Question: “I’m in a transition career as a speaker. I have had speaking engagements with the Kiwanis, Rotary, and Professional clubs. Any suggestions for other speaking engagement sources?”
–Alma Apostol, Health-n-Wellness Articles, Deming, N.M.
Ali’s Answer: “Hi Alma and congratulations on your new career as a speaker. Smaller local groups are a great place to start. I myself sought many local gigs in my early years to get my feet wet and get some good practice. And they’re not always easy, for instance, it’s a challenge to hold people’s attention while they are being served a chicken dinner! For help finding local, free speaking opportunities, you may want to get listed on a website I used originally: www.speakerservices.com. Once you feel you’re on solid ground, it’s time to get serious and determine where you really want to be speaking and seeking larger venues.
If you are speaking to gain business, your goal should be to get in front of your target market. For example, in the beginning my target market was small business owners and especially online marketers. I realized there were some larger events whose stages I wanted to speak on. And while I made some phone calls, etc. I found the BEST way to get seminar promoters’ attention was to start showing up. I dressed well, had attractive and powerful marketing materials like business cards and brochures, and I made sure that everyone knew who I was. I updated my website so that if someone went there I was confident it represented me well. And once I aligned all of my marketing, positioning, and networking efforts, I finally started getting requests to speak on larger stages.
There’s a lot to the speaking industry, but that will help you get started!”
Love and success,
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