“Major conference organizers get inundated with unsolicited proposals, letters of introduction, cold calls, videotapes, and press kits from would-be speakers, and most are never given a second thought,” says Amy Dorn Kopelan, who runs Bedlam Entertainment, a New York City conference management company. “The fact is, 99% of the time, major conference planners go with someone who's famous, someone they already know, someone they've heard speak before, or someone who comes recommended by people they trust. Like casting directors, conference producers don't want to take a chance on unknowns unless they come with very good buzz.”

“I think the biggest mistake people make when they decide to try and get on the speaking circuit is not being realistic,” says Kopelan, president of New York based Bedlam Entertainment.

Kopelan says that too many delusional “experts” believe there are millions of people dying to hear what they have to say because they have written a book or have a new project, when in truth, many people will be saying to themselves 10 minutes into the speech, “Let me out of this room.”

“These people have not thought about how to captivate an audience,” she says. “You've got to take your material and make it commercially viable.”

Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani make more than $100,000 a speech, but most businesspeople would happily accept a few sales leads as payment. If you're among them, Amy Kopelan, founder of conference-management company Bedlam Entertainment in New York, has some advice.

Don't snub smaller venues such as colleges, chambers of commerce, places of worship, or local professional organizations. Good buzz leads to bigger gigs. Avoid tired topics such as leadership when you pitch to organizers. Instead, identify a new trend, or choose a topical subject such as managing during a company layoff. Tailor your message to your audience, and avoid sleep-inducing PowerPoint presentations.

Four all-too-common mistakes can prevent conferences from having their intended impact, according to Amy Kopelan, President of Bedlam Entertainment, a New York conference management company. These pitfalls are especially frustrating because they can be avoided at little or no additional cost, Kopelan said

Certain blunders are practically taken for granted, observed Kopelan, a former programming executive for ABC Television. “Moderators will eat up 15% of each presentation with speaker introductions; at least one speaker will give a canned address that doesn’t talk to point of the conference; a session will start late and run over; a piece of standard presentation equipment will fail; or a break-out session will be over-crowded. Conference-goers have come to expect failings like these, and unfortunately by not preventing them conference organizers miss a critical opportunity to build their brand, stir up positive word-of-mouth and encourage future conference turnout.”