If there’s one thing that has allowed me to build my speaking business really fast, it’s my website.
The better my website got, the higher the speaking fee I was able to get.
These are the only ways you’re going to get paid speaking gigs.
- You go to them (cold calling, emailing, etc)
- They come to you (adwords, referrals, etc)
In both situations, the meeting planner has to visit your website to see if you’re worth paying for. The only exception is if you already have a huge amount of referral gigs (because they saw you speak at another event).
Unfortunately, most speakers don’t fall into this category where their entire speaking business is run off referrals. And even these speakers will see a huge decline in their gigs if they don’t keep up with the times and consistently market themselves.
You’re going to learn exactly how to build your speaker website in a way that gets you booked.
If you do not build great marketing materials then you won’t get booked as a speaker.
The Target Market:
Before you ever build your speaker website, you need to know what target market you’re going for. What’s the purpose of your website?
Do you want paid gigs? Do you want to sell products? Do you want to host live events? What’s the purpose of your website? Do you want to be a keynote speaker or do seminars and sell from the stage?
Seminar style websites (like Tony Robbins’) website, are built around the seminar itself. It’s designed to have his products featured, his events featured, and to get people to sign up to an email list.
Keynote speaking websites are built to sell the speech itself. The presentation is the product. So the only thing that’s being sold on the website is the ‘presentation’…not products.
The reason you want to know which type of website to build is because what you write on the website will depend on the type of website you create.
Lets say that your speaking topic is ‘sales’…
Here’s what a seminar speaker would put on their website (remember….they want to sell products and conduct live seminars):
…The seminar speaker would think of the ‘problem’ someone has….And that problem would be “How do I get better at selling?”
Knowing this, the seminar speaker would have his website say things like, “Do you want to learn how to sell better? Attend our Persuasion Mastery Event and we will teach you how to sell ice to eskimos.”
And his entire website would talk about how to sell better.
Now imagine how different the website would be for a sales speaker who wants to get paid speaking gigs:
…This keynote speaker would think from the perspective of the person hiring him and what their ‘problem’ is. The person hiring a sales speaker is looking for a speaker for their annual event with their sales team and they’re thinking, “I hope I can find a speaker who can keep everyone’s attention. Our sales team gets bored easily.”
Knowing this, the sales speaker would feature the experience of his presentation on his website. He would say things like, “Are you looking for a sales speaker who won’t bore you audience? Sales teams have a mind of their own and they will eat up a boring speaker in a second.”
Do you see the difference?
By figuring out the type of website you want to create, it will give you an idea of what needs to go on your website.
(From this point forward, I’m just going to talk about the keynote speaker who wants to get paid to speak.)
Does Your Speaker Website Look Good?
Before you even think about what to write on your website, what pictures should go on your website, etc…you need to have a good website theme…you need to make it look good.
Drill this into your head…
…If you want to charge $10,000 to speak, you have to look like a $10,000 speaker.
Nobody will pay you high-speaking fees if you look like you’re not worth it. And when it comes to image…people judge you by the clothes you wear.
Think of your website like your clothing. If you go around looking like you’re homeless then you’re going to have a hard time commanding high fees. You won’t look trustworthy.
But if you’re wearing a million-dollar suit, then it’s going to be a million times easier to charge what you want to. Not only will you look trustworthy, you’ll look like you’re worth what you’re asking for.
Your website needs to pass a ‘scan test’…a scan test is where someone can just glance at your website, not read a single word, and think, “Oh yea, I bet this speaker charges a lot.”
When someone goes to my website, this is the first thing they see…
This is the website I use to get paid speaking gigs and it’s very effective.
Without having to scroll down, they immediately see that ‘this’ speaker is a pro. They see the companies I’ve been on stages for, they see the quote from Aflac, they see the pictures. And above all, it just looks nice.
It’s simple and clean.
If you don’t captivate a meeting planners attention instantly, then they will leave your website faster than you can say, “Please hire me.”
Your home page should be filled with social proof.
Social proof includes:
- Pictures
- Videos
- Testimonials
- Client Names
- Publicity
You can’t ‘overdo’ social proof.
When someone scrolls down on my website, they see more social proof. They see pictures of crowds, the CEO of a well-known company, and a quote from Fox.
By having pictures of corporate audiences, this lets the meeting planner know that they’re in the right spot.
You need to kill several birds with one stone.
Meeting planners don’t want to pay a speaker $10,000 only to find out that they’ve never spoken on a corporate stage before. They’re terrified of hiring the wrong speaker and you have to quell this thought in their head.
You do that by showing them videos and pictures of you on other corporate stages.
If a meeting planner see’s that you’ve been hired by several other Fortune 500 companies and they love your presentation, then the meeting planner is much more likely to hire you as a speaker.
When they scroll down more, they see a section that has my demo video…
When it comes down to it, the only thing you really need to get hired as a speaker is video footage because it’s the only way a meeting planner can see if you’re a good speaker.
Every speaker will say that they have a great presentation and that they’re the best on stage…and meeting planners know this. They know that you’re not going to talk about how bad your speech is.
Because of this, the only way a meeting planner can pick one speaker from another is to watch video footage. If they see a great presentation on video, then they will know you’re a great speaker.
