So You Want To Be A Professional Speaker? - With Krissy Martinez

SO YOU WANT TO BE A PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER? – WITH KRISSY MARTINEZ

Becoming a professional speaker is a goal for many allied health professionals who want to create multiple streams of income and share their expertise with a wider audience.

So in this episode, Jo is joined by Kristin (Krissy) Martinez is the President and CEO of PAX Therapy and Family Services and Kristin Martinez Consulting. In addition, Krissy is a professional speaker who travels the world working with organisations who want to motivate their leaders and help their employees to feel connected, engaged, and excited about the work they do.

Jo and Krissy discuss:

the different ways you can use speaking in your practice and career,
things that surprised Krissy about being a professional speaker,
the difference between professional speaking and training,
why Krissy wanted to become a professional speaker,
how to run a business as a speaker and how to market yourself as a speaker,
the hardest lessons she learnt about being a professional speaker,

You can find out more about Krissy at PAX Therapy at paxtherapy.com and her speaking practice at krissyspeaks.com.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

TRANSCRIPT:

Jo:

So welcome to the Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast. I am your host, Jo Muirhead and one of the most valuable lessons I have learned throughout my health professional journey has been the importance for me of multiple streams of income.

Now, I’m not saying that multiple streams of income are necessary to have a thriving health business, but for me they’ve been incredibly important. And I know that there are a lot of health professionals out there in the world listening to this podcast right now who would agree with me. There are some who won’t, and that’s okay. We’ve already had that discussion. You’re allowed to disagree with me. We just do disagreement respectfully.

So today we’re gonna be talking about professional speaking. So if you are a health professional and you’ve often wondered how do I get onto a stage where I’m paid the big bucks? How do I get invited to speak at these really big peer led conferences? How do I make it on the world stage? Then this is a podcast episode for you because today I am here with Krissy Martinez, she’s in Australia with me right now. Woohoo. She’s sitting in my office next to me right now. This is very cool. And she has been embarking on this journey of learning how to become a professional speaker. So I thought as somebody who is just embarking on this journey, Krissy I thought it’d be great for us to learn about what the challenges have been and what some of the surprises have potentially been. So welcome.

Krissy:

Thank you. I’m very excited to be here in Australia.

Jo:

You are <laugh>. It’s very good. And no, there are no kangaroos jumping around on the floor right now. We haven’t met any koalas in our backyard this morning. So, Krissy, just before we get into why you chose professional speaking, out of all the other types of income you could generate, where are you in the world? What do you do? Who do you serve? What are your current roles?
Krissy:

I am the founder and CEO of Pax Therapy and Family Services. And I started as a marriage and family therapist, like probably a lot of you. I have primarily served women with sexual abuse histories and borderline personality disorder.
Jo:

Thank you for serving that population cause it’s not a population. I would feel very competent with it all. So of course Krissy has done the health professional thing where she’s just given you a snippet of all the things that she does. So here’s a little introduction that I prepared earlier for her. So Krissy is Krissy Martinez is in California. She’s a Californian based therapist. Come CEO, mother of four, come professional speaker. Now when I say CEO I don’t use that term lightly. How many staff have you currently got employed within PAX
Krissy:

I think we have 20 staff.
Jo:

On two sites?
Krissy:

We have two offices in the same building and then one in a totally different location.
Jo:

That’s very cool. But today we’re gonna talk about professional speaking, and I’m gonna belabour the word ‘professional’ because there are so many ways we can speak and speaking can fulfil us in many different ways. Like most of my speaking is speaking to sell, and I’m very comfortable with that. Yes, I get asked to do keynotes and I say yes for some of them, but that primarily is not my goal. So can you help us understand what professional speaking actually is?
Krissy:

I would say that professional speaking is when that is the primary objective. The primary objective of your speaking is to send a message or give a message or get people engaged with a message that you get paid for on a very regular basis. Like people are seeking professional speakers out to speak to their audience on an issue or on a topic.
Jo:

Great. So there’s two things there. One is you’ve gotta have a message that people wanna hear.
Krissy:

Absolutely.
Jo:

And you’ve gotta get paid consistently for it.
Krissy:

Yes. I think in the industry they say 24 bookings per year and you get to call yourself like a real professional speaker. <Laugh>.
Jo:

