Julia KraftSTEP BY STEP HOW I GREW MY BUSINESS THROUGH SPEAKING
I’ve always found transparency really inspiring. So I want to give you a glimpse into what it really looks like to get clients and grow your business through speaking.
There are tons of steps to master along the way and it certainly didn’t happen overnight. I just did a speaking gig Tuesday night at General Assembly. I’ll use that one as an example of how I do it and answer the most common questions along the way.
Ok, STEP ONE– Get the speaking gig.
– About 3 years ago I went on a campaign of reaching out to all the places in the Bay Area where my potential clients hang out and specifically went on a push to get into co-working spaces
– I simply emailed the event organizer at General Assembly. (that easy!)
– I sent him a Speaker One-Sheet (gotta create one of those!) with my talk title, talk description, key takeaways, my bio and picture
– He scheduled me right away! It was a good fit between my topic and their clientele
***side note: I have kept being invited back to General Assembly over and over again. I’ve now done 8 or 9 talks in the past 3 years. It’s become one of my top lead sources. ***
STEP TWO– Wow the audience with your presentation.
– Prepared the outline of a Signature Talk with that audience in mind. This has and will always be an outline for me. It takes up one typed page and takes me about 15 minutes to put together.
(I don’t mean to brag by saying that, it’s just that once you know the structure of effective talks and have market research it becomes easy to craft one quickly)
– Did my speaker’s warm-up routine before arriving
– Arrived early to set up the room the way that worked for me. They have tables lined up like desks. I moved out all the tables and placed chairs in a rounded theater style.
– Was all-in for the presentation and made connection the most important thing.
– Made a high-value offer at the end of my talk (don’t forget to make an offer!!)
STEP THREE– Transition people from the talk into an enrollment conversation.
– 17 people attended this workshop= not that many people.
– However, 11 signed up for my offer! = High-conversion rate.
– In my offer at the end of the talk I said I’d send my calendar invite out to the people who signed up the next morning at 10am.
– I went home after the talk and typed their email addresses into a pre-written email with link and scheduled it to go out the next day.
– At 10 am the next day I went to Zumba class and had a blast!
– When I got back to my car at 11:10am, 8 people had scheduled their sessions with me for the next week. i.e. 8 qualified leads excited to talk to me.
****All I did to generate 8 qualified leads was show up to speak for a 2.5 hour workshop (that I even got paid for).
Is this possible for you? Absolutely!
But there are a lot of steps to master, and I certainly didn’t get there overnight. I’ve been tweaking my process for years. Everything from what the sign-up sheet looks like to how I use my body on stage.
It’s an art, not a science, for sure.
However, the real crux of making speaking work for you as a sales strategy is your Signature Talk. Do you have an enrolling talk in your back pocket that converts every time?
Completely NEW gift for you, the Confident And Comfortable Communicator Roadmap! Get yours here:
If not, put an emoji below that describes what it feels like when you don’t know what to say that will get people to see your value…
(😝😬😫🥵🤥)
