How to Earn More Keynote Speaking Opportunities From Your Podcast

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found, and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to feed. Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co host, Tracy, and today we're going to talk about, really, one of your favorite subjects, I think, Tracy, or something certainly you're very good at. And that's how to use your podcast to get speaking engagements. Right.

Yeah. How to earn more keynote speaking opportunities from your podcast. Now, this is the thing. It's like, it's not hard. It shouldn't be hard. If you're doing your podcast in the right way, it shouldn't be hard at all. When we started seven years ago, one of the first things that happened was we were offered a speaking opportunity. And podcasting wasn't even that popular back then, so we were offered a speaking opportunity. I was offered a speaking opportunity at an event. And that event, someone saw me at that speaking opportunity, saw the subject matter of what I spoke about, and invited me to write my ink column, which I wrote for four years. So it had a cascading effect of huge authority boosts over time. And then, of course, that column also got me speaking of engagements just as much as our podcast did. So the two things went hand in hand. So if you're doing things right and you're doing what we call authority building podcasting, you should have no problem earning more keynote speaking opportunities from your podcast. Shouldn't be a problem at all. That should be pretty simple.

Well, Tracy, you say it should be pretty simple. And I mean, I agree a podcast host is. Does elevate your status and make you, I think, more desirable to event planners. But what are the actual things that you think people should be doing to make sure they're not being overlooked as a podcast host for some of these keynote speaking opportunities?

Well, the first things first is your show shouldn't be too generic. Okay. So if your show is too generic, it's not going to help you. Right. Our show was in 3D printing. It was really specific, and we were specifically talking about the design side of 3D printing. So one aspect of it. So when you've got a narrow, tight focus that there are events around. Right. Things that are really working for you. Dive deep into that niche. Dive deep into the area that can work really well for you. And when I say that there's a lot of really generic interview style podcast shows out there, right? And I understand you want to make it broad so you can talk about about anything. But at the end of the day, sometimes too broad keeps event planners from picking you because they're looking for something specific. They're looking for an edge, they're looking for a new take on something. So one of the biggest keynote speaking opportunities I ever got was I spoke in Las Vegas at something called the Prosper show. And there were 2,000Amazon sellers, E commerce sellers. And the audience was a really specific audience. And at that time we had not only our 3D print podcast, but we had Product Launch Hazards, which was focused on e commerce sellers. So we had a really specific podcast focused on helping them. And the reason they invited me and I didn't even know about the show, they reached out to me and found me and the reason they invited me on to be a keynote speaker. And Michael Gerber was the other keynote speaker. So like, that was a pretty big deal, right? So being on a marquee with him as well was really powerful for my speaking opportunities in the future as well. Those were really big things. But it happened because we had an edge to what we talked about. We talked about E commerce selling, not from hacks and tactics on how you do it and how you make more money off of Amazon. We talked about it from a perspective of the product itself and the design and development of really great products that tap into a market niche and how to make sure that you have the best product opportunity out there by doing what we call market product proof. And so that was exactly what they wanted me to come talk about. No one had ever talked about that before. And it was our particular take and angle. It was what our whole show, Product Launch Hazards was about. In addition to helping you make sure that you don't step in all the landmines. The hazards, right?

So you're talking about having a specific niche that was in alignment with the event. And the podcast, I think made you a more attractive person to feature because you were going to attract people to come to the event or to go to that particular talk. Right.

New it had a different angle to it, it had an edge to it. And that's really important. So trying to be too generic on your show at all times can actually hurt you. Right? The shows that do the best have a perspective that they are bringing to the world. And they dive deep into that. It doesn't mean I can't interview tons of different people. We talked about all kinds of different products on our shows over the years, right? All kinds of different aspects of 3D printing on our shows over the years. But we were able to always, always approach it from this designer view and perspective, which is truly us at the end of the day, which is why people wanted me to speak. Wanted us to speak.

Tracy, do you think that then that makes the title that you choose for your episodes very important? Do you think that they should be written in a way that event planners would look at titles, Episodes, and say, wow, that might make a good talk at my event?

I'm kind of glad you mentioned that, because what I actually do is the way I write my titles is exactly the way I write my keynote speech titles. Now, they're slightly shorter because we want to use up as much characters as we can when we're writing episode titles or we're writing blog titles or article titles. Right. It always shocked me how long an article title that they wanted at Inc Magazine when I was writing for them, right? I was like, really? You want one that's that long? But they did. They liked it when it scrolled down to a second line and. And they'd like to have a certain number of characters to that. If you're going to give a keynote, you want it shorter. So what I tend to do is have I always have two words at the front and a colon, and then the rest of it. It's almost like title and subtitle blended together into one. And that's how I typically do it. And usually when somebody comes reaches out to me and says, hey, I'd love for you to talk on this topic, I almost immediately give them a whole bunch of actual topic titles to choose from. That's how I hook them pretty much every time into choosing me. Because then I do a little research, find out exactly what their event is about, find out what their audience is going to respond the best to, and then probably a talk I've already given before or a variation on a talk. You know, I never give the same talk twice. That's kind of my thing.

