How to find speaking opportunities

by | Jan 10, 2014 | Marketing, Advertising & Promotion, Public Relations/PR practice

Here's Steve Peha & me addressing the crowd at Triangle AMA's Funnel Fuel conference in 2013.

Getting More Speaking Gigs

If one of your New Year's resolutions is to secure more speaking gigs, here's an easy-t0-use tactic I've been using with success for a couple of years.

I started a spreadsheet, organized by month, that includes all the conferences that make sense for me to address. Here's how it works:

  1. Every time I hear about a potential conference, I visit its site to get the speaker proposal dates.
  2. If I find one, I put that conference in the month its call for presenters is due.
  3. If I don't find one, I email the organizers.
  4. Last resort, I back out 9 months from the conference date and slot the conference there so I can start checking. I move these entries to the next month if necessary.
  5. Each entry has the conference name, date, location and URL, along with the submission deadline. If there's a theme, I include that, too.
  6. On the first of every month, I check that month's items as well as the next month's and schedule proposal writing.
  7. If I end up submitting, I jot down the topic in a NOTES column.

This simple process has helped me get more conference gigs with less last-second scrambling.

See you out there!