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In this episode, Dr. Barbara Hales talks with Jane Atkinson about scaling a speaking career using tested strategies from decades in the industry.

  • Jane Atkinson, founder of The Wealthy Speaker School, shares how she’s helped countless speakers—from newcomers to $30K-per-gig pros—grow their careers through innovative coaching, strategic branding, and consistent content marketing.
  • She recounts her journey from an inspired 25-year-old who saw Les Brown on TV to becoming a speaker agent and then a top-tier coach in the speaking industry.
  • Jane explains how free speaking engagements, layered marketing, and powerful lead magnets like quizzes and downloadable guides have been essential in growing visibility and trust.
  • She emphasizes the value of “promise statements,” niche positioning, and testimonials that reflect real, outcome-based transformations—not just charisma.
  • Jane also highlights the importance of personal branding, clear messaging, and reputation management (via reviews or LinkedIn testimonials) for long-term success.
  • Her advice applies beyond speakers, helping professionals like doctors stand out by narrowing their focus, marketing with purpose, and building strong follow-up systems.

Key Takeaway:
 “Pick a lane and stand tall in your expertise. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Clarity and focus make you the go-to expert.” – Jane Atkinson

Connect with Jane Atkinson:
 🌐 Website: www.SpeakerLauncher.com
 🎙️ Podcast: The Wealthy Speaker Podcast
📧 Contact: Via website contact form
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/speakerlauncher

Connect with Barbara Hales:

Twitter:   @DrBarbaraHales

Facebook:   facebook.com/theMedicalStrategist

Business Website: www.TheMedicalStrategist.com

Show website:   www.MarketingTipsForDoctors.com

Email:   Barbara@TheMedicalStrategist.com

Books:

YouTube: TheMedicalStrategist

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/barbarahales

 

TRANSCRIPTION

Introduction to the Episode

Dr. Barbara Hales (00:02)
Welcome to another episode of marketing tips for doctors. I’m your host. Dr. Barbara Hales, today we have with us Jane Atkinson, very interesting and well-accomplished person. Jane has been helping speakers catapult their careers for more than 30 years. She’s the author of The Wealthy Speaker 3.0, The Epic Keynote, The Wealthy Speaker Daily Success Planner and Journal, and Scaling Your Speaking Business. So she has been busy prior to coaching. Jane worked as an agent for several speakers whose careers skyrocketed. She also served as vice president of a speakers’ bureau in Dallas, where she represented several celebrities, bestselling authors, and business experts. Jane is the founder of The Wealthy Speaker School, which helps speakers build the businesses of their dreams through their course community masterminds and private coaching. Welcome to the show, Jane.

Jane Atkinson (01:09)
 Thank you, Barbara, thank you so much for having me.

How Jane Got Started in the Speaking Industry

Dr. Barbara Hales (01:13)
 How did this all get started for you? How did you decide to become a speaker?

Jane Atkinson (01:19)
 Well, I was 25 years old and just—and I’m 61 now, so that gives you a little bit of time frame. And I was just trying to figure out where I what I wanted to do next. I had had, I was the queen of jobs. I’d had all kinds of jobs, and I was working on a contract for 3M and I saw a motivational speaker on TV, Les Brown. He did his Live Your Dreams keynote, and I was hooked. I recorded it on VHS, and I watched it over and over and over again, and I thought that’s what I want to do next. I want to go and work for a motivational speaker. And just by nature of kind of putting it out there, I ended up, I told somebody at 3M that that was my—oh, my best friend who used to work at 3M as a VP just left and has become a professional speaker. You should go work for her, and that’s what ended up happening. And the rest is kind of history. I was an agent for the first half of my career, and I’ve been a coach for the second half, which is over 30 years.

Challenges Faced When Starting Out in the Industry

Dr. Barbara Hales (03:07)
 What were the biggest challenges you faced when starting out, and how did you overcome them?

