170: What to Do Now to See Success as a Speaker in Q1
As we approach the end of the year, here is your reminder that you should be pitching and planning for 2022 speaking opportunities now! Many podcast hosts, event organizers, and more are already planning out their Q1 content, so you’ll want to make sure you’re preparing for those opportunities before the end of the year!
In today’s episode, I’m sharing four important steps to take this month in order to see success as a speaker in Q1 of next year!
If you loved this episode and it motivated you to work on more polished presentations, I’d love for you to leave a review on iTunes and tell me about your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram Stories, and tag me @jessicarasdall.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Are You Currently Planning for Next Year's Speaking Opportunities?
This time of year is often meant for slowing down and taking a break from your business—I get it. Time spent with family is so important! During the time you are working though, what is it that you're working on? If speaking is an important part of your strategy for next year, are you currently planning for next year's speaking opportunities?
While Q4 is an often overlooked time for maximizing your speaking strategy, it's time to utilize the remaining time this year to plan for Q1 speaking opportunities. Come January 1st, everyone is fired up and ready to take action, but is it too late?
Let's put this into perspective—on my own podcast, we've already planned out our Q1 content, which means podcast guest pitches are likely not going to be considered until we're planning for Q2. Let's think through how we'll start pitching now.
If you want to stand out to organizers you need to start connecting with them NOW. Get your name on their radar and start building relationships. This is going to put you ahead of the January rush and increase the potential for 2022 bookings.
If you need more support for jumpstarting the next steps for your speaking opportunities, head over to howtostartspeaking.com to find out the best way to scale your business through speaking!
Prepare Your Pitches
While you may be thinking that pitching is just putting too much on your plate right now, there are a tons of simple steps you can be taking to help prepare those pitches as well!
1. Get clear on your speaking strategy and how speaking fits into your business?
2. Select your signature speaking topics.
3. Map out your presentation so you can communicate it to event organizers.
4. Start connecting with hosts or organizers!
Need resources to help you get started? We've got you covered in the speak to scale vault with resources, trainings and workbooks to help you take action NOW so that you can start seeing results.
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Read the Transcript from this Episode
Transcript for Episode 170:
As we're rounding out this year, can we believe it friends, I bet you're starting to think about next year and if speaking is on your radar for 2022, in particular q1, I want to show you what you need to be working on right now in order to make that work for you. Welcome back to another episode of The speak to scale Podcast, where we're helping small business owners just like you grow and scale their companies by speaking on stages, podcasts, webinars and more. I'm your host, Jessica Rasdall, and I'm so excited to chat today. Because I know that this is the time of year where we can all get very excited about our businesses, we are doing end of year reviews, we're talking about what worked and what didn't, and we're planning for the year ahead. But this is also a lot of the time where I see business owners start to slow down and areas. And please believe me when I say this, I'm all about the slowdown, I have got time blocked on my calendar for out of office through the holidays. I'm so excited for that. But q4 is an often overlooked time for maximizing your speaking strategy. With so many business owners and event organizers, also slowing down for end of year review and time out of office. It's easy to write off speaking and say well all focus on that in January when everyone's back to work. Yeah, well, everyone else is saying the exact same thing. So come January 1, you know, everyone's going to be fired up and ready to take action. There'll be sending in their pitches, connecting with organizers going after the opportunities they've been dreaming about all December. This right now friends, is your chance to cut the line. If you want to stand out to organizers, you need to start connecting with them. Now, maybe even yesterday, but I'm not trying to stress you
this time of the year. q4 is one of the most impactful times for getting ahead of the line and building relationships with organizers. This is your opportunity to get your name on their radar and start building a real relationship. We've talked about that a lot on the podcast right? About how securing opportunities is less about sending lots of pitches and more about building relationships. This is the time to focus on that. Now more than ever, this is going to put you ahead of that January rush and increase the potential for those 2022 bookings made proof I've got you covered. Just take a look at this show. Right now when I'm recording this, which is probably a month or two before it actually goes live. I don't even know when this episode goes live. But I can tell you that today I'm recording my last three episodes for 2021. And we are already working on our content plan for 2022. I'm starting to record 2022 episodes next week. So if someone waits until January to reach out to me to be on our show, it's already way too late. In order for you to start laying that foundation now, like in order for you to score big in 2022, I want you to lay a solid foundation, I want you to start putting in the work now. To get yourself set up for success. I'm not telling you, you're late, or you're behind, or it's time to throw in the towel. Don't don't read too far into this. I'm just want to let you in on a secret that most people are going to pump the brakes in December. And if you want to skip the line, this is your chance to do so. So here are the things that I would love for you to have in place the things that you could focus on. If you're like just Okay, I'm going to take action. I'm ready. I have the space for this, like projects have lightened up for me in q4. I'm ready to start doing the thing. I need a punch list.
Tell me what to do. Here are the things I want you to focus on. First, get clear on your speaking strategy. Not the person next to you. Not my strategy, not somebody on Instagram. Get clear on your speaking strategy. How is speaking going to fit into your business and 2022 what impact is it going to make for you? Are you focused on speaking to raise brand awareness. Are you looking to make conversions for your business? get new sales, get new clients? What is the plan here? How does this fit into the work that you're already doing? I've got a really exciting episode coming for you in January of 2022. All about how to weave speaking into your marketing plan, you're going to love that one. But right now, I want you to start thinking like why, why speaking? Why does this matter to your business. And if you've never taken our quiz before, that is a great place to start. To get clear on what your plan is for speaking in your business. I'll link it in the show notes for you. But you can also just head on over to how to start speaking calm. And it's just going to ask you a few questions to help you figure out what is your best path in business when it comes to speaking. So number one, clarify your game plan, what's your speaking strategy, then I want you to select your signature speaking topics. Listen, I know that you could speak on so many different things. But if we're really going to be intentional about building relationships with organizers, and getting our name out there, we need to be ready to respond to a speaking request. When it comes across our desk, we need to be ready to fill out that speaker application rather than just bookmarking it, saving it for later and then missing the deadline. If you know what your core speaking topics are, and you've got them ready, you are much more likely to submit yourself for an opportunity, respond to an inquiry and inevitably book more engagements.
So get crystal clear, what are the key topics that you are ready and willing to speak on, then, once you know what those are, start mapping out that presentation, it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to have the whole talk done start to finish. But you need to have a general outline. That's going to make it so much easier to communicate the value of your talk. Whenever you're pitching it to organizers. Take the time to map out your presentation. What is it that you plan to say if you know like, these are my three topics? What is it that you're going to say within those three topics?
It's really you know, I think it can be tempting that when a speaking request comes across our desk, or we see an application for an opportunity, we want to fill it out. We're so excited for an opportunity to pour into this audience that would get very me centered. Well, I would be a great speaker because and I'm so good at this. I know this and remember the organizers not focused on that they're focused on what is this presentation going to do for my event? What is this presentation going to do for my audience? So you want to make sure that you know, like, what is the value that people actually get from my talk. And it's very hard to communicate that if you haven't taken the time to map the talk out. So get clear on your speaking strategy. Select your signature speaking topics, and map out that presentation. When you have those three things done, you should feel so confident researching events, and reaching out to organizers. Start building those connections and those relationships. subscribe to the podcast you want to be on. Leave them reviews on iTunes, connect with the host on social media, spend time getting to know these events that you want to partner with. And when that opportunity arises.
When you see a chance to pitch yourself, when they ask you to be a part of it. When there's an application to fill out. You will know exactly what that opportunity could do for your business, what topics you could speak on and what's going to go in to your talk. So I want you to spend this month connecting with the hosts of shows you want to be on connecting with the hosts events you want to speak at. Now is the time my friend you've got this. There's no need to wait till January where everybody's inboxes are bursting with pitches. start connecting with them now, get ahead of that line and set yourself up for speaking success in q1. If you need help if you need resources, you know that I am here for you we are always in your corner.
One of the best places you can get started is our speak to scale vault. It has a plan of attack and all the resources you need to get a great start. The Vault includes the workbooks on how to figure out your speaking topics that will help you Get clear on your speaking strategy. It'll have workbooks to help you write that talk, show you how to find the events, everything you need to do this work now. And if you want those tools, you want those resources, you can head on over to our show notes or go to the speak to skill vault calm, but make sure you use the code podcast, it's going to give you a special discount for being a listener. And when you're in there, and you're using the resources and you're doing this work, shoot me a DM over on Instagram at Jessica Rasul I want to cheer you on. I want to know that you're working on it that you're there with me in queue for putting in the work when everybody else is sleeping on their speaking strategy. Will you send me a DM and let me know I'm not the only one. Putting in those hours. I would love that. All right, friend. Let's get to work. Let's get clear on our speaking strategy with select our topics. Let's map out our talks and start connecting with hosts. I will see you back here next week for another episode of The speak to scale podcast. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of this speak to scale podcast. It would mean the world to us if you could just take a second and head on over to iTunes and leave us a review. Your support of this show allows us to continue creating this content for you each and every week. And we appreciate your reviews and you sharing about the show more than you know. As always, I will be over here cheering you on friend. I'll see you next week for another episode of The speak to scale podcast.
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