Speakers often ask me:  "Why should I apply for my CSP?"

In the TEN years immediately before the year in which you are applying (2015-2024 for the class of 2025 applications):

1. • You must have delivered a minimum of 250 income-producing presentations.
   • Income from same-day sales of products or services count toward calculating total income. This includes digital products, DVDs, coaching programs, books, or upcoming webinars as long as the income is earned or products purchased before midnight on the day of the live presentation.
   • Unpaid or very low fee presentations do not qualify.
   • Presentations must be at least 20 minutes long and at least 75% of content must be your spoken word.
   • 25% of submitted presentations can be delivered to audiences of between 3-14 attendees. 75% of submitted presentations must be delivered to 15 or more attendees.  Audience counts of 3-14 have to be indicated on the spreadsheet; audience counts of 15 or more do not need to be indicated on the spreadsheet.
   • NSA allows presentations made by salaried employees and adjunct faculty (there is a formula that must be used to determine your speaking fee as a salaried employee/faculty and an employment verification letter will be required). If you qualify for salaried presentations, you must be on our retainer service and not hourly service.
   • Live podcasts, webinars, teleconferences, videoconferences, and/or hologram sessions qualify only if the number of live viewers is known and documentable.
   • SESSIONS THAT DO NOT COUNT: Emceeing; coaching; radio or TV broadcasting; Board and manager meetings; Vistage Chair facilitation; or if more than 25 percent of the time is spent entertaining i.e. singing, dancing, juggling, auctioneering, etc.
   • You must attend at least one live NSA or GSF National event.
   • You must complete the following CSP Educational Session Coursework: Professional Competencies Session, Professional Business Ethics Session, and How to Earn Your CSP educational sessions. This process will take approximately 3-4 hours. These videos are available

     Within your ten-year window, choose ANY five years:

     • You must document a minimum of five years in which you earned at least $50,000 in revenue for each year.
     • Years do not have to be consecutive and you can include more than five years as long as you have five years that reflect at least $50,000 in revenue each. Many applicants need more than 5 years to meet both their total number of presentations and revenue.
       
       

MEMBERSHIP – Membership in NSA is no longer required to apply for your CSP. Members do get discounted application fees.

NSA’S PROCESS AT A GLANCE

• • Verification – NSA verifies the information on the presentation spreadsheet then…
  • Evaluation – If you pass the Verification process, you will receive the survey link to email to your evaluators, then…
  • Review – If you pass the Evaluation process, your video is reviewed, then…
  • Notification – You’ll be contacted by NSA advising whether or not your application has been put forward to the next phase.

APPLICATION COMPONENTS AND PROCESS

We’ll send you links to everything you will need.

• CSP Application Interest Form
• Interview with NSA Staff member to review process
• Payment of application fee (non-refundable) – $375 for members; $950 for non-members
• Complete the on-demand “CSP Application Coursework”
• Submit Presentation Spreadsheet
• Confirm ethical guideline compliance & return Oath
• Submit Business Model Form
• Submit Presentation Videos
• Employer Verification Letter if any portion of your income was as an employee

VIDEO EVALUATION – Each video submission is independently evaluated by three reviewers who will complete a standardized evaluation of your video. Reviewers are selected by NSA from a pool of volunteers who hold the CSP designation. All reviewers are required to sign a confidentiality statement prohibiting them from discussing the reviews. Videos are evaluated based on eloquence, platform mechanics, performance mastery and audience engagement. Again, they will review only those videos that meet time requirements and are a timely part of your official application.

For the Class of 2025, there are two video options.

For Option 1, submit two 20-25-minute videos.
For Option 2, submit one 40-45-minute video.

The submitted video must be in your current area of expertise, your own content, and reflect your best work. If you are a keynoter, submit a video of your keynote. If you are a trainer, submit a video of your training session. Video submitted must have been recorded within the past 5 years. Any music, pictures, or other media must be properly licensed. Referenced material, such as books, studies, or quotes, must be properly cited. The video must meet the definition of eloquence – articulate speech, no cursing, no filler words, and no typos in slides.  

