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:
- Every time I hear about a potential conference, I visit its site to get the speaker proposal dates.
- If I find one, I put that conference in the month its call for presenters is due.
- If I don't find one, I email the organizers.
- 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.
- Each entry has the conference name, date, location and URL, along with the submission deadline. If there's a theme, I include that, too.
- On the first of every month, I check that month's items as well as the next month's and schedule proposal writing.
- 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!