Getting Paid for One Speech in Preparation for The Joy of Not Working Speech to 2,500 People in Istanbul

[Ernie Zelinski]

Photo of Istanbul

This started with an e-mail I received in April:

Good morning,

My client KalDer has asked about availability and fee for Ernie Zelinski to participate at their 17th Annual Congress in Istanbul, 24th - 26th November 2008.

KalDer is the Turkish National Quality Organization.

Their annual congress brings together approximately 2,500 persons from the Turkish business community, academics, students and journalists.

I would be pleased to provide you with additional information and look forward to hearing from you.

Speakers Bureau International

As I pondered whether I wanted to consider going to Istanbul and what I should charge (initially I was thinking of $1,500 plus all expenses including busines class travel) I got a call from the Speakers Bureau.

Asked what I would charge, I said $2,500 for a one-hour speech, business class travel from Edmonton to Istanbul, and all associated expenses including meals. I was told that I would be paid $3,000 plus all expenses.

I still didn't know if I wanted to go but when my friend Michael Attwood and his wife Willy who live in Vancouver said they would likely fly to Istanbul and be there the 3 days that I would be there, I decided to give this a little more consideration.

After it was confirmed that I could be put up at the Ritz-Carlton in Istanbul for three nights in a suite, I decided to take this gig seriously even posting as an important speaking event on Morgan James Publishing. and an important event at Ernie Zelinski's Book Tour.

No doubt the interest in having me make this one-hour speech came about because of my book The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed, and Overworked which has been published in 17 languages including Turkish.

The cover of the Turkish edition is shown below:

I thought about a number of topics that I could address:

• Being Fired from Your Job Means That Your Good Luck Has Just Begun
• The Joy of Not Working Nine to Five
• Retirement Planning Made Easy
• Developing Your Creativity at the Best Retirement Jobs
• The Joy of Being Unemployed
• Retirement Dinner Speeches to Blow Your Audience Away and Retirement Letters to Kiss Your Job Goodbye
• Career Success Without a Real Job
• Creative Free E-books for Innovative Marketing

Whatever the topics that I choose to talk about in Istanbul, I may have a chance to tune up my speech-making abilities and get paid at the same time. Since receiving the inquiry from KalDer to make a speech about The Joy of Not Working in Istanbul, I received this e-mail:

Subject: Possible Speaking Engagement

Mr. Zelinski:

At NettWorth Financial Group, you are regarded as somewhat of a celebrity. All of our Representatives have read your book, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.

We now make it a practice to give this book out to our clients on every financial planning appointment. We would love the opportunity to speak with you about a speaking engagement at our fall conference in Dallas, TX. The dates for this conference are September 17 & 18, 2008. We would like to discuss what it would take to get you to our conference, what type of presentation you would like to do and the logistics involved.

Our President of Field Operations would like the opportunity to contact you directly to discuss this possibility. Please let me know how we may contact you. Thank you,

Donna Castleberry

NettWorth Financial Group

Director of Rep Services

I have since spoken to the President of Field Operations at Nettworth Financial Group on the phone and found out that they have purchased over 1,000 copies of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get From Your Financial Adviser.

Nettworth Financial Group is now considering bringing me to Dallas as a keynote speaker.

This will be a great place to tune up my speech making abilities for the speech that I have to make about The Joy of Not Working in Istanbul

Just a note that, another prominent financial organization in the U.S. has recently purchased 500 copies of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free for its sales reps and will soon be testing the book by having a special print run of 1,000 copies with the company's logo on the cover to give to its baby boomer clients.

If the initial baby boomer clients like How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free , the financial organization may eventually purchase 50,000 to 100,000 copies of the book with its logo on the cover to give to its clients. This financial organization has asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement, however, so that its competitors don't get wind of its marketing strategy at this time. This is so cool to me given that my book was rejected by over 35 publishers - and largely ignored by the media.

The Retirement Book That Was Rejected by 35 American Publishers Has Now Sold Over 90,000 Copies and Has Been Published in 7 Foreign Languagues