How The Media Can Get You The Speaking Gig You’ve Always Wanted
The media can help launch you into being viewed as a thought leader in your niche and provide you with ample opportunities to land speaking engagements and exposure.
Imagine being asked to speak at the biggest conferences. How did you land these engagements? With the help of a knowledgeable, dedicated, and supportive PR team.
This blog post presents concise, easy to implement, actionable ways to find paid speaking opportunities in any industry.
- Become a thought leader:
My number one tip for landing speaking gigs is to become a thought leader in a specific area around what you want to be speaking about. You need to make yourself the go to person for your genre, topic, or industry.
This means consistently publishing valuable and compelling content to a target audience, and building up that audience over time.
This could be through a blog, a podcast, a video series, etc. Featuring media placements on a press page that can be found on your website is an appealing way to paint yourself as a sought after expert.
- Create insightful content that demonstrates your expertise:
A great way to land high-profile speaking gigs is to encourage conference organizers to come to you, rather than only relying on your own petitioning.
You can do this by creating insightful content that demonstrates your expertise. You can showcase this on your blog, vlog, or take it a step further and get published by platforms such as Forbes and the Harvard Business Review. Writing and submitting articles and appearing on podcasts can put your name into circulation among conference organizers.
It won’t happen with the drop of a hat. Things like this do take time, but the end result is worth it and the key is consistency.
- Build relationships:
20,000 people on your email list and tens of thousands of followers on social media are great, but they aren’t the only types of relationships you need to be aware of cultivating. Subscribers and followers don’t always translate into reaching influencers or decision-makers.
The top 3 things that help speakers land high-profile events are relationships, professionalism, and solid conditions of worth.
Relationships are a key ingredient to success. Too often, new speakers start trying to build relationships the wrong way – or with the wrong people.
You have to choose the right people, approach them in the right way, and be 100% genuine. Pitching to various media platforms and building relationships with those people rather than just selling what you have to offer right off the bat can help you stand out above the rest. Otherwise, you come across as one among a million who are seeking to acquire their time on stage. Make people feel important. Make it known that you are interested in the person and not just what they can do for you.
- Channel your presence and power:
Speak, embody, breathe and be the magic of your business in everything you do. Your presence and power will attract opportunities to speak on a variety of stages in person and online. Never underestimate the importance of a positive attitude.
Imagine a speaking engagement leading to a $10,000 client agreement. It’s totally possible!
Embodied confidence and delivering real-world value from the stage can be a key component to your success.
- Develop your media why:
Whether you’re looking to land big speaking gigs, grow your exposure or get the word out about your upcoming book, media coverage is crucial to getting you noticed.
In order to stand out in today’s information-saturated world, you need to be very clear on “why” the media will want to speak with you.
Your “why” is what sets you apart and makes you more appealing. The why is how you find and focus on your target audience.
What is your media “why”? Need help brainstorming or want to know if it’s good enough to begin pitching to the press?
Want to be in Forbes, Real Simple, Today.com or on TV in major markets? Those are just a few of the media placements my clients have gotten in one week!
One client was featured in 4 TV segments around the country in two days. How have they done it?
By discovering their media “why” in order to reach their goals.
Are you ready to find yours?
Book a 1:1 intensive with me and let’s get clear on your media “why”, discover your goals, and craft a pitch that we can use to land you those speaking gigs you desire.