The most frequent reasons for failing the video review phase include videos that do not meet the time requirements, successfully demonstrate platform skills, expertise, audience engagement, and ethics, or are accompanied by special requests. Note that the video does not have to be professionally recorded. It is your responsibility to ensure that the video is well-lit, easy to hear, tracks your movements, and shows audience engagement.

One of the biggest hurdles in this application process is when an applicant’s video does not show the candidate in context. Submit a video that shows you engaging the audience with a point that supports the key concepts of your presentation. Presentations read from teleprompters, slides, or handheld notes, and staged videos with a fake audience do not represent CSP-worthy speaking skills.

Videos can be raw footage. It is essential that the individuals reviewing your video can both see and hear you speaking. The audio track must be easily understood. Submitted videos must be trimmed to meet the required time limits. If you need to trim at an awkward point in the video to meet the time requirement, state that in the YouTube Description. It is your responsibility to share the content that (a) meets the criteria, and (b) reflects most positively on you as a speaker. “

The audio track must be continuous with one exception: You may cut audience portions if you make a statement on the video, note this in the description section when uploading your video to YouTube, and indicate that the camera and audio will be off while the audience engages in an exercise. For example, if you give directions to the audience, such as, “You have 10 minutes of work time,” then cut back in when you say, “It’s been 10 minutes. Let’s discuss your work.” Making note of audio cuts avoids the chances of your video being disqualified and dispels any questions of possible ethics violations.  

• Remember NSA’s Four E’s:

  • Expertise – knowledge, skills, and experience
  • Eloquence – the art of speaking
  • Enterprise – the business of speaking
  • Ethics – principles governing the conduct of members

 
INFORMATION GATHERING: For each event on the Presentation Spreadsheet you must have:

• Presentation Date
• Company Name (no acronyms – unless, like IBM, their name is common knowledge)
• Contact Name, Email Address, and Phone (current at the time you last worked for them)
• Evaluator Name and Email Address for the people who have agreed to return the evaluation survey (must be current at the time you submit the application). This person can be the same as the person listed in the contact column, but if you are regularly booked by bureaus who would be listed under the contact section but who don’t actually see you speak, the person who contracted with the bureau would serve as your evaluator if they saw you speak
• Presentation Topic
• Fee or Salary Received** (if listing a Bureau event, list the gross fee the Bureau booked you for)
• Total of any revenue from same-day back-of-room sales.
• Indication if the presentation was virtual; separate indication if delivered to an audience of 3-14 attendees

**If you are including speaking done as a salaried employee/adjunct professor, there is a formula to use to determine your per-event speaking fee. We will discuss this if it is applicable.

GOOD TO KNOW ABOUT THE EVALUATION/SURVEY PROCESS:

Evaluators MUST “be familiar with your work and hold the decision-making authority to hire you for future presentations.”  They cannot simply be an audience member. 

We work with our applicants to create a strategy using the evaluation process to reconnect with their former clients.

If 20 responses are not returned by the deadline, your application will be rejected. This is why we recommend including at least 30 evaluators.

FEES PAYABLE TO NSA:

• $375 – First-time new application fee if you are a member –  $950 if you are not a member
• $200 – Resubmission fee

RENEWING YOUR CSP: Your CSP must be renewed every five years to remain active.  In the five years between receiving and renewing your CSP you must:

• Earn 24 Education Credits by attending the Annual Convention or Workshops, Winter Meetings, Labs and/or Summits. You can mix and match events and activities to reach your 24 Education Credits. Each event/activity is assigned a different number of credits; for instance:
• National Convention, full registration – 8 Credits per year
• Winter Conference, Media Lab, and Tech Lab, full registration – 4 Credits each per year
• CSP/CPAE Summit – 8 credits
• Local Chapter Membership – 1 credit per year, maximum 5 credits
• Local Chapter Presentation (1 hour or more) – 3 credits
• Chapter Meeting Attendance – 1 credit per event, up to 12 credits annually
• Complete the CSP Applicant Oath
• Pay $200 administrative fee

