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Archives for September 2017

How LaVonna Roth Lands Stages With Confidence And Focus

LaVonna Roth is the creator of Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.®, an organization that is making an impact in education and corporate settings throughout the United States, particularly amongst women. Previously a teacher for 10 years, Roth used to lack the confidence necessary to speak in front of others. When she was asked to train other employees in her school district, she says her brain screamed “no,” but she verbally said “yes” anyway. From there, she became a consultant and planted the seeds for Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.® She wanted to help support others to help them gain the confidence that she lacked for so long.

Tapping into her education background, LaVonna likes to talk to students about confidence. She views confidence as a huge factor in the success that people will have, not just in school, but in their careers as well. She wants people to look into other positive traits while acknowledging their own strengths.

Nine years ago, LaVonna took the risk and created her own company. Although she’s had plenty of risks and challenges along the way, she’s turned her business into a six-figure company. In fact, her hope is to build upon this success and strive toward having a million-dollar company in the near future, with her speaking engagements serving as the main driver of that growth.

How LaVonna Has Increased Her Revenues From Speaking

Since LaVonna created Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.®, her speaking fee has more than tripled. But that’s only a small part of the revenues she earns from her stages.

Most of the revenue growth, according to LaVonna, comes down to finding a niche. LaVonna wanted to set herself apart, and she went and did a lot of self-critique as a result. As she improved as a speaker, she was approached by a publisher, who asked her to write a book. That one book has turned into eight books, which helps supplement the income that she receives through Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.®.

With Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.®, she has also explored additional sources of revenue that further reinforce the meaning of her business. She’s launched a bracelet that has five twists – one twist for every letter in the word “S.H.I.N.E.”. Each letter has a unique meaning: self, heart, illuminate, navigate, and exceptional. It’s more than just an accessory that people can wear. The bracelets that LaVonna sells serve as a reminder to those who may be struggling to live in the moment to think of what’s positive around them and to see the good in others. It’s a reminder that they can always find something that shines in any aspect of life, no matter how adverse a situation may feel in a given moment.

Aside from LaVonna being a solo speaker, she has looked at other methods for spreading her message. She is beginning to hire speakers that will make up a team to help spread the message of Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.®. These speakers will be trained in LaVonna’s speaking style, and they will be there to help with LaVonna’s various speaking needs. Whether she needs a speaker to take her place due to other commitments, or if a client cannot afford LaVonna’s asking price, LaVonna wants to ensure that her message of positivity is continuously being spread. This helps her team land more stages and bring in more revenue.

Additionally, LaVonna is exploring a new digital product that will be released before the end of 2017. Calling them, “SHINEtastic Lessons,” LaVonna says this is a framework course composed of videos and lesson plans. Any educator can shine in the online program at any time and go through the program at their own pace. While this provides more income for LaVonna, it has the added benefit of allowing her to take time off of the road so she can spend more time with her family.

If you want to learn more about how to land your first stages, check out: 10 Steps To Book Your First 10 Stages This Month

How LaVonna Engages Meeting Planners And Wins Stages

One of the biggest ways that LaVonna has been able to grow her business is by landing an increasing number of speaking engagements. This rise in engagements has been in large part due to social media websites, most notably Twitter.

LaVonna participates in many informational Twitter sessions with her followers, who number more than 13,000. From time to time, she will engage in conversations with her followers to help expand her network. But her social media activity has also helped her get noticed by others looking for potential speakers. She says that she will receive direct messages for people to book her as a result of the content she posts on Twitter. In fact, it’s not unusual for her to see two new bookings each month that can be traced directly back to her activity on the social media platform. After customers have found her on Twitter, they have looked at her website, which she has linked on her Twitter account, and they have often been even more impressed.

LaVonna’s mastery of Twitter speaks to a key concept that she says has made a real difference in her approach to seeking stages: picking a channel and nailing it. While there’s something to be said for having a presence on multiple social networks – and Facebook and LinkedIn are not without their own advantages – this does create challenges when it comes to achieving consistent branding across various platforms. In the end, LaVonna is living proof that being strong on a single social network is preferable to being mediocre on many.