Shockingly, you don't. Because you could get away with.

I could get away with it.

Same talk at different events. Because not everybody attends these different events, right?

But I get bored, so I don't. And so anyway, so, yeah, so we do that. But I immediately send them out these custom. And I usually send three to five. Usually three is Pretty typical. If I, if I'm very sure of the I'm not really sure what focus they want, I might give them five options as well. And I always tell them they're brand new, you know, they've never been seen before. And I give them those as it. But I craft those titles exactly like I do my episode titles. So I'm really thinking about what is going to draw someone in to click it, to listen to it, and when I'm utilizing a title for my episodes. But I'm also thinking about what is going to get them to look at that program and then choose to come to my talk. Because the more people I drive to my talk, the more likely I am to get my next speaking engagement. Because I very frequently book a speaking engagement, my next one not just for the same event, but my next one for another event altogether. Some other event planners in that audience typically happens from one of my current speeches. So it's always, usually cascades and one after another after another. And so we want to do something like that and lure them in with really great titles. That's a really great suggestion. But the main thing, Tom, that I really want to stress is that the reason it should be easy for you as a podcaster is because you do know how to command an audience week after week after week. And it's not like they can actually see your audience numbers. So they don't really know are you commanding an audience of 100,000 or 5,000 or 100? They don't really know that. But if you're getting a podcast that you're producing week after week after week, the assumption on the event planner side of it, or the person who might book you for a keynote, is that why would you keep doing it if it wasn't working right? Like, why would you keep speaking a week after week on a podcast if it wasn't working? So their assumption is you have an audience that you're commanding from week after week after week.

So all you new podcasters out there, pay attention because just because you're a new podcaster, maybe you're not that new. Maybe you're three months, six months old, something, and you don't have a huge audience yet. As long as you're producing and publishing episodes every week, you're being current about it, that lends credibility to you. You know, you're going to get a certain amount of credibility and credit, if you will, for just showing up for your audience in recording and publishing every week and providing that kind of value. So it's going to help you, even if you haven't really built that reputation yet as being a keynote speaker or a speaker at all at events, podcasting is going to help you sort of accelerate that process. Right?

Now keep in mind that most events run in an event model that relies on the speakers to share out their event, right? So that you get butts and seats basically, right? That's the goal of they're going to invite you to speak if you have a decent AML list, if you have an audience of some kind. And so by saying, I have a podcast with an audience and I produce 25 episodes or 100 episodes or whatever it is, they're thinking, oh, you've got a listener base, so that's going to help get visibility for my event. So that's another reason why it's more like they will book you, right? Or be interested in booking you, because that makes sense, especially if your audience is a match. Your show is in direct alignment with the audience that they want to attract to their event. So audience alignment matters. So you need to be good about sharing with your audience. Because if they're going to go check out your show and they don't hear you making announcements about like, hey, I'm speaking at an upcoming event, or you're not making those kinds of announcements out to your audience, then they're going to wonder whether or not you're actually going to do that for them. So if that's not truly apparent on your show, because maybe you only do a couple of speaking engagements a year or something, so it's not a continual thing for you, then make sure to mention that in your follow up emails with event planners, right? Letting them know that you will be happy to share that with your audience. You do it in a spot ad, especially if you're using a padatized system like we have here, you can drop in an ad for an event and then when the event is over, you can remove the ad so it's not stuck in your show when you don't want it to be, right. It's not irrelevant, right? So that's one really good way is so sharing with your audience and being willing to share with your audience is of utmost importance to most event planners and organizers.

The other thing is Tom community, right? If you have engagement in a community somewhere, not just in podcasting, but you're taking them off of it, you're bringing them to your website, you're bringing them to Instagram, you're bringing them to Facebook groups, whatever it is that you're doing. But if you're creating that engagement somewhere else, right, then you're going to create a more visible way for event organizers to see that your audience is really there.

And I think that's very important, is that every event wants to grow, right? They want to be a bigger event. That's pretty much all they want, right? More people to attend now and more people to attend next time. So if there's anything you can do to help raise awareness for their event, they're gonna be happy with you and want you to be a vocal advocate. Right? And how can they motivate you to do that? Ask you to speak right now?

