There is a “blackbox” of sorts when it comes to finding speaking gigs and opportunities.
When you ask “how do I get booked as a public speaker” — it seems that outside of “get a speaking bureau” or “use your network” — no one really talks about all the different ways you might go about finding places to speak.
When I first started as a public speaker way back in 2014 — this was the question I was always trying to get answers to (and mostly just got the same ones I shared above). Blame on my Virgo moon (love me a list) and my Taurus sun (I'm stubborn af when i want something) — but I finally made my speaking dreams come true — and wanted to share what I did that worked initially to find those first few gigs.
Caveat — you might end up finding a lot of unpaid speaking opportunities when filling out “call for speaker” type forms — I leveraged the photos, video, and audiences I met in those places to build a speaking business that has since then generated tons of revenue, clients, and opportunity.
HOW TO FIND EVENTS TO SPEAK AT: A BIG LIST OF IDEAS
- Type in the name of a company and then type in a keyword like ‘conference’ (Hilton annual conference … John Deere award banquet … Coldwell Banker sales conference).
- Review meeting planner magazines/websites (Bizbash, Meetingsnet, etc.)
- Follow other speakers & entertainers to see what events they post about.
- Search them through speaker bureaus, then Google the speaker.
- Twitter is your best bet at looking for past events and hashtags.
- You can assign this to a Virtual Assistant to save time.
- Store all of your findings in one place (like the spreadsheet we shared).
- Hashtag social media search keywords like “sales conference,” “award banquet.” etc.
- Google Search [“‘previous year” “conference/banquet/etc”] (e.g., 2017 annual conference).
- Type in a company name followed by keywords like “award banquet,” “annual conference,” “annual meeting.”
- Search “associations” using the “Useful Websites for Speaking Opportunities” list.
- Get more specific.
- Which organizations hire speakers?
- Look up specific companies.
- Use glassdoor.com to find companies in specific areas.
- Make it specific by looking for states and cities plus your keywords
- Ex: “Alaska Sales Conference” “Denver Sales Conference”
- Ex: “California HR Conference” “Nevada Sales Conference”
- Keep changing the location (city, state, etc)
- Combine this with an image search on Google
- Connect with A/V (Audio/Visual) teams because they do the sound/lights for events. You can typically find testimonials, client lists, and events on their websites and social media.
- Look at another speakers/entertainers testimonial page and write down the names of the companies/people that reviewed him. Then use this information to search for events with that company via Google.
- Search http://www.prnewsonline.com/ (and other press release sites) for words like ‘conference’ ‘meeting’ etc because people send out Press Releases about their events
- Search ‘convention calendar’ and include the state/city. Ex: Orlando Convention Calendar… Houston Convention Calendar. Use this information to search out those events.
- Use LinkedIn the find meeting planners.
- Contact colleges (talk to campus/student activities). This can be especially helpful in the beginning if you trade a speech for some video and testimonials.
- Use Google Alerts
- Use keywords and have them sent to you (ex: “award banquet” etc).
- Use speaker/entertainer directories.
- Look at the reviews of the speaker, then contact the company that reviewed them to see if they want another speaker for the upcoming event
- Go to YouTube and type in “(the type of speaker you are) testimonials”
- Ex: Motivational speaker testimonials
- What companies have they been hired by? Contact those companies
- Use the list below to get started.
Finding Conferences and Events To Speak At:
This is a list of websites for professional speakers to help you get booked. http://www.directoryofassociations.com/
http://www.eventsinamerica.com
http://www.oreilly.com/conferences/
http://www.conferencealerts.com
http://www.associationnews.com/
http://www.conventionindustry.org/index.aspx
http://www.destinationmarketing.org/
http://www.gbta.org/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.siteglobal.com/page/site-events
List of convention centers (you can use this to search #CITYconventioncenter on social media)
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