How to Declare to the World You're a Speaker

Hello, hello, hello everybody! How are you doing? I'm coming to you an hour later than I had initially intended, and I'm coming to you feeling a little wacky. That's the word, that's the word. This is what you're seeing is the look of in the face of a woman with still having the massage table marks all over her face and having been surprised with it being a 2-hour massage instead of a 1-hour massage. What a delightful surprise. So thank you. I had to move our time back. And unbeknownst to me. Yay. And the second thing is this is what happens when you lay face down on a table. For like an hour and a half. Um, hello! Don't worry, I'm hydrating. She was working on some knots because life is full. But here we are, and we are talking today about how to declare to the world that you're a speaker. So if you are here live right now, say hello. If you are watching this on the replay, just just say hello in the comments, say replay in the comments, and then I know that you watched and you get credit. There's not real credit to be given, but I will give you some credit for sure. And my friends, this is important. So I say all the time to the world, hi, my name is Sally. I'm a speaker and a speaker coach. And recently it has been made really clear to me that not everybody thinks of me as a speaker. They think of me first and foremost as a speaker coach. Now let me be clear, I love my role as a speaker coach because I love all of you, and I am a professional nudger. And so I really naturally, I am coaching people all the time, get them out front. But I also love to speak, and I was realizing that I was not spending enough time and energy declaring to the world that I am a speaker. Now, I want to share with you a few really simple things that you can do to make sure that everybody knows that you're a speaker. And if right now you're like, "Everybody knows, Sally," I wouldn't be so sure. This is not top of mind for most people, right? And what we want is for them to think of you when they think of the problem that you solve. Okay, so if you are, uh, if you speak about, um, entrepreneurship, if you speak about imposter syndrome, let's say you speak about conflict resolution, let's say that you speak about storytelling or marketing, whatever that thing is that you want to be known for, that topic that you want to be known for, when people think of that topic, we want them to think of you as a speaker, as a solution to their problems. To do that, we've got to raise visibility. We've got to raise awareness. So I want to share with you really 3 super simple ways that you can do this, that anybody can do pretty much right now. Okay? So at least the first 2 are things that you can do right now. All right? And the first one is I want you to go check all of your bios. Right now. I want you to check your bios and add speaker to your bios. Okay, super simple. You can do this. And a lot of people, the resistance you might feel initially when you say, uh, but I'm not speaking that much right now, or I'm, I'm not sure I'm one of those speakers, or am I really a speaker? Well, not only do we want to add speaker to our titles Okay, and I want you to do it before you feel ready, because truth be told, sometimes we just don't feel super ready for it, but we're gonna do it anyway because that's one of the first places people look to know if you're for real. Okay, really simply, you're going to add speaker to your titles, okay, on your social media bios, on the way you introduce yourself. I want you to add this as you describe yourself. If you speak, you're a speaker, okay? In the same way that I'm writing a book, do I feel like an author quite yet? Maybe when I have the book in hand, I'll feel more like an author, but once I've written a book, I'm an author. Maybe not like world-renowned quite yet. Yet. Okay, but if you speak, you are a speaker. So I want you to go add speaker to all of the title places. Got it? Okay, that is the first thing. Now the second thing, I'm hoping that you have this already happening on your website, but one of the indicators I look for, for when people— when I know somebody is serious about speaking and wants to get more serious about speaking, is I want you to add your speaker page to the top line navigation in your website. Here's what I mean by that. Pad, that's what that says. That's wrong. Page, there we go. Here's what I mean by this. On your website typically, you might have speaking buried under your services. Okay, first of all, you need a speaker page, but secondly, where you put it truly matters. Okay, if you want to be taken seriously as a speaker, if you want to get paid more as a speaker, if you want people to know that you want to speak more, that you are a speaker, that you're all about it, I am going to look on your website, and if you don't have speaker as one of the top line net, uh, options on your main navigation on your website, I'm not gonna buy that this is something that's super important to you. I'm gonna be like, it's lower down the list. Okay, now what's cool is if you have