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When you picture a “speaker”, I bet you picture a conference with a big stage. Well, besides the fact that conferences are a no-go in a pandemic, even if the live event world were open for business, you’d still have choices for sharing your message.
Today, I’m sharing with you 5 kinds of stages that you could be speaking on as a guest speaker to grow your authority.
Episode Show Notes:
The power of positioning yourself as an expert
(03:40) I do think there’s something to be said about identifying with this expert level status and having little ‘as seen on,’ or ‘featured on,’ or ‘featured in’ on your website, and also that social proof that comes on Instagram stories or Facebook Lives when you’re sharing that you’re a guest experts on different stages.
Bit by bit as you do those, it’s going to send a signal to your audience that you do know what you’re doing because you do, but us saying we know what we’re doing all the time like that’s less believable than other people saying, ‘you should go follow, talk to her, work with her,’ right? That credibility that transcends when other people look at you as the go-to that is gold.
Here are some ways to position yourself as a guest expert on different stages to help you build your business:
1. Virtual Event Keynote
When you start networking a bit in your industry, when someone runs a live event, if you are like in the circle, it’s much easier for you to drop your name in the hat, or what most likely happens is they’ll actually reach out to you to ask.
Make sure that you’re telling people that you speak, that you’re a speaker, that you have a signature talk, what the talk is about. Make sure people know that, so when they hear of opportunities they can think of you.
2. Virtual Summit Speaker
(09:21) If you are using virtual summits to grow your list, understand that with the competing classes, you might not get a lot of views on your class so you got to know how to market and get the really good theme there. It’s just kind of a hit or miss, but sometimes there’s other names in the lineup, where it might look good for you to have your face beside it.
Don’t just blindly say yes to virtual summits – just know what you’re saying yes to!
If you’re considering a virtual summit, make sure you know the host, and you know their audience to make sure it is a really good fit for you. If the virtual summit has a ton of speakers in it, you might get lost in a sea of speakers.
You have to ensure you know what you’re in for with the virtual summit because there’s a variety of speakers talking about a variety of things. Some of them could be really high quality presentations that are content-driven, workshop group-driven, really focused on teaching. Some are more salesy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it just depends.
3. Guest Teaching inside a membership / course
(13:49) If you haven’t considered this option around guest teaching inside somebody else’s membership or course, this is something to explore. You can put some feelers out there, maybe with your existing network right now. I also see people posting comments around this or looking for guest speakers a lot in different Facebook groups.
Make sure when you are looking towards these options, again, you’re asking yourself, how does this connect back to my speaking strategy, my business goals and making sure the audience is aligned.
Elevate your guest speaking
(15:26) For those people who want to go deeper in your content, invite them to download your freebie or even invite them to your program. You might have a little arrangement with the host, where maybe there is an affiliate situation happening like a partnership where they’re taking a small fee, to give you access to their audience, and you get to grow your sales.
You got to figure out that arrangement with them, but do not discount this one here. Guest teaching inside someone else’s warm audience is a really good opportunity.
4. Podcast interviews
(16:01) Being a guest expert, showing up on someone’s platform and being interviewed, it’s usually they’re interviewing based around your expert topic. That’s how I want you positioning yourself.
Figure out how your topic applies to their audience. Make that host look good to their audience. If you can hook that, it’s easy to get yourself onto one of those guest stages.
Other ways you can snag interviews (aside from podcast)
You can get on podcasts, but don’t forget, there’s other kinds of ways that you can snag interviews as well. You could be a guest on someone’s Facebook Live. You could be a guest on someone’s IG Live. Both of these are incredible opportunities to get in front of an audience, and to help the host add more value to their audience.
5. Expert Panelist
(19:38) I think doing a panel is an interesting way for you to position yourself as an expert but bring additional value for your audience or other people’s audiences by having different voices, having different insights, and talking about different things in your use to.
It might be interesting for you to throw out this idea of creating a panel with some of your business besties, some of the people in your mastermind, or maybe there’s some people in a program you’re in that you have aligned audiences.
How not to appear self-serving when telling people you’d love to get more on stages
(20:24) Talk about the message that you want to bring. I think it’s okay for you to say you want to get in front of more people and make an impact, like however you say it. Make it known that you want to be doing more guest speaking and I think you’ll find that more people will start thinking of you when those opportunities come.
Links mentioned in episode:
5 Steps to Speaking on Stages to Grow Your Authority & Audience – Ep #21
