Get Booked for Keynotes
Learn how to get booked for keynotes by building a strong personal brand, leveraging video content, optimizing your speaking page with SEO, and targeting the right audience. Discover inbound and outbound strategies, use LinkedIn effectively, and create lasting relationships for paid speaking opportunities.
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Get Booked for Keynotes
Public speaking is a powerful way to share your expertise, inspire audiences, and build your personal brand. During the session “Get Booked for Keynotes,” experts shared actionable strategies to help you secure paid speaking engagements. Here are the main takeaways:
1. Build Your Personal Brand and Online Presence
• Create a Strong Website: Your website is your digital storefront. Make it polished, professional, and reflective of your expertise.
• Distribute High-Quality Content: Regularly share blogs, videos, and articles to establish yourself as a thought leader.
• Highlight Video Content: Videos showcase your speaking skills and help potential clients see you in action.
2. Develop a Powerful Speaking Page
• Include a dedicated Speaking Page on your website. This page should:
• Highlight your key topics and expertise.
• Include high-quality photos and videos of past engagements.
• Display testimonials from satisfied clients.
• Optimize with relevant SEO keywords to improve visibility.
3. Generate Leads Through Inbound and Outbound Strategies
• Inbound Leads:
• Share consistent content to attract opportunities.
• Leverage platforms like LinkedIn to showcase your work.
• Address credibility concerns by sharing past successes and testimonials.
• Outbound Strategies:
• Research and target organizations that align with your expertise.
• Use tailored introductions and focus on solving their specific challenges.
• Follow up persistently and stay top of mind.
4. Use LinkedIn as a Key Tool
LinkedIn is a goldmine for connecting with decision-makers. Ensure your profile is optimized, join relevant groups, and engage with your network by sharing thought leadership content.
5. Build Your Funnel and Target the Right Audience
• Understand corporate structures to identify decision-makers.
• Develop a strategic funnel to nurture prospects, from initial outreach to securing a booking.
• Focus on organizations and events that align with your expertise.
6. Leverage Local Opportunities and Personal Connections
Start small by approaching local businesses, schools, and institutions. These engagements can provide valuable experience and testimonials, which are critical for building credibility.
7. Emphasize Relationships and Follow-Up
• Cultivate personal relationships with clients and agencies. Trust and rapport are key to long-term success.
• Use effective follow-up strategies to stay on the radar of potential clients and agencies.
8. SEO for Your Speaking Page
SEO is crucial for visibility. Optimize your speaking page with:
• Relevant keywords such as “keynote speaker” and your niche topics.
• Clear meta descriptions and tags.
• High-quality content to increase page ranking.
Getting booked for keynotes requires a mix of strategy, persistence, and personal branding. By building a strong online presence, leveraging relationships, and targeting the right opportunities, you can turn speaking into a lucrative career.
Ready to take the stage? Start implementing these strategies today to secure your next keynote gig and make a lasting impact!
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Getting Booked for Keynotes
00:35 Building Your Personal Brand and Website
00:43 Creating and Distributing Content
01:29 Importance of Video for Keynote Speaking
02:49 Developing a Speaking Page
04:22 Showcasing Your Speaking Engagements
06:13 Generating Inbound Leads
06:59 Addressing Credibility Concerns
17:16 Leveraging LinkedIn for Keynote Speaking
25:04 SEO and Referrals for Visibility
28:43 Outbound Strategies for Paid Speaking Gigs
30:46 Building Your Funnel: Targeting the Right Audience
31:33 Understanding Corporate Structures for Effective Targeting
32:08 Creative and Credible Introductions
32:39 Delivering Value and Solving Problems
33:24 Following Up and Staying Top of Mind
35:12 Researching and Reaching Out to Speaking Agencies
36:53 Leveraging Local Opportunities and Personal Connections
37:40 Approaching Schools and Educational Institutions
39:18 Effective Follow-Up Strategies
41:26 Building Personal Relationships for Business Success
46:03 SEO Tips for Your Speaking Page
52:13 Final Thoughts and Future Plans
Transcript:
So getting booked for keynotes is the topic today. And we will have a look at visibility, speaking page, inbound and outbound. And the first two things is just to set up the keynotes. the rest, but, and to get us like all leveled visibility, I always go back to this system.
So there are a lot of videos inside of this community about the system. I always go back to this because that's the differentiator with everything. So we start with your personal brand, which is the star piece. We bring your personal band into your personal website, which we call hub. Then we create content.
That is first and foremost put into your hub so that the search engines and that the AI systems of the future can read and digest it. And then we are distributing it out into the World Wide Web, [00:01:00] into social media platforms so that we drive business and speaking engagements. And this is how this looks from a flow perspective.
There are a couple of videos already inside of the community as well where I explain it, but I keep on, um, sorry, I just need to add people keep on, on mentioning this because we have new people joining and sometimes I didn't explain it clear. So it's always good to have another recording of me rambling about it.
So from, from a flow perspective, videos is the highest converting speaking instrument that you can have. in a digital ecosystem. So you speaking on video will enable you to get more speaking gigs than you doing blog posts where you don't talk. Reason for that is that people that see you speaking on video can feel how you speak and can feel who you are and through that are more likely to book you when they see you on video.[00:02:00]
So this videos go into your hub. Which is the personal website from there into social media. And then we drag people into our funnel, which is getting them into our websites and then generate leads. And that works for business, but we are speaking about keynote speaking today. So it's, this is the, the, the flow that I have used over the last years and works super well as well with a nurturing opportunity.
So getting us visible is, is the getting our credibility visible because all of you. at least the ones that I know in personal, we have been on a couple of calls. You all have incredible credibility. What we need to get you to is that you're visible with your credibility. And that's the visibility part.
And a key part of that is a speaking page. So you should have your own speaking page. And I, I, I can't emphasize this [00:03:00] enough. This is a game changer, having a speaking page where you can showcase yourself being A keynote speaker, being a public speaker, however you say that in any of the different countries is a game changer because you can show who you are and what you speak about, but as well can give the credibility.
