By Pam Terry
In a recent webinar, I shared a cool road map of the four things to do to become a confident, in-demand speaker. Those four things are:
- Improve your speaker skills
- Create/have a website with key components
- Start speaking (a must in order to get asked/paid to speak!)
- Start blogging and posting
The underlying foundation for becoming a confident and sought after speaker encompasses three things: speaking skill, creating value, and getting known. Using this road map will bring you new clients and speaking engagements without even trying. Why? Because when you provide value for people, they will want to do business with you. By blogging and posting valuable content on Facebook (one billion users), LinkedIn (151 million) and Twitter (500 million), you are reaching hundreds of thousands of people. The numbers are in your favor. Blogging and posting valuable content is a powerful way to “get known.”
Here’s a brief synopsis of my system:
- Confident speakers know their material and connect with their audience. Basically that’s it in a nutshell. You gain confidence with passion and knowledge (of your topic, audience, and speaking skills) and preparation and practice (lots of it). Preparing and practicing easily builds confidence. A few other tips: take the focus off of you and focus on the value you provide. Speaking is not about you – it’s about your audience.
- In-demand speakers have a website with a blog and blog regularly. Your website should talk about the benefits that you provide and how your services and expertise can alter people’s lives. You need five basic elements: home page with a mailing list sign up form and Facebook like box, about page, contact page, events page and a blog. Blog at least once a week on different aspects of your expertise; provide valuable information that people can use.
- To get asked to speak, you need to already be speaking by holding your own workshops/webinars/teleseminars. Getting out there with your own events builds confidence and gets you known. You also put your events on your website and promote them on Facebook and LinkedIn groups.
- Blogging regularly and posting about your blog on Facebook and LinkedIn groups and Twitter are essential to getting known and becoming in-demand. Literally, it works. Your posts must create value for people. The value that you share positions you as the expert and gets you new clients. Use a social media tool like Hoot Suite (hootsuite.com) to make your posting easy. Otherwise, it will be way too tedious to be effective.
I started my “system” before I realized it was a system or how powerful it was. Without even trying, I have gained new clients following these steps. You can too. It’s all about improving your speaking skills, creating value and getting known.
Pam Terry is a speaker coach and communications trainer. Her websites are www.pamterry.com and www.speakupstandoutconnect.com. She can be reached at pam@pamterry.com or 832-276-4153.
