9 Must-Do's to Catapult Your Speaking Biz in 2025 (& Mark Your 📆 for PLATFORM 2025!)
9 Must-Do's to Catapult Your Speaking Biz in 2025
🥳 Top of the New Year (can we still call it that on January 13 🤷♀️?)!
Did you know my wife and I have five kiddos?
Daron, why are you telling us this (again)?
Well…
When it comes to speaking, I am damn serious about this profession.
Why?
Because it’s all that I do. No W-2s for me, I’m riding the 1099 train for life.
If I don’t speak, those five kiddos don’t go to college. 🤦🏾…👩🏽🎓…😂
So, the tips I list below aren’t optional; they’re MANDATORY. Do you have that same level of urgency?
[Note: Substack has a character limit and I hit it on this post 🙈…so …grab some 🍿.]
9 Must-Do's to Catapult Your Speaking Biz in 2025
[Warning: All of this stuff ⬇️ requires some work, so if you’re lazy or unmotivated. Just hit the archive button now.]
#1: Tell People That You Speak
Being shy is holding you back….Let me write that one more time for the people sleeping in the back.
Being shy is holding you back.
Cousins. Neighbors. Frenemies. Tell ‘em all!
💎 Telling people that you speak keeps your name in the mental hopper so that when an opportunity arises, you are the first person to get a call.
#2: Craft One Marquee Keynote
What’s your best material? What’s the thing that you say that people quote back to you?
Take your best tips and strategies, your best strategies and tips, and build a marquee keynote (here’s a previous newsletter on improving your keynote).
What’s a marquee keynote? It’s the talk that people will refer you for.
💎 Force yourself (and I know, you have a lot of ideas) to sit down and craft one talk. Just one keynote that you’ll be known for.
#3: Get a Basic Website
In 2025, people strangers generate their first impression of someone from social media.
But if they’re interested in what they see, they will go the interwebs and look for your website. 🧐
I’ve had 13 different versions of my website over the past 15 years, and here’s the advice that I wish I had known listened to in 2010.
No more than three subpages
Put your best speaking picture at the top of the homepage
If you have speaking video, use it
Have an easy way for people to contact you
Here’s my website as an example.
#4: LinkedIn. LinkedIn. LinkedIn.
I gotta tell you, I’m gonna make LinkedIn start paying me for marketing in 2025. 😂
The people who are going to hire you spend more time on LinkedIn than TikTok. 😉
So, that’s where you need to be.
Here are some quick LinkedIn moves:
Upload a nice profile pic
Add ❗️“Keynote Speaker”❗️ to your header
Share recap posts of previous keynotes (it doesn’t matter how long ago it was)
That’s it. No PhD in astrophysics required.
#5: Treat Your Next Talk as if it’s Your Last Talk
Energy. Energy. Energy.
I see far too many speakers take the stage as if they’re delivering a eulogy.
💎 How you say is as important as what you say!
The easiest way I know to turn up your energy onstage is to simply smile. 😬
Even if you’re nervous scared, I’m telling you to SMILE SCARED.
#6: Hit Up Past Clients for Recommendations
If you don’t have a spreadsheet of your previous engagements (and you should have a spreadsheet of your previous engagements 😉), then write down a list of everywhere you’ve spoken.
Now, reach out to the organizers of each event and ask for a LinkedIn recommendation.
I can track what new visitors to my LinkedIn look at, and and after my profile, the Recommendations Section is the second most popular destination.
Why?
Strangers want to know what other people think of you before they reach out.
💎 So…start asking for those recommendations yesterday.
#7: Polish Off (Create) Your One-Pager
This one is so important that I wrote an an entire newsletter on it. 👇🏾
💎 Here’s the skinny: Craft a doc that highlights your background, speaking topics, and previous partners.
That’s it. 🤷🏾♂️
Don’t turn it into a Melville novel.
#8: Get a Speaking Mentor
When I started speaking, I wish I had someone to show me the ropes and give me advice on how to build a speaking business.
Someone in your circle has been speaking longer than you have.
She’s done battle with the “How much do I charge?” question.
💎 Treat her to a cup o’ coffee and pick her brain.
#9: Come to PLATFORM 2025
Over the past two years, 50+ speakers have grown their speaking businesses and networks through PLATFORM.
Well, this year will be our biggest and best, so mark your calendars NOW.
[And to better accommodate your travel…we’ve moved the two-day summit to Saturday and Sunday. ]
Share your email here and we’ll send you an update as soon as we unlock the registration cycle.
Ready to invest in your speaking business?
Here are ways we can help ⤵️:
Community: Why stay on the Internets when you can come outside? Join a community of speakers at every stage of their business for an exclusive in-person mastermind. Mark you calendars for PLATFORM 2025, September 20-21 in Austin, Texas.
Coaching: Over the past 18 months, we’ve coached 19 speakers who ranged from I’m just getting started to I want to charge more. If you want a guided gameplan get you to the next level, then shedule a discovery call with our co-founder, Will Baggett today.
Courses: Our “Get Paid to Speak” course shows you, step-by-step, how to build a speaking business. These seven modules will put you in position to monetize your message.
If you liked today’s newsletter, be sure to like, share, and comment below.👇
Take the Stage.
Get Paid.
Buy Your Freedom.
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