Last week, you got a backstage peek of how I get ready to take the stage on the day of a speaking event.

It’s all about maintaining your routine, getting yourself moving, and having a set way for how you take center stage.

But what you do AFTER your speaking gig is just as important as what happens before. Here is your inside peek into what I do after I speak (and I’m betting one of these will surprise you).

Take care of yourself

You can't be poolside in Hawaii after every speaking gig, but you MUST schedule self-care after every gig.

Speaking is a huge energy exchange between you and your audience.

If you’re an introvert, you know that this energy exchange is going to drain you, so you must block out time to cocoon. Spend time alone. Read a book. Take care of yourself.

Extroverts get a rush from the energy exchange but then come crashing down like a toddler who just ate a metric ton of cotton candy.

As an ambivert (this means I straddle the line between introvert and extrovert…best of both worlds), I get the double crash. After a speaking gig, I can find myself binge re-watching Game of Thrones for hours on end. My brain is mush, and I don’t want to be around anyone.

For this reason, I’ve made a commitment to get better at self-care after a speech. Currently, I kind of suck at it.

I’d love to tell you that I take time for myself to recover after every speaking gig, but I don’t. I’m typically booked the next day with clients, and I can tell you that pushing through makes the crash worse.

I’m creating a new habit now. Whenever I book a speaking gig I automatically block off at least a couple of hours on my calendar for the next day. I use this time to relax. I walk. Go to my favorite spa or binge watch Netflix.

Introvert, extrovert, or ambivert, we all need to take care of ourselves after we speak.

So how are you upping your self-care routine?

Be a freak for follow-up

My assistant cat, Lola, helping follow up after a recent speaking gig. (Side note: She's not as helpful as she looks)

Once you’ve had your downtime, it’s time to be a freak for following-up.

My routine for this is simple! First and foremost, I contact the person who booked me for the gig to say a huge “thank you” for having me speak. I see if they have any feedback for me and ask for a testimonial. Always be asking for testimonials.

Now, I need to follow-up with people from the speaking gig.

After I speak, I typically get more requests to speak or appear on podcasts, so I follow-up with those. I send out the free workbook or setup free consults. I get people who want to be on my newsletter list added to my list.

I head over to Facebook and accept friend requests and respond to messages. Hop over to twitter and answer any tweets and follow people who were at the speaking gig.

I spend a ton of time on my computer getting my follow-up done (and sometimes my assistant cat shows up to help).

Calculate conversion rate (Get your nerd on!)

Finally, I get nerdy with it!

What? Conversion rate? This is speaking not Internet “bro” marketing. Why are you talking about math, Michelle?

I blame Maggie Patterson for this. If you want to learn all you ever would want to know about conversion, head over to her site (but first finish reading this).

If speaking is part of your business model or how you generate awareness for your business model, you must start tracking how well your presentation converts.

Business is a numbers game. What you track grows and you need to be able to measure how well your presentation is serving you.

I do this by calculating my conversion rate. A conversion rate is simply:

The number of people who took the desired action DIVIDED BY the total number of peeps in the audience

Let’s say my call to action is buy my book.

At my last speaking gig, I sold 50 books and there were 100 people in the audience. 50 divided by 100 = 50% conversion rate.

See, math can be totally easy!

From calculating my conversion rate, I know that when I offer a companion workbook that helps the audience implement what I talked about in my speech that converts at 80% to 90%. An invitation to a free consult converts between 60% to 70%.

Since getting people on my mailing list is a high priority for me, I will definitely keep offering the free workbook – who can argue with 80-90%!

See what conversion tells me about my speaking! Cool eh?

And there you have it, a backstage pass to what I do after each speaking gig. I take care of myself, get my follow-up done, and then delight my inner statistic geek by calculating my conversion rate.

What about you? What do you do after a speaking gig? Tell me about it in the comments section.