Make Marketing Suck Less

Why Should I Hire You to Speak?

The speaking industry is competitive.

There are so many keynote speakers, breakout speakers, trainers and more.

How do you stand out from all of the competition?

How do you get hired over other speakers who speak on a similar topic?

Have you ever thought about why someone should hire you to come in and speak at their event over everyone else out there? If you haven't you should, and that is going to be our focus today on Episode 41 of The Rebel Speaker. How to answer the question, “Why should I hire you as a speaker?”

Take a moment right now and grab a piece of paper and a pencil and answer this question, “Why should I hire you as a speaker?” Do it now, before you continue with the post – this is important!

I am an expert

Mark L. who's a member of, “The Rebel Speaker,” Facebook Group, posted this question a couple of months ago, to see how people would respond because it was something that he was working on in his own speaking business.

As the responses flooded in the answers were something like this:

• I have a unique or interesting perspective.
• A great story about how I made it in the industry.
• I've authored a book on the subject.
• I have years of experience and loads of speaking and training experience.”

Do your answers sound like any of these?

Those types of answers can help you get hired as a speaker because people who are looking to hire speakers want experts who speak well. However, this is NOT the reason why people will hire you over everyone else out there, and it is not what causes them to pay you top dollar to speak.                                  

The reason why people hire you to speak has nothing to do with you – absolutely nothing. It has everything to do with them. They want to know what can you do for their organization.

Answer these two questions and you will be able to find the reason why people should hire you to speak, and you will be able to articulate that the next time you're in the negotiation process for a speaking gig.

[Tweet “The reason you get hired to speak has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.”]

Question #1 What is the Challenge the Organization is Facing?

The first question is: what is the challenge the organization is facing.  Get on the phone and have a conversation. Find out why they're interested in your topic area. What results are they looking for? How can you help them? Probe, ask a lot of questions and get to the heart of the challenge that that organization is facing.

This is the key. You want the organization to feel listened to and like you can produce the results they are looking for.

Question #2 What is my Unique Way of Solving that Challenge?

The second question to ask is, “What is my unique way of solving this issue?” It's important that you have some type of methodology or process in your signature talk that helps them solve their challenge.                               

Right now you might be thinking, “Oh, that's awesome if you are an expert, but I consider myself more of a motivational speaker. What do we do? I'm here to share my story and inspire others?”

This is the trick. Your story actually does have a process in it. A methodology for how you faced the situation and your job is to tease that methodology out.

I can think of no better person who does this than Glenda Hyatt. She is an up and coming speaker. She's a member of the Rebel Speaker Facebook Group and a client of mine. Her speech is all about finding your north star and it is very much based on her story.

What the audience takes away from that is how to figure out if they're pursuing the right dream. What makes her speak marketable and bankable is that she has teased out the process to help solve a problem for others.                                

A great example of somebody who is an expert and has a very clear methodology is Sally Hogshead, the creator of, How to Fascinate. When Sally goes into organizations she's solving a challenge based on the question, how do I get the best work out of my people?

The way she does that is her, “How to Fascinate System.” She has identified seven different languages that we all speak, and for each person, she can narrow those languages down to two of these languages which are our own personal jam, right?

She has a methodology to find that sweet spot where we are on fire when we're operating within those languages. If you know that about your people you can get them to stand out and they'll have more enjoyable jobs and produce better work, so that signature methodology, that signature process is how she solves their challenge.

What about you? How do you solve the challenge? Ultimately, that is why people will hire you to speak. The rest of it? Your experience, your expertise, your story, your unique point of you, the book that you wrote, that is all gravy.

If you're feeling a little stuck and you're not sure how to suss out what challenge an organization is facing or what your process or methodology is for solving that challenge, then apply for a,  Speak for Impact strategy session with me, and we can map that out together. Go to Drmichellemazur.com/speak.

Remember, if you want to be booked consistently for gigs you have to know how you're different from every other speaker who speaks on a topic similar to yours and that all begins with being able to answer the question, “Why should I hire you to speak?”