As a new speaker it always difficult to book speaking gigs. You don’t have a track record yet and you are looking to build your audience, testimonials and resume.
Some ways I found that really help are to do free speaking engagements in your local area. There are plenty of groups (Rotary, BNI, Clubs, Schools) that are always looking for engaging, well-spoken and topic driven speakers that can address local, national and current information.
Typically these groups look to topics that are relevant to their organization and current in nature or topics that revolve around the “age-old standbys” of time management, organizational skills and increasing efficiency. Humorous messages and anecdotal speaking is another area of interest to these groups; however, you must be extremely well prepared and you’ve tested the content prior to getting in front of a larger organization.
After you build your resume of speaking engagements and have received some excellent testimonies you can then start a more broard approach to gaining ground in the business speaking world that can stem from the connections you made at the groups you spoke at they all usually work at local businesses (banks, manufacturing facilities, small to medium sized businesses).
That will give a large enough base a broad enough resume to expand your services to larger metro areas and network your way to larger companies that may actually pay you for your services depending on your niche topics, past success and favorable word of mouth networking.
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Richard
