Ed Rigsbee has been a professional speaker for over 30 years. He learned early that he had to find the right decision maker and then sell himself to the associations that were looking for a speaker for their meeting. He now helps other speakers find their ideal clients and book speaking engagements.
He is involved in a variety of associations and has learned himself by doing and being involved.
“I got into association management about 20 years ago when we started the Cigar PEG charity, which is connected to the National Speakers Association. Because I am the executive director, I have become involved in the American Society of Association Executives.”
One day every week he hosts a Zoom call with Association and Society CEOs, which allows them a place to talk about issues they are facing in their organizations. He also hosts a zoom call for speakers that helps them sell their services to associations that may need a keynote address, or speaker for their meeting, or convention. If that isn’t enough as the Chief Executive of the Cigar PEG Philanthropy through Fun Charity he oversees fund raising efforts and event coordination.
“Today, I’m running an association CEO group, a speaker’s group that wants to sell to associations and the Cigar PEG group all via Zoom calls.”
A big part of his life over the past 23 years has been the Cigar PEG Charity which he co-founded with Grant Doyle in 1999. The first Cigar PEG party was held during the National Speakers Association (NSA) convention in San Antonio. They raised $900.00 that was donated to NSA Foundation and earmarked for the Professional Speaker Benefit Fund.
Charitable events and auctions conducted by the group has continued to generate funds. As of April, 2022 the Cigar PEG has donated a total of $736,400. Of that total, $395,000 has been given to the NSA Foundation with the balance distributed to a variety of worthy charities including, the Hereditary Disease Foundation, the Cardiac Arrhythmias Research & Education Foundation, the American Cancer Society and CurePSP.
Today Ed keeps busy with efforts to educate speakers to become better businessmen and women. He has combined materials from his “Selling to Associations” website along with other previously prepared training programs to create a place for speakers called the Association & Society Speakers Community (ASSC).
“These materials help speakers find more engagements. They outline how to do interviews with association decision makers, the people that do the hiring. We have workshops and weekly zoom calls. My goal is to show speakers where and how to go get business.”
There are over 100,000 associations and societies, in the United States, that book speakers every year. Ed has received several successes stories from students.
“One lady was so happy that she followed our process and reached out to a banker’s association and got booked as a speaker for one of their women’s meetings. I told her that was great, but don’t stop there. We explored what other meetings that association conducted that would need speakers.”
Ed has found that like every other business each person has to dig deeper into a specific industry. The shotgun approach rarely works. Focus on one or two industries and drill down to the specifics.
Ed’s tips for budding speakers to be more successful include being specific in what areas you want to work and then drill down on the important associations and societies in a general area of the country that you can research to discover the types of meetings they hold and contact information.
Another way Ed has gained speaking engagements is to create an informative Article Bank. Keep it updated and add not only personally written content, but content that is permitted to be shared by other writers.
“Once a prospective client called me and told me that they had read an article I had written on partnering, in Kitchen & Bath Magazine. I had never written an article for that publication, but I had posted the piece to my website and granted blanket permission to reuse the article. Kitchen & Bath had reprinted it and the client had seen it when googling the subject. He hired me to speak to the Association’s Board of Directors on the topic.”
Ed feels that he is in a great spot in his life. COVID definitely changed the way he runs his business, but he still enjoys spending time with his NSA pals over cigars and adult beverages. He enjoys his business and finds it fun still today.
“I’ve evolved to a really cool place, or maybe I’m just really boring. A lot of the things that I do in my business is fun. I like these kinds of interviews and running the Society and Association Speaker community, as well as, the Cigar PEG.”
Ed Rigsbee has spent his career speaking to various groups and conventions. He understands the business side of the business and can help less experienced speakers find speaking engagements and Soar to Success.
We enjoyed our conversation with Ed. You can watch the podcast on YouTube or listen on iTunes.
If you would like to talk with Ed directly and learn more about his efforts to help speakers grow their business visit his website: https://speakercommunity.org/ or email him at: edrigsbee@gmail.com
If you would like to learn more about the charitable work of Cigar PEG visit the website: https://cigarpeg.com/
