The Savvy Entrepreneur

Being a speaker instantly supercharges your status as an expert; it boosts your visibility and credibility; you become a sought-after skilled professional. So how do you get started?

It’s different for everyone.

For service professionals, one of the best ways is by authoring a decent number of quality articles (online or print). Once you do, you’ll start receiving speaking invitations — some right out of the blue. For example, someone left me a message a few weeks ago, saying he read some of my articles, saw my newsletter and looked at my blog. He was impressed with what he read and wanted to know if I’d be interested in being interviewed. All this from an organization I never heard of before. I thought that was pretty cool!

Next, make a list of topics you’re passionate about and can talk about for hours. Don’t worry about having your presentation prepared; this step is just to help get your wheels turning.

Finally, you just need to dive in.

If you don’t get speaking invitations as quickly as you’d like, you need to get out there, look for and jump on speaking opportunities (as I did!). Here are some places to start:

• Podcasters seeking interesting, informative and engaging guests
• Networking/membership organizations looking for outgoing, interactive and educational guests
• TV or radio show hosts
• Local and online events
• Local business groups and marketing associations
• Companies hiring speakers for client and employee events
• Trade shows
• Conference hosts
• and more… (I can’t think of them all right now, feel free to add more in the Comments section)

In addition, you’ll want to create your own opportunities to speak. One of the easiest ways is by hosting a regularly scheduled teleclass, Skypecast, etc. You can also start your own podcast.

When speaking, choose topics that are shock-full of useful information. Prepare subjects that have an educational value. Avoid shameless self-promotion. As with writing, no one wants to listen to a sales pitch. Share your knowledge. Offer guidance. Make sure your listeners come away with something useful.

It’s worth coming out of your comfort zone for this one. It’s one of those things that you just need to get over, jump in and learn as you go. Plus, the more you do it, the more you’ll like it, the better you’ll get, the more you’ll get known and the more invitations you’ll receive.

Public speaking makes many nervous; I’ve noticed during my Get Clients Now!(TM) programs, many entrepreneurs are unwilling to even CONSIDER implementing public speaking in their marketing plan. It makes me sad to hear, because I feel they’re missing out on incredible visibility and credibility boosting opportunities.

There’s a ton of information available to teach you how to become an effective public speaker, so I won’t discuss that here. Public speaking is a skill that I feel all entrepreneurs must master, because everyone in business is both a presenter and a salesperson (read: communicator). Public speaking will help you be more successful.

Read Peter Fogel’s article “4 Compelling Reasons To Use Public Speaking To Get Clients.”

Check out “Marketing by Public Speaking: Steps to Getting Started” where you’ll discover the steps I took, launching me into public speaking for my business.