Here's the thing. Keynotes are harder. There's no question in my mind that keynotes are harder to get. Anyone can get speaking engagements from their podcast, but they may not be the positioning you want, right? They may be a breakout room, it may be a smaller event, it may be those things. But paying your dues and doing those and doing an incredibly good job there has paid dividends for me. It has gotten me bigger events. Someone heard me there and not only do that, sometimes they hire me just straight out. Like, I just want to write a check and I want to hire you to do whatever it is that you do here. Or they will go and say, I have an event you need to be speaking at. They need to hear you. And so that's the greatest kinds of referrals that can happen. And it elevates you. And before you know it, that's when you end up with keynote positioning. And so if that's what you're looking for. But to say, I start a podcast and it's just going to immediately get me that keynote, those are harder to come by. You have to do a bit more work. So I wanted to outline before. Before we finish up today kind of what some of that extra work you can do that could get you those keynotes faster. So, number one thing, you need to do more networking. So you have to find the events you want to go to yourself. So start following them, start giving them shout outs, start interacting with the community there. That's a part of the event. So do that sooner. And so the best time that I find to do it is I don't always like to agree to speech at an event till I've seen it. So sometimes I can't experience it. Maybe I can order a virtual ticket to it and check it out in past and see what it was like and say, is this really a good fit for me? And if that's the case, Then immediately I start following them. I start following the organizers, I start following the event group as well, and I start sharing into them. I start talking and engaging, asking questions, doing things like that, not pushing myself. I never push, but I'm just creating a networking through that community and group. And this is the thing is event organizers in between their events are so desperate for engagement to occur within their groups, they will notice you. Like, that's really the trick there. They need you to create that engagement for them. It's a lot easier when the event is going on for people to be engaging in the group and talking back and forth. It's a whole lot harder for it after the event is over. So if you can help spur engagement with the group there, that's going to go a long way to them paying attention to you. So that's the first thing that I like to do, is create that networking opportunity within the group and already be serving and bringing the value. And I haven't even been announced as a speaker yet.

Sounds good.

Yeah, I like to do that when I do a speaking event. Like, I show up and listen to the whole event, serve and bring and meet the audience before I speak. Yeah, I'd love to do that.

Always a good buzz at an event before you speak that people have met you like, oh, my gosh, I want to hear what Tracy has to say. So there you're sort of building an anticipation, really.

And so that's the same thing I'm doing in these Facebook groups. So these LinkedIn groups or in these models of Instagram, whatever it might be, I'm creating that kind of, oh, this is a person I want to meet. So when they see me on the agenda, they will show up at that event and they will show up at my speech. So that's also important to me too. So the second part of that is to support the event itself. They need exposure. Right. And remember, you have an audience, so what can you do from a publicity standpoint to help them? And way in advance, right. You don't want to wait until they've announced that they're accepting speaker submissions. You want to do this way before that. You want to interview the event organizer. You want to establish a rapport with them already about you supporting their event because there's alignment in your audience. When you're creating that understanding of alignment in the audience, you're a more logical choice to do that. So I like to do interview organizers, interview the organizers as a part of my event plan for who I'm going to target for next year. So like I do it way in advance. The second part of that is in establishing those relationships, you say to them, who are your biggest and most important sponsors? Either the ones that you have that you want to make sure you keep, or the ones that you're hoping to get for next year or your next event, next quarter, whenever the next event is, and agree to interview, say, hey, could you introduce me to whoever your contact is over there? I'd love to interview the sponsor as well. Now you're offering them something where they're serving that sponsor and bringing them publicity value. So now you've created a buzz. Now the member that the sponsors are spending money on the event if they've already had a good opportunity with you and then they see that you are being asked to speak at that event, everybody's in support of you.

That's really ego bait on another level, isn't it Tracy? It's like you're going to stroke the ego of the sponsors, make them feel like they're getting a lot of value and you're letting them know while you're getting it because of that event.

Right. And so a lot of times, you know, in the chat after with the sponsors, I've just say, you know, I haven't been to the event. I was kind of hoping I'd be asked to speak this time, but I haven't heard from them yet. But tell me a little bit about the event and why have you chosen to sponsor it? And usually that gets right back to the event organizer and an invitation is immediate.

Holy mackerel, that's incredible. You really created a self fulfilling prophecy at that point, saying, yeah, I really wanted to speak at that event or I really was expecting them to ask me to speak. It hasn't happened yet. But holy mackerel, that is a huge hint. Not a hint, not a hint. It's like, oh, if you're the organizer you're going to feel like, whoa, I'm bad form. I should have thought of that.

