deciding if including coaching in your business is for you!

My guest, Kevin O’Connor teaches graduate students at Chicago’s Loyola University and speaks professionally to physicians and healthcare leaders 80 times per year. He has three master’s degrees is a Certified Executive Coach, and has earned the CSP designation, Certified Speaking Professional…fewer than 400 persons in the world hold this honor for speaking and teaching excellence. He says he is happiest on the back of a horse.

In the Beginning

Kevin tends to say “yes” to new opportunities as much as possible unless it’s not a fit and a definite “no”. Many years ago, he wrote a book that landed on a guy’s desk who hired him to train 125 pharmaceutical professionals. They were going to have 25 meetings over the next four months, they were inviting doctors in. He said, “I wish we could clone you!” and Kevin said, “What do you mean?”

The response was “We’d like somebody at each of these meetings”. He reminded the gentleman that his company is called Kevin O’Connor and associates. That night he made some phone calls and ended up with ten associates from NSA. That made him realize that he could then say yes to more opportunities.

That started not just speaking, not just consulting. It occurred to Kevin that he could help the boss be a better boss. That’s when the first beginnings of coaching happened. Kevin went through the Center for Executive Coaching’s certification program. He was already a licensed marriage and family therapist, but he knew coaching was going to be different and he needed new skillsets. That’s how his coaching became something that was more structured.

The Starting Point of Adding Coaching to Your Speaking Offerings

The idea of coaching appeared when Kevin noticed that his clients might need more than just another speech. Kevin’s advice is at the end of the presentation when they’re giving you a standing ovation an opportunity arises when the meeting planner comes over and says, “That was wonderful”. You’re supposed to say, “Thank you, but I’m a little frustrated, I believe we just touched the surface, can we have a phone call next week and I’ll give you my impressions of your group?”

You can give speeches, that’s fine, but when you go deeper with coaching, you’re going to have a more satisfying experience. You get to leverage more of your expertise, and you can charge more money for that than hopping around from speech to speech. One of the nice things about coaches is they discuss money and pricing with each other. Speakers don’t talk about money with one another, coaches talk about it all the time. You can get a better gauge on what to charge.

Coaching is a fairly unregulated industry so it’s a good idea to get a certification to stand out. There are hundreds of coaching certifications out there and they’re all about the same price to get trained. It gives you a firm understanding of your role as a coach. It also gives you a framework to work within which means you’ll get more because people will see more results.

You Have a Built in Audience for Coaching After Your Speech

After the speech, when you have a conversation with the client, you don’t immediately discuss fees, that’s not the right time. You should ask if you can send a summary of the content and then include the fees and other contract details. Within a few days you send an email that says included in this contract there will be ten group coaching sessions for you and your staff (or whoever the audience was).

By accepting the contract they’re accepting you as a coach. At first just include your coaching, you don’t have to say, “And it will cost this much extra…” Tell them you’ve already included a courtesy discount for the coaching. As soon as you say that they don’t even ask what the courtesy discount is, they just say thank you for the discount. Then you don’t have to discuss extra coaching fees.

When you build coaching into your speaking contracts now suddenly things are very different because you’ll be offering more value. Your clients will be thinking of it as a great investment because it’s part of your speaking or training offerings with them.

You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”

**Click here for more outstanding interviews with entrepreneurs and thought leaders!**

About My Guest

Kevin E. O’Connor holds three Masters degrees and his expertise focuses on career development, the challenges of leadership, business relationships, successful communication and the effectiveness of teams. He specializes in working with professionals, particularly technical professionals, who have been promoted to leadership positions where they now lead their former peers. He has a proven track record within the healthcare sector for transforming outstanding physicians to extraordinary physician executives.

Kevin has distilled wisdom from the frontlines of healthcare leadership, combining insights from accomplished physician and nurse leaders to coach you in mastering these crucial skills. By grasping the unique dynamics of healthcare teams, Kevin equips you to lead with confidence, empathy, and effectiveness, bringing everyone together for the common goal of exceptional patient care.