So I will give you a quick tour on my website just to give you an example how I did that and show you my speaking page. It's not that this is the most perfect speaking page on the planet, but I'm just speaking about a couple of key things. So first thing is the, uh, hero section, which is always the, the, um, upper section here is like, it needs to show you in a credible way, which is your face.
Because your face is the biggest driver of credibility in a digital setting because we are humans. And then having, um, a call to action, which is book me as, as a keynote [00:04:00] speaker. So that what I have seen working super well, then in the best case, you have a video. I have now used one of the videos where I did a little bit action in Switzerland, couple off two months ago, um, and Alma, who was.
Who was in the call was even joining me on the stage, but in the end is having a video is the key part. Then what I've seen working super well is previous speaking engagements. If you have a list of, in my case, international speaking engagements, And doesn't matter if they're paid or not paid. It just gives you kind of the, the value stack that increases your credibility.
And I'm just adding every speaking engagements to this. Then I have more videos so that they see me on different stages. Um, then example, keynotes. And the first one is the signature keynote and the other ones are other keynotes where I was [00:05:00] asked to do, but it's always going back to this is kind of my keynote speaking offer.
So they see a little bit of flavor, but they see as well that there's a red thread through my keynote speaking and then photos that show me in different places. So what I've seen. Working well for me, like as well here in the Climbing Center. Um, it's something like extraordinary. It's not a normal keynote, but it was a keynote to, I don't know, 50 people.
And, uh, it was in the Climbing Center. This was like in an Airbus and then in other events. It's just seeing yourself on stage in a photo will always give you more credibility. So then if you have more videos, As well, videos is, is super helpful because that gives the biggest credibility because they see you speaking.
So let's go back to this one. So that's speaking page. If you don't have a speaking page, I highly recommend you to build one, [00:06:00] um, inside of your website. It's a, it's a key part where you show yourself that you are a credible speaker and help other people to decide. Then with all of this set up, you should get overtime inbound.
Which means other people reaching out to you and asking you to be keynote speaker. Sorry, I just need to move the chat here on the side that I see if in case someone is chatting. Um, inbound. Oh, let's, let's, let's go back. Any questions until now? Sometimes I'm too fast.
No questions? All logic, Austin. Yes, thanks a lot for taking time to share this. Um, there is a word that you've used quite, quite a bit in the last three minutes. It's like credibility. [00:07:00] Uh, uh, most of us, at least for me, uh, I'm starting a new. A new business talking about myself and the new product I'm selling is me.
Uh, I have no references of credibility for me being the service of the product being sold. Uh, I saw that you just listed a number of events where you've been, a keynote speaker to build that credibility. Uh, what's, what's your point of view about a starter? Uh, like myself, uh, being credible. I mean, I can refer to stuff that I've done in corporate life, but that's, that's not, that's not Faustian.
That's, that's not me. That's, that's me as a managing director of a business in a multinational companies or things like that. So that's, that's my question. Sorry. Thank you. [00:08:00] It's not, but it is because in the end you have, like, nobody will get to be general manager of a continent in a large multinational international company without being credible in what you're doing.
So I think it's, it's, it's more switching yourself from, Hey, I have a huge amount of credibility. experience, I have a huge amount of value that I can bring. It's just understanding that you have that value, even that you maybe have never had a business, or even if you have never done a keynote in your whole life, you have been speaking to other people.
And you have had a life experience that you can bring into a room. You have a story that you can tell. And that's the credibility that you already bring with you. Even if you have not done, let's say, the formal version of running a business, building your business yourself. You [00:09:00] have a huge amount of credibility, like in your case, because we have met in person, you have done amazing things in this world that you can transfer to any client into any keynote that you want to.
It's just the way how you formulate that for yourself. That you feel yourself credible and that all starts with kind of aligning your head with your heart. I always say like if you it because it's if you believe in yourself, then it's that the rest is easy. I think at least the ones once I know personally or we have been talking over the last years.
And months and weeks, I, all of you have the credibility, it's just how you showcase for yourself. If we, if we take Jim as an example, Jim has been playing concerts and one of the most incredible stadiums and, and, and events in the, in the world. It's like [00:10:00] translating this into a keynote is no problem. It's just being comfortable in doing that and finding the way that you feel comfortable Jim.
Right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and I, I was building on, uh, FO's, uh, question there and, and your, um, input on that. Ys. Um, I, I, I initial inquiry that I was going through my brain was also about, uh, the, uh, I guess the portrayal of credibility to prospective, uh, clients or anybody who is looking to build, uh, book keynote speakers.
Uh, in my specific case, I do have hundreds of. Uh, publicly posted very positive client reviews, just not specifically in the keynote space. It's still in a performative space uh with my music performances and uh, I I'm sure there's a way to um, leverage that [00:11:00] Uh in a at least a somewhat effective way for keynotes Um, but but as far as uh something that I could that I would be able to post on a keynote landing page right now that would Those would be my client testimonials.
Um, I will have, uh, my sizzle reels and more footage available for actual testimonials for my keynote. Um, I'll have that available by the end of the month. Um, but I was a little, uh, I'm sorry, I'm babbling. I'm going to wrap this up in a second. I swear. I was a little apprehensive about. Uh, move it, you know, stepping on the gas, 100 miles an hour and getting that landing, that keynote landing page, uh, built until I have those final assets delivered to me.
Because, and it's not because I'm, I'm trying to delay it or I'm scared, but it's cause you only have, I'm thinking there's only one chance to make a first impression to these people who are going to click on your landing page. And I want to make sure it's armed to the [00:12:00] teeth with all the available assets I have.
One of the things I did when I started out Uh, and again, not having show reels, uh, as I do these days and, and content of, of doing keynotes was I got video testimonials from people that I'd worked with, um, to underscore my credibility. So that might be something that maybe you could, you could investigate.
