Why Tapping into Your Audience’s Desire is the Key to Book More Speaking Gigs
Desire, it's a yearning.
It's a strong feeling that we just wish something would happen.
As a speaker, you most likely desire being seen and heard, making a difference for people, and getting paid to do it.
But have you thought about what your audience desires, what each member of that collective group wants to have happen.
What are they yearning for?
If you haven't, you should, because desire is the key to opening the door to creating a message that audiences want, that organizations who would hire you need, and being a speaker that everyone is talking about.
Let's figure out what your audience desires, based on how you want to get paid.
Now, you've heard me talk about this before, but there are two routes to getting paid to speak.
The first route is the client attraction route, where you may or may not be getting paid for a gig.
However, you have a system in place. You have a speech that converts to bring clients to you after the speaking gig, and that's how you get paid.
Or, you might want to go the second route, which is being paid to speak. This is where you, as the speaker, sell your speech, and an organization pays you to come in and deliver that speech for a group.
Depending on what path you choose, the way you think about desire is going to be different.
Prefer to Listen?
Speak for Clients? What your audience really desires
Let's look at path one. You're speaking for clients.
Your focus needs to be on what the audience desires.
Big hint: What they are yearning for is not your topic.
They don't desire your solution. They're not sitting there thinking, “Man, my life would be so much better if I had social media or blogging or “insert your topic here.”
You have to make them see that your solution fulfills their desire, because, seriously, when they walk in the door, they don't really care about your topic yet.
Let me illustrate. Let's say that an audience you're speaking to wants nothing more than a better night's sleep.
They want to wake up and feel well rested. That is what they desire more than anything.
Now, that can mean they need to find out about different mattress options because maybe their mattress is lumpy. Or they need to figure out how to get their kiddo to sleep through the night because that little kid is waking them up every hour on the hour.
Maybe they just need to learn how to meditate, so that they can have better sleep habits.
All three of these address that burning desire. Your job, as a speaker, is to connect what your audience desires to your business and your topic.
When you connect their desire to your solution, they see you as having a solution that can help them fulfill what they need, and they see you as the person they can trust, so they want to take the next step with you and become your client.
That's how you're going to get paid.
Getting Paid to speak: What Does the Organization Desire?
Now, what if you want to get paid to speak?
I hate to break it to you, but what your audience desires is a secondary consideration.
What you need to think about first, in order to get hired, is what does the organization, the one who's going to bring you in … What do they desire?
Maybe it's happier employees, so they don't have to hire so many new people because that's costing them tons of money.
Maybe it's how to stop their people from spending so much time on Facebook and actually be more productive and get their work done.
Maybe it's because their sick days are out of control, and they need to get their employees healthy again.
Your job, as a speaker, is to figure out, before you enter into the sales process with an organization, what is it that they desire? What do they most want?
When you know what that organization desires, then you can customize your area of expertise, your solution to that desire.
One of my clients speaks about stress reduction.
When she pitches her talk, she doesn't talk to the organization about how great people will feel and how much more relaxed they'll feel. She talks to them about improving employee morale, because she knows that stressed-out employees are unhappy and angry employees, and they take it out on each other.
When she goes in, she tells them, “Okay, this is how my solution of stress reduction can help you meet your desire to have happy employees, so you don't have to hire as much.”
Once you've honed in on the organization's desire, then you need to align that desire to the audience.
For example, let's say the organization is hiring you to get their workers to be more productive.
No employee wants you to come in and hear that you're here to make them work harder because that's what the company wants. That's not what they want.
Figuring out how to meet BOTH the company's desires and the audience's desires is the trick.
They desire not taking work home, so if they were more productive at work or had better time management, that would do the trick, so they can spend more time with their families and keep their work at work.
Knowing what an organization desire is the key to getting hired to speak, and tapping into what the audience desires is the key to getting asked back to speak.
You want to be seen and heard, to make a difference, and get paid to do it.
Then, it's time to schedule a Speak for Impact Strategy Session with me, where we can tap into your audience's deepest desires, so you get booked and paid. Let's do this.
Go to drmichellemazur.com/speak, fill out the short application. I'll shoot you back a link, and then we can chat about making your speaking desires come to fruition.
Remember it's all about what the audience desires and then connecting that to the solution.
