Leveling Up: How to Network to Land Speaking Opportunities, Without Prior Experience

Modern professionals recognize the numerous significant benefits that come as a direct result of using speaking engagements to build your personal brand. This powerful medium works equally well in person or as a virtual presentation, making it the ideal method to boost your career.

Even if you have no speaking background, there is every reason to start cultivating speaking engagements using your existing network. You’ll quickly become more recognizable within your industry, and colleagues and clients begin to see you as an expert in your field.

Hosting a speaking engagement also makes you more relatable because your peers can see your personality and get your personal insights into critical business topics.

Fortunately, even if you are new to this area, you can take several key steps to significantly increase your speaking opportunities. Once you’ve added this new talent to your career portfolio, following some fundamental tips can improve your public speaking technique until it becomes fluid and flawless.

Maintain an Active Social Media Presence

Most business professionals have a social media presence, whether on Linkedin, Xing, Meetup, or any one of the multitudes of sites out there. However, many people don’t take advantage of this existing resource.

If you’re on Linkedin, ensure you stick to a regular posting schedule. Your articles or comments should be constructive and add value to others within your network. As your peers become familiar with your observations, they’ll begin to look out for your commentary at the regular posting times.

Use sites like Meetup to attend local events and speak face-to-face with other like-minded professionals, so they become familiar with your opinions and your assessments.

Once other industry connections know you are a vital resource that can help them with their business goals, they’re likely to attend your speaking engagements to benefit from your insights.

Make Contact On A Substantial Scale

Initially, invitations to host speaking engagements are unlikely to just arrive in your inbox. This is the moment to reach out and ask to give a presentation to other industry professionals.

Social media networks allow anyone to contact hundreds if not thousands of interested parties in only minutes. Don’t be afraid of rejection or a lack of interest; those reactions are inevitable with any new venture. You’ll be surprised at how many people need help in areas where you are an expert.

If you post to large numbers of potentially interested parties, you exponentially increase your chances of success. Even if your first speaking engagement is to a relatively small crowd, your reputation can proliferate as these grateful listeners promote your expertise to their networks.

You can become a respected industry expert before you know it,  sought after for multiple speaking engagements. This method can promote your personal brand rapidly throughout your chosen industry.

Show Your Personality

One of the best ways to cultivate speaking engagements to build your personal brand is to show your personality. Listeners like to relate to their host, and speaking in a more informal tone can display your knowledge more amicably. Your connections already value your opinion, but you can stand out from your peers by showing your natural appeal.

Although the primary purpose of attending a speaking event is usually to learn new industry information, attendees are more likely to praise the speaker to their network if they enjoy the presentation. Make eye contact, smile, and let the crowd get to see some of the individuality that makes you the person you are.

Practice Voice Variation

Now that you’re being invited to host speaking engagements, it’s time to perfect your newfound skill.

When you embark on any new career path, there is a learning curve, and forgetting to add inflections to your voice is a common issue for many new public speakers.

It can be challenging to affect a professional tonality, while also allowing your natural charisma to shine through.

You can practice voice modulation by recording yourself speaking and watching the results. You can use a smart device or a program such as Loom to document your practice sessions. This method is a great way to learn how to adjust your pronunciation to ensure your speaking voice projects a lively and exciting tone.

Focus on Your Strengths

After your first speaking engagements, you’ll begin to notice areas in which you excel. Maybe you’re a great storyteller, or perhaps the crowd enjoys the way you break down information into manageable sections. If you’re not comfortable cracking a joke in front of hundreds of people, you don’t have to.

It’s not essential, or even practical, to master every aspect of public speaking. The best hosts concentrate on accentuating their strengths. By following this method, you’ll be more comfortable on stage and produce more effective performances for your industry colleagues.

Involve the Audience

Public speaking isn’t only about presenting your commentary to the crowd. People love to get involved in the conversation, and you’ll also find contributors who also add quality and new angles to your presentation.

Although it can be daunting to answer questions on the spot, this is a fantastic way to display your range of knowledge to your audience. It can also encourage lively debate, which provides your audience with invaluable information and leaves them wanting more.

This strategy is a crucial element for cultivating a steady supply of speaking engagements.

Begin Your Development Today

Using speaking engagements is one of the fastest and most effective methods for building your personal brand. Because you can add value to your peers and clients both online and in-person, you can host speaking events at any time and from any venue.

There is no reason to delay. Add performing speaking engagements to your repertoire today, and benefit from new connections that could progress your career at extraordinary speed.

 

---

Meet with an Ivy Exec Career Coach to get help with your personal assessment and progression plan.

---