Getting The Right Online Speaking Gigs

 

Starting something new can take a little time before it gets to the level of success you want. In this episode, Elizabeth Bachman talks about starting online speaking gigs now to have the time you need to grow your practice into a successful brand. She also tackles finding the right online platform where you can promote your brand and your business effectively. After all, finding the right place that suits you and your style best contributes greatly to the success of your practice. Learn more about speaking about what you love in this episode.

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Getting The Right Online Speaking Gigs

This is the show where we interview experts on how to use your presentation skills to get the results you need to move your audience to take action. I’m the expert and I want to welcome you to how to get the right online bookings for you. We’re going to talk about why it matters and how to do it, but before we start, I want to remind you if you are interested in checking out how your presentation skills are doing, you can take our three-minute quiz. It’s at SpeakForResultsQuiz.com. You can check it out. You’ll see where you are rocking your presentation skills and where maybe you might need a little extra support.

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One of the things I want to invite you to is to check in with the Speakers Who Get Results show because we are rebroadcasting an episode by the brilliant Tracy Hazzard of Podetize. She and her husband, Tom, and their team produce my show. She’s going to be talking about “Should I do a podcast?” I’ll be talking about how do you get onto podcasts and which of the many online platforms are the ones that are going to be best for you, the ones that are going to make the most sense. I urge you to take a look at the Tracy Hazzard interview that I did. The thing that is different and especially different that we’re doing this is if you were ever thinking about doing a podcast, start it now. It takes time. It took me a couple of months to get myself set up and organized. It’s not overnight. You learn a lot as you do it. Once you do it, it’s a great platform.

Let’s talk about how you get out there and what’s the best place. What’s the best way for you to use? Are you doing internet video calls? Are you listening to podcasts? Are you speaking on internet calls or podcasts? If not, and if you’re looking for feasibility, if you’re looking to show up, then that’s the best way to do this. This is how to get the right online speaking gigs for you. Speaking about what you do and what you’re passionate about is still one of the best ways to promote yourself, to promote your personal brand, your business, and your practice. When you’re out there on a panel or you’re the expert or you’re giving a presentation, people notice. It sets you up as an expert.

It sets you up as someone to watch and someone to follow. Within a company, it makes you someone worth promoting. If you’re one of my many friends who have lost a job during the COVID pandemic, it makes you somebody worth hiring. If you’re in the middle of looking for a job, trying to figure out what to do, speaking on podcasts is going to be a great way to get out there and show your value. I truly believe that live events are coming back, but I think they’re always going to have a video component. Now that we’re only doing video, I truly believe that learning how to be a great podcaster on a podcast is a good way to do it.

You think of five things. You think about why, who, where, what, how. Why it’s worth doing. I spoke about this a little, but I’ll get into a lot more. Who are you speaking to? Where do you find them? What do you have to say and what do you need to give them when you’re applying and especially how to get it done? How to get it done is the thing. I don’t know if anybody’s like me, but it is easy to procrastinate. Suddenly, six months have gone by and you haven’t done any speaking. We’re going to talk about how we do all of this. These are the five steps to getting booked. For those of you who are following my show, look back in one of our earlier episodes. I did something specifically on how to get booked that was focusing more on live events. There’s a lot of information on how you can get out there and get speaking gigs. We’re going to talk about the various online platforms and how they matter.

Speaking about what you do and what you're passionate about is still one of the best ways to promote yourself. Click To Tweet

The Why

The reason why this matters is it shows you as a thought leader and you could have the best ideas in the world or the best speech in the world. If you don’t have any place to give it, it doesn’t do you any good. One of the reasons why it’s out there is it is a way of not positioning yourself, but showing people who follow you that it’s possible. A great deal of my work is helping women get out and do speaking gigs. Think about it. If you’ve ever looked at the lineup of speakers for a conference or a webinar or an online summit, you’ll notice that maybe 90% of them are white men and 10% are minorities or women. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever noticed that? Have you taken a look at it and not paid any attention because that’s the status quo?

