If you plan on speaking for a living then you cannot ignore the fact that you need a demo video. Event planners are going to want to see you speak in front of an audience. So….how do you create a motivational speaking demo video that gets you booked?

I’m about to embarrass myself, but I don’t care because I think it’ll help if I show you examples of some of my first demo videos. Hopefully this will show you how I’ve grown over the years as a speaker.

Note: I’ve used all of these videos to land paid speaking engagements.

Speaking Demo Video | 2009
This video loses an event planner within seconds. Why? I don’t speak until 2:30 into the video. So for over two minutes you can only hear music and watch text and video.

Speaking Demo Video | 2010
This video is better because I’m actually speaking and you can see that the students were engaged. The problem with the video is that it’s nine minutes long. Event planners want to see a sneak peek, not your full presentation. Keep that in mind, think trailer or teaser to a movie however you are teasing using your speech.

Speaking Demo Video | 2010
This video starts with rap music. Remember at this point, I hadn’t been trained yet. I was creating marketing material that I thought was appealing to students when I should’ve been trying to appeal to event planners.

First Bullying Speaking Demo Video | 2010
This video is too short. Only a little over a minute long but it gives snippets of my speech right away. I was able to book some gig with this video. Plus it shows me speaking to middle school students putting me at a higher level than just elementary school students. Side note: I was working full-time in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and I did this gig during my lunch break. I went back to work right after this presentation. I was just flexing the muscle called hustle 🙂


Second Bullying Speaking Demo Video | 2011
This video started to land me more business. Want to know why? It’s because my personality came out more in this video. I love to make students laugh and this video helped me show event planners that I could engage them. This was shot using a flip video that I put on a tripod. I hit record when they were introducing me and I stopped recording when I walked off stage. The struggle was real!

After going through the Youth Speaker University speaker training

Third Bullying Speaking Demo Video | 2011
This video launched my speaking career. I finally learned what event planners wanted to see in a video. Not only that but I actually hired a videographer to film my speech and get good audio. This video has over 50K views and most were event planners. Having a good video helped me to raise my speaking fee and school administrators took me a lot more serious.

Fourth and Current Bullying Speaking Demo Video | 2013
I finally saved up enough money to hire an award winning videographer who understood my target market. We worked for months talking about my video and what I wanted the final product to look like. I wanted to draw out emotions from the viewer using the song and reactions from students. This demo video has kept me on top of the minds of most event planners looking for a speaker in the bullying niche. A great video combined with an amazing website will take you and keep you on top of your industry.

It’s about time for me to create another demo video. Who knows what kind of tricks I’ll include in the next demo. Whatever I do, I know I’m going to make it appeal to event planners first and foremost.