A faculty colleague of mine at a large university once quipped that Academic politics are brutal, even more so than governmental, for the precise reason that so LITTLE is at stake.

An interesting view; and that reminds me of the perennial discussion about whether coaches, consultants, seminar leaders, and speakers of all kinds should build their careers on a foundation of free or fee-based presentations.

The argument for giving away speeches is obvious. If you have no substantial experience, and you want some, why not get up on your hind legs and perform before service groups such as Rotary, Kiwanis, and so forth?

They need and want speakers, but have no budgets, and you need experience and exposure, and theyre willing to provide these benefits to you.

But the downside to vying for free work, and heres where the political barb applies, is that theres way too much competition at the bottom. Theres so little at stake in free speaking that every neophyte in the world is trying to break into the business this way, so its actually challenging to get gigs.

Wouldnt the aspiring speaker be better advised to charge a modest or even an average fee and to market his or her act directly, to paying organizations?

Moreover, and this may be peculiar to my experience, free speeches beget more free speeches. If youre good, the Rotarian will ask if youre available to talk before another nonprofit group to which he belongs.

Youll stay busy, of course, but where is the payday in all of this, youll come to wonder.

Let me mention, and Ill develop this at length in another article, there are several ways to be paid.

Money works, to be sure.

But if you can negotiate in advance a strong letter of reference that you can leverage to get future paid speaking opportunities, then that free talk youre giving can be considered one that is done for compensation.

Or, if youre addressing otherwise hard to reach executives when theyre in a mood to listen, as they may be at a meeting of their favorite charity or university, well, you couldnt really BUY that exposure, so yes, in a sense, that audiences attention to your and to your message, IS compensation.

Sometimes there are different ways to extract cash from your events. I spoke before an area meeting of Toastmasters and I was able to sell my books and tapes at the back of the room, after my talk.

I netted a very decent amount, so yes, I gave away the talk, but still got paid.

Sharing the platform with me that day was Mark Victor Hansen, before he became a Chicken Soup server, and he did a robust job of selling his materials, as well.

Perhaps the best reason to consider accepting free dates is that in doing so you stay busy, you get to sharpen your skills, and you feel youre making progress.

All of these outcomes are motivating, and they certainly beat sitting on the sidelines.