I know there are lots of things. If you’re working with a minority-focused event, most of the people will be minorities. If you’re working on a women’s focused events, most of the speakers will be women. In the general overall world of speaking and conferences, most of the speakers are going to be white men. It is been an unconscious bias for decades and decades. Most of the time, it isn’t even intentional. It takes work to look outside your circle. The unconscious bias is in ourselves as well. We are often victims of that by thinking of it as the status quo, taking it for granted. If you are a woman, a minority, a leader but you’re not in the majority in your field, getting yourself out there to speak makes it easier for all the people who follow you.

The more you speak, the more you’re known as an expert. Also, if you have a business that depends on referrals, you want people to say, “Elizabeth Bachman, I’ve heard of her.” It helps people say, “I recognized her. I’ve heard of her.” The more you’re out there, the easier it is for other people to say, “He did a great speech. Let’s bring him,” or “I’ve heard of her. She’s great. She makes a very interesting panelist. Let’s get her on this panel.” You do have to put in some time at the beginning. It takes time. Anything worth doing it does, but the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more you do it, the more you are known, and then the more other people say, “Get Elizabeth Bachman for this.” That’s a big part of the why. It shows you as an expert.

The Who

We’ve done why. The next thing I want to talk about is who to talk to. I’m going to assume that anybody who’s reading knows who their ideal audience are. If you’re unclear about your niche, if you’re unclear about who to speak to, come and talk to me and we can do some work around that. Most of the time, as long as you know who you want to speak to, who should be listening to what you have to say, then look for the people who have platforms, look for the hosts who reach those people. One of the things is, who do you listen to? Who are the people that you listen to? I pay a lot of attention to who else is talking about speaking, who is talking about the themes that I talk about, partly because I want to learn. Partly because it’s good to know who else is in this sphere.

The Where

Where to find them, that’s the big thing I want to talk about. I made a list. It’s a way you can think about the main online platforms. There’s a short-term and a long-term strategy here. The short-term is if you’re going to speak on an online meetup, this is the same if it’s live or online. An online meetup or a hosted group, where the host knows you and the host is going to present you to their followers. That’s a great way of doing it. That’s especially good if you have a business that depends on local contacts. For instance, I was speaking with a woman who is an art appraiser. She’s looking for groups that are within her geographical area. She’s going to be speaking on Chamber of Commerce things or Rotary groups, things that are meetings of people who will eventually get back to meeting live.

 

The good part about this is you get instant gratification. You can get instant contacts, instant connections. If you’re speaking to promote your business or service, you have an instant connection to potential clients. The disadvantage is it’s only as good as the host. You can waste a lot of time speaking to groups for the sake of speaking where nobody there is going to do what you want them to do. Make sure that you know who you want to speak to and you want to know if the host knows what they’re doing. That’s the best short-term and long-term strategy because if you find the right group, invest time there so that they know you, then you have more chances to speak. That’s where clients come from. If you’re a coach or a consultant, that’s where your referral partners come from. That’s where you find your allies. That’s where you find your recognition.

The other three main platforms are more for the long-term. You’ve got Facebook Lives, LinkedIn Live. You’ve got internet radio shows and you’ve got podcasts. The difference is Facebook Lives and LinkedIn Lives, it is similar to a hosted webinar or a hosted group where if the host knows you, you can be promoted to their people. The difference is you don’t know who’s listening. You never know who’s going to be talking about you. If you’re someone who gets clients through giving a free gift or something, you never know who they are. The good part is it’s forever. It’s evergreen. People might be listening to you a year from now. Make sure that what you’re talking about is relevant.

