13 Easy Ways to Get More Speaking Engagements

Securing speaking engagements is a crucial avenue for professionals looking to extend their influence and establish authority within their industry. These engagements offer a platform to amplify reach, enhance visibility, and bolster credibility. However, breaking into the speaking circuit and securing coveted opportunities demands strategic planning and concerted effort.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore 13 easy ways to get more speaking engagements and elevate your presence as a speaker.

What is a Speaking Engagement?

A speaking engagement refers to a public appearance or presentation where an individual, known as the speaker, addresses an audience on a specific topic or subject matter. Corporations, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, professional associations, industry conferences, and community groups can organize these events.

During a speaking engagement, the speaker typically shares their expertise, insights, and experiences with the audience, aiming to inform, inspire, educate, entertain, or persuade. The content of the presentation may vary depending on the purpose and audience of the event. Still, it often revolves around the speaker’s area of expertise, industry trends, best practices, personal stories, or thought-provoking ideas.

These engagements come in various formats:

• Keynote Speeches: Inspirational talks at conferences or events.
• Panel Discussions: Conversations among experts on a specific topic.
• Workshops: Interactive sessions for hands-on learning.
• Seminars: Educational sessions led by experts.
• Webinars: Online presentations for remote participation.
• Training Sessions: Instructional sessions for skill-building.

13 Easy Ways to Get More Speaking Engagements

Here are 13 simple strategies to boost your speaking engagements and expand your professional presence.

1. Prepare Your Speaker Toolkit

Your starting point is pulling together core speaker assets like a compelling biography, professional headshot, client testimonial videos, and a polished one-sheet document. This speaker toolkit conveys your credentials and capabilities at a glance when applying for gigs or connecting with event organizers.

Benefits:

• Establishes your credentials 
• Highlights capabilities 
• Provides an overview for event organizers

2. Build Your Online Presence

Create a designated speaking page on your website where interested conferences, corporations, and event planners can review your offerings. Include the range of popular presentation topics you speak on, overviews of signature keynote speeches, customization options for tailored events, expected audience takeaways, program formats like half-day workshops, and pricing guidelines based on event scale and content complexity. 

Benefits:

• Showcases range of offerings 
• Enables custom event planning 
• Establishes credibility

3. Outline Your Hero Presentation

Define what will become your flagship marquee keynote speech over time by refining a punchy presentation focused on your most powerful ideas, proven frameworks, or credentialed expertise. Ensure it crisply conveys your core methodology in an engaging format that also provides a backbone for adapting to other presentations when you customize for different events. 

Benefits:

• Conveys your core methodology
• Provides a foundation for customization

4. Leverage Past Speaking Engagements

Prominently showcase previous speaking gigs and qualifications on your website testimonials section and LinkedIn Profile. Spotlight conference names, corporations, or associations you’ve spoken for, along with metrics like audience sizes, video clips, talk topics, and any powerful engagement outcomes or client endorsements. This builds immediate credibility with prospective event organizers evaluating your background. 

Benefits:

• Builds credibility 
• Provides concrete examples of experience and expertise

5. Master the Art of Proposals

Carefully custom-craft every speaker proposal to align closely with an event’s audience makeup and interests, goals, as well as their topical and educational needs so you stand out. Explain directly in each submission how you’ll uniquely address the issues and challenges faced by their attendees. Include the right level of detail on your proposed presentation flow, key talking points, powerful takeaways, and why, ultimately, you’re the subject matter expert or speaker they need to deliver extreme value.  

Benefits:

• Tailors proposals to event goals and audience
• Conveys unique value proposition 
• Establishes subject matter expertise

6. Strategically Target the Right Events

Save time and energy by only evaluating and applying to speak at relevant conferences, conventions, and corporate meetings where you have existing connections, clear visibility pathways, or affiliations that give you an edge.

Similarly, cherry-pick opportunities where, based on past themes and demographics, you’re confident your expertise directly matches their focus and would provide tremendous value to their particular attendee profiles. Finally, focus on gigs spanning venues, budgets, notoriety, and scale that are well aligned with your personal goals for growing your professional brand through speaking.

Benefits:

• Leverages existing connections for a higher acceptance rate
• Target events that match expertise to audience needs
• Pursues gigs that align with personal goals

7. Develop Relationships with Planning Decision Makers

Avoid randomly submitting impersonal applications by identifying key events where you want to speak and then focusing on developing authentic relationships with relevant planners, conference chairs, association leaders, and other influencer stakeholders tied to speaker selection decisions.

The most direct path to getting coveted speaker recommendations or insider invites includes tactics like getting actively involved with planning committees, regularly attending niche conferences year after year, or volunteering logistics help to respected community organizers. 

Benefits:

• Develop insider relationships with key decision-makers
• Increases likelihood of receiving exclusive speaking invitations and recommendations

8. Collect Speaking Testimonials and Referrals

Strengthen future applications or proposals with credible third-party endorsements and referrals from others respected in your space, like prominent authors, practitioners, academics, or industry luminaries familiar with your knowledge and capabilities. For example, include:

• Their LinkedIn recommendations.
• Their quotes praise your skills.
• Referrals from event organizers at conferences where you’ve previously spoken or sponsored sessions.

Benefits: 

• Provides credible validation of expertise from respected industry leaders
• Boosts credibility in applications

9. Offer Free Previews Locally 

If you are just getting started as a speaker, give free short 15-20 minute previews of your talk at local audiences like startup communities, chamber events, niche networking meetups or Toastmasters clubs. This allows you to test and refine content while getting valuable visibility and feedback even before having secured keynote gigs. Then, film these excerpts to showcase the public speaking experience you’re gaining using the footage for social proof on your website and speaker proposals.  

Benefits:

• Tests and refines content with real audiences
• Builds speaking experience and social proof for proposals

10. Join Relevant Associations  

Getting strategically involved with industry associations, trade groups, niche alliances, and professional societies related to your expertise can further expand your networking pipelines and open doors to gigs. Identify relevant groups you can join or get more active with. Then check their speaker bureaus specifically to apply and get formally listed, which keeps you top of mind for program directors planning local events, conferences, and webinars. 

Benefits: 

• Expands professional network
• Provides visibility to conference and event planners through speaker bureaus

11. Follow Extensively Post-Submission

Expect only 1-2% of speaker applications and proposals to get accepted at the most competitive or top-tier events and conferences, which means maximizing your odds requires tenacious follow-through. If you don’t hear any response after a few weeks of submitting a proposal, take the initiative to follow up multiple times, politely checking on the status and restating your interest in presenting. Try getting direct contact info for speaker selection decision-makers. Make persistent but professional follow-up central to securing more gigs. 

Benefits:

• Maximizes acceptance rates through persistent yet professional follow-up
• Increases visibility with decision-makers

12. Promote Current Speaking Engagements

Once you finally land some confirmed speaking gigs, promptly announce and promote these upcoming engagements across your website, email signatures, and social media profiles. Then afterward, focus on sharing powerful event recaps, including great photos, compelling audience engagement metrics or testimonials, video highlights from your talk, backlinks to your presentation slides, or special discount codes to prompt signups for your following events.

Benefits: 

• Amplifies reach and builds anticipation for events
• Encourages future signups  

13. Remember: Repetition and Patience! 

Accepting that successfully securing consistent paid speaking gigs typically follows more of a long-term marathon trajectory rather than being a quick short sprint wins. There is enormous competition to speak at tier-one events, which means expecting initial rejections as the norm before breakthroughs. Refuse to get frustrated by nos, and keep showing up – tweaking messages, refining content, targeting new conferences, and following up relentlessly until you repeatedly start getting yeses by making acceptance inevitable! 

Benefits:

• Persistence and continual refinement of strategy over time lead to eventual wins.
• Patience and resilience in the face of initial rejections pay dividends later.

Conclusion

As you embark on your journey to secure more speaking engagements, remember that each interaction is an opportunity to inspire, educate, and connect with your audience. With dedication and strategic planning, you’ll carve a path toward greater visibility, credibility, and success in the world of public speaking.