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Stageside leads are consistently trickling in after each gig. You’re getting invitations to speak… paid invitations. Your speech’s content? It’s tested, refined, and polished. Your speech is working.
Now it’s time to start focusing on the performance aspect of your speech: mastering how you deliver your content in an entertaining, emotive, and captivating way.
You see, true professionals and real performers are able to be alive, present, and spontaneous in their emotional experience while still delivering a performance that’s rehearsed, repeatable, and consistent.
No matter how many times they’ve delivered their lines before, each time they step onstage they deliver an experience that feels like it’s happening for the very first time. Delivering a performance like that takes more than just memorizing your speech, it requires mastering the craft of stage performance.
In The $10K Speech Blueprint Part 1, we showed you how to test your new speech with a powerful session description before moving on to the actual development phase of the process. And in Part 2 of this article series, we showed you a repeatable process for generating demand for your new speech. The next step is upleveling the performance side of your speech to increase its value.
Your Speech: A Complete Transformational Experience
Once you have a rehearsal-ready script, you can uplevel the quality of your performance by adding theatrical elements, being intentional about your movement onstage, and incorporating entertaining moments that make your message more memorable and impactful.
The result? A performance that feels like a vibrant, emotional, and inspiring two-way conversation between you and your audience.
Those are the types of performances that command top dollar.
How Kelsey Ramsden Tripled Her Speaking Fees
In The Referable Speaker, Andrew Davis and Michael Port share the story of Kelsey Ramsden, Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneur and Keynote Speaker. She used to wing her speeches; and with her charisma and authenticity, it worked. But she knew she could be better.
She wanted to be a world-class speaker who delivered a visionary speech that earned higher fees and made a deeper impact. And to do that, she had to make some major changes. After crafting a transformational speech, rehearsing, and learning how to perform it, her presentation was completely transformed.
She focused on how she wanted her audience to feel during specific moments. She made her speech entertaining and insightful. She made her onstage movement intentional, focused, and consistent. She started using a few props (like personalized fortune cookies). She crafted theatrical moments throughout her speech that inspired her audience to feel, think, and act differently.
Her speech became a performance.
And it paid off big time. Since adding essential performance elements to her speech, Kelsey tripled her speaking fees. She now feels comfortable asking for higher fees because she knows she’s delivering a one-of-a-kind experience.
That’s what happens when you decide to stop speaking and start performing.
Three Transformational Performance Elements to Increase Your Speech’s Dollar Value
As you rehearse and refine your performance, you’ll create a consistent, reliable performance that works every time. And you’ll dramatically enhance the transformational experience you create onstage for your audience.
While there are thousands of performance elements you can add to your speech to increase your entertainment value, start with these three important elements:
#1 Emotional Contrast
High-value speeches are rich with emotional contrast. They’re live experiences that make the audience feel.
When you drive your performance emotionally and take risks onstage to push the limits, you increase the drama and intensity of your speech. Your audience gets pulled into a whirlwind of feeling.
Building emotional contrast into your speech will create a much deeper relationship with your audience and a much deeper connection to your material. It’s what makes your presentation feel truly alive.
Here’s a practical tip: when aiming to evoke emotion, make fully committed choices. Don’t just try to amuse your audience, make them feel exuberant. Don’t just make them feel intrigued, try to make them feel rocked to the core. Don’t just make them feel melancholy, go for heartbroken.
As speakers, when we really focus on how we’re making people feel, it brings out the most authentic and influential version of ourselves. We allow ourselves to be seen because we are in pursuit of seeing each individual in our audience.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you’ll be on full emotional volume for the entire duration of your speech. The key is contrast: emotional highs combined with moments where you let your audience breathe and relax. Start with the fully committed version of the choice, then play around with levels of intensity in different sections of your speech. As in a great piece of music, dynamics create nuance.
But remember, emoting is not the same as incorporating emotional contrast into your speech; it can even make your performance feel “fake” or “overacted.” When something feels phony or like it’s “too much,” it’s probably because the speaker doesn’t yet fully believe in the truth of what they are saying or in the performance choice they’re making. Remember: commit to the contrast.
When you unlock the complete depth of emotional contrast for your speech, your speech’s value increases because your audience can’t help but leave feeling just as passionate about your topic as you. You’ve made them feel deeply, and that’s key for transformation.
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