Outside of social media, one of the most powerful tools LaVonna uses is her speaker box. Speaker boxes are exactly what they sound like – a box with a series of gifts that helps you introduce yourself to a potential client.

LaVonna has her speaker box laid out in a unique way. She uses a white box that contains the Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.® logo inside of it. She combines decorative aspects with colors and shapes that complement her company’s branding. LaVonna then makes sure that her speaker box includes aspects of her work – such as a 3-minute promotional DVD of her speaking.

LaVonna’s speaker box also includes a simple promotional brochure that provides additional information on her experience and background. She makes sure her contact information is included in the brochure so prospective clients can get in touch with her. As a special touch, she includes a light bulb in each box that is packed with yellow M& Ms. The color scheme lines up with the rest of the branding and reiterates her overall message of igniting the shine of yourself and others. LaVonna considers adding her logo to the light bulb in the future, so it can serve as a constant reminder of her brand. Finally, she includes other smaller gifts to help introduce herself, such as small gift cards. These gifts have helped LaVonna be referred to other customers, further widening her potential income stream and expanding her customer base.

Identify Your Biggest Asset

LaVonna says her strongest asset, by far, is her assistant. One of the biggest traits to look out for in your biggest asset is whether or not they share your passion for your business and will be there to support you as you strive to reach higher. For LaVonna, her assistant Sandi is very much that person.

LaVonna describes Sandi as her “right hand.” When LaVonna needs help with anything related to the business, Sandi is always willing to help. When there’s the opportunity to learn about new technology or skills to enhance LaVonna’s business, Sandi is always willing to do it. Sandi also has a business and marketing degree, which proves only to strengthen the business. When you want to take your business to the next level, it’s important to have that additional person to support you.

The Importance Of Your Story

Everyone has a story.People may think that their stories may be similar to those of others, but everyone’s story has impacted them and shaped them into who they are today. At the same time, everyone’s story has the potential to affect, influence and inspire others.

LaVonna Roth Competing In The Speakoff At Reach Academy Live.

For LaVonna, her story goes back to when she was born. LaVonna was told that her biological father walked out the door at the hospital, to never be a part of her life, and it had a large impact on her throughout her life, although she didn’t really realize how much until several years ago. She admits she was a people-pleaser, always wanting to fix things and struggling with low self-esteem.

LaVonna’s self-confidence would not be helped as she struggled in school. As someone who learns in a way that she describes as “different than how subjects are often taught in school,” LaVonna’s grades began to decline as soon as she hit middle school. By the time LaVonna was in high school, she admits that she was struggling to get by, and her confidence had reached a low point.

This low self-confidence persisted, lasting even while she was able to find validation in other areas of her life. Despite receiving recognition for her excellence as a teacher and later as a business owner, she still struggled to believe in herself. Thinking back to her own time in school, when she thinks about her work with Ignite Your S.H.I.N.E.® in the education sector, her focus is on finding ways of teaching that allow every single student – and every teacher – to discover the ways that they shine and the value they bring.

People who understand the power of their story and get their signature story down is the key to making your speaking career a thriving success.

Starting On Your Journey

For LaVonna, realizing the roots of her lack of confidence and discovering that there are elements of her life that needed to have shine played a key role in helping her discover what she refers to as her “calling” – finding a way to best support others in developing their confidence – giving her the boost she needed to strike out on her own as a speaker.

For those who want to get into speaking, LaVonna stresses the following key points:

  • Get involved for the right reasons.Don’t get caught up in glamorous ideas of being a speaker to travel the world and see the sights. That’s not realistic. Speaking is hard work, and you need to have a deep sense of purpose for what you’re doing to keep you going.
  • Find a mentor.Don’t assume you’ll be able to figure everything out on your own. Find a mentor with experience as a speaker – and as a business owner – to provide you with extra guidance to build your brand and reduce your likelihood of making limiting mistakes early on in your journey.
  • Stay focused on your goals. If you want to build your own business, your goal is to make your mission as large as you want it to be. While the mindset of “hustling” for your own business can be extremely overwhelming, the key for your business is to always keep it moving forward. Identifying your immediate and near-future goals is one of the best ways to keep your business on track.

