Dr. April Willis, Principal Business Consultant & Coach at April Willis Consulting, LLC.

Have you got an amazing message to get out to the public, but you're not sure where to start? Maximizing your reach and impact begins with having a captive audience. Once you have enough people raving about your content and presentation style, organizations won’t be able to book you fast enough! Let’s explore some action items you can immediately implement to activate your speaking career and even secure those highly sought-after paid speaking roles.

Start speaking—everywhere and all the time.

Attempt to diversify your speaking engagements by offering to speak for free at different nonprofits, small companies and schools. Offering nonpaid speaking engagements may seem counterintuitive when trying to become a paid professional speaker, but it will be so much easier to land paying gigs when you have a history of speaking on a variety of topics, in multiple formats and for a wide range of audiences.

Conference breakout sessions tend to be the gateway to greater speaking opportunities and ones that eventually can result in hefty speaker fees. The typical trajectory is to start delivering poster sessions (usually available to graduate students to share research), then breakout sessions, then featured speaker sessions and then the pinnacle of all speaking engagements: keynotes. Typically, conferences will release a call for speakers several months prior to the event date. Apply for as many breakout session opportunities at multiple conferences in your field/industry as you can. While most breakout sessions are unpaid, this is a great opportunity to build your professional speaking resume (and most of the time, they will comp conference registration fees for speakers).

In exchange for speaking for free, you can implement a number of strategies to still make the time worthwhile.

• Provide nonprofit organizations with an invoice showing a 100% discount. Non-profits can claim this as an in-kind donation, and it will build goodwill with them. (Note that even though they can claim it on their books, you cannot count this as a tax write-off or deduction.)

• Provide a brief contract and include a clause that allows you to use their logo in marketing materials.

• Consider spin-off business. While the speaking engagement might not pay, will the audience include potential decision-makers who can hire you at another event they might be associated with? Or might they engage with you regarding your area of business expertise, essentially becoming a pipeline for potential clients?

When building your speaking resume, include the following information for each event:

Keep this running list current and in a format that is easy to edit.

After every speaking engagement (especially the free ones!), gather testimonials. Make it something quick and easy. For example, you can have everyone scan a QR code or go to a direct link and drop one to two sentences about takeaways, what they enjoyed or how they are better after attending your presentation. Maybe you create a Google form that can be completed in less than 30 seconds. You can also go old-school and offer quarter sheets of paper with one to three questions and use them as exit tickets for people to leave the session. My favorite questions are:

• Would you recommend this session to a friend?

• Do you feel more equipped to ___________ based on attending this session?

• Can you please share a quote about this presentation, my style or what you learned?

I typically include a small note of appreciation too, something like "I would love your feedback!" or "I enjoyed spending part of my afternoon with you!"

Avoid asking too many questions. People usually don’t mind checking a box or two, but going beyond three questions can greatly reduce your chance of getting any feedback.

Ready to take your speaking resume to the next level? Develop a speaking reel by hiring a videographer to record your engagements and edit them in the style of a promo reel. The more competitive keynote opportunities will want to see samples of your presentation style before offering you a role. The sooner you can assemble a high-quality speaking reel, the sooner you can compete for those coveted paid speaking roles.

Once you have all of the elements from the previous sections, you are ready to develop a full-blown speaking kit with your logo and branding elements. Consider a multi-page document including the following:

• Cover Page: Include your name, tagline, a link to your speaking reel and a professional headshot.

• Overview Page: Describe your areas of expertise, your core values and your objectives in working with clients.

• Speaking Info: Detail your location/travel policy, identify the size of the audience you prefer and include an audience description (e.g., type of work, stage of life, interests, etc.), list speaking topics and the types of presentations you offer (e.g., workshop, lecture, etc.).

• Speaking Resume: In addition to what we already talked about above, consider including your education and a list of your professional roles if they help you earn more credibility for the type of engagement you are seeking.

• Testimonials: Include the best responses you've received and any approved logos. It’s a-okay for all quotes to be anonymous.

• Next Steps: Let them know how much your packages are and how they should book you. Perhaps you offer a link to your scheduling software so they can schedule a meeting with you to finalize details? Maybe you have a link to a contract they can digitally sign? Determine your process for confirming the engagement and share that process with the client.

You are now equipped to make a splash in the speaking industry. Use these tips and strategies to build a reputation as a prolific speaker who can captivate audiences and make a difference in your area of expertise!

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