Just look at those people that know you well, um, that are passionate and, and genuine and authentic about you, because that ultimately comes across in the video anyway, and, and ask them to give you a testimony and, and pop that up as, as kind of context and background for you. And, and for me, it was a, it was a good stepping stone, just from my personal experience.
That's great. Oh, I appreciate that, Steven. [00:13:00] That's something we can be actionable about right away, actually. Thank you. Good. Let's let's go forward. We have more question opportunities. Where's my?
Here we are.
So inbound,
can you see my screen? Yeah, good. So inbound, we, we, we took away the production part of, of the left side of, of the whole flow and look at three key inbound opportunities that we all have. So we have social media, everyone. can utilize social media as much as you want. 99. 9 percent of social media is free.[00:14:00]
So you utilizing social media is a no brainer. And At least the ones that I know here on the call, you're all doing that more or less already. So what I have seen working super well, and I did, uh, I have not really mentioned that too much over the last weeks, but I did, uh, a test. I did 365 daily videos in 2024, and that's why I have.
100 percent increase on website visits. That's the only difference that I did compared to anything else before. So videos, especially for speaking, but in general, right now, we are in a time of videos where videos are just performing across the board better than anything else. And the reason for that is.
I believe personally, and that's just my personal opinion, everyone can write now articles professionally, even [00:15:00] a German dude like I am, in English, that look amazing, um, with the help of AI. But videos, yes, you can do videos with AI, but professional videos that are authentic is not that easy with AI. So you speaking on video is an incredible booster for your personality and being able Like visible to the other people but also credible and authentic in the way you speak and that's very very hard to start with But like I have seen some of you starting doing this and some of you doing this for years already And I just see how I feel when I'm watching your videos and that's what other people will feel as well even if they don't know you.
So social media videos is one aspect where you can drag people into your world. Then the other part is of course search. Search is another incredible opportunity. If you have built it properly [00:16:00] and you have a hub where you put in all your videos and content that you're creating, LinkedIn, uh, not LinkedIn, Google, if we take one of the search engines, will be able to find you.
And AI will be able to find you as well because what we see now happening is that AI will take over the whole search in the future because we are getting used to getting the answers from machines. And that means if you are not in the digital ecosystem findable, and you're just focusing on social media, you're cut off the AI engines and the SEO engines, which is search engine optimization.
So let's say you are the star on TikTok. ChatGTP right now cannot look into TikTok and say, oh, Jens is the expert in this topic. Because TikTok is a closed environment. So that's just, just a reminder, but still opportunity. So we have Google search [00:17:00] or any other search engine as well, that is searching the internet.
Then we have AI engines, whatever large language models and the future will be. And then we have the possibility of referrals. And I think I will go now into more details. LinkedIn. I did a deep dive in one of the sessions on LinkedIn. And what I just see a lot. People not utilizing LinkedIn, LinkedIn from showing yourself as a keynote speaker.
Just an example. Do you have keynote speaker in your title? Do you have visit my website activated so that people can click through to your website? And or that's the next one. Website in bio, booking link featured, um, and keynote speaker and experience. I show you now mine. just to make it simple and easy for you to understand.
Oops, that's the wrong one. I should show you my [00:18:00] profile. Not again, it's not that my profile is the best one. It's just that I don't want to show anyone else. So key part is keynote speaker in the headline. So in the title that you show, not in the experience, in the title that you show the search on LinkedIn, if you search here for people and you put keynote speaker,
You will find the people that have keynote speaker in their title, keynote speaker. If we look at this lady, keynote speaker somewhere. So that means they utilize the search algorithm of, of LinkedIn. If we go, so that's, that's, that's the first comment. Then visit my website. opportunity for everyone, because if you as a visitor of my website, of my LinkedIn profile, click on this, you straight away [00:19:00] go to, to my landing page, which is my personal website.
Another opportunity to drag people into your world. Then what I did Here's what a lot of people don't get this one. I added it here on top of this. So looking for the link, that's, that's the link. So I added my, my social media or my landing page for social media here as well. And then there is a section that's called featured.
So a lot of people feature. old post from themselves and show that they have 20 comments or whatever. What I have seen from some of the leading LinkedIn experts, they're utilizing links. So these are designed links that you can use. And they directly click through to your landing page. So this is, if I'm clicking on this, you directly get to book a call with me.
If I'm clicking on keynotes, if I do this right now, straight away, you're on my keynote [00:20:00] booking page. An easy way you can, every one of you can do, cost nothing. Um, Tom, you have a question? Actually, an observation that I recently learned in a bootcamp that I'm part of as far as ai, content creation, et cetera, LinkedIn, deemphasizes, anything that will take a user off of the LinkedIn platform.
That, and that includes direct links to a YouTube video. However, there's a little trick. When you go to YouTube video, and I'm trying to do this with some material that I just created, I believe it's only available in like the desktop. I tried to do it with something yesterday, uh, on my phone, and I did not see the link for embed.
The trick is, when you post something on LinkedIn, rather than pasting the link directly to your YouTube, which LinkedIn is going to embed, you know, de emphasize, you can embed the video. And that way, they [00:21:00] don't leave the LinkedIn platform. They view the YouTube video within the LinkedIn interface. So they're not leaving LinkedIn.
But you also get credit for the hit on YouTube. So it's kind of a double bang for the buck, but also minimizing the risk that by posting links to sites outside of LinkedIn, it will be de emphasized. Yeah, super good one. I didn't know that this is like, I know uploading the videos is better than posting, but I didn't know about the embed.
That's cool. I will check that out. Thank you very much. The other thing about that is that, you know, if you post videos directly to LinkedIn, there's a very limited amount of, of, uh, um, space or access that you have. Whereas, you know, YouTube is unlimited, but that's the trade off. Yeah, you can put whatever on what, whatever you want on YouTube.
