173: Your 2022 Speaker Timeline — what you can expect if your goal is start speaking in 2022
I imagine that you've got a pretty good handle on your goals and plans for 2022. You’ve likely realized that speaking is essential to helping you reach new audiences, get new clients, and hit those big goals you've set for yourself. But when should you start focusing on speaking in order to hit those goals?
In today’s episode, we're talking through your 2022 speaker timeline, what you need to know, where most people miss the mark, and how to get ahead of the curve! Tune in as I share three important phases to your speaker timeline over the 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:
Phases of Your 2022 Speaking Timeline
There is no perfect timeline for speaking—it's going to be different for everyone. It also depends on your business, your industry, the amount of reach you currently have, but most importantly... how much YOU are willing to show up and put in the work.
I want you to think about your speaking timeline for this year in phases. There are three important phases we’ll be breaking this timeline into today, including:
Awareness and Credibility Building
Relationship Building and Outreach
Preparation and Presenting
Awareness and Credibility Building
If you’re just getting started with your speaking journey, you’re likely going to want to focus on this stage for a little while. Even if you’ve been around for a while, it’s important that you don’t skip this step. You have to consistently be working on awareness and credibility building around your knowledge and brand.
Have you secured the topic that you’re speaking to? Do you know who your ideal audience is? Are you offering a transformation to that audience?
Note: Visibility does not always equate to income.
Relationship Building and Outreach
The second phase is important for creating opportunities for yourself and your business—relationship building and outreach. Relationship building is setting the stage for the value you have to give. It’s important to keep this in mind too, as you don’t always see immediate results: relationships can't be measured. There may not always be data to back up the impact of the relationships you’re building, but you have to be building these relationships in order to make the connections that will move you ahead in your business.
Preparation and Presenting
When you show up and give an incredible presentation, that’s what results in rebooking and referrals. Just because you’ve pitched and booked the event, doesn’t mean your work ends there. Make sure you’re giving as much effort in the actual presentation as you are in the other phases of your timeline.
Ready to link arms with other business owners who are working to scale their business with speaking this year? Join our free Speak to Scale community where we can chat more about this topic together.
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Read the Transcript from this Episode
Transcript for Episode 173:
It is a brand new, sparkly year, and you are ready to make the most of it. But you might not be sure how speaking is going to fit into the timeline for you. Today, we're going to unpack what your 2022 Speaker timeline could and should look like. Welcome back to another episode, the very first episode of 2022 of the speak to scale podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Rasdall. And I'm so excited to join you for another year of business development and speaker training to really help you use speaking on podcasts, webinars, live streams and more. To scale your business with speaking, this has been a very interesting journey. It's a over the last, what year and a half, two years time no longer exists. And it's been a roller coaster for us as business owners who want to speak.
So I want to make sure that we go into this year, knowing what this timeline could look like for us. Because if you're anything like me, which I know you are, you've got your year plant, you've got the big goal set. Maybe you've got the beautiful dry race calendar hanging on your wall. I do. It's like my favorite purchase every year. You know, you know speaking is essential to helping you reach new audiences get new clients hit those big goals you've listed on that board. But when exactly should you start focusing on speaking in order to hit those goals? When is it that you should start taking action that you should start doing outreach or research or submitting for opportunities.
Today, we're talking about your 2022 Speaker timeline, what you need to know where most people miss the mark, and how to get ahead of the curve. listening to the podcast is a great first step. But I want you to go take action. So if you are ready to apply everything you've learned here on the show, listen up, we took all of our best resources, like our plug and play crafting your story workbook, or how to select your speaking topics, workbook, resources on crafting your talk finding and pitching events, we put them all together inside of the speak to scale vault, and we put them in order, so you know exactly what to do and when to do it. to scale your business with speaking, ready to unlock the entire vault, head on over to speak to scale vault comm or click the link in our show notes. But be sure to use the code podcast for a special discount from me. Listen, Fred,
there is no perfect timeline for speaking, I wish I could tell you, here's the exact path, here's how this will play out for you. But that's not the case, it's going to be different for each of us. It depends on our business, on our industry, on the amount of reach we currently have with our brand. What is our impact look like right now. But most importantly, this is the key friend, it depends on how much you are willing to show up and put in the work. Because your speaking timeline is not mandatory, it's not. There are not specific steps and benchmarks that you need to hit. It's going to be a little bit different for all of us. But I want you to think about this timeline in three key phases.
