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 they’re willing to provide these benefits to you.

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

Wouldn’t 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 you’re good, the Rotarian will ask if you’re available to talk before another nonprofit group to which he belongs.

You’ll stay busy, of course, but where is the payday in all of this, you’ll come to wonder.

Let me mention, and I’ll 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 you’re giving can be considered one that is done for compensation.

Or, if you’re addressing otherwise hard to reach executives when they’re in a mood to listen, as they may be at a meeting of their favorite charity or university, well, you couldn’t really BUY that exposure, so yes, in a sense, that audience’s 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 you’re making progress.

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