There's no limit there. But by posting the link to it on LinkedIn, it could be de-emphasized.[00:22:00]
Can I ask a quick question in terms of that description under your name, is there any hierarchy? So are you suggesting that keynote speaker should be the first thing that you have? And then, you know, your other attributes under it. Mine says entrepreneur and business leader, author, keynote speaker, media host and guest.
So I can show you why I do this. I can just show you why I do it, how I do. So if we look at the post, so they are collapsing this. So you see they are blending out the rest. Right. So if you go to any post of yourself, you see exactly what other people will see. So one thing is visit my website, which I mentioned before, but it's like now you see hide a CEO, hide land media group, keynote speaker.
Yeah. That's why I have done this in this way and not normally it business wise. If you ask me, it would be [00:23:00] better to have like helping CEOs to launch their personal brand as the first thing. But what I've seen is then you don't see this. And for me, I want to have the keynote speaking front and center as well.
Got it. Thank you. So then another hack I learned and I shared last time as well, putting yourself a job title, which is keynote speaker. So what I did here, and I, this is copied from one of the LinkedIn influencers or whatever they call themselves, but I just said that was super smart. So I've created my own job in my own personal website, um, and put myself as a job title keynote speaker and just edit all the speaking gigs as well, which is an easy one everyone can do as well.
So this again shows you as, as a credible speaker. If we take Jim as an example, you could have like one as a musician and you put all your gigs as a musician as like [00:24:00] just bullet points. It just shows like how many gigs you did. And it's just a credibility booster. Plus what you can do is as you see here, you put skills, keynote speaking.
So to every job you have inside of what's called experience, you can add skills. So if you add the skills, keynote speaking, speaking, whatever. Um, it, it is indexing inside of LinkedIn plus you can add the link again. So inside of the experience section, again, for, for the lazy ones, you can just look at my profile and see, yeah, he's a keynote speaker.
I want to learn more. I click his profile and, and boom, you click here and you go to my, my website. And that's then the landing page for speaking. So this, these are a couple of tips I have learned over the past for, for LinkedIn.[00:25:00]
Next one, search example. I mean, we don't need to do this in our life. I have done this thousands of times in the past, but put your name into the search engine and Faustin and I did this. What was it last weekend? So if you are not ranking as number one with your, with your website, there's something wrong.
You need to be far. You need to build an SEO strategy and engine that is ranking yourself as the number one because Google and AI and everyone is still checking. who is the owner of the website, who is the owner of the domain. And if the domain in the best case is your name, then this should be number one ranking.
Um, as well, a super opportunity if you do it well and integrate the photos of you speaking on stage inside of your website, you, you, you all know when you, when you Google your name or Google [00:26:00] a person, then you see all the pictures. Like you can do this on the side, Google my name and you see thousands of pictures.
Um, and that's again, an SEO strategy, but if you have pictures where you are speaking on stage, again, a credibility booster, and then you put yourself name and speaker or name and keynote speaker in Google and, um, chat GTP or any, anything else. And then you see what comes out. If you're not there yet, it's all about how do you build an SEO strategy with your personal website?
So you get there. So it's, it's, it's a key part. That's why I'm, I'm always starting with the system when I do this course, because the system is the magic. It's not one or any of the single points is, is the systematic way you do these things. Then referral example, one, one of the things I have done over the time, and that works super well is speaking agencies.
[00:27:00] And don't get me wrong. They do shit. Sorry to say that. Sorry for my French. But they don't come to you and give you speaking gigs. But what helps is that they are listing you as a speaker and corporations that look for speakers in a certain field then look at their, their website and what they often do is they don't reach out to the speaking agency.
They reach out to you directly. So I'm listed at, I don't know, a handful of speaking agencies and I've gotten, I think over the last three years, one speaking agency gig, but a lot of speaking agency gigs in the other way where they don't earn money with. So that's, that's definitely worth it. And as, as easy as reaching out to them and another easy one, whenever you have done anything, have you asked for referrals?
testimonials like we talked to already. Ask for people. I, what I see, uh, at least in my case quite a bit, when you speak at big [00:28:00] corporate events internally, they don't want to do a video. They don't want to share this publicly, but what they all say, Jens, if you have someone that is a head of DAO, give them my number.
That's even more credibility. Like if you, if you have someone that they can call, they can email, and then they will get in contact with them, it's even more powerful than a video, especially if this is like big corporations. So asking people about referrals, asking if they know someone, And it's a big, big help.
And that helps you to, to get more inbound,
outbound, outbound means you getting into action
this too, because that's at least when we talk about speak, getting paid, which I think most of you would love [00:29:00] to get to when, when it is about speaking, these are the two main ones I have seen working well. Conferences and, and big events and then companies, though I have to say events and conferences always pay less and always try to make it free.
Like nobody wants to pay. Corporations most of the time pay. So my personal focus is way more on corporations and companies than events. I utilize events to, to get the visibility and showcase. But then I do this like I did in Switzerland, where, um, Adelina at least was in the room as well. So then I'm building in a pitch so that I have a benefit of the event.
So I focus on this too. Number one is whom do you target? So if you try to target [00:30:00] every event, that's not going to work. If you try to target every corporation, that's not going to work. So it's, it's again, this old way of saying niche down and find out exactly whom you should be speaking to. And then of course starts with.
The end in mind, where do you want to be? What is the benefit of you being speaker? Do you just want to, let's say, sell books? Do you just want to get your story across? Or do you want to impact the other people on the other side? So I give you my example. I targeted the event that was in Switzerland because I know it's an event where are roughly 3, 000, 5, 000 entrepreneurs.
that are focusing on building businesses. So, and investors. So these two target audiences were in this event and they didn't pay me for being there. That's why I built in a pitch, but my target was I go there and I will make business afterwards. The [00:31:00] longterm version. So understanding exactly where you want to speak and where you target is a key part of building your funnel.
