5 Ways to Market Your Speaking Business – Part 2

Circling back to Part 1 of 5 Ways to Market Your Speaking Business, we talked about Getting Social and Putting Your Passion into Print. Now let’s discover how else you can market your speaking business…

3) Connect with a Cause

If you are passionate about making a difference in your world and you have a servant’s heart, then consider join forces to support a cause. Consider partnering with a cause that you’re passionate about. Become a part of the organization and ask how you can serve. Can you volunteer to speak at their next fundraising event? Do they need an emcee for their annual event? Serve where you are needed and meet people who love what you love. It’s a great way to balance your business and your life by serving others.

4) Get Visible

It’s important to build credibility through visibility – show up. It’s difficult to build credibility when you see someone once every six months. In the flurry of emails and social media, it’s difficult to stand out. Here are some ways to differentiate yourself from all the rest:

• Build strong referral relationships and keep following up (stay in touch).
• Keep feeding YouTube and doing Facebook Lives. Be sure to add the
  link to your signature line.
• Look for something unique or usual about what you do and publicize in
  a press release or on social media. To increase the chance that of
  getting it published, send along a clear, compelling photo.
• Travel in the same circles as those you would like to emulate. Being
  photographed with them also helps build credibility and authority.
• Connect with successful speakers and ask if they would be willing to
  mentor you. Learn from those who have done what you want to do.

5) Get to Know Your Boss – Who can hire you to speak?

• Make a list of the professional groups, organizations, associations and companies that would be a great audience for you.
• Google the type of conferences that you’d love to speak at. Out of curiosity, I googled knitting conferences and in .5 seconds I found
  1,730,000 knitting conferences where a knitting expert could potentially speak. Think of how many there could be in your area of expertise!
• Get to know the organizations. Visit as a guest. Join a few. Meet the person who schedules the speakers for their events. One of our
  Engaging Speakers Members reached out and volunteered to become the person who schedules the speakers for a women’s organization she belonged to and as a result, many of her fellow Engaging Speakers Members have been featured at that organization events.
• Network with other speakers to get to know where they have spoken and who they know in the Meeting Planning industry. Offer to refer them to people and places that are perfect for their target audience. My guess is that they will do the same for you.
• Build relationships with Program Directors and Meeting Planners and offer to be a resource to help them secure great speakers for their future events, which is one of the most arduous and time-consuming tasks in their job. Serve them and they will recommend you to their fellow meeting professionals.

Looking for a place to network with other speakers who are passionate about what the bring to the world? Join us at Engaging Speakers and build the valuable relationships you seek.

Gail Brown, Founder of Engaging Speakers, gail@engagingspeakers.com