5 Keys to Getting Booked as a Speaker

To be a successful professional speaker, you have to get booked. In order to get booked as a speaker, I’ve compiled a list of items that you must do to help make it happen.

1. Give a Great Speech
There is no better way to get booked than to give a great speech. In your audience there will be others who are looking to book a speaker and chances are you will be just what they wanted. You’ll get people who come up to you after your speech and hand you their cards. Take them, make a few notes and make sure to follow up diligently. These leads are extremely valuable and with a few phone calls will probably turn into another speaking engagement for you. Years ago a study was done to find out how people book speakers. The number one answer? They had HEARD the speaker speak and found them that way.

2. Have an Effective Website
Everyone is talking about websites these days. Very few people tell you what to do and how to do it. I’d like to give you some of the tips every speaker should use and have on their sites. I’ve looked at many a speaker website. Most of them are awful. Why? Because there is no thought given to what you want a visitor to DO when they get to your site.

If the site is all about getting you speaking engagements, then ask yourself what action you’d like someone to take when they get to your site. If they don’t know you, you’d certainly want people to watch your demo video. If they like what they see you’d next want them to contact you.

Given those facts, make sure that you have a separate site just for getting booked. This site should have your video and a way for people to contact you. If you need help in this area, I help speakers with their sites all the time. I’d be happy to help you as well.

3. Effective Networking
When I talk about networking, I’m NOT talking about hitting the cocktail party circuit and handing out a bunch of your business cards. Most the networking I see people do is a complete waste of time and money. Effective networking starts with selecting which events or organizations you are going to target. Come up with a “hit list” of the organizations and events that you THINK will be worth your time and money.

Then, ask around. People are usually more than happy to give you their honest opinions about a certain group or event. Make sure that you get input from a decent number of people before making a decision on whether or not to include them in your list. If you can, try and get invited to one of their events as a guest where you don’t have a pay a lot of money to be there. That way you can see if it’s worth doing before shelling out the big bucks.

4. Create a Great Video Demo
Unless someone has seen you speak, they will have no idea how good your are. The demo video is your best tool to overcome that objection.  There is an entire feature article on this site that talks about HOW to put together an powerful video demo. It’s like a commercial for your speaking services. After someone goes through your demo, they will KNOW if they’d like to have you speak to their group. Don’t blow the commercial or you won’t get booked to speak. Please read the other article for more detail on this element of the process.

5. Have a GREAT Line of Products
I have gotten booked to speak on many occasions in the following manner. Someone bought one of my relatively inexpensive products off one of my websites. They liked it. Some of them then bought another product. They liked that one as well. Realizing they had a meeting coming up where my information would be appropriate for the group, they called me and asked me to come and speak. This happens a lot of you have solid products.
So, in your niche, create a line of products like I do for each of my niches. Make those products available on your website. Make sure that some of them are relatively inexpensive to give people a chance to SAMPLE what you do. Once they take a small bite of what you have to offer, many of them will buy more, AND, if they have a meeting where your topic fits, you might even get booked. I did!

There you have it. The 5 top things you need to do to get booked as a speaker. Do all of them and you’ll be one of the FEW who does. Do them and your chances for success as a professional speaker will go sky high.