Despite being in the speaking business for the better part of a decade, LaVonna continues to make changes to her business model even today. She has seen an increase in customer engagement through continued efforts, and more people are talking about her presence as a result. The journey may not be linear, but the focus must always be straight ahead.

Feeling inspired to jumpstart your speaking career? Learn how to book your next stage in 24 hours with the Unstoppable Stage Campaign

10 Steps To Book Your First 10 Stages This Month

Your first 10 stages are crucial for building your speaking career. Whether you want to become a motivational speaker or use speaking to grow your business, landing stages is the way to make it happen. There will be extra challenges landing stages when you first start out because you need to learn how to work with meeting planners, and you need to build up some social proof and promotional materials with these first stages.

We use the Unstoppable Stage Campaign as our main tool for landing stages. But this campaign is highly detailed and can be challenging to set up if you’re just starting out speaking. Plus, some of the biggest and most valuable stages that you want to get onto may take several years to happen, so it’s important to get some quick wins and momentum early in your speaking career.

In this post, we’ll share some quick action steps you can take to land your first speaking gigs, test out your talk and build out some social proof.

Step 1 – Define your target

Before you start anything else, you need to be clear on who you want to reach with your talk — who your ideal audience is that would be interested in your story as well as your product or service.

There are thousands of stages out there, and if you don’t take the time to understand what to look for, then you’ll waste time on stages that don’t benefit you. Worse yet, if you speak on the wrong stages you probably won’t resonate with the audience or the meeting planners, which works against you.

Here are a few questions to help you define what the best stages are for you:

  • Who is my ideal customer?
  • What makes me different and interesting to them?
  • What kind of events would they attend?
  • How can I relate what I do the core themes of these events?
  • Who are some of the people they follow, and what events are they attending?

Step 2 – Prepare a signature talk

If you want to start landing stages, you’ll need to have a talk ready to deliver. Now that you understand who you want to speak in front of, you need to develop a talk that’s going to touch their hearts and inspire them to work with you. Plus, having your talk prepared will give you some excitement and energy to get it out in front of people.

You should be prepared to speak for 5 to 30 minutes for your first talk. Since these are your first 10 stages, it’s likely that you’ll be getting a lot of breakouts and smaller time slots. These will give you some time to practice and refine your talk as well. If you can master delivering a good talk in 5 minutes, then it’s easy to build out around it.

Step 3 – Ask around

Now that you have a talk ready, you can start searching for speaking opportunities.

The lowest hanging fruit for stages is in your current network.

Take some time to sit down and think up friends, clients, mentors, colleagues and anyone else that both trusts you and may be able to connect you with some events and stages.

Sit down for an hour and brainstorm people that might be able to connect you with some stages, and then reach out (by phone if possible, but email is okay, too).

Here’s a basic script for what to say:

Hi [NAME],

First off, I just wanted to thank you for believing in me and my message. These last few [MONTHS/YEARS] have been so fulfilling for me as I have seen [AUDIENCE] respond to my message of [MY CORE MESSAGE]. You’ve always been so supportive of me, and it means a lot.

Now, I’m ready to take it to the next level. Since I’ve been getting such a great response, I know I can reach even more people with my message. I’m looking for more stages in my area of expertise, which is [NICHE]. These might be podcasts, webinars, online seminars or summits, or actual physical stages.

You’ve been in the industry for a while now, and I wanted to see if you had any recommendations of stages where my message would resonate?

Would you be interested in hopping on the phone (or just replying to this email) with your recommendations?  

Thanks again for your support and belief in me; it means more than you know.

Thanks,

[YOUR NAME]

Step 4 – Search for local stages

If you live in or near any large cities, look for local events that you can participate in. Local stages can be more accessible since you don’t need to travel long distances or spend money on hotels to participate. Plus, it’s more likely that you’ll have contact or champion who could connect you with a local stage.

Start to build out a spreadsheet where you can record the names of events, locations, dates and contact information for the meeting planners.

