Appearance fee engagements are great - if you can get them. Unfortunately, that's not the reality for most speakers. The Colin Powells, Norman Schwartzkoffs, and Bill Clinton's of the speaking world are few and far between.

Which means your ability to make money is almost entirely predicated on your ability to sell your products and/or services from the platform.

If you haven't invested in training for yourself yet on how to sell from the platform I suggest you check out what John Childers or Tom Antion has to offer to help you develop your platform selling skills.

But what are you selling from the stage? If you're approaching your business the correct way you're continually building your own information products empire in your area of expertise That means you're producing books or manuals, or audio and video-based training materials.

Maybe it's CDs or DVDs. Doesn't matter. The important thing is you've got a number of products you can promote via you speaking engagements, through your website, by joint venturing, or by any other number of methods.

Now let's ask the tough question. If you're having any degree of success you are now wearing all of these hats (and more):

- public speaker

- marketer of your speaking services

- information product developer

- shipping clerk

- CD or tape duplicator

- binder assembler

- customer service manager

- order taker

- travel planner

So, you've got to ask yourself which of these hats should you be wearing? Where should you be applying your time and efforts to maximize your business?

When you're first starting out you probably should do it all yourself. You need to have an understanding of what is involved in producing and delivering your products to your customers.

But if your business is growing you'll quickly find out that too much of your time is being spent on the mundane tasks - copying binders (or running to Kinko's), duplicating CDs and labeling them, packaging things together, putting products in boxes, running down to the post office or UPS, etc.

Which means you're not spending your time where you get the biggest bang for your buck -public speaking and the marketing of your speaking services.

When is the right time to outsource your duplication and fulfillment requirements? Ultimately, you will have to decide when that time is for yourself. But what do you value your time at? $100 per hour, $200 per hour, more? Then how long does it make sense for you to be spending your time doing $10 or $20 per hour tasks?

If you're spending an hour per day running products to the post office that is one hour you are not investing in your real bread and butter. And what is your opportunity cost?

When you're spending time working in your business rather than working on your business then opportunities will slip by without you even noticing them. There is a time when outsourcing your product duplication and fulfillment requirements makes sense - both from a time management and a financial standpoint. When is that time right for you?