Speaking publicly involves getting up in front of an audience. Speaking professionally can mean you are a featured speaker at an event or you get paid to speak.

When I first started speaking, my mentor Ed Thorpe took me to a different Lions, Rotary, Kawanis or Chamber of Commerce meeting once a month. Typically I would talk for 15 to 20 minutes and after a year when so many people asked me if I had a book or a handout, I started creating materials to leave with them, with my contact information.

At the time it didn’t matter that I wasn’t getting paid because if the meeting hosted 30 people I would average 3 new clients for my entrepreneur program. They would pay $500/year to be a part of my education program.

Then I found out there was going to be an Entrepreneur Symposium in Sacramento. I called the organizer and he asked me what the name of my book was. I told him I didn’t have a book and he said all the speakers had to have a book but I’d get one done. This was in January and I asked him when the event was and he said June 3rd! He asked what the title of my book was and without hesitating I said “Mixing it Up!”

I immediately started to organize all of my newsletters into groups of articles for marketing, sales, networking techniques, time management and so on. I retyped the articles into what I thought was a logical order. I hired two editors. One was for content continuity and the other was for readability. I have to say, it’s the most difficult way to write a book, but 5 months later, I picked up the first run of my books on the way to the event.