  • Conferences in [your city] – A few simple searches in Google can turn up dozens of conferences and events that could be a good fit for you. Try searching “conferences for [your niche/industry/customer] in [your city]”
  • Event Centers – Search for event centers in your city, and then look up their calendars. See if you can find any events coming up that could be a good fit for you.
  • Associations – Look for associations that serve your target customer. It’s likely they have some local chapters in your city or region that are often looking for fresh speakers and ideas for their audience.
  • Meetups – Go to meetup.com and search for meetups related to your audience. Meetup hosts are usually very easy to contact and may be open to having you speak.
  • 1 Million Cups – 1Million Cups is an organization for entrepreneurs to present and share their ideas. They have meetups in most cities across the U.S. and are always looking for more speakers.

If you want to land 10 stages, you’re going to need to research at least 30 or 40.

Step 5 – Look for online stages

Remember that stages don’t have to be physical locations. There’s a wealth of opportunity for getting on online stages. You can speak on an online stage from the comfort of your own home while reaching thousands of your ideal customers. There’s also usually a much lower barrier to entry to get onto online stages.

Podcasts – Podcasts are constantly looking for new guests who can speak to their audience. To find good podcasts for you, go to iTunes and search for podcasts related to your niche. iTunes won’t directly link to their website, but once you find the name of the podcast you can search it online and usually find the contact information for the host in a few simple clicks.

Webinars – Many associations, businesses, and online communities host regular webinars for their audiences. Check for opportunities on websites of the associations you researched in the previous step. Also, look for businesses or brands that serve your audience and reach out to see if they would be interested in co-hosting a webinar with you.

Online Summits – Online summits are powerful “digital conferences” that give many people an opportunity to speak. Sometimes summits take an interview format where one host speaks to many different people, while others act more like a collection of webinars.

Try to find another 30 or 40 online stages in this process.

Step 6 – Prepare your pitch

Once you have a big list of stages ready, it’s time to start preparing your pitch for them. This is where many people go wrong. Most just point-blank ask meeting planners for a stage or talk about how much a stage will help their business. This is the opposite of what you want to do.

Your pitch needs to address the wants and needs of the meeting planner and the audience they serve.

Create a signature sentence

A signature sentence is your entire story and signature talk distilled into one crisp sentence. It makes for a perfect opener that explains what you do and catches the attention of the meeting planner from the beginning.

Here’s the basic formula for a signature sentence:

I [action] [who] to experience [what] so they can get [result].

Here are a few examples of signature sentences put together by attendees of Reach Academy Live.

How can you solve the meeting planner’s problems?

Be sensitive to the meeting planner’s situation. They have to sift through hundreds of different speakers interested in what they are doing to put together something that’s a big hit for their audience. Their biggest fears are inviting someone who is a “dud,” difficult to work with or tries to sell a bad product to their audience. Make sure you can address these fears in your pitch.

How can you solve the audience’s problem?

Make sure you can clearly articulate the problems that your audience faces and the value you can add to them.

Collect social proof

Even if you’ve never spoken before, you can get some social proof together to help build trust with the meeting planner.

  • Business stats – How many customers have you helped? What kind of results can you get?
  • Credentials – What have you studied or achieved that makes you an expert?
  • As seen on – Have you been featured on any big websites, media outlets or events that could lend to your credibility?

Set up a speaker page/website

You’ll want to have a speaker page set up so that, when you start your outreach, people will begin to research you. Make sure you have a page to send them to that will present you well.

If you want to learn more about what makes a great speaker page, check out: The Anatomy Of A Great Speaker Page

Step 7 – Introduce yourself

It’s time to reach out to meeting planners and start landing your stages. Most people go straight for the stage with the first contact. That’s like asking someone you just met to marry you. For this introduction, you just want to make a good first impression and open up the doors for more conversation. There are two ways you can do this: with video email or a speaker box.

Video email

Video email is our favorite form of outreach. Using video in your emails is the next best thing to a face-to-face conversation. It gives you the power to convey that extra meaning and emotion in the messages you send and to put a face to your name.

There are a lot of different apps and services out there that can help you add a video to your emails. Our favorite is BombBomb. It’s an incredible tool that makes recording a video from your computer or phone a snap.

