“Just because you land a gig, it doesn’t stop there. How can you parlay that into more gigs?”
Erick Rheam is a professional speaker and facilitator here at TSL who joined us on the podcast with Grant to teach us about geographical prospecting, how to leverage it, and some real-world examples of how it works.
Here are the top 3 takeaways from their conversation:
One gig is the starting point, not the finish line!
When you book a gig, you are going to travel for, that’s when the work starts. Now you want to reach out and begin to find 1, or 2, or 3, or more event planners and organizations who could be interested in what you have to offer in the area. (Area as a rough location, think a 50 – 75 mile radius.)
Once you open these conversations, see if there’s potential to extend the trip and take on another gig or two, or more! Grant shared an example of a time that he booked gigs the whole way across North Dakota over the course of a couple of weeks. Why not maximize the area around you before you go home?
The idea is to build momentum before and after you get on the stage. If you can always turn one gig into 3 or more, then your prospecting just got a whole lot easier!
Use geographical nearness as a means to build the relationship.
So you booked a gig, reached out to other event planners, and no one else wanted to book you? That’s ok! Use the time to take an event planner out to lunch or invite them to watch you live. Invest in that relationship so they want to have you back.
Not everyone will be ready and able to book a speaker when you reach out, but if you make an effort to show up and provide them with value, you will be the first person they think of when the time is right.
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What if they aren’t that close?
While the natural place to start building relationships or offering to let other event planners join the audience is when they are close, you can’t know what’s too far unless you ask.
In this episode, Erick shared an example of a team who flew in their event planners from Hawaii to Denver to watch Erick at a conference simply because Erick invited them! If you feel like this specific opportunity would be a great time for someone to see you in action, make the invite.
Ready to hear more? Check out Episode 478 of The Speaker Lab podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts.