Jane Atkinson (03:13)
 Well, my first job as an agent, my boss, who was the former 3M person, had written a book and gone out and done a whole bunch of free speaking, and then she got this big contract to go and work for Chrysler. So she handed me a stack of business cards and said, I’ll be back in six weeks. Here you go. So it was kind of sink or swim, and it was just at that time, I would pick up the phone and kind of make 30, 40, 50 calls a day and just see if I could get my speaker booked. And of course, I wasn’t very good in the beginning. That was certainly a challenge not having that skill and expertise to smoothly conduct myself. But I did exactly what Les Brown had said. I kind of sat at the feet of the masters of the industry, and I really learned from them, and that was a game changer, and that whole continuous improvement idea has served me quite well over the last 35 years.

Turning Point for Jane in Her Coaching Career

Dr. Barbara Hales (04:30)
 What was the turning point or pitfall moment that helped you transition from startup to success? How did you seize that opportunity?

Jane Atkinson (04:42)
 Well, if we fast forward to when I started out as a coach on my own, so I worked for other people for the first 15 years, and when I started out as a coach on my own, I think my mind. That was probably even beyond my level of skill. So when I was getting trained as a coach at CTI, which is Coaches Training Institute, I remember asking the instructor how much he charged as a coach, and he told me, I don’t know, 300, 350 dollars an hour, or something like that. And I thought, Okay, well, I’m gonna blow that away. And so I was quite confident in my skills because so many people had already come to me and asked me for advice on how to get booked as a speaker. And so I immediately started charging more, and I have continued to, you know, grow and evolve. But I would say it was probably my, my confidence, that served me quite well in the beginning.

Promoting Yourself and Gaining Visibility

Dr. Barbara Hales (05:54)
 What are the—you know, even though you may have been wonderful, you know, very few people probably knew about you when you first started out, right? How did you promote yourself so that you increase visibility? And had people say, yeah, she’s great. She’s the one I want?

Jane Atkinson (06:14)
 In the early days, I went out and this is so applicable for your audience. I went out and spoke for free. So from all of this places where speakers gathered, I did Toastmasters, audiences. I did every National Speakers Association, state audience, state chapter here in Canada, I did the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, chapter after chapter. I’ve been almost, you know, to, let’s say, 50 different chapters. And that was a really good business builder for many, many years. But my marketing strategy has always been layered. It’s never been just one thing for so for many years, I spoke for free, social media kicked in that has become something that is just an ongoing thing. We do reels every week. We do posts every week. I have given away a university’s worth of content through my blog, through my own podcast. I have a podcast called The Wealthy Speaker Podcast, and I have been doing that for over a decade, and just giving away interviewing people, drawing out the nuggets and giving it away for free. That has always been a part of my strategy.

Back-End Business and Lead Magnets

Dr. Barbara Hales (07:49)
 So for our listeners, I’d like to point out that free is not actually free for a number of reasons, for all the things that you could get from, you know, engaging the audience with your free talk, one of which, of course, is if you’re trying to build up your practice, people are listening to you and saying, Wow, this is an authority, like in his or her field, and this is someone that, you know, I would feel very comfortable with, and that I would like to seek out, that they have the answers. But listen to that. They also do like back end business. Can you tell them about that?

Jane Atkinson (08:33)
 Lots of people will speak for back end. But in my world, lots of people also, just to clarify, lots of people also speak for fees. I have speakers who are charging $500 and I have speakers who are charging $30,000 per speech. Okay, so just know that that’s pretty varied. People who have a set of offerings. Can go out and speak to an audience. So I would prefer people to be quite strategic about it. So let’s say that you’re trying to build a chiropractic office. You want to maybe you have a group of insurance, local insurance agents or people who could maybe refer to you, physical therapists, whatever it might be, and you could go and speak to them, and the back end would be that they would come and use your services. I have had a lot of back end products for my speaking. I have a school that people can join. We have a mastermind that we run a lot of classes and things on every month, and I have books and other things so lots of people will do it for back of room. Room. We call it that’s when you’re selling books and products back of room. But then there’s also follow-ons from there. Did I answer that question?

