Who: Connie Albers
Blog: ConnieAlbers.com

Is public speaking a part of your business goals?

Have you wondered what it would take to be a paid speaker?

In this episode, Connie Albers shares the exact steps bloggers can take to launch a speaking career with their blog.

Listen to This Episode

Who is Connie Albers

Connie Albers has spent much of her adult life representing brands, building platforms & organizations, and speaking across the country.

She is a respected leader and trusted mom who understands the challenges of balancing the demands of life and work.

When not speaking, she devotes her time to writing, consulting, and building her latest venture of inspiring and equipping women in their calling through Equipped To Be and with her site, ConnieAlbers.com.

Connie is a wife of 31 years and mother of five adult children. The Albers family lives near Orlando, Florida.

Launching a Speaking Career

Bloggers are content creators. Many of us do this because we have a message to share with the world.

Our blogs are the perfect online platform for helping us to get our message out there. However, public speaking can be a great way to get our message out there offline.

Connie shares her best tips on how you and I can do this successfully.

Her tips are based on her extensive experiences both from a speaker’s perspective (former Walt Disney World ambassador), and an event planner (coordinated board meetings, conferences, 4-day events and more).

Here are her tips:

Start with Why

When thinking about launching a speaking career, you need to understand your reasons for wanting to do so.

Is it because you want to travel? Is it because you have a message that resonates with your online community and would like to expand that to face to face venues?

Understanding your why will determine much of what you do to get your speaking career off the ground.

Define your Target Audience

If you have a message to share with the world, you need to define exactly who that “world” is. What are the demographics of your target audience?

This is important because it will determine who you reach out to in the next step.

Look for Events that Cater to Those Demographics

Once you know who your target audience is, you will want to seek out conferences and/or other events that cater to that audience.

Connie recommends starting off with smaller local events to get your feet wet. One great way of doing this is by contacting your local chamber of commerce. They will have a good idea of what events are coming to your area.

This will also help you to improve your skills as a speaker – everything from connecting with the event organizers to your presentation skills.

Connect with The Right People

When it comes to speaking at events, networking is very important. You want to develop relationships with the right people. These relationships have to be sincere and authentic.

Connie recommends using LinkedIn to connect with people who are in the fields you’re interested in tapping into.

Reach out to those individuals, not from a perspective of what they can do for you, but with an interest in how YOU can help THEM further what they are doing.

You can also try to use other social media outlets to connect with them.

Contact the Event Planner

When making your pitch, it’s important to understand that you aren’t pitching yourself to the audience. You are pitching yourself to the event planner.

Understand their goals. Their job is to sell tickets, fill seats and make the attendees feel like they got a lot of value from the events – so much value that they are going to spread the word to their friends for them to come next year.

If you have a well-established blog, you can offer to leverage your blog to sell tickets.

If you don’t have a huge audience, you have to propose a really good message. There should be so much value that the attendees will LOVE it. This calls for doing research to figure out what their audience would benefit most from.

When pitching the event planner, start with a simple introductory email. Let them know who you are and tell them about the message that you believe would add value to their audience.

Be honest and don’t try to act bigger than you are. You want to strike the right balance between confidence and humility.

Also, remember that event planners are busy people. Keep your message short.

Don’t be Too Pushy

Once you send the email, WAIT. Don’t be the person that sends a ton of emails to them because you didn’t get an immediate response.

It’s ok to follow up with a courtesy email, but be respectful of the fact that they are busy.

Negotiate the Terms

If you get a favorable response, it’s then time to negotiate the terms. There are a number of things to consider in this stage. Some of the details of the terms may include:

• An honorarium
• Travel expenses
• Lodging
• Meals

It is very important to consider your why in this negotiation stage. If you are just starting out, your goal might be to get exposure. In some cases, it can be good to forgo an honorarium if the event would provide you with the type of exposure that could help to move your business forward.

In other cases, you can make an appropriate offer that can help to tip the scales in your favor (i.e. forgo the honorarium in lieu of a booth or exposure in their emails).

There are many ways to come to an agreement that is beneficial for both parties.

Is Speaking on Your Itinerary?

Are you looking to launch a speaking career with your blog? Is this something you’ve already done? Let me know in the comments.

Coaching and Training

If you are seriously planning to start a speaking career or take your speaking career to the next level, reach out to Connie at Connie [at] conniealbers.com. She offers personalized coaching and training in this area.

Resources Mentioned:

• LinkedIn – one of Connie's recommended places to connect with people in your niche
• [email protected] – Where you can reach out to Connie in case you're planning to start a speaking career or take your speaking career to the next level.

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