Carol Cox: We're continuing our new series Booked
Without Burnout.
In this episode, we're looking at how to get
speaking invitations to come to you on this
episode of the Speaking Your Band podcast.
More and more women are making an impact by
starting businesses, running for office,
and speaking up for what matters.
With my background as a TV political analyst,
entrepreneur, and speaker,
I interview and coach purpose driven women to
shape their brands, grow their companies,
and become recognized as influencers in their
field. This is speaking your brand,
your place to learn how to persuasively
communicate your message to your audience.
Hey there and welcome to the Speaking Your
Brand podcast. I'm your host,
Carol Cox. This is part two of our new series
on how you can land more speaking engagements
without burnout.
In the last episode, I walked you through
outbound strategies.
Those are things that you do when you are
pitching yourself.
Today we're talking about inbound strategies,
how to set yourself up.
So speaking invitations come to you.
In the next episode we'll go over how to get
paid to speak.
Let's go ahead and dive in and talk about
inbound strategies you can start using now so
that you get emails in your inbox or messages
in LinkedIn that say something like,
we found your website or your LinkedIn
profile. We're looking for a speaker for our
event and you seem like a perfect fit.
Here's strategy.
Number one is build a strong digital
presence. So this is your speaker page on
your website and your LinkedIn profile.
Think of your digital presence as your
storefront. If an event organizer stumbles
across your name, what will they see?
Do they instantly know you're a speaker,
what topics you cover,
and how to contact you?
Here's what to do on your speaker page.
On your website, make sure that you have a
clear list of topics that you speak on and
the audiences you serve.
This also helps a lot with SEO,
search engine optimization,
and a lot of times event organizers are doing
Google searches or LinkedIn searches to find
speakers for their particular topic.
So make sure you have those topic titles and
descriptions on your speaker page.
Also, include photos and video clips of you
speaking. Now, these video clips don't have
to be fancy. If you have a really nice
speaker reel, of course,
definitely embed that on your speaker page.
But even if you don't,
video clips from your iPhone will be just
fine. This is why I highly recommend that no
matter what type of speaking engagement that
you're doing, no matter the size of the
event, always set up your phone on a tripod
and then get you speaking.
I like to get the backs of one part of the
audience, in addition to having myself kind
of in the center of the frame.
So that way it's obvious that there's an
audience there, and you can see people either
laughing or raising their hands or nodding
along. So that's a good angle to use,
and then you can take some of those video
clips and add them to your speaker page.
Of course, also make sure that you have
contact information so that it's easy for
people to reach out to you with your email
address or a contact form.
I've included a link in the show notes to my
own speaker page that you can see how mine is
laid out. And then, of course,
there's LinkedIn. This is where I have been
found and booked multiple times,
including a keynote that paid $7,500.
So LinkedIn is a really powerful tool that
you can use. A couple of things to do is in
your LinkedIn profile headline.
Make sure to add the word speaker or put
keynote speaker in your about section.
Add the topics that you speak about and then
some of the audiences that you serve,
or in particular industries that your topics
are a good fit for.
And then finally in your employment section
where it has your different job history,
if you own your own company,
it probably says something in there like
founder or CEO.
Yeo also put a job role in within your
company as a keynote speaker or a workshop
facilitator, because that way you can add
even more information about the topics that
you speak on, some testimonials from past
audience members, and so on.
So that is strategy number one.
Make sure you have a really strong and up to
date digital presence.
Strategy number two is to get involved in
your local community and in your industry.
Relationships are the key to getting speaking
engagements, especially the ones that come to
you. Many of my speaking invitations have not
come from cold pitches,
but from being involved in my local
community, such as serving on boards,
volunteering for committees,
and showing up at events.
Why is this so important?
Because familiarity plus trust plus
availability means that less thinking is
required on the part of the event organizer.
When they already know you or someone they
know knows you.
It's easy for them to select you than having
to go search for someone else.
Here's a personal example.
I was first on the TV news as a political
analyst way back in 2005.
I cannot believe it's been 20 years and I
have been on for pretty much ever,
and I have been on for every presidential
election cycle since 2008.
The local TV news still calls me in 20 years
later. Why?
Because they know my name.
They have my number, and they trust that I'll
show up and do a great job.
It's the same for speaking.
If you want more invitations,
the ones that land in your inbox,
get involved where decisions are made.
Like we talked about in the previous episode,
identify three local groups that you can get
involved with. Start going to their meetings
and events. Join as a member.
Volunteer to serve on a committee.
Also identify key connectors in your
community and invite them to coffee.
Let them know your interest and ask them what
ideas they have for how you can get more
involved, whether it's a board opportunity or
helping out at an event.
Show up consistently and give back to your
community and your industry,
and your name will come up when there's a
speaking opportunity available.
Strategy number three is to deliver an
amazing talk, because your best marketing
tool is the talk itself,
both the content and your delivery.
When you deliver an incredible presentation,
people in the audience will come up to you
afterwards or email you later and invite you
to speak at their company,
association or event.
This is what is called stage side referrals
and they truly are the best.
Because these people have seen you in action,
they clearly think that you are a great fit
and a great alignment for their event,
so most likely you're a shoo in to get it,
especially if it's a paid opportunity.
For example, my client,
Julia Corn, who I talked to in episode 422 of
this podcast, delivered an amazing what
audience members called a ten out of ten
keynote, and that one talk led to more paid
speaking invitations.
So definitely go listen to episode 422 to
hear how we created this amazing ten out of
ten keynote and the impact that it had.
Another example is my client,
Tammy Lawley. Her TEDx Orlando talk from 2017
was so impactful that it has opened doors to
other speaking engagements,
including well-paid ones.
So here's the mindset shift.
Every stage you step onto is an audition for
your next stage.
So make it count.
Focus on audience transformation and audience
experience, not just information that you're
conveying to them.
Leave them with something memorable in both
your content and your delivery.
So there you have it. Three inbound
strategies to get speaking.
Invitations to come to you.
Number one, optimize your speaker web page
and LinkedIn profile.
Number two, get involved in your local
community and industry.
And number three, deliver an amazing talk
that makes people want more inbound and
outbound strategies work best together.
Pitching is still important,
and when you combine it with a strong inbound
system, you'll find yourself getting booked
without the burnout.
Now, if you're ready to create your amazing
signature talk and to develop your speaking
strategy so you can pitch with confidence and
get those inbound invitations to join us in
our online Thought Leader Academy,
or at our next one day in-person Speaking
Accelerator workshop in Orlando.
You can get all the details on our programs
and workshops at Speaking Your Brand.com
under the Work with Us tab.
We're going to continue this series Booked
without Burnout, in the next episode,
where we're going to talk about how to get
paid to speak.
Until next time, thanks for listening.