How to become a motivational speaker

​​You’re ready. Don’t wait. A new business calls you, and this is the sign you need. You can become a motivational speaker today. 

You’ll inspire others to change their lives, careers, or maybe even the world. 

Now you are motivated, keep that enthusiasm and learn how to turn your passion for encouragement into a business.

This guide tells you how to become a motivational speaker. It includes:

• Finding your niche
• Defining your audience
• Funding your business
• Marketing yourself
• Managing your finance

There’s nothing to stop you, nothing in your way (seriously, you don’t need any specific licences or degrees to become a public speaker). 

Even though nothing is required, you can add certification to your abilities through one of the many online courses on the subject.

Offered by:

• Reed Courses
• One Education
• St. Paul’s College
• Course Gate

Many areas could have provided you with some helpful experience you can use to become a public speaker.

A few could include:

• Business management
• Politics
• Acting
• Philosophy
• Activism
• Fitness
• Science

As long as you know a lot about something, you have an authority that people will acknowledge.

A motivational speaker has particular areas of focus as their niche. You can combine any training with experience or even a hobby.

If there’s a particular passion of yours, then that might be the best way to direct your speaking. For example, motivate people to participate in your favourite martial arts form.

For success as a speaker, you need to either know a lot about something or care enough to continue to learn. It’s much easier to motivate people if you believe in it yourself.

Now, you’ve got something unique to offer, decide who’ll want it. To profit from the business, you need to find people who’ll listen to what you have to say.

Your target audiences are the groups of people you think should see your marketing. It’s valuable to decide on an audience because different people will have varying priorities.

For example, some younger people in their twenties might want to learn how to make money. But, others in their eighties might want to make the most of what they have.

Those two groups would respond differently to the same message, so you need to understand who suits what you’ll speak about

A straightforward way to identify your target audience is to conduct market research. That means that you look for any evidence that helps you find the best groups.

You could look at other motivational speakers with a similar niche and look at their audience by checking their website or events, for example.

Alternatively, you can interview the public or put out surveys. You can look for similarities between the people interested in your service, and they are your target audience.

As a motivational speaker, you still run a business, which might mean you need some investment to start. Your own money may only get you so far, so you might look for other funding.

With a well thought out business plan, you could motivate a bank to give you a small business loan. You’ll need to pay it back with interest over time, but it might be a great way to get money for marketing, for example.

For more information on creating a business plan, see: What should a business plan include?

As a motivational speaker, you may encourage others to believe in your abilities. That could open up another avenue for funding.

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who can provide you with money for a share of your business. Many also look for investments within industries they know, so they could also offer connections.

A crucial part of becoming a motivational speaker is marketing your services.

Before you begin, you’ll have to decide which services you offer.The most common are:

• Events — online or in-person public speaking.
• Mentoring — one-on-one motivation for individuals.
• Courses — provide lectures to groups or written materials.

You might even decide to offer a few different services or a membership that customers can access through a subscription plan.

For example:

• Basic — courses.
• Premium — courses and events.
• Platinum — courses, events and one-to-one.

You need to utilise social media as a motivational speaker. It would help if you had a presence on each platform. 

Especially those that work well with video content to show off your speaking. You can use each to show different length clips:

• TikTok — short (15-60 seconds).
• YouTube — full length (3 minutes to 30).
• Instagram — medium (1-3 minutes).
• Facebook — medium (1-3 minutes).

Content marketing is another valuable way to promote yourself as a motivational speaker. 

This type of marketing means you offer something of value to your customers for free, so they engage with your business.

That can include blog articles on relevant topics that your audience might find interesting. You can direct them to your paid content.

Another great content marketing tool could be to create an email newsletter that you use to offer some motivation each morning. If it’s helping people, maybe they’d be encouraged to join your evening online events?

As you start to motivate the masses, you’ll aim to keep your growth up through marketing. It’s essential that your funds are well managed.

Unless you give motivational speeches on accounting, you may be unfamiliar with bookkeeping. But like any other business, it can make or break your success.

All of your activities to promote your business are expenses, and the income you make can be taxable.

To keep on top of business finance, open a separate business account to your personal one. There’s even one that will let you manage money through your phone.

Countingup is a business account with built-in accounting software, accessible through an app.

You will need to put together an income tax Self Assessment at the end of each year. With Countingup, you’ll benefit from tax estimations so you how know much to put aside each month.

If you lose track of marketing costs, you can run out of money quickly. Countingup has an expense categorisation feature that automatically sorts your costs into each area of the business.

You’ll be able to understand where your money is going and make adjustments if needed.

Get started for free.