Send them a video email introducing yourself, praising the event and asking about opportunities to help out with the event (sponsorship, help with promotion, etc.). Keep the key elements of your pitch in mind with how you can help the meeting planner and the audience in your messaging.

Speaker Box

Instead of doing what 99% of people are doing and trying to reach out via email to meeting planners, you can target the least crowded inbox of your meeting planners: their mailbox.

The speaker box is one of the signature elements of our Unstoppable Stage Campaign. We send it to meeting planners who we want to build relationships with. It includes a few different materials to introduce who we are and what we’re about.

Here are a few things to include in your speaker box:

  • A problem solving letter – This letter is all about how you can add value to the meeting planner and solve their problems.
  • A promo sheet – This is essentially a printable version of your speaker page. (Pro tip: Make the sheet fit the dimensions of the box you use so you don’t need to fold it.)
  • A small gift – Add a small gift that will delight the meeting planner and make a good impression.
  • A USB drive – Include video footage of you speaking, and any other information that is better presented digitally.
  • A book or other materials – If you have a book or any other materials to share, be sure to include them.

The speaker box can be expensive to send, especially early on in your speaking career, so you may want to be selective in who you send a speaker box to. If you can’t afford to send a box to every person you reach out to, at least send out a problem-solving letter. Don’t ignore the power direct mail can have on getting you noticed.

For more outreach strategies and details on our speaker box, check out: Unstoppable outreach strategies that cut through the noise.

Step 8 – Get on the phone

Once you’re sure your video email or speaker box has arrived, reach out to the meeting planner and try to book a call. Getting the meeting planner on the phone to talk to you will be crucial to landing their stage.

We developed the “Win-win script” as part of The Unstoppable Stage Campaign to make this call a breeze. You don’t just talk about speaking, but opportunities for exhibiting, breakouts or sponsorships that will help the meeting planner be more successful. The core idea of the script is to always be positioning what you do and what you want as a win for the meeting planner.

Immediately after your phone call, make sure to follow up via email and thank the meeting planner for their time. In this email, include the next steps, like your booking process.

Step 9 – Send them a small gift

Also after the call, immediately send them a personalized note in the mail with a small gift or a treat. We recommend Send Out Cards for this. Thank them for their time and reiterate how excited you are to be collaborating with them. Include a small treat like popcorn to make it more memorable for them.

If you want to learn more about the art and power of gift giving, check out Giftology by John Ruhlin.

Step 10 – Deliver your talk and get feedback

With enough outreach, you’ll be landing stages in no time.

With these first 10, you need to be sure you’re collecting good feedback from the audience and the meeting planners so you can not only improve your talk but also collect better social proof to help you land more stages in the future.

Meeting planner testimonials – Ask the meeting planner to do a testimonial for you. You can collect some written testimonials but, if possible, get a good video of the meeting planner enthusing about you and your talk.

Video from your talk – You’re going to want to collect a lot of footage of you speaking for your promotional videos.

Audience ratings – Many events will have surveys where their audience can rate the different speakers and give feedback on their presentations. Most speakers never ask for this information, but it can be a gold mine for social proof and ideas for how to improve your talk.

Bonus Step – Rebound the ones who said “no”

You’re not going to land every stage you reach out to, but you should not lose hope at the first “no” you get. Most people, after getting a “no,” will go quiet and never reach out again, even if it was just a matter of timing that kept them from landing that stage.

Instead, attend the event and introduce yourself in person. This will help the meeting planner to put a face to your name and will show that you support what they are doing. By attending the event you can get a better feel for it and how to position yourself as a good fit for the next one.

Mark the dates of the events even if they say “no,” and follow up once the event is over with a gift and some encouragement. Send them an email or mail them a small treat and acknowledge the hard work they put into the event. This will make a big impression on the meeting planner, and they’ll be more open to letting you speak at the next event.

Conclusion

Stages are everywhere, and they’re easier to win than you think. By following these simple action steps, you should be able to get some quick wins in 30 days or less. This will jumpstart your speaking career and get you on track to landing your dream stages.

If you’re ready to take your stage outreach to the next level check out the Unstoppable Stage Campaign.

