Speak for Impact: How to Craft a Message that Matters to Audiences and to the People Who Hire Speakers
Having a message that matters to the audience and to the people who hire speakers is the reason why you get booked to speak.
How well you're able to market your speaking depends on the message.
How well your pitches are received and responded to, depends on your message.
How do you create a message that matters to the audience, and to the people who hire speakers?
You start by speaking for impact.
When I work with clients, I walk them through a step by step process for creating that message that matters. I call this process, “Speak for Impact.” I've been using it for the past five years with my clients, and I've seen great results.
From doubling their speaking fees, negotiating their highest speaking fee yet, speaking all over the United States, getting clients, and booking more speaking gigs.
I am going to share the three steps of this process with you today because I know it works.
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Getting a Speaking Strategy
This strategy is all about making your speaking work for your audience, and the people who hire you, and your business.
This is the key step that I find is missed most by traditional public speaking coaches who are focused on, “Let's write your speech, and get you on stage, and practicing your delivery.” But I also see that it's missed by marketing programs.
Having a strategy that underpins your speaking business gives you a solid foundation.
There are three parts to having that strategy that we cover in speak for impact.
The first part of the strategy is understanding what this talk is supposed to do for your business. AKA, how is this going to make you money at the end of the day?
Is the purpose of the talk to raise your visibility, bring in brand awareness so more clients to want to do business with you? Is the purpose of your talk to get paid speaking engagements in and of itself? Maybe it's a blend of those two things.
Before you start thinking about your message, it's time to get really clear on what do you want this talk to do for your business.
Maybe it is just about establishing yourself as a thought leader, raising the brand awareness, getting in front of new people, and getting new clients.
Maybe it is about getting those paid speaking engagements. It's important to define what that model is, and then build your speech, and your speaking business around that revenue model.
Once we've defined the revenue model, we move into part number two, which I talked a little bit about in last week’s episode.
We talked about diving deep into your audience, and understanding what they need for your message.
If you're going the paid speaking route, you also have to dive deep into the industry, or the organizations you want to serve to figure out why they need your message, what problem are you solving.
With that, we can define the starting point. Then we go into the final piece of strategy, which is developing your big idea statement.
The big idea statement is essentially what you want to be known for as a speaker.
What do you want to be known for as a speaker? That's a big question, but that question positions you in the speaking marketplace.
The answer to that question shows how you're different and unique from other speakers, who may speak on a similar topic. It helps you stand out, and it also lets people know the result that you achieve for your audience.
Your big idea is where you want the audience to end up after hearing you speak.
Once we know what your talk is supposed to do for your business, and we understand the audience, and the industry you want to serve, and we have that idea that positions you, then we can move to step number two.
[Tweet “Having a strategy that underpins your speaking business gives you a solid foundation”]
Getting a Signature Talk to Speak for Impact
I always say that you should have a goal in mind for what your talk should do, and this relates back to strategy. Your signature talk must convert.
Should your talk be getting you longer engagements with an organization? Maybe you have a course you can sell it or a webinar series, or you can offer them one on one coaching. If that's the purpose of the talk, then we need to know about that so we can convert to that. Maybe it's just to get clients. We start with writing this talk that converts.
The struggle that I see with a lot of speakers is when they write a talk on their own, they get bogged down in their head. They're not sure what goes in the speech, what stays out of the speech.
This causes them to spin their wheels on what direction to take because they could go in so many different directions.
When you're an expert, you have a lot of knowledge that you want to share, and it's impossible to share all of that knowledge. You’re not sure what stories to tell, or which case studies to use, or how much research to cite.
It's hard to peel away the layers to give the audience exactly what they need to get to your big idea.
When I work with clients we start by mapping out the audience journey.
We know the beginning point of the speech, right? We know that starting point when the audience walks in the door.
We know we want to get them to the big idea. Using the speech as the vehicle, we map out those three or five pit stops on the audience journey that gets them to the big idea.
Then once we have that, it's a matter of using a building block system to build out the body of the speech, the introduction of the speech, and the conclusion of the speech.
This gives my speakers a lot of flexibility, and yet some guidance to get through the creative process of getting to what Anne Lamott calls the “Shitty first draft,” of their speech.
Once we have the speech written it becomes fun. We can work on refining it, we can work on delivery, and we can make it the best product that they're selling.
Now that we have this amazing product that you're selling, the speech, it's step three time.
Getting Ready for the Stage
That means marketing, pitching, researching to find speaking gigs, pricing your speech, negotiation. All of the things you know you need to be doing to get speaking gigs.
Once you have a message nailed, and an amazing talk, you've got a product that you can market and sell easily and well.
That's really where the action begins. You start pitching more, you start talking about your speaking more, you come up with your consistent asking action plan or the things you're going to do daily to get your speaking out there.
And it's going to be so much easier because you know why your speech should demand a fee, you can say why someone should hire you over other speakers.
Your pitch letters are going to rock because you know your audience, and you get a result for them.
And that sizzle reel that you've been meaning to work on, is going to come together a lot easier and quicker because you know what parts of your talk to highlight that is going to engage people and leave them wanting to know more about your speaking.
The great part is, after Speak for Impact, you'll have everything that you need to book those speaking gigs, to make your difference, and get your message out there. You're going to have a whole new way of talking about your speaking.
[Tweet “Get clear on your message and speak for impact”]
If it's your time to speak more, get more clients, more visibility, and make more of a difference, then it's time for speak for impact. This is where I can come in and help you in a strategy session.
What I do is I customize this process to each and every person that I talk to. We'll figure out where you're struggling, where you need the most support, and design a customized plan for you so that you can reach more people.
It all starts by going to DrMichelleMazur.com/Speak, apply for a strategy session. We'll have a super fun chat, and if this is the right next step for you, I will send you a proposal, and we can go from there. No pressure, no hype.
Go to DrMichelleMazur.com/Speak to apply for your strategy session. You can't change millions with your message if your message is a mess.
Get clear on your message. Get clear on your big idea, and then you'll speak for impact.