I’m doing this in July of 2020, which means we’re in the middle of a pandemic. We’re in the middle of the COVID-19 shutdown or shelter in place. I want to make sure that the material I’m delivering and the people I’m inviting to speak with me are giving information that is evergreen. That’s a difference. If you have something topical, Facebook Live and LinkedIn Live is a great way to do it. It’s important. It may or may not become a podcast episode or something that you’re going to put up on your YouTube channel. The next one is internet radio. That also has the advantage of it’s evergreen. With all of this internet, Facebook or podcasts, the great leverage you can get, the way you can make use of it is by sharing it. Tell people, “I’m going to be on so-and-so’s show on Wednesday. Please tune in.” Most of the time, people don’t so put it on your social media. “I was on Elizabeth Bachman’s Speakers Who Get Results. Go and take a look. Read it, like it, and share it.”

That’s the best way to leverage. That’s why you can leverage any of this. Any time you are speaking, you should tell the world. If you’re within a company, working in a company and you’re interested in being promoted, you should be absolutely sure that your company knows, your colleagues know that you’re out there speaking. That’s important. The internet radio shows, the disadvantage is it’s only as good as the host. It’s only as good as do they have a listening audience. The other thing is if you’re monetizing your speech at all. Often, you have to pay to be on an internet radio show.

You may have millions of listeners. Your material belongs to the station. You don’t know how many people are listening. A lot of the not so honest or not so ethical internet radio shows will lie about how many numbers they have because they want their advertisers to think that they have millions and millions of listeners. Indeed, someone else’s show might have millions of listeners, but the one you’re talking on might not. You can always leverage it by telling everybody you know that you’ve been on the show. If they’re asking you to pay, think about whether that’s going to be worthwhile. It might be. If it’s the right person, absolutely. If it’s going to give you a great status because you have been on Harvard Business Review Radio perhaps, then you can say that. That would be worth paying for.

Anything worth doing takes time, and the more you do it, the easier it gets. Click To Tweet

The last one I wanted to get to is podcasts. I have Speakers Who Get Results. I have learned so much and I’m having so much fun as the host. The good thing about that is people will binge-listen. If you have the right host and your post is speaking to people who are your kinds of audiences, they’re likely to come to you because they heard another guest and then they’ll go onto the next one, which is you. You get a lot of extra exposure that way. It is national and international. It’s all over everywhere.

The good thing about podcasts is there are podcasts about everything. There are podcasts about business, self-care, chocolate, which in my book is self-care. Podcasts about chocolate is self-care for me. The disadvantage again is you don’t know who’s listening. You want to make sure that anything you say is evergreen, that people can binge listen a year from now or two years from now and it’s still okay. Most of the time people are fine if they listened to you a couple of years later. At least I know I listened to things and I think, “That’s interesting.” They’re referring to something that was a couple of years ago, that was an issue, but the information is still good. Listeners are forgiving.

The important thing about if you’re interested in being on a podcast is to check them out. Look at them on iTunes. There are all sorts of websites that will rate a podcast. One of them is called Podchaser, for instance. You can go up and look them up and see who do they speak to. Research it first. Make sure it is somebody who’s the right fit for you. You might listen to someone and you say, “They have a great person, but I don’t like that person. I don’t like his attitude. I don’t like the way he talks. He’s not the kind of person I want to be talking to.” The other thing is that 90% of podcasts will fade or stop broadcasting after the first six months. They call it pod fade. If you’re looking for a podcast, if you’re looking for a place to speak, you want to make sure that you’re talking to someone who’s still out there who’s still speaking.

The best way I have found to get speeches on podcasts is to ask other speakers who do they know. Who have you spoken to? Other speakers who work with the same listeners you want. Who do you know? Where have you spoken? A lot of people will get random connections. I get messages on LinkedIn all the time. “I am a podcast speaker. Can I come and speak on your podcast?” If somebody is recommended to me by someone who’s already been a guest on my show, that makes a big difference. The other thing is you get to meet other interesting people who work in the same area that you do. That’s always a good thing. If you’re interested in hosting a podcast, read the episode Should I Do A Podcast? With Tracy Hazzard. I can recommend her to you.