The Anatomy Of A Great Speaker Page

A speaker page is essential for anyone looking to land stages and grow their business with speaking. While most of your stages will come from your outreach, it’s important that you have a page ready where meeting planners can find, learn about and contact you with speaking opportunities.

But what exactly do you need on your speaker page to make yourself irresistible to meeting planners?

Before You Start Building Your Speaker Page

Before you build out your speaker page, you need to understand your positioning in the market. That is, you need to know what meeting planners and your customers desire, and be able to clearly communicate how you can deliver that.

Your story goes beyond the stage–it plays a crucial role in your positioning. The story of you, who you are, what you do, and why you do it is essential for mastering how you position yourself and how you present yourself to meeting planners and your customers. Check out 5 Steps To Great Brand Storytelling With Chris Smith to learn more about building an amazing brand story.

Eye Catching Headline

Just like landing pages selling a product, you need to have an eye-catching and enticing headline right at the beginning.

You can use the same tactics the best marketers use to sell their products to sell yourself as a speaker.

Promo Video

Your promo video will probably be the first thing the meeting planner engages with after they see your headline. This video should be high-energy and show off the best aspects of your personality and the value you bring to your audiences.

Here’s an example of a promo video:

A promo video should have 4 main components:

  • Professional Quality – This is not an area where you need to go cheap or use your iPhone. A general ballpark for what you should expect to spend on something like this is $1,000-$5,000. They usually take a few hours to shoot, and the finished product should be about 2-5 minutes long.
  • Problem Solving – This is where your positioning is essential. You need to build credibility by demonstrating that you understand the meeting planner and their problems (finding great speakers). You also need to show you know the audience of the meeting planner, how to solve the problems they’re facing, and the world they live in.
  • Engaging – Your video needs to be exciting, fast-moving and interesting. By paying for professional quality editing, you can get good editing and music in the video to help it stay interesting. The key to keeping it engaging is always to be laser-focused on the needs and desires of the meeting planner.
  • Leave them wanting more – You want to give enough that you show you’re an expert, but you don’t want to reveal all your secrets and content in the video. Think of your video as a movie trailer. It gives you enough to want to see the movie, but not enough to give away the whole story.

Your promo video is a great place to test out your signature sentence. A signature sentence is your entire story and signature talk distilled into one crisp sentence. It makes for a perfect opener that explains what you do and catches the attention of the meeting planner from the beginning.

Here’s the basic formula for a signature sentence:

I [action] [who] to experience [what] so they can get [result].

Here are a few examples of signature sentences put together by attendees of Reach Academy Live.

About You

You want to include 2-3 paragraphs of text about yourself. Most people are tempted to just write out their own story and history here, but remember, the “about me” section is never really about you–it’s about the meeting planner.

In other words, don’t just spout out your whole life’s story here–make sure that every sentence in your about me section speaks to these three things:

  • The event planner’s problems
  • Show you understand their audience
  • Why you’re different

Let’s break down a sample from LaVonna Roth’s speaking page and see how she tackles all three of these points in just two sentences:

“Highly energetic and dynamic, LaVonna Roth is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, consultant and author, bridging how the brain learns (and thinks), with people’s incredible intrinsic skills and talents (how they S.H.I.N.E.) is her deep passion. Her goal is to help individuals become confident in who they are, and for them to use that aptitude in making a difference within their communities.”

“Highly energetic and dynamic, LaVonna Roth is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, consultant and author,” – A meeting planner’s biggest fear is getting a dud speaker, and this line gives social proof that she’s experienced and entertaining.

“Bridging how the brain learns (and thinks), with people’s incredible intrinsic skills and talents” – This touches on why she is different by combining learning and talent in a unique way.

“Her goal is to help individuals become confident in who they are, and for them to use that aptitude in making a difference within their communities.” – This speaks to the desires of the audience. She’s showing here that she knows what they want and can help them get it.

Popular Speaking Topics

If you only have one signature talk developed, try to write descriptions for several versions of your talk that emphasize different aspects of it. Even if it’s largely the same talk, you give the meeting planner a sense of choice in the matter, and their choice can help guide you on what to focus on for their audience and event.