this page already on your website, whatever state it's in, don't worry about the state that it's in right now. That's like next evolution. We want to first make sure that this is top line on your main nav. If it's buried, all you need to do is go to the back end of your website and bump it up so that it's one of the main options along with About, maybe your blog or your podcast, Services or Programs perhaps, right? So all the things that are at the top, we want Speaker to be one of those pages. Okay, now the next thing that I want you to do is, uh, it's so simple, but most people forget to do that, and that is to show us you speaking. Okay, we want to see it. Okay, and my assumption is if you've done any speaking at all, you've got some visuals around it. Right? Maybe you're showing up virtually like this. Hey, that's speaking. Okay, show us those pictures. Maybe you have done an event and you've got some photos. We need to see those pictures. We need to visually get a sense of you doing that. And what's cool is that when you do that, okay, the visual of you doing that is the strongest thing, one of the strongest messages you can send. But what's cool about that is you can also tell some stories. About you speaking, right? What was it like? Who were you talking to? What happened in the room? All of that is so, so important for raising people's awareness of what it is that you do, how impactful it is, and that this is an important offering that you have. Okay. It may not be the only thing that you do, but we can't let it be buried or people won't think of you. Okay. There's, there's something different about speaking, that requires us to put this a little more front and center. Okay. And that's because it is such a risk for people to bring you in when they haven't seen you themselves. Okay. So they're looking for all these indicators. They're looking for all these keys. Like what level is this person? How good are they going to be really? Okay. So we need to support that by showing everybody you speaking, okay? We're gonna support your authority by adding speaker to that main nav right there. And your speaker page is gonna be in that main nav, and then we're also making sure, see if I can do this, rah, we're adding speaker to your bio, to your titles, so that you are really owning the title of that. You can't expect people to see you as an authority, to pay you a ton of money, to think of you as a speaker if you yourself are not really owning that as well. Now, these things, assuming that you've got some photos, assuming that you, you have a few things on a speaker page on your website somewhere, this— and it's really easy to add speaker to your titles and start saying those words. Okay, none of these are super challenging. Okay, um, what I would say is if, if you can do this stuff and you're ready for the next step, the next thing that you're going to want to do is start working on materials and making sure that your materials are visible and easy. So some of the two— this is just like a little bonus thing for you. 2 materials that— marketing materials that are expected and necessary for you to be pitching. 2 things. The first is your one-pager, and that is simply a PDF, one sheet. You can use the back if you want, okay? That's what I do because I can't get it all on one page, and that's fine. I want it to be more visual, more designed, right? So I use the back page. But a one-pager is gonna describe for everybody who you are, what you talk about, and highlight a few of your key, keynotes. Okay? If you don't have your one-pager yet, that is the next thing that you need to be doing. In fact, it's like, go do it right now. All right? There are easy templates on Canva. You can buy a template on eBay. EBay? Not eBay. Etsy. The other E. The other E. Oh my gosh, you guys, I'm so out of it. So there are easy templates out there. Ready, go, do. It should take an hour. All right. An hour. And a speaker reel. Now I've got a ton of resources for you around speaker reels. Speaker Reels around one-pagers. Okay, so what I would like for you to do, if you want, if you want some more info about that, just put in the DMs— what should I have you put in the DMs? I want more info. How about that? I want some more info, and then I will follow up and we'll connect, and, um, I'll get you some resources on that because, uh, the— some of the things that you need for your speaker reel and for your materials, for your one-pager, for your speaker page, to show people you speaking is you need photos and you need video. And that can be hard to come by, but I've got some solutions for you coming up. So, um, let me know and I'll share with you a little bit more info, and you'll hear more about it as I get closer to that. But no, that's on the horizon. All right, I'm gonna go eat lunch. It's 2:15. It's been a weird day, but we're here, we're doing it. Uh, I hope everybody's had an awesome day. It's so good to see you here, for those of you who popped in live. Um, I'm— I, I haven't done this much lately. I've missed you, and hopefully we'll be doing some more soon. See ya. Bye.