So if you want to speak in a specific area where you're a credible person, um, let's say, let's take Stephen as an example, speaking in retail organizations, look, and then maybe even niching down in, is it international retail? Is it, is it European retail? Is it one retail sector going deeper into that way and then targeting them?
Um, And targeting them means then as well, understanding the corporate structure, who are the people that are organizing events and meetings and bigger conferences inside of the corporation. It's most of the time, the same people, it's the marketing department, it's the event department, it's the personal assistants of the VPs, the personal assistant of the executive teams.
So these are all people you can target [00:32:00] and, and then go from there, introducing yourself, getting connected to these people in different ways. Finding creative ways, but not too sales ish depends a bit where you are in the world. I know we are heavy American today. You can be more sales because people are used to that in America.
In Europe that doesn't work, but it's, it's, it's just introducing yourself in a credible way and showcasing that you have all of this value that you bring to them, but it's not about yourself. So it's always think about what they want, what is the benefit to them? And that's sometimes the mind shift that we need to do as speakers.
Because yes, we want to get booked and we want to get paid for it. But in the end, you need to deliver value and outcome for the other side. The same like business. So, if you understand exactly what, if we go back to Steven, [00:33:00] Retail. has this and this and this problems right now. How can I help as the speaker to solve these problems or inspire them to solve the problems?
Whatever the pitch can be, as better you understand the problems of the companies that you want to speak at, as easier you can pitch yourself and as more creative ways you can find yourself to get a step into the door. And then one of the things I have seen as well, incredible following up and stay on top of mind.
I'm lazy when it comes to this. That's why I need, I need to have a system and an assistant on top of that, that helps me to do that. But in the end, it's, it's really building this funnel in a digital way that you track exactly what's, what's happening. It's like business when it comes to these things. As more, you know, and as more you fine tune this, as better it gets.
Thank you. And that starts really have the understanding whom you target, [00:34:00] go into finding the events and companies, list all of them. Then from that list, go into the next level, look into who are the people inside of that company that can decide or are organizing this events. And then introduce yourself in whatever different ways.
And the beauty is most of you have already connections. So start with the connections you have and utilize them. And then really go into following up in creative ways. Like sending a video message. Sending whatever. Going there in person. The old school way. Really dependent on what it is.
How do you get booked? Let's share. Or questions.[00:35:00]
Uh, yes, I had a quick question, if that's okay, um, I have it here. Okay, so, uh, going back to, um, local, uh, to a discussion about speaking agencies, is an immediate actionable item to just Google local speaking agencies and then we, uh, take it from there? Yeah. I would, I would look into specifics again, understanding to whom, whom you target, because some speaking agencies are more for certain topics are more for certain things is what they understood as well.
They need to niche, niche down. They can serve everyone anymore. So it's understanding that, but it starts with Googling and building a list or using chat GTP. What are the. Like in your case, what are the top 20 [00:36:00] speaking agencies in your area? And that's the starting point is doing, doing a little bit of research, understanding that, but then the basis, if you have found like two or three, reach out to them.
I was, what I always did in the beginning, I was trying to talk to the, to, to the managers because speaking agencies are most of the time, not like, 500 people companies, it's like two, three, five people. So it's try to talk to the owner, because as more you build a relationship, like everywhere in business, as more you build a relationship with them, as easier it gets, as better they understand what you do, as more excited they are as well about what you do, and as easier it is for you.
For them to understand there's now a request from finance that doesn't really fit to anyone, but hey, Jim is doing this specific thing. I think you should talk to him, this kind of things. A good, a good starting point has always been, um, local chamber of commerce as well. [00:37:00] Um, they are always looking for, um, guest keynote speakers at breakfast events or events that they're holding.
That's how I got started. They've you have to do them for free, but if you're just starting out anyway, and you want to kind of build your confidence and then build your keynote and understand it, it's, it's a great platform. To get you going and I've had business out of it anyway. So, um, again, I'd, I'd encourage you to try that as well.
Yeah, good. I have a question. I'm not sure if you covered, uh, schools or education yet. No, we didn't. Okay. I have a question about that. I just want to make sure I wasn't repeating. So, I'm a new speaker as well. My name is green. I'm the CEO of Kami. [00:38:00] We do a digital production and a storytelling. So, helping people with their podcast books, films, um, So I've only spoken three times and I just got my first paid speaking gig, but it was small.
And I was thinking if I started approaching more schools, I know that they have a budget, especially with the students coming back, at least here in the States. So I sent out about 25 intro emails. And I'm waiting to hear back. And my question is, how do you follow up in a way that isn't, um, too aggressive?
I'm trying to give them at least a week or a week and a half and let all the staff come back to see the email. But I want to make sure I'm not following up too soon [00:39:00] or too aggressive. Any, uh, suggestions on that? A
good question. I'm losing you guys. I just need to switch off this one. Can you still hear me? So I follow up is, is, is a magic in itself. Um, for me, because I'm not so much salesy, I'm more in the human connection world where I'm trying to follow up more on a personal level rather than on a business pitch level.
In the end, it's, it's, I think it's linked to how you reached out in the first end. So when you reached out, how did you communicate with them? Did you communicate to them as an individual? Did you communicate about them or did you communicate about you? So that's, it starts with that. And then, because what I see a lot [00:40:00] is Pitches are like people.
I get pitched like everyone does on LinkedIn 200 times per day. And they, they, they literally just talk about themselves without you understanding what you, what you do. So it really starts with that. If you reach out to them with, I have, I have seen this things about you and I've seen that maybe you had this challenges or this happened in your, in, in your organization, in the school.
Um, the kids are coming back, whatever it is, I think this would be helpful for you so that you go more from that side. And in the best case personal, then you can just follow up on, Hey, did you have a chance to, to have a look at, at my email, whatever. Okay. I always, I always, um, talk about the party invite strategy, but that only works when you, when you do things in a slightly different way.
So [00:41:00] I've learned about the party invite strategy, I don't know, last year, and it works super well. So reaching out to people still with the personal perspective, but then asking, do you know anyone that knows someone that is doing this? So then it's not pitching to that person. You just ask for a referral.