And I'll walk through these phases, we'll figure out where you are, and how you can kind of maximize or optimize that journey for maximum impact for your business. So when we think about these three phases of the journey, the very first one is awareness and credibility building. So if you are at the very start of your speaking journey, you need to focus on raising awareness of the value you bring to the stage. So what is it? Who is it that you're talking to? What is it that you're speaking about? These are the core fundamental pieces of your speaking strategy. And I say speaking strategy, one because I'm the Public Speaking strategist. This is what I specialize in is helping business owners use speaking to scale their business not just let me get more visibility, let me speak it all the places because friend, visibility is not created equal and visibility does not always equate to income. Doesn't. We've got to be specific where because we are business owners, who are the people I've been called to serve. What do my products In my services and my offers, who are they've designed for who are the people who they benefit the most. Those are the audiences we want to help.
And if we are getting started, if we're at the very beginning of our speaking journey, we need to make sure that we're not only building credibility on being the trusted resource guide, mentor, speaker on our subject matter, but that other people besides ourselves, and maybe our mom, know that they know about the impact that we make, they know about the value that we bring. And if nobody knows what you do yet, if you're still your industry's best kept secret, you're going to need to spend some time in this first phase, bringing awareness to the value you bring to the stage and increasing your speaking credibility. If you have taken our quiz, which you can find in our show notes, or go to How to start speaking.com, if you've already taken the quiz, and it told you you're a tier one speaker, this is what I'm talking about. I know this might sound cryptic, if you haven't taken the quiz, so just go take it.
But when we are in that credibility building phase, we're making sure that we're being selective about the topics we say yes to that we are making sure that people see us as a speaker, as an educator, as a trusted guide on a particular subject matter for a particular audience. If you feel like you've already got that part down, where people are already, your referral rates really high, people are already asking you to be a part of things, you know, you are like the go to person for insert, whatever you do. So you might be moving on to phase two in this timeline, where you're focused on relationship building and outreach. Because as much as you want to be handed the microphone, if you don't have a relationship with organizers, if you aren't actively putting your name out there, filling out applications pitching yourself to be on stages. That means you're just sitting around and waiting for a magical opportunity to come knocking on your door. And while I hope that's what will happen for you.
The reality is if we truly want to scale our businesses with speaking, we need to take control of the reins, we need to start taking actions that are going to impact that timeline and shorten it for us. So let's say you're already built the credibility, you're already a trusted guide, resource, speaker, mentor, insert whatever word you want here in your industry. Now I want you to spend some time focus on research, relationship building and outreach. Are you consistently connecting with podcast hosts of event planners, conference host, retreat organizers, people who lead communities of your ideal clients, the more time you can spend building those relationships, the more likely you are to be top of mind when they're looking for somebody to speak on your subject matter. But building relationships alone isn't enough. So I say that first because it's the most important piece. And so often people skip over relationships and jump to outreach. So I want to make sure I'm super clear here that hands down relationships, your network, that is key relationships will pay off for years and years that you'll never, you cannot measure the impact and the value of those relationships. But so often, we gloss right over that and just say, people will come to me Oh, Jess will just give me the pitch script, give me the pitch template, give me the thing. That's great. But you're going to waste hours and hours sending cold pitches, when you could have just spent a little bit of time building a relationship. So if you are, I'm going to like Aster care and assume you are actively building those relationships. You are consistently growing your network. Now it's time to make sure you're also doing outreach meaning relationships are incredible.
But you've got to put yourself out there. You've got to you know, give the invitation make the ask. Let people know that you would love to serve their communities. That means that you are consistently pitching yourself and pitching can sound uncomfortable to some of us but it is truly asking for an opportunity to serve someone else's community. So that means that you are reaching out to those podcast hosts you've been building a relationship with and asking in showing them. This is how I could bring value to your audience. I would love to you know, speak on this topic because it will benefit your audience in this way. Or connecting with those leaders of communities that you're a part of online and saying You know, I've seen this comp this topic coming up in the group a lot.
And you know, I feel I have a signature presentation that addresses this topic, I think it will be very valuable for your audience. Can I come into the community and deliver that presentation, you've got to shoot your shot friend. And I know it's scary. And I know it's uncomfortable, and we don't want to do it. But all of that relationship building is setting the stage for you to showcase value. And I know you've got value to give, I know you've got an incredible presentation within you. But if nobody ever hears it, if you're not given an opportunity to deliver it, are you truly able to make the impact that you could? Could you reach more clients reach more people? Could you shorten their timeline, deliver more transformations, inspire them to do the things they never thought were possible, we've got to get out of our own way. And make sure that we are committed to advocating for ourselves, shooting our shot, and showing organizers how we could benefit their community, if they would invite us in to speak.
So that's part two, we've got one, we're building the awareness or building the credibility or being seen as the go to expert, then we move on to focusing on the actual opportunities, the hosts of these communities, building relationships with them, and shooting our shop, doing the outreach, doing the pitching. But once we've got that down, there's a whole nother component. There's a phase three involved here. Because even when you've been booked to speak, we're not done. We don't hang up our hat and say, Oh, I've checked the goal. Now we've got to focus on preparing for that event. And presenting Well, you know, over delivering, because when you show up and give an incredible presentation, that my friend is what results in rebooking and referrals. And you don't want to get stuck in that cycle like most people do, of constantly having to pitch yourself, we want to get you I want to get you to a place where you're actively speaking, and you have more incoming requests than you do pitches being sent. Meaning you're doing such a great job on that stage that you're being rebooked and referred.
