Find & Book A Speaking Gig: A Guide

Pat Walls

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Updated: October 8th, 2022

What Is Speaking Engagements?

Speaking engagements provide a great way to get in front of your audience and showcase your product/service.

This face-to-face connection can create a lasting impression and build trust with your customers.

In this post, we explain how speaking at a Gig works as a marketing strategy. Further, we will highlight examples of startup owners who embrace speaking at a gig as a great marketing tool.

Speaking Engagement: Key Takeaways

For speaking engagements to pay, marketers should tap into the talent, passion, and knowledge within the organization.
It's important to know your audience prepare accordingly beforehand.
Landing public speaking gigs could build influence and leadership.
On average, speaking teams have fewer than five members

Understanding How Speaking Engagements Work

Speaking engagements may strike fear in the hearts of many people.

However, speaking at a gig provides promotion-savvy people a platform to share ideas and create buzz around their brands.

Besides, such engagements grow your influence and even that of your business.

Do not limit your purview of speaking engagements to only the live, in-person establishments. Online events like webinars, podcasts, and virtual conferences are impactful speaking opportunities for businesses.

What Are The Benefits Of Speaking Engagements?

Are you wondering why speaking engagements can be such a great opportunity for your business? Here are some good reasons we think embracing speaking engagements will help your brand.

1. Creates Opportunity For Positive PR

Speaking engagements provide a brand the opportunity to get in front of a target and potential audience. Therefore, you have the opportunity to build trust and rapport.

Ultimately, speaking engagements provide a platform where brands can establish and grow relationships and even keep top-of-mind when a need for the product or services arises.

2. An Opportunity To Establish Thought Leadership

The simple fact that you have been invited to speak at a gig provides you an opportunity to position your firm as a thought leader.

Once you establish yourself as a thought leader, you grow your reputation and stand a chance for attracting better business.

If done perfectly, speaking engagements could provide the business an opportunity to command higher fees.

3. Content Generating Opportunity

Preparing for a speaking engagement takes a significant investment of time.

Luckily, the effort you put in does not count only during the event.

You could repurpose the content in several ways and leverage it to market the firm through a variety of channels.

If that applies to you, you may consider repurposing the remarks and promoting via blog posts, articles, social media, or even executive guides.

4. Meet and Deepen Relationships With Partners

Apart from meeting current and potential clients, speaking engagements provide business executives an opportunity to meet and deepen relationships with strategic partners, and referral sources.

Therefore, a guest appearance at an industry conference or webinar could solidify the relationship between business associates or even organizations within the related industries.

5. Lead Generation Efforts

As a contributing speaker, you get a chance to enhance your firm's lead generation efforts.

Therefore, you may try the following avenues:

Ask for a list of registrants and their email addresses
Request the organizers for an opportunity to advertise your firm in conference collateral
Participate in networking opportunities

Real World Example: Find & Book A Speaking Gig

Here is a great example of how business leaders practice speaking engagements as a way of growing brand exposure.

How Scott Wilson Grew His Personal Brand Through Speaking Engagements

Scott Wison is the founder and CEO of GeekCertified.

The SEO expert has offered his services as an SEO speaker to countless companies and events.

His interests in the field stemmed from the DIY approach until within less than a decade, he established himself as a top SEO speaker.

Scott's appearance at conferences and SEO events has to his reputation as an SEO expert and helped to build the trust and credibility of his firm.

Today, Scott is a quintessential guest lecturer for the eMarketing and MBA class at DeGroote.

PROFIT magazine ranks him as an essential speaker and resources for the CEOs of the fastest-growing companies.

How To Land a speaking Gig

Here are guiding points to help you land an opportunity to speak at an event.

Identify Your Topic and Angle

One of the key challenges of getting speaking engagements is the ability to identify topics that people will want to hear.

To secure a chance to speak, your topic has to grab the attention of the target audience.

Therefore, you not only need to sound interesting, but you also need to cover a topic people are clamoring for and excited about. Thus, choose a challenging and controversial topic.

Identify the Target Audience

Apart from the topic, you need to capture an audience.

Therefore, you have to investigate who the audience is and try to understand what drives the audience.

Sometimes, you might prefer addressing smaller groups with the majority of your target audience.

Connect With Conference Organizers

Now that you know what to speak about and the audience type, the next step involves connecting with the event or conference organizers.

You will want to build a strong and solid relationship with the people that could get you speaking engagements.

Therefore, use networking platforms like LinkedIn to establish relationships and get the word out.

Do not forget to share/distribute videos of you speaking at past events.

Craft the Presentation

How will you capture the audience's attention if you do not craft a great presentation?

Therefore, find out if your audience prefers facts or stories about memorable moments.

Ensure you craft your presentation in an engaging manner.

Market Your Expertise

At this point, you have gotten the gig.

This is your opportunity to market your participation and get as many people to attend or listen to your message.

You can employ different approaches to help you attain the objective. For instance, you could send notifications via email or top your social media networks.

Alternatively, you can organize a podcast intended to talk about the upcoming presentation.

Conclusion

Speaking engagements remain a key tactic for allowing startups to demonstrate their unique knowledge and expertise.

Thus, if you are looking for a faster and efficient approach to build brand awareness, it is time you tried speaking engagements.

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Pat Walls