It works super well. So example, we help CEOs in my media business. So I'm reaching out to them and I'm, I'm asking the CEO if this person knows someone who would be interested in this and this and not sales, I'm asking them to be interviewed on my podcast as an example. So that's kind of building a personal relationship with the CEO of the business.
And then through that, the person will understand what I do, and then I can kind of build a pitch in, but that's more my type of selling. But this party invite is just reaching out to, Hey, do you know anyone that [00:42:00] is organizing an event and is looking for a speaker in this field? So you can reach out to anyone that you know about this.
And it's quite cool. Even if you reach out people that might not be at all your target, they just refer people to you. Like you can literally go through all your LinkedIn connections or phone book connection and say, Hey Jens, do you know anyone in this field that is organizing an event? I would like to speak or whatever,
but follow up. I always go to the personal relationship that you built up with that person. So I was trying to do it personal and then worst case you just write, Hey, did you have a chance? But yeah, that's the easiest.
Does it make sense? Yes. That was very helpful. Thank you.
So how do you, [00:43:00] do you guys get booked? Any, any other topics, questions, ideas?
When I finish, let me throw my two cents here, I guess. Yeah, go ahead, Chuck. Go on. Oh, go ahead. I'm shameless. Go ahead. So, Chuck, Chuck is talking now. Yeah.
Um, no, I was going to say, the responsibility to email stuff, because I also work in the movie industry, as you know, and most people do now. Um, I don't get a lot of responses from emails. I get better responses when I reach out by phone or, or go out personally. For some reason, the emails get shuffled away and, and I just haven't had very much luck with that.
So I think if you can get a number to the company and call them, it's probably a [00:44:00] better option, am I right? Yeah, 100%. Same experience. Steven.
I always ask at the end of what I've done, when do you want me back? Completely shameless. Even at conferences. You know, do you want to book me now for next year? I mean, just, and, and, you're in front of them. They've seen you, they've heard you. If you've done well, then they like you. It's just shameless self promotion, but it works.
That's a good one. Björn,
you have a question? Hand up. Yeah. Um, I have a question and a recommendation because, uh, there was the question in the room, like how to come not like off to like strong or something. There's a nice personality framework called like how to fascinate, which is kind of a like [00:45:00] language modality test. And it tells you like what kind of style could be more appealing or what you should like be aware of.
Um, I really liked that. And Jens, I have a question. If you don't have too many good appealing keynotes, but you, you train for a new one, would you recommend to put up kind of a very like well made training video of a keynote? that just like with snippets to introduce kind of like new content. I want you to refrain from that and just recommend to do really public ones as a recording.
No, you can, you can split up your keynote into small pieces and create shorter form videos, a hundred percent. All right. That's even what I would do. Because it's a great pitch and it's people will resonate with the content. You know, that they resonate
definitely.
Um, I have a [00:46:00] question. That's okay. Uh, Jens, do you find a Squarespace to be a, uh, do you, do you find Squarespace to have good SEO tools? Yeah. I mean, in, in the end, every website builder has it. It's just, you need to do it. So the, the, the tricky thing is that a lot of people don't focus on it. Um, so one thing is you, you built your website and you built the, the, the visible part, but then you, you don't consider SEO as, as important, or you don't know about SEO and then it's, it's, it's, that's the missing piece of it.
So it's, one thing is what you put in the visible world. Like the text, that's the easy one, but as well that the pictures, um, I just did it the, the other day, like when you upload pictures on your website and you are on the picture, name the, the photo that you upload with your name. Because then [00:47:00] SEO and Google, whatever understands, Oh, this is Jens, this is Jim.
Um, but then every website builder, doesn't matter which one they have as well, um, settings in the background where you describe, this is the, the page X, Y, Z, this is the photo of the page. This is the thumbnail of the page. These are sometimes keywords of the pages. So as more you focus on, on this again, systematic as better it gets when it comes to SEO.
Cool. So, it doesn't matter which website builder, they all have it, it's just doing it. And it's, I, I use myself Squarespace because it's the easiest one to drag and drop. Um, but it's just me.
More questions? Thoughts? Frank, you haven't said anything yet.[00:48:00]
No, I'm enjoying this and, uh, Yeah. Yeah. I'm also at the start, but you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a journey that it's, it's fun. It's really fun. Sometimes it's frustrating, but it's really funny, you know, the way to find the people and you always find them so unexpectedly. And you know, I spoke just now 12 days on a row for two, two hours on chatter.
There was a competition with the American people and Australia and everything. And we had a team. I was with the South Africa team. And, uh, our team won the competition and we got a lot of money and it was so much. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it will come when you're ready. I believe that everything will come when you're ready.
You know, when you keep, keep going, keep going, you know, find another way, find that path, this is not how I'm working well, find something else and find [00:49:00] people like you. And, and, you know, and, and go to the next level and do it together. You know, if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.
And then, and that's what you're, what you're doing. And that's amazing what you're doing. And so I'm enjoying every. Every comment, every little thing you think, Oh my God, I didn't, I think that, you know, and that's so much fun to see people's journey, you know, sharing your story is changing your story and you know, it's, it's, it's, it's in the universe.
It will come when you're ready. You know, every answer will come when you're ready. So and of course I'm frustrating because then you speak for 50 people and you think, Oh, Why was I not in the backstadium? Well, probably you're not ready. So, you know. Or people don't know you. That's, that's the biggest part, you know.
People don't know you. Because every time I speak, people say, I expected a lot. But I didn't expect this. Yeah. So you [00:50:00] know you're on your way. And don't worry. Don't worry, you know, you will find somebody in the, in the public who says, Hey, I need this guy. And I want them now. And that's, that's how it goes.
In life. It also goes like that. You know, it's. That's why I'm quiet because I'm, I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying That's okay. thing. Uh, it, what is shared and everything who offers you something. And there are so many LinkedIn gurus who tell you this is a success story. Buy this and buy this and do this and do this, blah, blah, blah.
