How to land speaking engagements: Our guru spills the tea
Impact leaders love the kind of visibility and credibility that speaking engagements can bring—but landing them is no easy feat. For insights on how to make this kind of PR magic happen, I interviewed Thinkshifter Christine O’Connor, who’s helped our clients land speaking invitations to a range of events, including top-shelf engagements such as SXSW and Money 20/20.
Here are her observations on what it takes to run a successful speaker program.
What motivates organizations to take this on? Do you recommend a speaker program for every client?
Clients are motivated by a desire to be respected as field leaders; exposure to new and existing customers and other stakeholders; and opportunities to network with fellow trailblazers. I recommend speaking as a PR strategy for organizations that are solving systemic problems or forging new paths in their industry and want to share their ideas with people who can help push them forward. But not every enterprise fits this profile, and for those that don’t, the effort involved may not be worth the payoff.
How competitive is it?
Very. It depends on your field and expertise, but we’ve found the landscape to be broadly competitive. It helps to have excellent proposals written by or with the help of pros who know the best practices and can present your key messages in a way that will be interesting to each event’s organizers and attendees.
How do you find events?
We find events in two ways: We ask the client where they would like to appear and speak, and we make suggestions after researching the landscape of events reaching their target audiences. In both cases, we carefully vet the opportunities for content and audience fit based on the client’s PR and business goals.
How do you make the match with your speaker and pick the right ones for each event, given all the choices in the marketplace?
We always seek to match what the event organizer wants to deliver with what the speaker can talk about in-depth in a way that’s compelling to the audience. Many speaking opportunities require more than one participant (think: a moderated panel or live conversation) and for these formats we find speakers who are not part of our client’s organization to join the client on stage. To identify the right people, we often look to our client’s partners and customers. No matter the format, it helps to review an event’s past agendas to get a sense of what the organizers are looking for in terms of speakers, types of sessions, and topics.
What’s the most important part of a speaker submission?
All parts of an application are important, but your topic proposal should stand out as something that speaks to the event’s audience. To land speaking engagements, your proposal should either add a new perspective to an ongoing conversation or introduce a new concept that will spark thoughtful discussion. This means selecting the right guests to speak on panels, if that’s the format you’re going for—individuals who can add a new perspective or ground the topic in an example.
Do you have to have video or audio recordings of prior speaking engagements for most submissions?
It’s not always mandatory, but many applications ask about prior speaking experience. Having those clips helps us show the organizers that our client is an engaging speaker and a good fit for their audience. If you’re asked for links to prior speaking engagements and you have experience but no recording, include that information—note where you’ve spoken and when. If you have no on-stage speaking experience, links to podcast or video interviews can help fill that gap.
What kind of speaking experience bodes well for landing more speaking spots?
The more high-profile your experience is, the more helpful it will be. But having any experience at all is better than having none. And on-stage experience will help you land on bigger stages. One thing to watch out for with experienced speakers is that organizers don’t want to present the same talk they’ve given at several other events.
What about what happens after a speaker is selected – what do clients need to be aware of?
After a speaker is selected, they will be notified by event organizers and may be given additional instructions about how and when to connect with fellow panelists (if applicable) and hand in presentation materials. Some events will have a more robust post-acceptance process than others. Clients launching an extensive speaker application effort should keep in mind the costs of committing to speaking: bills for flights and hotels as well as the fact that traveling saps time and energy. In addition, speakers need time to prep and build a compelling slide deck. If the client is new to speaking on-stage, they may need expert coaching as they rehearse. Calendar planning is key, especially with events concentrated in the spring and fall.
What are your top tips for someone starting out?
Starting out is a heavy lift, so don’t over commit. If you do it will stress out everyone on your team and can seriously backfire—if you land an engagement and then have to back out because you’re stretched too thin, you may not get another chance at that opportunity. Once the program is up and running smoothly, efficiency kicks in as all the involved parties hit their stride and a flywheel effect takes off. In the beginning, less is more.
Stay organized—track everything at every step of the process. Researching, applying for and staying on top of the deadlines for speaking engagements (both before and after acceptance) is intensive, detailed-oriented and logistically complex.
Finally, don’t forget evaluation: You’ll get increasing value from your speaker program if you keep thorough (and accessible) notes on how well each event served your goals, what was good or bad about it, and ideas for getting more out of it next time.
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