Many aspiring speakers make the mistake of waiting for speaking opportunities to come to them, but the reality is that waiting next to the phone is not an effective approach in the speaking business. The speaking industry rewards those who are proactive and take action to build their speaking careers.
The secret of successful speakers? They don’t wait for opportunities to find them. Instead, they systematically research and pursue events that align with their expertise and pay what they’re worth.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale your speaking business, strategic event research is the foundation of a successful speaking career. This guide will show you exactly how to find, evaluate, and pursue paid speaking opportunities that match your expertise and financial goals.
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The Power of Being Specific: Define Your Niche First
Before diving into research tactics, you need clarity about what you’re actually looking for. Most speakers ‘want paid speaking gigs,’ but aren’t very specific with what type of gigs, venues or the audience they want to speak to. You need to be very specific about the following questions:
- What industry do you want to speak to?
- What audience size do you prefer?
- Are you targeting local, regional, or national events?
- What fee range are you seeking?
- What topic can you speak about with authority?
- What demographic are your ideal audience members?
When you’re more specific and can accurately describe the type of events you want to speak at and the people you want to speak to, people immediately know exactly what you’re asking and know how to help you.
Create a System to Track Opportunities
Throughout this article, we’ll explore a variety of ways to find a public speaking engagement to speak at. However, if you’re just aimlessly researching without a systematic way to track and follow up on opportunities, your progress will be slow if not nonexistent.
That’s why you need a system. When new speakers hear this, they often imagine complicated CRM software and feel daunted. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. Often, in fact, the best way to start is simply by creating a Google Sheet or Excel Document with the following information for each potential speaking opportunity you find:
- Name of Event
- Date of Event
- Name of Event Organizer(s)/Decision Maker(s)
- Contact Information
- Public Information About Speaker Hiring Process
- Notes
This basic system will give you a sense of direction and organize your efforts.
Strategy #1: Master Google Searches
Google is the most powerful search engine in the world, and yet, it is too often overlooked by speakers looking for paying gigs. You would not believe how many gigs speakers have gotten simply by searching online for “_____ conference” (fill in the blank with your industry).
All it requires is a little bit of time, effort, and persistence, and you could find yourself filling your calendar out before you know it.
Start with Basic Searches
Although it may seem elementary, going back to basics here can be extremely useful for researching public speaking events. Start with this type of search:
- “[Your industry] conference”
- “[Your topic] association”
- “[Your expertise] event”
- “[Your niche] meeting”
Add geographic modifiers:
- “[Industry] conference [your state]”
- “[Topic] event [your region]”
- “Local [industry] meetup”
Use Advanced Google Strategies
While basic strategies are a good starting point, you can get even better results by using more advanced tactics when searching for speaking events. Scroll all the way to the bottom and you’ll see “Searches related to [your original search term].” This part is gold! You’ll find all the related keywords that you’ll need to continue your search.
Geographical search terms are especially useful when you start out. State and regional events are generally great places to get started because they’re smaller, lower risk, and have lower budgets, so they don’t tend to target national speakers. These smaller events are often looking for more of an up-and-coming speaker, which means you.
Keep Looking
Another important point to consider is that you should aim to get a large list of possible events before you start reaching out. Many aspiring speakers will find an ideal event and direct all their focus to getting booked for that event. While finding a perfect speaking opportunity is always exciting, you should remember to build an extensive list of possible clients. There’s a very real possibility of that “perfect” opportunity not working out. So try to build a list of 20-100 possible events that could be an option for you, depending on your niche, experience, and geographical location.
Strategy #2: Leverage Social Media
Social platforms are goldmines for discovering speaking opportunities, especially when you know how to search strategically.
Hashtag Research
Here are a few hashtags that can help you find a slew of events and people to search: #Conference, #EventProfs, #ConferenceSpeaker, #MarketingConference, #NonprofitConference, #BusinessEvent. You can also try dozens of variations on these, such as putting them with geographical or industry related words.
Follow Industry Leaders
If you follow speakers and events on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, your newsfeed should be flooded with events or people to Google. If you’re not following industry leaders and influencers, it’s time to get on the social media bandwagon for building your business.
Speaker Stalking (The Good Kind)
You can gain a lot of opportunities by closely paying attention to similar speakers. Find an influencer in your niche and start following them. See where they’re speaking and hanging out. A professional speaker will most likely have a list of events that they will be speaking at in the upcoming months. You can check out their events and reach out to the coordinators with your pitch to find out if there’s any other availability for that event.