And we’re not trying to be facetious when we use words like ‘professional’ or ‘real’ speaking. We’re not denigrating anybody. If my intention in creating this podcast episode today is I have many, many health professionals coming to me going, Jo, I wanna be a speaker like you. And I’m like, Hmm. Maybe you don’t because you possibly don’t understand why and how are you speaking? But what they see is me upfront with a crafted message that they’ve enjoyed, that they’ve been inspired by, which is one of the skills of a professional speaker. That’s what I’m finding most people are wanting, but they’re not understanding the different ways that speaking turns up.
So what were some of the surprises for you when you started the process? Because you’ve done training on this. It’s not like you just woke up one day and went, ta-da! I can put this label on me.
Krissy:

It’s not about you. It’s what it’s not. I think that’s the biggest lesson is, and the moment you think it’s about you, you’ve lost, like, you’ve lost your journey in being a speaker. Yeah. It’s really about the people that you’re speaking to. I’m sure it’s about your message, but it is not about you. I don’t know how I could explain that better.
Jo:

No, I think, I think that’s very clearly. And a lot of us get lost now. I know for me, when I embarked on what I thought was going to be a professional speaking career, it was all about me. I wanted to be up there. I had a message, you need to know my message. I’m gonna change the world. I’m gonna do it because I’m gonna be out the front on this stage. And yeah, that was a slap in the face the day I worked out that that’s not how it worked. Cause people weren’t ready to hear my message. They didn’t like the way I presented. God forbid I was rejected several times. <Laugh>
Krissy:

That’s an interesting point too, is that speaking is not just getting up and sharing your story. It’s crafted. It’s the emotions, the cadence, the tone is all something that you sit and practice in front of a camera for hours and hours and you send it to people and they rip it apart and they tell you what it needs and what it doesn’t need. And how do you generalise this? Goodbye jargon, goodbye any detailed message you ever had. Like you need to have that depth of knowledge that like a lot of health professionals have. But what your audience doesn’t want to know is that depth of your knowledge.
Jo:

They don’t need to know how you got there?
Krissy:

Exactly. Yes. They don’t wanna know the psychological processes involved, they just wanna know those general things. How do I generalise your message?
Jo:

How do I walk away from this 45 minute inspiring infotainment session with a tangible thing that can make a difference in my life?
Krissy:

Oh, that’s another thing. <Laugh>, when you said that, that’s another thing that it is not, you do not want to give everything away if you’re a professional speaker. Like if you’re doing a keynote, you should not be giving them any kind of technical information. It’s meant to inspire, it’s meant to motivate. It is not meant to tell them a process or teach a process to somebody. And that was a big lesson for me too. Because I always feel like I have to give value and one of the biggest lessons in crafting my keynote has been making it so a 12 year old can understand it is the advice. Like, make it so anybody can understand this and do not give a process. Do not teach them how to do something. That is not the purpose of the keynote. And that’s definitely a lesson cause that’s a mental health professional. Isn’t that where my value is?
Jo:

I love that you’ve brought this up because so many health professionals get asked to speak at peer led conferences or association led conferences where everybody wants to attend and get their CEUs or their CPDs for those of us here in Australia. But to actually be eligible for a CUE or a CPD, we have to train. And that’s one of the reasons, if I’m ever speaking in the USA, you don’t get a CEU for attending because I just can’t do that. Like, you either book me for a keynote or you book me to train. I can’t do both in the same session and help conference conveners understand that. It’s like you’ve asked me to come and speak at your event because you want me to inspire and set the tone for your entire event. You do not want me getting up there teaching a process <laugh>, I will bore your people senseless. You want me up there? It’s being so inspiring that everybody turns up the next day.
Krissy:

Yeah, you don’t want me to get up and train on borderline personality disorder even though my training and the depth of my knowledge comes from working with people with borderline personality disorder. I can get up, be inspirational and motivational and never talk about borderline despite it being the foundation for my message.
Jo:

That’s brilliant. See, you’re very succinct and I think that’s one of the skills that professional speaking teaches us. Right? We take all of our verboseness, all of our proving everything cause you know, we cite, we add citations to our citations. Yep. But the skill of crafting your message is becoming so succinct and you know what you know what you know. And other people can say it’s simplistic or it’s superficial. And we’re like, no, we actually understand what we’re doing here. <Laugh>
Krissy:

When I first started, I had a huge chip on my shoulder that led me to criticise people. Huge people like Simon Sinek. And because I was like, this is ridiculous. This is so grade school level. But as I’ve become a speaker, I get it. I understand it’s not necessarily that it’s grade school, it’s that you have to inspire and motivate a larger group of people who aren’t able to grasp it, but in the timeframe be able to grasp and understand all of the underlying concepts of that quote unquote grade school idea.
Jo:

And it comes back to professional speaking is not training. They are two very different skill sets equally as valuable, equally necessary. I am much more comfortable as a trainer. I can turn up and train you on something. The speaking part takes so much more energy for me, I work on that thing for months. I am rehearsing that thing. My husband, you’ve heard him, he’s about to leave to go and speak at an event on the other side of the country. He’s been rehearsing for two days. Yes. <laugh>. And it’s just like, this is what you need to do. You think that we’re confident? It’s because that’s the amount of effort that it takes to actually craft a message and make sure it’s gonna land.
Krissy:

The more natural a speaker sounds is because the more in depth they know their keynote. They know the timing, the cadence. They know the subject so well that they can read an audience and know, okay, I need to switch this story out with that story and I need to adjust this timeframe here and they can do it on the fly. So yeah. Rehearsal, knowing what you’re talking about, knowing the audience that you’re going to see, because every audience is different. <Laugh> and being able to adjust and move in the moment. Yes.
Jo:

That ability to adjust and move in the moment. And I speak to a lot of health professionals all over the world, but it’s not until I am on that stage and I’ve started that I know how I’m gonna have to adjust and change. And for somebody who likes to be in control, <laugh>, that was incredibly awkward. And for somebody who, like a lot of health professionals, I learned my health professional skills about a process and I would always fall back on my process with speaking. It felt incredibly vulnerable because the only person I could fall back on, the only skill I could fall back on, was I’m just gonna work this out as we go. So that’s why my slides now have a picture. And it’s not for you, Krissy. It’s to help me remember what I’m talking about. <Laugh>. That’s where I’m a bit selfish about my slides. These slides are for me, not for you.
Krissy:

Yeah, speakers don’t have slides with words on them. <laugh> . They’re just pictures. And I agree. They’re probably just as reminders or you’re using it to tell a story and it’s a good reminder of the story.
Jo:

Yep, yep. So it’s nothing worse. I dunno if you’ve ever had this when you’ve looked out into the people and I will try and make eye contact with people that I feel are gonna give me some positive reinforcement. The worst thing is when I look out there and the first person I see is all closed up, arms folded, scowl on their face or they’re on their phone. So yeah, you’ve gotta pull that stuff out of your head as well and quickly move on.
So out of all of the multiple streams of income choices that you have, you’ve built a team, right? You’ve delivered training. What made you go out of all the other things that I could do? I wanna become a professional speaker?
Krissy:

Well I love speaking. I enjoy training and I have always enjoyed the stage. It’s something I wanted to do. It’s like an early childhood dream to be an actor. But you know, you don’t go into it because of money <laugh>. That’s true. Or that’s at least what people tell you. So few people will make it that you’re like, okay, well I might as well not try.
Jo:

So do you see the irony and the fact that you became the performer?.
Krissy:

Yeah. And it’s like coming full circle to something that I know that I’ve always been good at and finally believing in myself enough to say, no, this is possible. Yeah. I could do this.
Jo:

Very cool. So when you made that decision and we talked about it, you decided to go and do some training. So tell us about your training. What did you go and do?
Krissy:

Oh my goodness. So I went to, I was going to call it a class, but I guess it’s like a program.
Jo:

<Laugh>. It was more than one class. You did it for months.
Krissy:

Yeah. It was months. It was, I don’t know, four months long. We had weekly homework. It was less about speaking itself and more about running the business as a speaker. Which is a whole new kind of business. That has been a journey. So, you know, revamping your website, how do you present yourself? Who are you really talking to when you’re trying to market and sell? What should a good keynote look like? Why would people rebook you? So it was really all about the process of creating a sustainable speaker business.
Jo:

Yeah. Which is probably not what you thought it was gonna be?
Krissy:

Right? No, it was not. But I obviously needed it.
Jo:

Which is why I recommended that <laugh>. Because you know, people just think that because I’ve been around for a little while or because I’ve got a thousand followers over here on LinkedIn and Instagram because you know me and you’re friendly to me, you should pick me for your next event. And it’s like, oh wow. Number one, that’s really arrogant. And number two, why should somebody who has spent years building thousands and thousands and thousands of people in an audience choose you to represent them and then give you money for it? We’ve gotta understand that it’s not just the people from the stage that we’re speaking to. We’ve actually got to speak to that conference convenor or the business owner or whoever it is. And we’re gonna say, this is how I solve your problem as a speaker.
Krissy:

Yes. The main point is really actually the audience is gonna be there because the audience is there not for you. They’re there for whatever event they’re there for. So the people who you really want to connect with are the organisers, the HR directors, the people who do your events in different industries that are different people. So it’s connecting with them and convincing them and getting them to trust that you’re not gonna muff up their event. <laugh>.
Jo:

And that’s exactly getting them, especially if you’re an unknown quantity. Right? This is why other speakers get paid really big bucks because, and when we say really big bucks, we’re talking like 20,000 US dollars a session. That’s what you’ve recently been told is the going rate. And I fell off my chair cause I was like, well that’s increased since I did my speaker training <laugh>. But then I was thinking about it and like every person who thinks that they’re an online influencer now thinks that they’re a keynote speaker and they’re not. They can’t be. They’re two very, very different mediums with very different purposes. Right? So if it took me, let’s say a hundred thousand dollars to build an audience where I could get 300 people into a room, why would I trust somebody that I’ve never seen speak who I have no clue if they’re gonna deliver, have no clue if they’re going to be a little bit dramatic and needy in the lead up to my event that is stressing me out? That’s why people get paid the big bucks because I can trust you. I trust that you’ll turn up, do the job and not cause me a headache.
Krissy:

Yes, exactly. And if you can’t do it, you’ll probably help me find somebody who can.
Jo:

Yeah. That connection piece is incredible. Like you’ve gotta build relationships And get connected.
Krissy:

This is a heavy relationship focused industry.
Jo:

Yeah. That’s right. Well, let’s think about the people that you did your program with are based here in Australia, but one of them is from the UK, yes? And they’re coaching and training people all over the world and their connections are pretty phenomenal when you start looking at who they’re connected to and the calibre of speaker that they bring on board. And I love one of them, he has, what does he call himself? Is he a broker?
Krissy:

He’s a bureau, but I think he’s switched completely to being an agent, but I didn’t.
Jo:

Okay. So I can imagine a lot of people have gone to their thinking. It’s an automatic; I’ll have it my own agent.
Krissy:

Oh no. <Laugh>, and even with the bureaus, you have to sell to them actually more than you sell to a conference organiser. And most bureaus will not give you attention unless you’ve booked a certain amount. And only if they’ve heard your name come up. If you approach them and they’ve heard of you, then they might be interested in you, you can be in a bureau, but if they don’t actually know you, you’ll never get booked.
Jo:

Exactly
Jo:

<Laugh>. So we really do need to be thinking about professional speaking as an entire business that needs its own lead generation, its own sales process as well as the craft of the speaking. It’s a lot more work.
Krissy:

Yeah, it’s a lot of work.
Jo:

So do you think you could summarise one of the hardest lessons that you’ve had to face down? Cause maybe you haven’t learnt it yet.
Krissy:

Sales is the hardest thing to do for me. And you have to know how to solve the problem and be confident that you’re gonna solve their problem. Whatever problem they have, you have to be confident that your message is gonna solve it. So when you get on the phone, it’s about taking the lead. Which is contrary to how mental health professionals are trained, which is it’s the client who leads. Well, not in this case! You better get on that phone. Oh, they didn’t call you back. You better call them because it’s on you. They don’t care. They have 25, 30, 40 speakers trying to book that keynote. So you have to work very differently. There’s no waiting for people to come around.
Jo:

No, no. Waiting for people to come around at all. And no, they’re not gonna follow you up. They’re not gonna beg you. So if you’re waiting for a contract and you haven’t got one, chances are you need to supply it.
Krissy:

They’re expecting you to supply a contract. They’re not going to give you a contract. They’re gonna look at your contract and say, do I like this? Do I not? Can we change this? Can we change that? And you have to set boundaries. So if you’re bad at setting boundaries, you’re gonna get walked on.
Jo:

So what’s been the best thing so far about this journey for you?
Krissy:

It’s fun. <Laugh>.
Jo:

Nice!
Krissy:

Yeah. It’s fun. It’s new. It’s exciting because it’s what I want to do. Which is wild. When they first interviewed me for the program, they’re like, well, what’s your vision? And I was like, I don’t know, like Tony Robbins <laugh>. And they’re like, well that takes like a decade to do. And I’m like, that’s fine. But that’s the goal. And to see something that never was a reality, to have a clear path to it is exciting.
Jo:

It is exciting and been exciting for me and, and the rest of our crew to watch you become this. It’s just been wonderful. Okay. So who do you wanna speak to and what do you wanna speak to them about?
Krissy:

So I talk to leaders in the audience. I speak to leaders, helping them to get better accountability, innovation, and motivation through my process called the core leadership vibe, which is based in values, identity, boundaries, and existential narrative. So it sounds complicated, but my message is really simple, but I have this entire system because from speaking also comes consulting. So if you’re worried about all the knowledge that you might have wasted time building, no, because there’s also opportunities connected to speaking where you get to use that knowledge. So I think my goal is helping leaders. So, but especially who’s looking for my speaking, it’s gonna be HR directors who are on fire. HR directors are always putting out fires and they’re tired of it and they need help and support from the outside because they have no more spoons. They have no more spoons to put out any fire or energy to deal with anybody else’s stuff. So that’s where I come in.
Jo:

Yeah. And your process, when I’ve heard it, it might feel superficial, but when you sit with it for a little bit of time, you’re like, oh my God, that makes leadership and self leadership so easy. But you start off with accountability and by the time you’ve talked to accountability, people are eating outta your hands. And they’re going, teach me more, Krissy, teach me more. I wanna be accountable. And then they go, wait, what, what do I want? <Laugh>? And so you can see for a HR director or somebody in a C-suite going, this person’s gonna come and inspire my people to be more accountable. You can see how Krissy’s solving a problem there. It’s not just coming to make my people feel good. The HR director can say, ‘so remember when Krissy came and spoke to us about the A, the I and the M and we need to start with the A, which is accountability. Hey Bob, Jane, can we have a little discussion about accountability and what it looks like?’
Krissy:

And yes, my process takes the leaders from external blame. Like, look at my staff, they’re lazy, they’re this, they’re that. To make it more of an internal process of wait, what am I doing to promote these behaviours? Or what am I doing to promote the behaviours that I want to see? And where is that connected? I mean, it’s deep for those mental health professionals. It’s like the processes underlying that are complicated and the theories are many <laugh>, but it starts the process for them.
Jo:

Correct. And that’s what I was just about to say cause you raised a very clever point, which is yes, I’m a professional speaker, but I also know that that’s gonna lead to consulting, right? Which is, in your case, if we tracked, it was like Krissy goes and speaks at a conference and people are like, we need Krissy to come in and run 12 months of consulting to our emerging leaders. And then Krissy’s in there going, well I’ve just uncorked the really big Pandora’s box. You now need an EAP service. Which PAX can kinda run for you here. So for me, my speaking has always been about that business building component. I’ve just not enjoyed what you’ve gone through <laugh>. So I don’t make a business out of it. But you can see now that it leads all to the same places, which is the growth and development of your entire brand.

So for somebody who’s listening to this in the car or they’re on their way to work or they’ve just had a rejection and they’re feeling a bit like, this speaking thing, how can other people make it look so easy? What encouragement would you give them?
Krissy:

I think it’s the same encouragement I give people starting out in practice that it’s a numbers game and you are gonna get rejected. So get used to it and it’s okay. And also a rejection today is not a rejection tomorrow. A rejection is a ‘not right now’. And so if you’ve been rejected recently, just know that it’s just a ‘not right now’ and it’s okay because in 6, 10, 12 months, a year, three years, those people will come back. And wanna connect with you.
Jo:

Yeah. Very cool. You can come back to Australia and we’ll do another episode about rejection. So a couple of things I wanna chuck in here. Really important question. So get your listening ears on everyone cause this is going to be mind blowing. Krissy, what’s your favourite coffee? <Laugh>
Krissy:

I don’t know if it is the same everywhere in the world, but an Americano with half and half.
Jo:

Okay. So she’s been drinking flat whites since she’s been in Australia and there have been no complaints. So there we go. <Laugh>.
Krissy:

I think that’s similar.
Jo:

I just was not walking up to an Australian barista and asking for that cause they would’ve been like, what?

So if people are like, I wanna know more about Krissy speaks, I wanna know more about PAXs therapy. I wanna watch Krissy’s journey. I wanna book Krissy for my next event. How do they get in touch with you?
Krissy:

My website is www.krissyspeaks.com. It’s easy to remember!
Jo:

<Laugh> Much better than using the word ‘entrepreneurial’! That’s very cool. And for anyone who is listening who is not on jomuirhead.com email list, but you are interested in learning more about speaking and how speaking can help you grow a business, build a business, raise your influence, get on my email list because I am currently crafting with a couple of other people, a introductory intensive type thing in the USA next May where we are going to give people the opportunity to come and craft a message, get some collateral, understand what type of speaker you’re going to be and not launch a business, but at least get you started so you know where you fit into the world of speaking.

But if you’ve got questions, if you’ve got comments, if you’ve got things you wanna learn, come into the Future Proofing Health Professionals Facebook group, cause Krissy’s in there. And if you’ve got questions, she’s gonna answer them. And make sure you share this podcast with at least three people because I was just bold enough to ask you to do that. Hahaha. Until next episode, go be your awesome self.