The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your TED Talk Views Through Marketing

If you don't use your TED Talk in marketing, your views are not necessarily going to go up. So a lot of times people think, oh, I have to just put the effort into the content of the talk and forget that, oh, yeah, I'm building a business and there's this other part to it, so. Or like writing a book. Like you could spend all this time writing a book if no one reads it and no one hears about it. It's not going to make that cash registering either.

Yeah, I mean, well, don't even get me started about books. I find so many people waste their time. Let's switch gears for a minute. For first, take Joanne's question about storytelling. Because everybody says they like stories, and yet the first thing I see so many people who tell me they want to be a great speaker and maybe get on the TED stage is they get up and they've got bullet points on a slide. I'm like, where's the story?

You know, I think it really depends. I think storytelling is important, but it has so many different formats that can. That it can take. Also, some people are naturally gifted in it and some people are not. So I think also it's a matter of finding what are you excited about, what lights you up as a speaker, what part of your personality and your expertise can really make you shine on stage to give value to the audience. And that might be in a story, it might be in your own story, it might be in a client success story, it might be in an industry story. But I'm not as strict about it because I think it can freak someone out if they're just brand new thinking, oh, I'm not a good storyteller. I can't do this. And I don't think that's true. I think you can absolutely do it, even if you don't have a story. But if you're a really good storyteller, certainly that's a superpower. So, yeah, I could talk about that for a long time.

So if you hear anything you like about the book, why wait? When I hear something that I think is going to help my business, build me business, help me in any way, I just try to get it right away. And don't even think about it these days, because I do believe you've got to keep investing in yourself, especially in a business like speaking, you've got to be up on every trend, they said. Tell us, Bree, we're going to come back to the book, but tell us briefly what the book is about and how it's going to benefit someone who's hoping to get more speaking gigs.

Right. Well, I'll start by telling a story because we were talking about this earlier. About 10 years ago, I started speaking and I had zero speaking gigs, zero clients, zero email list. I didn't have an opt in. So ground zero. And my first year, I booked 83 speaking engagements in my local area. And I started a network which is now called the International Speaker Network, because I thought, I want to hang out with other people who can help me and who I can help too. And what I wasn't expecting was for the people in the network to consistently ask me, how did you get booked? What did you do? Can you help me? Can I pick your brain? Right. So I knew there was some kind of gap in the industry. Like there's all these people, like you said, tj, there's all these people who want to start speaking or want to speak more. I mean, what speaker doesn't want is a microphone, right? Like, we all want to have that microphone, but how do they get it? That was the trick. So when it came to creating my company, I thought, I think this is, this is it. It's not about how to be a better speaker, it's how do you actually get the gigs. And so in the book, I, I outline the seven different strategies I use when I really narrowed it down. Like, what strategies would someone really need to consider? Consider if they wanted to get booked and stay booked for their, their entire career. And that's what's in the book.

Walk us through the transition of speaking. Even paying someone to listen to you versus speaking for free versus getting paid. I know back when I was active in the National Speakers association, there was always this divide where a lot of the old timers would say, if you're a professional, never speak for free. You've got to charge. And if you don't charge $5,000, you're demeaning yourself. And others say, hey, the best way to get speaking gigs is to be a great speaker. And someone there to know what you are paid says, hey, you got to come speak to my group. And then you charge. Where do you fall on that line?

I am probably a disruptor in this conversation because I know that there's been in the past that divide. And it's kind of like people arguing over a Mac or PC. I'm like, I don't know what computer works best for you and what you're trying to do. So I think of it as, it's actually a chapter in the book and it's a module in my online curriculum. I call it monetize your speaking. And a keynote speaker fee is one way to monetize your speaking. It is not the only way. And I've made thousands and thousands of dollars in a room of 10 people who are ideal prospects for me. I've seen my clients do the same and in that room they did not have a speake fee budget. Right. Am I going to turn that away? No, because it's in line with what I do for my business and in line with my mission to serve more people and help more people. It's not about the speaker fee. I think sometimes people get hung up on the speaker fee because they want that guarantee. We like guarantees. We want to like make sure we get our money right and it takes the pressure off you. You're like well I already got paid so I can do I don't have that pressure of having to make money.