Videos Of Recent Talks

Though you should have footage of you speaking in your promo video, it will probably just be short clips of you talking. Many meeting planners want to see uncut footage of you speaking, not just a “sizzle reel.” This gives them a better idea of what you’re really like on stage, and that you didn’t just edit clips together to make yourself look good.

You don’t need to have a video of a full talk up, especially if it’s a 30 or 60-minute talk. Just pick out a solid 5-minute clip to post from one of the strongest sections of your talk. Try to get clips of yourself being energetic, engaging the audience, or sharing some of your best ideas.

Downloadable Speaker Packet

A good speaker packet will say many of the same things your page will say but in a printable format. Many people still prefer to have something they can hold in their hands, share at meetings, and compare side-by-side with other sheets. By having this packet available for download, you signal you understand the meeting planner and how they work.

Here’s a great example of a speaker sheet from Chris Smith.

This can be the same speaker sheet you use as part of your Speaker Box. I recommend having a “printer-friendly” version of your packet available, too.

Social Proof

Social proof is crucial on your speaker page because it helps put the meeting planner at ease. They don’t want to risk giving away a keynote slot to someone who is inexperienced, or who may bomb on their stage. Social proof shows that you’re experienced and backs up the statements that you make in your promo video.

There are many different ways to approach social proof on your speaking page. If you’re just starting out speaking, you may not have many of these things yet. So make sure you start collecting this information to build out your social proof as soon as possible.

Logos from events

If you’ve been speaking for a while and have landed some big-name stages, using the logos of the events where you’ve spoken is a powerful way to show your experience.

Testimonials from hosts

The next level of this is to get testimonials from hosts of the events. This is great because it can not only point out how great of a speaker you are, but the hosts can also talk about how easy you were to work with behind the scenes, which is also a big concern of meeting planners.

Ratings

Most events hand out surveys at the end of the event where they rate speakers, what they liked, what they didn’t, and what they want more of. Using this can be a powerful form of social proof because many meeting planners are doing everything they can to keep their event highly rated.

Most meeting planners are happy to share any rating data they collect on you. Sometimes there’s even comments and feedback that you could use.

Speaker Request Form

If the rest of your speaker page does its job right, then the meeting planner you’re speaking to is going to want to reach out to you to talk about putting you on their stage. Make it easy for them by putting a speaker request form at the bottom of your page that collects the essential information about the event.

Here’s what your speaker request form should include:

  • Name
  • Email
  • Event website
  • Date and location
  • Preferred topics
  • Describe the event
  • Anything else I should know?

Follow Up Email Sequence

Once someone fills out your speaker request form, you should have an automated email series ready to start messaging them right away. Though you can’t depend entirely on automation to get you stages, you can have a sequence set up to make it easier for you.

You can have email set up to provide additional information about yourself, request more information from the meeting planner to further qualify them, or send them a link to book a call with you or your team.

Email automation is one of our favorite outreach strategies and a key element of The Unstoppable Stage Campaign.

Personalizing Your Speaker Page

Once you have your speaker page developed, it’s easy to make copies of it and personalize them for your dream stages. For the high-priority events on your “dream stages list,” you may want to go the extra mile and tailor your speaker page to those events.

Meeting planners are bombarded with cheap pitches from speakers all day. Most of the time it’s clear they didn’t put more than 5 minutes into copy/pasting an email template and sending them the same thing they just sent 100 other planners.

By creating a personalized speaker page, you can create a very personal feel for the meeting planner without having to reinvent the wheel every time you create a page. This can make you stand out from the many other speakers trying to get on that stage.

  • Use the name and language of the event – Talk about the mission of the event on your page and align your topics and values.
  • Use the name of the meeting planner – If you’ve done your research on the event, you should know the meeting planner in charge of the event.
  • Mention testimonials from similar events – You can focus your testimonials to address the most relevant information to that specific meeting planner and event.
  • Tailor your keynotes to the audience – You can modify the title and descriptions of the talk to be extra focused and relevant for the specific event and their audience.

Conclusion

Treat your speaker page as a landing page that sells yourself and your story as the product. Always keep the focus of the speaker page on the meeting planner and their audience. With time, this may become one of the most valuable pages on your website.