GOOD TO KNOW ABOUT LIFETIME STATUS:

Lifetime CSP status is granted if you meet all three requirements:

• You are more than 65 years of age or older
• You have renewed your CSP at least once
• You have completed the CSP Applicant Oath

WHAT WE DO:

Each speaker’s application process is different. Some need us – a lot – and want us to handle all data entry and they send us their paper calendar, paper invoices, and address book or (hopefully) links to information online and they want us to submit the application. Sometimes NSA requests a written business model. If your speaking model is different, then it’s good to go ahead and provide it. Others have completed the data entry in either eSpeakers or on a spreadsheet and all they are looking for is an experienced eye to look over their application and return it to them so they can submit it.

Depending on the option you choose below, we are responsible for:

• Consulting with you and/or your staff by phone and/or email as often as needed to discuss the process, the criteria, as well as answering your questions 
• Performing any data entry as needed and making certain that all information entered by us and/or by you/your staff meets NSA criteria
• Compiling, generating, and analyzing all required components; providing NSA with a criteria overview
• We will work with you on best practices and will provide email templates you can use when contacting your clients and evaluators prior to the submission of your application
• If you are a retainer applicant, we will email all required components and submit the online portion of the application to NSA on or before the January 10, 2022 deadline. This is dependent on your providing information to us on the timeline below
• Being available after submission to answer any questions you or NSA may have about your application
• Continuing to assist you, if needed, after submission through notification.

 

GOOD TO KNOW ABOUT OUR FEES:

The best option for you is to get your materials, the signed agreement, and payment to us by November 1 so you can take advantage of our early-bird rate.  After November 1, the amount due is based on the date we receive the materials. When materials are received, we will invoice you based on that date; the invoice is payable via ACH securely through our system.

OUR FEES: Because speakers can need different levels of assistance, we offer two options:

HOURLY OPTION – YOU CAN DO MOST OF THIS YOURSELF:
In this hourly option, you and/or your admin staff have mad spreadsheet skills and are extremely detail-oriented. In this option you do ALL of the data entry. Kate will run data evaluation processes to ensure accuracy; you will have gathered all of the support material, written your business model, uploaded your video, and completed the online CSP Oath. Once we have looked it over, made changes, completed the sub-totals, and have finalized it for submission, we will return it to you for confirmation before we submit it to NSA. If you need assistance after submission, we will invoice you every 30 days at the original hourly rate. 

If you choose the hourly option, upon signing the agreement, we will send you an invoice for a deposit equivalent to 2 hours time (e.g. $190) to be paid via ACH through our secure online invoice. The remainder of the time spent on your application will be invoiced upon submission to NSA. 

Final materials received by:

Nov 1, 2024: Early Bird rate: $95.00 per hour
Nov 2 – Dec 1, 2024: $105.00 per hour
Dec 2 – Dec 31, 2024: $135.00 per hour
Jan 1 – Jan 5, 2025: $165 per hour
Jan 6 – Jan 9, 2025: $205 per hour subject to availability
Jan 10, 2025: Go ahead and buy me a Lamborghini. Seriously, if I can help you I will, but the rate for that date begins at $300 per hour and increases depending on what time you get me your materials and how complete your materials are. I have worked as late as 2:30AM EDT on the deadline date to ensure an ill-prepared speaker still got their application in on time (they received their CSP that year!).  I really hope to not do that again!.

RETAINER OPTION – SPREADSHEETS MAKE YOU QUEASY!
 If you would rather have the full assistance experience – whether you need data entry, consultation on best practices about how to contact former clients, leveraging evaluators into repeat clients, assistance with creating your business model, etc. we have an initial retainer fee starting at $775.00.  Our retainer service is required if you are submitting using salary-based presentations/income. This retainer fee covers up to 10 hours. Any hours more than 10 will be invoiced monthly.

Our retainer is based on when we initially receive the bulk of your materials, signed agreement, and payment. Retainer schedule is below: