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Speaking is one of the fastest ways you can build your business and be recognized as an expert in your field. But unless you’re booking gigs and filling your calendar your message doesn’t mean a thing. Over the last decade I’ve tapped into the power of Google and landed speaking engagements around the world. And below are the steps you can use to harness the world’s most used search engine to get speaking gigs with your ideal clients.
Step One – Your Avatar
Identify your ideal market and define your ideal client, your Avatar. What problems do they have that you can solve? If you can’t clearly outline you want to speak to your search is over before it begins.
Start with ONE person in mind, instead of a mass of people that is your market. Your Avatar is a single person who is the representative for your overall market. You should pick someone you know personally so you can easily picture them in your mind’s eye.
Who are they physically? Male, female, age, kids
Where do they live? United States or abroad – rural or urban
What’s their financial status? White collar or blue collar, own a home, what do they buy
What are their greatest fears and frustrations?
What are their greatest hopes and desires?
Step Two – Look at a Map
What city do you live in? What other towns, cities, and areas could you easily travel to? This is where Google maps can come in. Visit www.maps.google.com, type in your home address and then you can zoom in and out to start creating your list.
Step Three – Location, Location, Location
Where is your Avatar hanging out? Meetings, associations, organizations, MeetUps, clubs, seminars, conferences, etc…Everyone loves a parade and lots of people show up to watch. Your job is to find the “parade” and go where the people are.
Step Four – Fire Up The Google Machine
Do a Google search with variations of the answers you came up with in step one, two and three.
Here are some examples to get you started.
Small business MeetUps in Denver Colorado
Dog Clubs in Fairfax Virginia
Real Estate Associations in Houston Texas
Overcoming addiction groups in San Diego California
You get the idea. Try variations of search terms and if you need help on finding similar words try www.thesaurus.com.
Step Five – Make a List
As you identify potential places from the search results begin to record the names and contact information in a spreadsheet.
Step Six – Reach Out
Now that you’ve created your list it’s time to start connecting with the decision makers. Send the group’s contact a simple email and/or pick up the phone and ask, “Do you take outside speakers?” If they reply “No”, say Thank You and move forward. If they reply with a “Yes”, ask them what the next steps are.
BONUS – YouTube Is Your Friend
All of the same steps you used with Google can be implemented with YouTube as well. Not only will you get search results that point to speaking leads but you can see the venue, the size and type of audiences, what other speakers have spoken there and you have the ability to contact the organizer through their YouTube channel.
Google and YouTube each have their own way of searching the Internet. This means that you won’t always get the same results when using the same terms which gives you a much larger list of potential speaking leads.
Put these steps into action today and start building your list and booking more speaking gigs!
