Every day I receive a Google alert for the phrase “call for speakers.” Daily, organizations around the world are looking for speakers to present at their conferences. Most of the time, these speaking gigs are unpaid, but are excellent opportunities for executives, consultants, authors and others to showcase their organizations and expertise. So how do you get to present at the trade association conventions you attend every year?

Follow these steps:

1. Call your association 6 months before the convention and find out who is in charge of picking speakers.
2. Get the email address and mailing address for this person.
3. Write to the conference coordinator with a one page memo that contains the following:
a. Your topic
b. What your audience will learn
c. 3 benefits your audience will receive
d. 3 other interesting elements people will get
e. 3 important credentials to position you as a speaker
f. 3 quotes form people in your industry saying you are an expert

4. Attach a video of you speaking, even if it is just video shot on a cell phone. Any video of you speaking beats no video. (Don’t wait for a perfect demo video to be produced).
5. Attach a nice head shot photo.
6. Follow up.

Tags: Google alert, keynote speaking, public speaking

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 11:18 am and is filed under CEOs/Financial, Speaking, keynote speaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.