The other thing about podcasts is many of them are video as well as audio. That’s another thing too. Make sure that you’re okay in front of the camera. I first got into this because a coach of mine has a podcast and I followed her and I had hired her to help me become comfortable about doing video. For somebody who’s been speaking her whole life and who has been on stage since she was five, I was resisting video. That’s gone away. I’ve gotten past it. I’ve learned a lot. It indeed worked. Thank you, Juliet. You taught me that.

 

The What And Who

That’s why, who and where. The other two are what and how. When you are looking to speak on a podcast, make sure that you have a bio. I like to use a bio that you have a one-sentence version. You have a 300-character version. People will say or care about that. You have a version that may be several paragraphs. I like to have one sentence, medium size, which is the 300-character one, and then the paragraph bio so long as it all fits onto one page, then I can send that out. The reason I send out the long bio as an attachment often is because even though they may not use it, the host is going to read it. I want somewhat people to know that I am fluent in five languages. It’s not in the main part of my bio, but it is a piece of what I do. For Americans who normally don’t speak a whole lot of languages, it’s something that people pick up on all the time. If I only have three sentences that appear on the announcement, chances are the host is going to say, “By the way, Elizabeth is fluent in five languages.”

It’s something I’ve worked hard to do. I’ve worked with clients who forget to say that they have a PhD. You could say, “Dr. Steve, you worked hard to get that PhD.” Mention it. You want to have a bio. You want to have your topic, a good title. You want to give them three talking points. I like three questions that you could ask me. It’s not every host wants that. Not every host will ask you those three questions, but it gives them a guideline. As a host, I’m going to look at somebody and I will have my reasons for asking, but I know what they’re ready to talk about. That’s important. Another thing is for interviews and panels. This works for panels too. You want to make sure that you have the short version of your talking points and you can expand on that if you want. Sometimes the host will go off on a tangent and that’s fine. You are allowed to come back to say, “I’m happy to be talking about that. What I came here to discuss is X, Y, Z.”

Make sure that you have all of that. The easiest thing to do is have it on your website and have it in a Word document where you can copy and paste. You also want to make sure that you have all your social media links. Most of the time, 90% of the time, the application to speak on a podcast or the information form is going to be something that it’s an online form. You’re going to want to fill in the fields. That brings me to how. How to get it done. Remember back, we were talking about why and why it matters. Speaking in public is one of the best ways of establishing yourself as an expert. It can bring you clients, recognition, allies, and all of that. It’s so easy to put off that you have to make sure that you reserve the time. The best way I’ve found to do this is to set up accountability. Get a buddy. Get a friend who is also interested in speaking.

It should be someone who is more or less at the same level you are and make an appointment maybe twice a month. You go every second Thursday at 10:00 in the morning, or at 6:00 in the evening. Without fail, you’re going to spend an hour looking for speaking gigs. A great refinement about what I call the Fabulous Friend System is look for speaking gigs for each other because it’s always easier to brag about somebody else, isn’t it? You can look for speaking gigs for each other that gets you out of your own head and makes you look outside your own circle. You might find places that would be good for you as well, but make sure that you bookend it. You check in the beginning of that hour and you say, “I’m going to look for this, this, and this,” then you hang up and do it and then check in afterwards and report on how it went.

Why speak on online platforms? Online platforms are how we’re communicating these days and speaking is the best way to promote yourself. Who to speak to? Who is your niche? Who do you want to hear you? Where to look is either on hosted meetups, events where people know each other, or Facebook Live, LinkedIn Live, internet radio, or podcasts. What to give them? Make sure that you have all your information, including your social media information, any tweets you might have, any extra photos, and how to do it, bookend with a friend. I want to remind you that if you are interested in speaking, you could take our three-minute quiz at SpeakForResultsQuiz.com. You can see where you are rocking your presentation skills and where maybe you might need a little bit of support. I’ll see you on the next one.

 

Important Links

• SpeakForResultsQuiz.com
• Podetize
• Podchaser
• Should I Do A Podcast? With Tracy Hazzard – Previous episode