What should you do after your speaking gig?
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.
Very interesting insights, Michelle. I consider myself to be also an ambivert, with is best of both worlds (but also come with its pitfalls). I think the conversion part is the one I suck at most. I do my follow-ups, and I take some time for myself, whenever possible of course. Thanks for the reminders here, and wish you all the best for the summertime!
Frederic
Ambiverts unite! It’s funny, I always thought of myself as an extravert until I read about being an ambivert. It explained SO much to me and about how I reacted before and after speaking gigs.
I don’t think many speakers calculate their conversion rate after a gig. I’m a researcher by training, so I LOVE knowing the numbers. It’s all a big experiment to me. If I know my numbers, I know what’s working and what’s not working. I can adjust from there.
I know that the bigger the gig, the bigger the crash holds true, even for wildly extroverted me. So, I generally wind down with a glass of wine at the bar and then hit my hotel room for room service. If it’s one of my regular, smaller gigs, I am always starving afterwards so I eat whatever sounds good and take a short break with my current Netflix obsession. I will also be paying closer attention to my conversion rates – thanks for the reminder!
I love a nice glass of wine after a gig (and on occasion a cocktail). That sounds like a lovely self-care routine you have going, Amy! Yes on your conversion rates. I’m thinking of writing a post about how to A/B test your presentation and that makes my inner statistics geek happy.
Thanks Michelle. This is great advice from many angles! One thing I do once I get home from a gig is to take 15 minutes and write a little list of reflections. Things that worked well. Things I forgot or surprised me and I need to be prepared for next time. If I wait too long I forget.
Oh that’s a good point Neela! A little presentation review is always a good thing. I like to find one thing (and just one thing) to improve on next time. Otherwise I can be too hard on myself.
Thanks Michelle. In public speaking community, “after speaking” is a topic not mentioned enough.
After I speak, I feel exhausted. I have spent all the energy I saved for the talk. As you mentioned, I need a “refresh” for my mind. But before refreshment, I need to review the presentation instantly. Because, I shouldn’t forget the emotions, feedbacks and questions. I created a checklist including eye-contact, timing, gather questions and so on. I give score for each item on the list. So I get a final score for my each presentation.
Since people are not good at reviewing themselves, if it’s possible, I give audience little papers. Papers are separated into two parts: what was good? what can be better? People write down shortly. Reading those papers are fun. You can learn what’s really missing or what’s really good which you can not find out by yourself.
As I write, I got a new idea that audience can give feedbacks digitally. Google Forms may help. I will let you know, when I try 🙂
Wow that’s an intense after process. Do you ever video tape yourself and watch with your checklist instead? I would imagine it would give you the audience perspective instead of reviewing it from your perspective.
Also, I like Nilofer Merchant’s advice in this article: http://nilofermerchant.com/2015/05/13/how-can-i-be-a-speaker-like-you/
She asks herself what is the ONE thing, she would want to improve. I love focusing on ONE aspect instead of many.
Also, I might challenge you on getting your audience’s feedback. A pro speaker friend of mine said “The audience’s job is not to give you feedback. That’s the job of a coach. The audience’s job is to get something out of your speech.”
I don’t know where you are in your speaking journey, but keep that in mind!
If it’s possible to get my speech video, it’s better review my checklist after watching it in audience shoes.
Once, I presented to my colleagues and they gave feedback. I didn’t accept all of them. I evaluated the feedbacks and decided which are useful and which are not related with my public speaking goal. After that speech I fixed three items in my next speech.
Until I have a communication coach, that’s best I can do get better.
Thanks for advices Michelle.