Dr. Barbara Hales (10:09)
 Yes, you did. But okay, to just make it a little more clear. Okay, you know, if a doctor had, you know, like additional products or services to their office, like, let’s say they also had an esthetic spa, or they had white label, you know, skin creams, or they had additional products that were in sync with their services. The back end would be where people listening get to know about it and maybe try it out, or, you know, a way for them to additionally purchase those products and services.

Personal Branding and Testimonials

Jane Atkinson (12:56)
 Well, reputation is really everything in your industry and my industry, and I think getting testimonials and other people to say it for you. So if you’re doing a marketing piece, you say it and then you back it up with a testimonial that kind of says what it is. Now, in my world, we’ll massage this. You can help me massage this. In my world, we don’t necessarily want testimonials that say this person is a good speaker. What we’re looking for are kind of outcome-oriented testimonials. I went to this doctor and I became—not, not were they a nice doctor, great bedside manner, but they fixed my problem, absolutely, my pain. And so figure out what the pain points are, and then get testimonials that will allow people to see that you can fix their problems.

Dr. Barbara Hales (14:05)
 Right for many doctors, the testimonial, it actually comes down to rankings and reviews, because even if you are referred to a doctor by your family or by doctors that you’re currently going to by your like nail salon people, nobody actually goes to the doctor that they get a referral from unless they’ve gone online first and looked at the rankings and reviews. If someone has none, it’s very unlikely that an appointment will be made for that doctor. So, yeah, more than just like a testimonial, like rankings and reviews are so important for doctors to have.

Strategy for Doctors Looking to Improve Marketing

Dr. Barbara Hales (15:19)
 If a doctor wanted to improve their marketing today, what is one quick and impactful strategy they can implement immediately?

Jane Atkinson (15:19)
 Well, we have this thing called a promise statement that I think crosses over nicely into your industry. And when I come to see about you, whether it be on LinkedIn or whether it be on your website, I want to see immediately, kind of what your secret sauce is, what is your specialty? And I actually think doctors probably are a little reluctant to go more narrow on that. But when I know that this doctor is perfect for, you know, pregnant women having this problem, they’re going to have a sea of pregnant women in their waiting room because they have specified that. And so I would say, be clear on the promise is, and how narrow you go is going to be completely up to you and your fearlessness. But, yeah, be clear on the promise.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Marketing

Dr. Barbara Hales (16:23)
 I think that that’s an excellent suggestion. What’s a common mistake professionals make when trying to market themselves, and how can doctors avoid it in their practice?

Jane Atkinson (16:37)
 What is a mistake a lack of clarity and trying to be all things to all people. So in my world, if I look at a speaker’s website and they have 10 speeches that they could offer, I will think to myself, This person is a jack of all trades and a master of none. If they have three offerings, boom, boom, boom, that all kind of fall under the same umbrella, maybe, like it’s, oh, they’re all related to leadership, or they’re all related to communication, or whatever it might be, then I will come to see that person as an expert. And so I think being standing tall in your expertise and picking a lane is probably the best suggestion that I have.

Closing and Contact Information

Dr. Barbara Hales (17:38)
 Oh, absolutely, if someone hearing you today says, you know, I could really use some coaching lessons, or, you know, I’d like to check out the school that she has. How would people reach you?

Jane Atkinson (17:54)
 They can come to me at SpeakerLauncher.com, they can write to me from there, they can get a whole bunch of goodies. Our blog is there with lots of topics, our podcast is there, and just let us know what you’re after, and we’ll book a call and see what’s a fit.

Dr. Barbara Hales (18:16)
 And no worries if you didn’t catch it from the podcast, because we do have that URL in our show notes. Great. Well, Jane, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today, and you know, I hope to speak with you again in the near future.

Jane Atkinson (18:39)
 Thank you so much. Thank you.

Dr. Barbara Hales (18:39)

This has been another episode of marketing tips for doctors with your host, Dr Barbara Hales, please subscribe so that you can join our growing community and get to hear more tips as time goes on, please like and share as well till next time you.