Right? And if this sponsor, which you've already asked the event organizer to give you the most important sponsors to them, if the sponsors important and they plunked down a bit of cash, you can bet they want their cash to go to a good speaker. Right? And so they'd be happy to hear that that's what happened with it. So that's another thing I do. And then the thing is, is that I really want to make sure the last thing that I kind of do in that whole process is make sure that I'm really good at sharing and the episodes and really good at making sure that the audience in those groups that I've been networking in now see the publicity that I've given those sponsors. So I'm really making sure that the sponsors are getting visibility within that networking I've created in their group already. So don't rely on the event organizer or the sponsor to share into those groups. Do it yourself. And it has this whole third party kind of endorsement model and it doesn't look salesy and pushy from the event organizer or from the sponsors of the events themselves. So if you do that and just say, hey, just thought, you guys know, this is a sponsor of this event that's upcoming and there are, I just spoke to them on my show and here's some of the tidbits of it. You know, put a little quote in, put a little video clip, especially a video clip, and share that. Now, you might want to give the event organizer a heads up because sometimes sharing video memes and other things like that in group posts don't get posted immediately. So you want to let them know you're going to do it so that they allow that post through. And so that whole thing creates this kind of buzz and excitement about you in a group that you really want to speak to.

You know, I think everybody listening to this podcast needs to understand, yes, you are a podcaster or you're an aspiring podcaster and there is a certain amount of credibility and success you're going to have toward this goal of speaking just by having a podcast and putting yourself out there. But if you take some of Tracy's suggestions and do some of these things, you're going to increase your chances significantly or get those more sought after, more exclusive speaking opportunities.

So this is a way to give before you get obviously it's showing care for an audience. And we find that when we are demonstrating great care for the audience that is coming to this event and we show great care for that model of it, just like we want to show great care for our listenership when we combine those things, it makes for not only a successful opportunity offered to you, but a successful outcome from the speaking opportunity as well. Because if at the end of the day no one shows up in your room because they didn't know who you were, didn't know what you were about, that's not serving you well either. So we want to make sure all of those things happen. And this is a good way to network, make it happen and make it occur. Now, a lot of times I Do get last minute invites. And I am always. I filled in multiple times for keynotes that drop out.

Oh, yeah, right.

And that has happened really frequently. And that is a reward, essentially. If someone comes to you and says our keynote dropped out, I need someone who I know I can trust and rely on. Can you do this in a week? And they know I'm going to pull out a great speech for them. That's a huge compliment. And that gets around to other event organizers.

Let me tell you, that is a huge compliment. Especially when they're not asking you what could you speak on? I want to make sure that would be a fit. They're like, no, I don't care. Will you speak? I want you speak on whatever you want. And that has happened to you.

That has happened to me multiple times. And I actually find it fun because I don't have to put all the work into it because, you know, they've already put all the work into everything. I don't have to work on that promotion side of things. I just show up and give a great speech and usually it leads to something else great. And a lot of. A lot of graciousness, right. A lot of thankfulness and gratefulness from the person who I just substituted for and for the person who needed me to substitute. So it's worked out really well for me and I love that I'm that go to person that kind of spun for me because I'll speak. Gosh, I can speak anywhere, right? About anything.

I can hardly shut you up anyway.

So, yeah, so absolutely fun. I hope that you all get great speaking opportunities and I hope that that is an outcome of your podcast. It should be. This is what I want you to know. It should not be hard for you to get speaking engagements from your podcast. Might need a little work, a little harder to get to earn keynote speaking opportunities, but it's absolutely worth it. At the end of the day, it will have an accelerating factor on your business and on your own personal growth and authority if you're trying to build up your personal brand.

All right, everybody. Well, I think that's a wrap for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. I'm going to be back with another great episode next week. And don't forget, you can find us anywhere@potatize.com you can find the podcast there and search on past episodes. And what's our social handle we're promoting these days? Tracy?

We're odditizeverly.

Is it just odditize? We have so many for different purposes. Sometimes I don't remember, but you can.

Find Tom and I on Clubhouse, Racy has and Omhaz.

That's right.

And it's Tracy with no E. Yeah. And Hazard with two Z's. Yeah.

All right, well, thanks so much, everybody. We'll talk to you next time. It's been Tom and Tracy Hazard on feed.

You'd brand.

Heard something valuable today but didn't get a chance to write it down. No worries, we've got you covered. We partnered up with podcasters united.org where podcast hosts like you can get free resources, free masterclass, the largest podcast tip library assembled, and free promotion opportunities. While you're there, don't forget to follow us on YouTube and on social unitedwepod so you can get feed your brand live. Until next time, keep podcasting.