Make Marketing Suck Less

The First Essential Step to Land Speaking Gigs

Every week I get phone calls, emails, and tweets asking one question:

Table of Contents

• 0.1 How do I land speaking gigs?
• 1 How's your speaker marketing?
• 2 Who is your audience?
• 3 What do you want to be known for?
• 4 What are your 3 T's?
  • 4.1 What topics do you speak on? What will my people get from your talk?
• 5 Bottom line: your 3 T's need to be freaking fantastic!

How do I land speaking gigs?

Heck, you probably ended up here because you're dying to know the secret, right?

I hate to answer a question with a question, but my reply is always the same:

How's your speaker marketing?

The replies range from “Umm, speaker marketing?”  to various degrees of “It’s coming along.”

Bottom line: The secret to landing speaking gigs is to MARKET yourself as a speaker.

The first step of speaker market begins with positioning your expertise.

Here are 3 questions to help you guide you on the path to marketing your speaking.

Who is your audience?

The answer to this question is not everyone with a pulse.

Just like business, you've got to find a niche of people that you want to speak you and more importantly who need you to speak to them.

[Tweet “If you market to everyone, you speak to no one.”]

You need to know who you serve, what are their challenges, and what they need to hear from you.

It's not about what you want to say or tell them. It's about being of service to your audience. You won't find speaking engagement if you don't understand your audience.

You need to be the biggest fan of the people you serve, and in turn they'll become your fan, follower, and even a friend.

What do you want to be known for?

Your topic must not only serve your peeps, but it must get you excited as well.

Remember, there are no speakers – there are only experts that speak. What's your expertise?

You need to own it, position it, and market it in order to get speaking gigs.

When you start off as a speaker, be prepared to speak on the topic you want to be the go-to expert on for a year.

Yes, a year. This means you need to choose wisely. You've got to love your topics more than you love your spouse (kidding…kind of)

What are your 3 T's?

I chatted with a smart entrepreneur who was up to amazing things in the world, and she wanted to add speaking as an income stream. She had a virtual assistant reaching out to her network and a variety of organizations about speaking.

She got bites – lots of bites! They were interested in her. Huzzah!

And they all asked the same question:

What topics do you speak on? What will my people get from your talk?

Um, topics? And takeaways?

She didn't have her 3 T's prepared. She couldn't write back immediately and tell them. Those speaking opportunities dried up.

What are your 3 T's?

• 3 Topics – Within your expertise, these are the presentations you're going to give
• 3 Titles – Each topic needs a title that is going to catch a meeting planners eye and make them think “yes, I want to book her!”
• 3 Takeaways – Each of your topics needs 3 takeaways that need to answer “what's it in for the audience” and be laden with the benefits of your talk

Your 3 T's are the center piece of your speaker marketing. They go on your speaker one-sheet, on the speaking page of your website, and you'll be sending them to anyone interested in having you speak.

Bottom line: your 3 T's need to be freaking fantastic!

Next week, we'll chat about what to do once you have your 3 T's to begin finding those gigs! (Because they are out there…they really are!)

If you're feeling stuck on your 3 T's or not sure how to position yourself in the market place, I invite you to check out 3 Steps to Your 3 Speaking Topics. You'll get unstuck fast and come up with positioning that is right for you, your audience, and most importantly the meeting planners who book gigs.