The Ultimate Guide to Finding Speaking Opportunities

There are many benefits of public speaking. How do you find these opportunities? How can you get the word out about your expertise? How can you leverage speaking engagements to grow your business and career? Read this blog post for 7 ways that will help you find speaking opportunities.

1. Networking Events

Attend industry events and trade shows where you can meet people who are interested in your expertise. Network with them to discover if they know of any speaking opportunities or whether they would like for you to speak at an event that they might be organizing.

2. Organizations

Many organizations have a speaker’s bureau which you can join as well as look under the ‘get involved’ tab on their website. How do I get started? Submit your information, talk about what you want to speak about, submit a video presentation demo and some references from past clients/speakers etc., and then wait until the committee contacts you regarding next steps. They will usually let everyone know when these openings become available so check back frequently…or even better – follow them on social media to get updates.

3. Community Groups / Nonprofits

As well as organizations, many community groups and nonprofits are always looking for guest speakers to address their membership. How do I get started? Check out Meetup.com or Eventbrite to see if there are any events taking place in your area that you might be interested in speaking at (for example: TEDx Conference Events). Oftentimes speakers are given a free ticket to attend the event. Check out also Craigslist or your local popular classified ads such as Kijiji and look for people who might be organizing events that you can speak at perhaps even in exchange for some compensation.

4. Look on Your Own Website

Search through your website content and see if there is any relevant information that would benefit from being shared with others via public speaking opportunities. Send an email to those clients who received services/products related to this topic asking them whether they know of any organizations or community groups where you could share what you’ve thus far about “X” topic.

5. Online Forums

If you have an active social media channel where people engage with your content then join online forums relevant to this industry/subject matter and answer questions on the forum while also mentioning that you would like to speak about these topics. This will build up your credibility over time which may lead other opportunities.

6. Use LinkedIn to Find Speaking Gigs

Search LinkedIn for industry experts similar to you and look at who they are connected with. Since they share the same field of expertise as yourself, chances are good that these people know about speaking opportunities or might even consider inviting you to speak in front of their audience (or members) if your topic is relevant enough and there’s a strong fit between what you offer and what their organization offers.

7. Google is your Friend

Use Google and Google+ to search for speaking opportunities and events related to the subject matter that you want to speak about. Search by topic, location/region, date etc. This will likely provide a list of organizations or conferences where you could submit your information in hopes of being considered as a speaker.

John Lawson is one of the most trusted and experienced eCommerce professionals in the industry. John is the founder of The Ecommerce Group, which he started in 2011 to share his knowledge with other entrepreneurs in the industry. It’s the oldest eCommerce group on Facebook with over 8,500 members from around the world!

John speaks at conferences all around the world, including Retail Global, South by Southwest, Etail, Digital Summit, Hubspot Inbound, Ad-Tech and more. He also writes for several international publications such as Power Retail, Small Business Trends and Disrupt Magazine.