You may be closer to your next booking than you think
Speakers tell me all the time that they want more bookings, more gigs and a fuller diary. Perfectly reasonable.
The instinct is to go looking for more people to sell to. Buy a database, find more contacts, send more emails and do more outreach. And there is absolutely a place for all of that. But before you do, I’d suggest doing something much simpler. Look at the people you already know.
Think about previous clients, past enquiries that didn’t turn into bookings, event organisers you’ve met, people who have attended your sessions and referrals you’ve received. Then there are your LinkedIn connections you actually know, and people who have moved companies since you last worked with them.
Depending on how long you’ve been speaking, there could be hundreds of potential bookings sitting inside relationships you already have. The important thing is that you’re not a complete stranger to these people, there is already some sort of connection, even if it’s small.
I would much rather have a carefully selected list of 50 people where there is already a relationship than a bought database of 5,000 people who have never heard of me and are probably being spammed by everyone who bought the list.
Please don’t take that as permission to put all 50 into an automated email sequence beginning, “Hi [FIRST NAME], hope you’re well…”. That rather misses the point.
Instead, choose five people. Have a look at what’s happening in their world and find a genuine reason to reconnect with them. Perhaps they’ve moved company, announced a new event, been promoted, shared something interesting on LinkedIn or are working on something relevant to your area of expertise. Then send them an individual email/LI message/WhatsApp/text/voice message/morse code.
Once you’ve done those five, pat yourself on the back and choose another five.
Yes, it takes longer than pressing a button and sending 500 emails. I think that’s a good thing, because the objective isn’t to contact as many people as possible. The objective is to start the right conversations with people who may have a reason to book you, recommend you or introduce you to somebody else.
And don’t make every conversation immediately about getting booked, you are simply reconnecting, finding out what they are working on or offering something useful. Relationships tend to work better when people don’t feel as if the only reason you contacted them was because you wanted something.
A little job for you this week:
Find 20 people already in your network who could potentially lead to paid speaking work.
Don’t sell to them yet. Just identify them and think about why it might make sense to reconnect. Then reach out to 4 or 5 a day, you can manage that, it’s not too much. Do that for a few weeks and I guarantee you’ll start having some interesting conversations.
You may even discover that you’re much closer to your next booking than you thought.
And if you’re reading this thinking, “Yes, this is exactly the part of my speaking business I need to get better at”, and you want to spend a whole day working on this, join me and Mary here https://find-win-grow-speaking-a6bwqdr.gamma.site/
But in the meantime, get started and let me know how you get on.
Maria
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