Speak and Market Like A Pro

09/17/2026

🎤Sharing this insightful post from a National Speakers Association Facebook group. Heed her words!

✏️ Dear, well-meaning, caring speakers - I was an NSA member from 1995-2008. I gave workshops in Tempe and at nationals numerous times. I care about the power of words to influence people's lives. I am writing this post from my heart, so I hope you will take it that way.

When I posted yesterday that I was looking for a certain type of speaker in a specific industry, and added exactly what I needed from anyone who wanted to offer themselves to me, I thought I was being perfectly clear.

Since that post - now taken down - I got more than EIGHTY (80) inquiries from speakers. That's great, but more than 2/3 of you don't have a decent demo reel. One guy spends 3.5 minutes talking about himself and his background in a 5.25 minute demo reel! One woman told me she hasn't yet spoken in the industry I requested, but that i should give her a chance. About 10 other people wrote me versions of that! One guy is SO terrible on the platform because he mumbles, makes jokes under his breath, and never looks into or connects with his audience. One person sent me two videos of themselves on hokey looking podcasts - which makes me believe they've never been in front of an audience!

PLEASE hear this: I am a professional. I have owned a niche bureau since 1995, and a literary agency since 1989. I clearly asked for what I needed to consider someone, and yet so many of you overrode my request and/or are frankly lousy on the platform/at marketing yourselves.

This is not mean, it is factual. You are not professional when you decide to throw yourselves at a professional who has defined what they need/want. You are not professional when your demo reel is an hour long and includes the wait staff wandering before you take the stage. You are not professional if you only have a few podcasts. You are not professional if your demo reel is a monologue without even realizing there is an audience watching your boring performance.

I've trained about 7,500 speakers in my life - directly, in person. I am NOT offering this training anymore. But you know who is? The NSA! You are all apparently members. There is NO EXCUSE for the slop some people sent me, wasting my time. There is NO EXCUSE for unprofessional behavior. AI makes editing a demo reel something you or a high school kid can do in a half day. You should NEVER pitch yourself on the off chance that "maybe they'll take me even though they said they only want X." That's just stupid and unprofessional and if anything it will get you blacklisted.

I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings. I care about speakers and authors or I wouldn't have stayed in my profession. But seriously, if you want to be successful, you CANNOT whine that your business isn't taking off/earning money/getting you repeat or spin off bookings if you treat it like something a 10 year old could do.

Please, please take this to heart. I was a vendor to the NSA, and I saw this back then. Please, help yourselves to all the content the NSA has to offer, but MOST of all, try to remember that speaking is NOT ABOUT HOW CUTE YOU LOOK, your history, your "passion" for speaking. It's a profession, which means you benefit only if/when you act professionally.

Sheesh. This was a crazy experience and I've learned my lesson about fishing in this pond ever again.

09/10/2026

Exposure doesn't pay a mortgage, a flight, or a hotel room.

Every week, a member tells me about the same call. A company loves their message and wants them on stage, but there's no budget this time. Just do it for the visibility, they say, the room will be full of decision-makers, it'll open doors.

Here's what I'm seeing: the companies asking for a free keynote almost always have a marketing budget. What they don't have is the belief that speaking deserves a paycheck like everything else at the event does.

If a company can pay for the venue, the catering, and the AV crew, they can pay the person the whole event is built around.

Know your worth.

- Jaime Nolan, CEO, National Speakers Association, 9/9/2026

08/24/2026

A publisher just killed a $2.4 million book deal because nobody could prove a human wrote it. Wait, what?

Literary agents pulled the deal because they couldn't authenticate how the manuscript came together, and it wasn't a quality complaint or a legal problem. It was a trust problem, the first case like it I've seen, and I doubt it's the last.

This isn't really about plagiarism anymore. It's about proving you wrote the thing at all, and that question isn't staying with novelists.

Ghostwritten memoirs, business books built from a keynote, "as told to" projects, all of it is headed for the same test.

If you're working on a book right now:
save your drafts, your notes, your voice memos, your messy first attempts. The stuff that used to feel like clutter is becoming your proof.

If you've written a book, or you're working on one now, do you have anything that proves it's yours?

by Jaime Nolan, CEO of NSA, 8/24/2026

08/05/2026

Honored to be referenced / quoted in this feature article in the August issue of TOASTMASTER Magazine,
"Before You Write a Word"
What great speakers do first—and why it makes all the difference.
By Lauren Parsons, DTM, AS, CSP, of New Zealand.

Valuable tips and insights.. from professional speakers!

What great speakers do first—and why it makes all the difference.

07/26/2026