So I want you to spend some time today to figuring out where in this in these three phases, am I falling right now? Where do I need to start? Because you may be already have the credibility, but you don't have the relationships and the pitching. So you need to start at two. Or maybe you're saying just like, I am incredible at the work that I do. I'm a service provider. But nobody knows, I may industry's best kept secret. So you need to start with the showing up in the awareness and the credibility building, figure out where you are, so you know where your timeline begins. But understand, this cannot play out overnight. That's going to take time, it's going to take time for people to see you as that go to expert, it's going to take time to build relationships and send the pitches, and then it will take time for you to prepare for that presentation. actually deliver it and see the results from that presentation. If you're willing.
And that's a big if because one thing I've learned through leading the speaking strategy Academy and working with so many business owners is not everybody's willing to do this next part. But if you're willing to create your own stage, to fast track that awareness and credibility phase, you will shorten your speaker timeline drastically. What I mean by that is so often the mistake I see in our industry is people will say, you know, I want to speak and then they sit around and wait for an invitation to speak on a stage right? Like, they will say, Well, I will be a speaker when somebody gives me a microphone. You guys, we have our own microphone, right in front of us every single day. And what I would challenge you to do is decide what microphone are you going to use and commit to using it every single week.
So that could be podcasting like I do for you every week. It could be showing up in your Instagram stories. It could be starting a live stream show showing up live on Instagram, live on Facebook, whatever. It could be starting a YouTube channel. It does not matter where you pick your outlet to be. But when you decide that you are going to show up and you are going to pour into your existing audience without waiting for anybody to give you the microphone. You start to take control of that timeline.
You get to speed it up. It's now on your schedule, not somebody else's. Maybe you start a local networking group, you host your own retreat. You host an online workshop. The sky is the limit here. But what I'm saying is don't wait for somebody else to tell you that you're a speaker. If that's the approval you need Friend, here it is. You are a speaker. Done. Period, end of sentence. Now is your turn to start showing up and pouring into your audience? Are you willing to pick with that platform? We'll be into it consistently week after week? I know it's scary. It's intimidating, and we can feel like nobody's listening. Or maybe that's just me thinking that every single week, are you listening friend, are you there, but But you have to have faith and know that your words are making a difference. And that consistency is planting seeds in the lives of people you'll never meet. That that consistency is laying the groundwork for the impact that you will make.
So if you truly want to have a successful 2022 as a speaker, if you want to be invited to speak on your dream stages, if you want to be paid for your time, don't wait for someone to tell you, your speaker, start today. I already told you, I want you to fast track those three phases. By creating your own stage, waiting for somebody else's timeline does not put you in control of your destiny. So why are we waiting for someone to give us a microphone, if you want a better understanding of what the pitch timeline looks like and how long it can actually take. Episode number 156 is a do not miss I will link it for you in the show notes. But I'm breaking down what the pitch timeline looks like that, really focusing on that phase two of this timeline, the relationship building in the outreach, in case you need a reminder of how long that timeline could be, and a little incentive for you to create your own stage. That's an episode you don't want to miss lesson. I know the last year, two years, my goodness, I don't even know how long it's been any more has been rough. And our stages were taken away.
And everything was flipped on its head. When you have your own stage, whether it's a podcast, or a live stream or YouTube channel, nobody's taking that from you. Doesn't matter what happens in the world. That's your place. That's your community to show up and keep serving your people. And I want you to have that. I mean, I'm not telling you, you have to have it, it's required for success. But friend to friend, as your new speaking strategist, I will tell you that when I look at our students, and I look at our clients, and I look at how long it takes for somebody to kind of have their big breakthrough. All of our students who hosted their own summit or started a podcast or committed to going live, they saw results much faster. And I want that for you.
So if you're ready to do that this year, I hope you're on the other end of this recording with your earbuds like arms up in the air screaming I am ready just come link arms with us and other business owners who are also working to scale their business as speaking this year. We have a free speak to scale community where we're having intimate deeper conversations around the exact topics you're hearing here on the show. So come join the group where we can chat more about this topic. It's completely free. You can join over at the show notes for this episode, or just head on over to speak to scale group.com. I'd love to see you in the group. I want to hear from you. Come join the group and tell me what phase are you in? Where does your timeline start this year? It's January. It's a new year. Are you focused on awareness and credibility, relationship building and outreach, or preparation and presenting?
I'll see you in the group so we can chat more. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of The 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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