Let’s start the year with a brutal fact: People don’t know what buy from you if they don’t know what you’re selling to them.
Over the past 20 years as a professional motivational speaker, I’ve met people from different walks of life. I’ve spoken to the people from the ground up—from rank-and-file to executives to business owners. What I found common is, they know exactly what they are selling.
Here’s what I mean.
Imagine yourself as a product. You don’t appear just by magic. You’re built from scratch. You’re assembled. You’re packaged. You’re quality-checked. You’re shipped out for distribution. You’re sold.

Filipino motivational speaker Lloyd Luna on selling yourself
Your manufacturer knows your specifications. They know how much it cost them to build you. Then they put a price tag based on how much they want to make on top of that cost.
But unlike those products we buy from the shelves, most of us don’t have someone to tell the world how much we are worth. This is where most problems arise. Everyday we sell ourselves, yet, we don’t know exactly how much we can sell ourselves. The ending is rather painful.
We either aren’t sold—meaning people don’t buy us and we are left on the shelves or, we are sold for a price way less than what we truly deserve.
To start the year 2025, my motivational advice is this: Take inventory of yourself—what you are, what you have, your skills, your talents, your value. And then take a bold step to put a price on yourself and be comfortable with it.
In the professional speaking circuit, I’ve met a lot of motivational speakers who have the talent and the skill and inspiring stories. They worked so hard trying to learn how to speak in public and present their stories and insights. Yet, when they are asked how much they’d charge for an hour of motivational speaking, their answer is, “It depends on your budget?”
This is a clear case of a good product with bad, little, or no marketing. And this can be frustrating time and again. Without the intention to study the speaking business, this is a hopeless case, too.
Precisely because if no one knows what you’re selling and for how much, why and how they will buy you?