Strategy #3: Optimize Discoverability
While the most important side of getting speaking gigs by far is researching and seeking them out, you should also make sure that if potential clients were to look for someone with your skills and expertise, they would find you first, instead of your competition.
SEO Basics for Speakers
Pick a keyword or phrase. Think through what people who are looking for a speaker like you would search for. Get as specific as you can. Something like “sales speaker” or “customer service speaker” are going to have a lot of searches and will be hard to rank for. Think about some nontraditional, less common variations of search terms such as “motivational healthcare speaker in Nashville.”
Once you identify key terms, create content on your website and social media using these phrases so search engines can connect you with potential clients.
Google Alerts Setup
You can set up Google Alerts for new content that’s released online. Anytime someone posts on Google with those keywords, you’ll get an email. You can set up alerts for keywords such as “Health Care Conference.”
This feature is incredibly useful for keeping your list of prospective events up to date and staying informed on upcoming opportunities in your industry. Pro tip: You might want to set up a separate email account for just Google Alerts. Your inbox might be overwhelming to look at if it’s getting daily emails with potential speaking engagements.
Strategy #4: Tap Into the Hotel and Venue Network
If you’re looking for paid speaking opportunities in your area, try searching hotel and conference venues websites directly. They’ll give you options to search multiple ways for events. You can plug in date ranges, search by hotel and event types to narrow your search by category niche.
Hotels often host a variety of events that require speakers, including the following:
- Corporate conferences
- Association meetings
- Industry summits
- Training events
- Award ceremonies
Strategy #5: Build Your Referral Network
Client Referrals
After you speak somewhere, always ask the event planner for other contacts who book similar speakers. This is the best way to get future gigs. Nothing means more to people than a recommendation from a trusted friend.
Ask the client, “Do you know other event planners or conferences that may be looking for a speaker similar to me?” If you’ve done a good job, they will almost always recommend you to their peers.
Speaker Referrals
For new speakers, speaker referrals are often the biggest source of gigs. Building relationships with other professionals in your niche is an important and effective referral strategy.
Other speakers refer business to you when:
- The budget for the event is too low and they can’t afford a certain speaker
- They are already booked on a certain date
- It’s not a topic they speak on
- Some speakers don’t want to travel very far
However, never send a cold email to a speaker you respect and ask them to refer you for a gig. If they don’t know you and aren’t confident in your skills, they won’t do it, and you’ll probably damage a potential relationship with them by asking too soon.
Strategy #6: Attend Events Strategically
When you attend the conferences and events you want to speak at, you’ll get to know the conference organizers, the audience and decision makers. Once you start hanging with the right crowd, you’ll be able to reach out on social media and mingle with them virtually.
Maximize Your Event Attendance
During live events, take the time to take selfies and lots of photos of the event. When the staff and administration come home, they will search the hashtag and see your smiling face freely promoting the event and saying nice things.
After the event, send an email about your experience. They will love hearing from you as it’s fresh in their minds. You could even provide a testimonial for them to use on their site for next year.
Maximizing Your Opportunities
Before reaching out to any event, make sure you have the following information:
- Timing: When is the event? Usually you want to start reaching out to clients at least four to six months before the event.
- Speaker Usage: Do they bring in speakers? Are there speakers on their website? Is anyone listed as a special guest or keynote presenter? This is crucial. If they don’t bring in speakers, don’t try to convince them.
- Topic Alignment: What do these speakers talk about? Look up information and agendas from previous years to see what topics were covered. You want to make sure you speak about similar things as past speakers to ensure you’re a good match for the event.
- Decision Maker: Who is the decision maker? You’ll need to figure out whom to contact.
Get The #1 Marketing Asset To Book More Paid Speaking Gigs Join us for the Booked & Paid Bootcamp — our NEW 2-day virtual event designed to help you start booking more paid gigs FAST. Over two 5+ hour days of live training and Q&A, our team of 6 and 7 figure speakers will give you the proven playbook you need to become a successful paid speaker.
Conclusion
Remember, this is a numbers game. The more potential clients you can find and the more outreach you do, the more likely you are to get a yes. Sending out hundreds of requests a year might seem excessive, but it demonstrates a level of commitment required to build a thriving speaking business.
The speaking industry rewards persistence, strategic thinking, and genuine relationship building. By implementing these research strategies systematically, you’ll build a pipeline of qualified opportunities that can transform your speaking career from hoping for gigs to having more opportunities than you know what to do with. So what are you waiting for? Get started today and build the speaking business of your dreams.
