I can make money from...speaking?

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Would you do a one hour virtual Q&A for $2000?

When I got this offer in 2021, I thought it was a scam. 👻 

You want me to get on Zoom? For an hour? Answer questions I know the answers to?

And you’re going to pay me how much?!

I had never been paid that much for something that easy.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking…“well, Lex, you kind of have a history of underselling yourself.”

POINT TAKEN.

However, I had been speaking since 2013. I had been getting paid for it since 2018. With over 100 speaking engagements under my belt by this time, I was still stunned to get an offer like this.

I shouldn’t have been.

It took me YEARS to understand what I should be doing with my speaking career and I’m only just barely starting to. Even so, I get asked a lot about speaking, how to get paid for it and how to get clients from it.

That’s what this issue is all about. My top 4 lessons on talking out loud for money.

I can get paid for…speaking?

My first talk was in 2013 at the Balanced Team Summit in San Francisco. I gave a talk about whether you could prove the business value of design choices.

There was no strategy behind this. It was just something I was interested in.

Fast forward a decade. I finally get that there needs to be a strategy.

Over the next 11 years, I would go on to give hundreds of talks and workshops. From conferences like Grace Hopper to company retreats like Amplitude’s to guest teaching in programs like Pollen.

Here’s the four things I now keep top of mind when I pursue speaking gigs.

Strategy 1: Your topic is what you become known for

From 2016-2021, I spoke at a bunch of analytics conferences about analytics. Guess what that did? It made me everyone’s go-to for analytics.

✅ I got paid to make content for analytics companies.
✅ I received offers to keep doing analytics talks.
✅ I was recruited by data-heavy companies for contracts and jobs.

💡 Lesson: Choose your talk topics wisely. What you talk about is what people want to “hire you” for over and over again (whether you’re booking more speaking or you want paid clients)

This is why when I posted on LinkedIn recently about sponsorships and I got a couple asks to speak about sponsorships publicly, I said no. Because I don’t want to be known for sponsorships. There’s enough random shit about me on the internet without me adding to the noise. 2025 Lex is FOCUSED UP 😂 

Strategy 2: Speak in rooms where your buyers are

I flew out to Salt Lake City to speak at Pluralsight Live in the summer of 2019.

After my talk, the Head of Global Product Community at American Express walked up and asked if I would speak at one of their internal events.

I remember thinking…oh, this is where y’all have been?

I had spent so many years at design/dev conferences with the underlings. The execs were all at TOTALLY DIFFERENT CONFERENCES.

I also recently learned about “meet the buyer” conferences from Growthtracker Alison Coward (conferences where internal procurement people shop for vendors). What a concept!

💡Lesson: Research who shows up to the events you’re speaking at. Check social feeds like LinkedIn to see who’s talking about attending. Look at past participants, sponsors and speakers. Ask around with your peers and validate that your target audience will be in the room.

Strategy 3: The talk should tee up the ask

I honestly can’t believe how many talks I gave without a call to action. I used to just be like “follow me on Twitter” and then I’d go on to delete that entire account 😂 

I am so deeply unserious sometimes.

One thing I’ve whipped into shape these past two years—tying my ask DIRECTLY to the talk topic.

That means if I’m giving a talk about lead gen, the offer is about lead gen.
If I’m giving a talk about newsletters, the offer is about newsletters.

💡Lesson: Backwards engineer your talks from your offers. My most recent talk “Find your next client” was created to drive people into my membership Growthtrackers. It stands alone but various versions of it drove hundreds of people onto my waitlist and a subset of paying members into the membership.

I like to give a hard sell and a soft sell. Hard sell being “buy this thing” and soft sell being “get this free thing.” But both really need to stem from the talk and carry people towards the transaction I ultimately want from them.

Strategy 4: Move beyond conferences

My highest paid gigs have been for programs or one off events like that fireside chat where I was the only speaker.

This came into focus for me when Jess Ekstrom came by LaShonda Brown’s Bootstrap Creators (of which I am a proud founding member) and showed us the rate card for different types of speaking.

The most I ever was paid by a conference was probably $1500 (not including flight and hotel). That’s nice and all, but it’s not “pay the mortgage” money.

The money is not in conferences. It’s in corporate gigs and private organizations.

💡Lesson: Conferences may be good for lead gen (if buyers are in the room) but they’re not where you’ll get paid the most to speak. For someone like me who doesn’t want to take on clients anymore, I need to find groups setting aside healthy budget ($5k and up) to bring in speakers.

So, wait how do you get paid?

If you want to receive speaking fees, you can get paid when you:

1. Apply to conferences that offer a speaker’s fee (and cover travel)

2. Pitch yourself to corporations where you have a contact. Work your relationships to see which departments or internal groups might be booking this type of speaker!

3. Add yourself to speaker databases (particularly if you are have a marginalized identity or if you have niche expertise—like check out this UX speakers bureau or an org like Women Talk Design.)

4. Tell your network that you offer speaking as a service and are looking for (insert audience and gig type here)

5. Join a public speaking group to find gigs like Toastmasters (Global), the National Speakers Association (US) or do Jess Ekstrom’s virtual program Mic Drop Workshop.

P.S. I recently got back on YouTube and I made this video about why I shut down Growthtrackers, my membership of two years.