And you buy something stupid, you know, follow your own path, follow your own path. And the moment it's difficult. You know, you're on the right path, you know, when it's difficult, you know, you're on the right track, but don't buy in somebody's beautiful highway to success because it's theirs. and not yours.
So, you know, don't go there. Follow your own path. And if it's dirty, [00:51:00] you're on the right track.
See, there's always something good coming from your side. Thank you, friend. I try to be part of growing together. And that's, I love that. And that's what you're doing. And everybody's doing, you know, we're all here for the same reason, we share and we help each other. I agree. And in this world. Jealousy. I'm, I'm, I'm signed up with some English, uh, agencies.
Oh my God. Jealousy. They look at you and they say, Oh, you were amazing, Frank. But they will not recommend you. They will. You are taking their place, you know? No, no, no. They all say to you, ah, let's, let's meet up. You hear nothing anymore. So, so, you know, it's also a lot of jealousy, but you know, there's a lot of spaces and a lot of events.[00:52:00]
So don't worry about that, but be careful of the people who say you're amazing because. They will not recommend you.
We have four minutes left because I have another call. Jim, you have a hand up. Yes. Uh, do you have any, uh, specific, uh, suggestions going back to, uh, I guess agency listings to make, is there anything that you had done in the past that you felt really made your listing stand out? Because I imagine a list when, with the agency listings, the client is seeing.
Uh, a bunch of names, a bunch. And so I just don't know if there was anything specific on your end. Like for me, I'm going to do, I'm definitely going to figure out a way to implement like keynote concerts, but just in general, broad strokes, making an agency, listening, so that listings that you stand out in a sea of however, however many people are in that listing, [00:53:00] I think it depends on the agency, my experience.
Cause some agencies are very, very strict. We need this. We need this photos, this kind of things. And we need this, this, this. And some are completely free. So it really depends on the agency. Um, for, for me, what, what helped me to get listed was having my speaking page because then they see, okay, he's the speaker already.
It's not like, yeah, I have a LinkedIn profile and I want to speak. Everyone wants to speak or a lot of people want to speak, but having a dedicated page is already the next step. level, even if you haven't done many speaking gigs, that doesn't matter. Um, but you can see the, the speaking agencies and see their, their pages.
They try always to make it look the same. So. I mean, you, with your topics, you will stand out any automatically in what you're doing. Cool. So it's [00:54:00] more, I mean, sometimes they ask you what you want to put on the web on their website. So like specific comments or specific pieces. So that's where you can then fine tune it to stand out.
If you see all the others on their speaking page, how can you stand out? But I haven't really honestly much focused on that. I just use it as an inbound. Mechanism because I, I just have seen they are not putting too much work in to promote you, at least in my case, maybe it's me. Makes sense. Thank you.
Good. I need to run. Sorry for that. I can't go over today. I have another call. Thank you very much, everyone, um, more calls and more physical meetups coming, coming up in the next, um, weeks, months. I will put a more plannable structure together in the next day so that we see what are the different topics that are coming in the next months, but as well specifically the [00:55:00] physical meetups.
So goal is to have a physical meetup in February in the Netherlands. So for everyone that is close by, um, I'm putting something into the calendars. So just, and then like there was this discussion over Christmas to add as well, local opportunities, like maybe having a community arm in the UK, maybe in the U S and in other countries.
So that's something I want to explore as well. So coming a lot in 2025, looking forward to hopefully meet all of you in person.
Good. Thank you very much. See you around. Thank you. Ciao. Bye bye.
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Transcript:
Personal development masterclass. One of the topics that's dear to my heart, because of what I have seen over the last 15 years is that personal development is quite seldom in organizations. It's not really taken, uh, in a proper way, at least in my eyes. So that's why I'm really keen on sharing this today.
So we have two. main perspectives. One or two topics for today. One is personal development talk versus performance evaluation. And then we do a deep dive into how I'm doing personal development talks. And then we do questions in the end. Personal development. So we have one part, which is the personal development talk, and then we have the performance evaluation.
And a lot of organizations, focus on performance evaluation. And the difference between those two is that the performance evaluation, the main part they are focusing on, or the main source of that is the company. So the company is on the top. And from there, it goes into, the individuals and the different tasks that need to be done to accomplish what's happening in the company, what is required to do to be done in the company.
And the individual that is doing the task is the last point. And then inside of the performance evaluation, you're looking backward. So you look, how did this person perform in the past? The development talk is the opposite. So the most important part of the. Development talk is the future. Where does the person want to be in the future?
And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the company or where the company wants to be. The goal of this is, and why, why do this personal development talk? I believe that if we are developing people in organizations beyond what the organization needs, they will contribute more to the company. They will contribute better.
So the goal of what I'm doing with development talks is finding out what the people desire and going deeper into that. And we will have a look at that in the next couple of slides. And then look, what are the different tasks of the organizations that fit the person and what the person wants to be. And then you marry these two things.
And then it works as well from a performance evaluation perspective. So that's my perspective on development talk and performance evaluation. Let's go into personal development talk a couple of, I think it's almost two years ago or something. I've developed this in as, as a worksheet. So if anyone is interested in getting this worksheet as a PDF.
Happy to share that. So, the starting point of a development talk is really a setup of the atmosphere and the place. So you are going to do a development talk with another person. So you are the manager and the, the other person is like reporting to you and then you're meeting up. So what you need to make sure of is that you have, an appropriate place.
The best case is always doing this outside of the office environment in a. In a place where people feel well, the atmosphere is super important. The time of the day is important, not doing it on Friday afternoon, for example, when people want to go on the weekend, of course, you need to be aware of your relationship with the other person, depending on how deep your relationship is.
You of course have then a perspective on how deep you can go. And how much that is. And then what is important as well is that you put the note-taking responsibility to the person that is inside the room or is working with you. So me as a leader, I always give the note taking responsibility for the other person because then you see what they understand and what they get out of that.
