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Motivational Speakers Summary… There are literally thousands of professional lecturers in the U.S. Over the past decade, the number of speakers on the lecture circuit has more than doubled, according to the National Speakers Association (Tempe, AZ). The N.S.A. promotes and trains its members, whose median income from speaking engagements in 2000 was $55,000 (down from $73,000 in 1997). This was nearly double the 1990 figure of $30,000. Marketdata estimates that the U.S. talk circuit is probably worth in the neighborhood of $1 billion overall, counting all types of speakers. Lecture agencies claim that there are 5,000+ professional speakers in the United States today. The current membership of the National Speakers Association is reported to be 3,700. They have the largest roster. Of the other main speaker’s bureaus, their membership ranges from 170 to 1,200. Most speakers belong to several bureaus. Most speakers have limited earnings, with maybe a few hundred that are doing extremely well. There are only about 20 that do exceptionally well, earning $1 million/year or more. This chapter focuses on and provides in-depth profiles of some of the more well-known of this select group of motivational speakers.
Typically, leading booking agencies get about ten unsolicited tapes a day from would-be-speakers. Most of these wannabees get nowhere. Those who make it to the top typically have a best-selling book or hard-to-beat television exposure to their credit. (Nowadays, exposure on Oprah Winfrey is particularly critical.) They include Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, who earns $75,000 a day; Les Brown, a former talk-show host, who charges $20,000 to speak to corporate audiences; and Tony Robbins, an infomercial king, who charges $125,000 a day. The yearly speaking circuit is basically a nine-month schedule. December and January are slow due to the holidays, and few events are scheduled during these months. The summer months of July and August are also slow, due to summer vacations. Ever since the 1700s, a host of inspirational writers, motivational speakers, and self-help gurus have appeared on the American cultural landscape to preach the gospel of success through self-reliance and thinking optimistically. Books such as the Horatio Alger novels, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, and Thomas Harris's I'm OK, You're OK have sold millions of copies and left their marks on American popular culture. What's more, the authors of these books have often doubled as public speakers, traveling around the nation promoting their messages in a style that is borrowed partly from salesmen and partly from preachers.
Who Are The Leading Speakers?This information is not as easy to find as one would think. Marketdata attempted to quantify just how big some of the biggest names in the business are, in our last study. However, admittedly, our list just covered the biggest of the big—the Tony Robbins of the World. Our research for this study involved not only our own proprietary research, but partnering with a company named Self-Improvement Online, which happens to be the creator and operator of the largest, most authoritative self-improvement “portal” or website on the Internet today (www.selfgrowth.com). David Riklan, the head of this company, performed exhaustive research, resulting in a 2005 book entitled: Self-Improvement: The Top 101 Experts That Help Us Improve Our Lives, by David Riklan. This is an extremely valuable resource that brings together in one place the biographical information about the top gurus in this field, their headquarters address, a list of the books and other products they’ve produced, and how the consumer typically gets started with their program. This is currently sold as an electronic book, for $27, at their website. Some of the top speakers today include:
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