Are You Too Hung Up on Booking Speaking Gigs
The number one question I get in my inbox or that happens in strategy sessions with potential clients is:
How do I book more speaking gigs?
How do I find them? How do I book them?
I totally get why.
You want to do what you love, speaking. You want to change lives, start a movement with your message, and get paid for doing it. It totally makes sense to me.
Are you too hung up on trying to book speaking gigs when there's something else that you really need to focus on? Maybe.
But your focus should never be on booking the gig, landing the deal, getting that speaking opportunity.
Why?
Because getting booked to speak is outside of your control.
Someone else makes the decision to hire you.
As a speaker, it's important to invest your time in what you can control.
The number one thing that you can control when trying to book speaking gigs is your ask.
Prefer to listen?
Focus on the Ask
I want you to start focusing on what really matters, counting the number of asks or the number of pitches that you're making If you're not speaking enough, you're not asking enough.
Asking can look like two different types of things. It can look like networking asking or it can look like pitching.
[Tweet “If you're not speaking enough, you're not asking enough”]
The Networking Ask
An ask can be letting everyone in your network know that you are looking for speaking opportunities and asking for introductions to people that they know.
That's it.
You could be doing outreach in your own personal network right now to start building the relationships that you need to book speaking gigs.
Each time you send an email or make a phone call to a friend or a colleague asking for referrals or if they know anyone, that counts as an ask.
A great resource for this is an episode of The Rebel Speaker podcast where I interviewed David Fisher and he talks about how he builds relationships to book speaking gigs and how he uses LinkedIn to do outreach.
The Pitching Ask
The second type of ask you can be making is the pitch itself. You can research and find speaking opportunities and then pitch them.
If you need to get your pitch together, to get your speaking proposal together, I have a great free resource for you, it's a 5-day mini course on how to pitch over at DrMichelleMazur.com/pitch.
If I start working with a client who is working toward doing more paid speaking, I set up a goal for them. I tell them the goal is that they're pitching at least five times a week. One pitch a day goes out the door.
That's 20 pitches a month or if they're really committed, seven days a week, that's 35 pitches a month.
When you're pitching that much it gets easier, and the numbers start working in your favor. You'll start landing speaking opportunities.
The key here is still to count the pitch and not the outcome.
The goal is to totally detach from the outcome because you cannot control if you're going to get a yes or a no or you're not going to hear anything back at all.
The important part is to celebrate each ask and each pitch you make because that is what you can control.
You can make that the best pitch that you can make. You can make it the best ask you can make. You can send it out the door on a consistent basis. I guarantee you'll start speaking a heck of alot more if you're asking on a consistent basis.
If you need an asking plan or help getting your pitch together, apply for a complimentary Speak For Impact strategy session with me at DrMichelleMazur.com/speak. We can talk about your outreach plan and how to make it more effective so that you're asking more consistently.
Remember, count your asks, detach from the outcome, and when you ask more, you'll find yourself speaking more.
[Tweet “Count your asks, detach from the outcome, if you ask more, you will speak more.”]