And then I always do as well. A version in front of us so that people understand this. So printing out this worksheet as an example, if you do that in a physical space, then you print it out and then you go into the development talk. And the starting point of the development talk goes really wide.
Looking into what's the personal vision like. I always ask these as open questions without showing them the worksheet in the beginning. Who do you want to be? And that's very, very, very wide. Like, who do you want to be? What does it mean? Some people who have never had a conversation like this, struggle with this.
So they start with, yeah, I want to be a manager. I want to be something specific. So they go very, very, very specific and they don't really look into the future. So the first round of this, I just, Help them to find out who they want to be and they write down, they write down a manager. I want to be a good father.
I want to be whatever they come up with. And then I go to the next question and I show them the next question, not before. So why do you want to be that person? So then they're reflecting on the answers they have given and then they go back and refine who they want to go to be. And that's an interesting process because what.
You as the manager that is holding this development talk are doing, you're literally shutting up and just asking open questions to tell me more. How, how does that feel? What does that look like? What would that look like in the future? So you only ask open ended question when that gets the person talking and reflecting.
So if you're saying this, what does it mean? So, and then they're explaining, explaining, and they go in a loop between who am I going to be? And why do I want to be that person? So until they have clarity, and the first loop is always. The starting point where they don't know what's going to come, then who am I going to be?
They come up with high-level topics and then they go, Why do I want to be that person? Then they go back to Who am I going to be? And then they go deeper. And I always then give them a perspective. Okay, think about five years, 10 years from now, who do you want to be? And then they go more particular in all of these things.
And then we go, we don't close this, we keep it, we put it aside. And then we go to the next sheet, which is a personal development map. So I want them again to reflect on certain questions. And it doesn't matter in the order, I just take them clockwise right now. But it's really going and answering the specific questions.
What do I want to learn? So you're asking this, the person that is in front of you. So what do you want to learn to be that person? So linking it back to that person of the future. And then you're asking, what do you want to improve? And then they come up with things. So it's, it's like writing down the, all the different topics and then what do I want to leave behind?
And then they come back with topics that they want to leave behind. Another question is what excites you? Yeah. And then going deeper into this, who is important to them? And then what is important to them? And when you have done this circle, you go around it and they were deeper in this topic.
What quite often happens then if you ask them, so how, if we go back to the other one, is that still the same thing you want to be? Because they have now clarified what they want to be. and answer the question, they go back to this one and then clarify, no, no, no, I want to be this, I want to be this. What I always ask them, in this part is to paint a picture.
So when, when we have finished with this one, I go back to this one. And say, from a personal vision perspective, imagine a picture and describe the picture that you see on the wall. And then they describe to me who they want to be and who they are going to strive to be inside of a picture and explain everything that is around them.
I've had, for example, a person that told me where they are going to live, what, how it feels, um, in this picture, where the kids in this picture, where the wife or husband and, and going really into details and then linking this to. A job perspective as well, because in the end, we are at least this part is in a job environment.
So they are linking that to the job environment of who they're going to be working with as well. So these two are super powerful. And then you go into the next step, which is a goal perspective. So it starts with the staircase. So in the top right corner, we have what is the goal. And the starting point is really, um, defining that goal.
So if you want to be this person in five years, what is the goal for the next year for you to be very specific? And of course, you can do smart goal setting and all of that, but it's in the end, What does feel right for that person? What is the development goal they want to reach in one year from now?
And then they formulate that goal. And then you go to the bottom of this page where you look into where do you stand today on a scale from one to 10. So they're rating themselves on how close are they to that goal. If they're close, then they're at 10 or 9. If they're far away, then they're at 1. And what always happens is they're somewhere in between, obviously.
So when they have rated that, then you look into what are the things that get you closer to that goal, meaning moving your scale from 5 to 10. And that's what they are writing down above the stairs. So, above the stairs are the things that are getting them closer to their goal. And then they're defining this in bullet points and formulating that out.
And [you do that obviously all in a conversation. You ask the person who is doing the development talk, you are asking them questions to get them moving. You're asking them clarifying questions about the topics that are put, into the sheet. And then the next part is, what are the things that getting you further away from that goal?
So downstairs, if you think at it from a staircase perspective, and then they're writing these things down and then they have a clear picture of a goal staircase where they, they know they want, where they want to be linking that to the vision that's five years from now and the goal picture, and then they rate themselves.
And have then clear understanding of that are the things I need to do to get to my goal and that are the things I should not be doing. And then the last step of the development talk is getting specific. So now we zoom into one year and actionable goals that help them or tasks that get them towards the one-year perspective.
So what are the things they're going to do? When are they going to do this? What do they need to make happen to be able to do this? What are the things they need help with and how I'm, how they going to measure them? So it's a very, very simple setup where they write down literally the different steps that help them to get there.
And they're putting measurable goals towards the goal. And this is roughly. I would say one and a half hours, even if we go through this right now in a theoretical setting in, let's say 15 minutes in a real conversation, in a coaching style, where you ask the manager or coach the other person to find out what they are desiring and where they want to be.
It takes roughly one and a half hours if you do that well, sometimes it's faster depending on the relationship as well. The fascinating thing with this is it has zero to do with the company you work in and one hundred percent to do with who they want to be. And as well as zero to do with you as their manager, if you're their manager, like your perspective, your opinion on anything of that.
Um, just to give you a couple of examples, I've had people that told me that they want to be. building their own company in the next five years and they worked in the company and I was their manager they told me because they trusted me that they wanted to build their own company and we built a plan for how they were going to build their own company and I've had situations where people told me that they want to get married in the next five years and then we built a plan to get them towards marriage getting married and looked into how that does that work with the career perspective same with kids and all the other things so this is a development tool you That I use with everyone that is working with me over time because I believe that as further we as managers and organizations help people to develop as better it is.