When you are booked to speak for an organization and the event is open to the public, I recommend you do as much as you can to help make the event a success. It might be tempting to sit back and let the organizer take care of getting the word out and filling the event, but I don’t think you should rely solely on the organization’s team.
The organization may or may not have the right resources in place. Or, your event might not be a high priority. You may not know what they are planning on doing to promote your event and who is going to be executing on that plan. The resources might be great, but you should still do your part to ensure the success of the event.
Last fall I was booked to speak for the Chicago Chapter of Conscious Capitalism the following May. Speaking engagements are often booked months or even a year in advance. I hadn’t heard of the group, but was excited when I learned about the organization and its mission. They had reached out to me because they thought an author talk about my book, This Isn’t Working! Evolving the Way We Work to Decrease Stress, Anxiety, and Depression, would be interesting and relevant for their members.
I attended a few of their events and really liked the people I met. I am very excited to build my talk and create discussion points, and I want to make sure people know about it and attend. Here are some of the things I plan on doing:
Target the messaging
I needed to find a door into the content that would be relevant for the audience: CEOs and aspiring leaders of companies. I started with my usual bio and points from a talk I developed on how to create a great corporate culture and fine-tuned it for this audience.
I was given the opportunity to write the first draft of the landing page and my bio page for this event. I submitted what I thought would work, which could help to ensure the messaging is consistent with the talk I am creating.
Amplify social media posts
The organization will be posting on social media about the event. I asked them to tag me so I would be sure to see it. I will share their post, or at least comment on it, hopefully boosting the algorithm.
I also plan to create my own posts and will tag the organization. You never know when or how people are going to see things these days.
Publish a blog post
Blog posts are longer than social media posts, so you might want to write something that has more detail or covers a specific point in your talk. In the landing page copy I wrote, I mentioned five takeaways. I could write something about those if I wanted to.
Create short videos
Videos are eye-catching and people will be coming to see you speak. Video gives a potential attendee a sense of your speaking style and topics you’ll be covering. If they like what they see on video, they might decide to attend.
Do a livestream
We are going to do a livestream a few weeks before the event to talk about the event and try to get people excited. This will be longer than the short videos and will give potential attendees a more complete idea of what the event will be like. Hopefully, it will convince people who were on the fence to sign up.
We are also going to do a follow-up livestream after the event to talk about what happened at the event and dive into any takeaways or questions that were raised by participants.
I hope this got you thinking about what you might do if you get booked to speak. Creating a talk is hard work so you will want to ensure your talk is as successful as possible. Good luck!
