How To Land Speaking Gigs For New Clients

Last week, I spoke at two conferences (details here).

We picked up multiple leads for K&J and a new client.

Here is how the outreach method I use to find new speaking gigs and, as a result, new business.

1. Google “your industry + conferences/events + your location” I use the string “digital marketing conferences New Zealand”. Look for conferences 2 - 4 months out before the start date.

   

   
   

2. Find the company hosting the events or conferences on LinkedIn

   

    
   Once on the page, select “People”

   

   
   Find people with the following titles:
   
   - “Programming Director”
   - “Event Organiser”
   - “Talent Acquisition”
   

3. Once you’ve got a target - send an “InMail” request.
   
   Here is the script I use:
   

   “Hey (first name),
   
   I wanted to touch base around (conference name); I’ve spoken at (XYZ), where I chatted about (hero topic - make this appealing to the audience of the conference you are pitching).

   
   I see you are yet to name the speakers for this year’s conference so let me know if this is something you think I’d be a fit for.
   
   If not, I’ve got some people in my network who are world-class speakers who are local like me, and I’d be happy to introduce them to you. I’ve also sent a connection request here to follow up on the conference and your updates as I’m keen to attend!

   Cheers,

   Kale”

That's it.

If you are new to speaking, aim for small conferences and collect social proof of how good you are, then pitch bigger ones.

Notes: Public speaking is a tough gig. Learning how to engage an audience takes time and energy.

I often spend a lot of energy thinking about this before I get on stage. If your sales skills are better used elsewhere, focus on that.

Getting Good At Advertising

We started Gravy a year back - an agency that helps not-for-profits raise funding.

We got going by cold-emailing ten sports club committee members with an offer for this service. A week later, we had our first client.

A year on and 300-odd cold emails later, we're working with 35 not-for-profits across New Zealand.

Growing our business with cold email forced us to get good at pitching. We learned how to get people to call us with just a subject line and a few lines of text.

So, when we turned on Facebook ads last week, using the same pitch and wording as our cold emails, we got so many leads that we had to turn our ads off.

What's the point of this story?

Well, if you ask the average entrepreneur what their biggest challenge is, most will say growth—they want more customers. Their ads and other marketing don't quite work, and they don't know why.

Just recently, I heard a story about some very competent VC-funded entrepreneurs who spent $400,000 trying to enter the Australian market. They spent that all on marketing without generating a single lead.

But I bet if you forced those folks and others in the same boat to make a sale first, with cold email, they would figure out what's wrong quick. Without wasting money on ads and else.