So I want them to watch my demo reel because it gives them an idea of what I’m like on stage. It shows them how I combine my mind reading with speaking and the reactions I get from an audience.
When they scroll down more, they see this…
Now they can see a video testimonial from an event I did with Remax.
They can also see more pictures from other stage presentations. (Notice how all of this is social proof)
And below the video testimonial are written testimonials (for more social proof).
This is just the home page. It has massive social proof and is designed to build up so much value in their eyes that they don’t question my speaking fee…in fact, when I quote $10,000-$15,000…they should be relieved because it’s cheaper than what they thought. That’s the point.
Your entire website should be sprinkled with videos and pictures of you on stage, doing your thing. You should have pictures of corporate crowds…
…and pictures of people reacting to any demonstrations you do in your presentation.
So if you do anything fun, interactive, or sessions where you have people crying because of some massive breakthrough you created for them…you need to have pictures of this spread throughout your website…
Meeting planners need to see why you’re different than every other speaker out there and that’s what videos and pictures do for you…the demonstrate why you’re a ‘unique’ speaker.
If you’re a normal speaker, you will get treated like a normal speaker. But if you have something to offer that very few speakers do, then you will be treated special…because you are.
Why do I talk so much about the mind reading I do? Because it’s completely different from other speakers.
When a meeting planner clicks on the ‘Speaking Topics’ Page…this is the first thing they see…
Then if they scroll down, they see pictures and a brief description of the speech.
Although you can’t see the entire page, do you notice something about what you see?
Notice how little text there is.
And notice how it’s only a sentence or two…not long paragraphs.
In big bold letters, the first thing they see is “Keeping Audiences Engaged.” And then they see a picture of me with audience members…doing something that looks pretty engaging.
The pictures on your website should compliment the words on your site.
Don’t just say that people are engaged from your presentation…show the meeting planner that your words ring true by showing them pictures of people laughing, and actually being engaged.
Videos On Your Website:
Without a doubt, videos are the single most important thing you can have a speaker…videos get you hired.
Think about it…you’re a meeting planner and you’re looking for a speaker. You’re ready to pay for a speaker, but how do you know if they’re good or not? The only possible way you can determine how good a speaker is…is to see their videos.
You might have the best copywriter in the world write text for your website, and you still will have a hard time getting speaking gigs without video footage.
There are two types of video footage you need on your website:
- Videos of you speaking
- Video testimonials
Spread these videos on your website where it makes sense.
On my page that says “What is infotainment,” they see the video footage where I combine mind reading with slam poetry and a motivational message. This gives them an idea of what I do when I’m on stage.
Feature your videos wherever you can.
And then you have video testimonials. You need lots of video testimonials because meeting planners need to see how audiences respond to you.
But, the power of video testimonials doesn’t come from just having one or two…
…it’s come from having too many testimonials for them to watch.
On my website, we just put one video after the next…there’s no possible way someone would sit through and watch all the testimonials. It’s like someone trying to read 1,000 reviews from an Amazon book. You just know the book is good if that many people like it.
Video testimonials are a million times stronger than written testimonials because they show emotions. And…they can’t be faked (you can’t fake a testimonial where they see the CEO).
Website Copy:
Once you have the layout of your website looking sexy, and you have the social proof, now you need to focus on what to write on your website.
This is where most speakers get into trouble.
Why?
Because speakers confuse ‘academic writing’ with ‘copywriting.’ The way you write on the web is completely different than how you would write a college thesis.
The text on your website needs to compliment all the social proof on your website.
You need to write short sentences…not long paragraphs.
You need to bold the important parts…the benefits…that meeting planners want to know about.
And more importantly, you need to enter the conversation the meeting planner is having in their own mind. Here’s an example from my website…
When the meeting planner clicks on the “What is infotainment” tab, this is one of the first things they read…
The problem with most speakers is that audiences have seen it all. Speakers tell them to ‘raise their hand’ or ‘say hi to the person next to you’ or…well…you get it. Audiences think, “If you’ve seen one, then you’ve seen them all.” Infotainment is a combination of entertainment with a powerful message (information) to create a very engaging experience at events.
(It’s not all clumped together…after once sentence, a new paragraph starts)
Within a few sentences, I have set myself apart from other speakers. Think about it…
A meeting planner has seen several speakers before. So by saying “audience have seen it all”…it makes the meeting planner think of all the boring speakers they’ve seen in the past.
Then I say, “Speakers tell them to raise their hand…” And the meeting planner is now going into their mind, remembering a time when they heard several speakers tell audiences to raise their hands, etc. Everyone who’s seen a speaker has seen speakers use ‘engagement tools’ like this.
So the meeting planner is thinking, “Yea…it seems like every speaker does that.”
Then I go on to say, “Audiences think, ‘if you’ve seen one, then you’ve seen them all.’” Once again, the meeting planner is now thinking about how 99.9% of speakers are pretty much the same.
And this is where I show them how I’m different.
Now I talk about how I combine information with entertainment to create an engaging experience.
Within a few sentences, I have demonstrated how different I am from all the other speakers out there. But more importantly, I back it up with video footage. They can now watch the videos and see the testimonial of people’s reactions to what I do on stage.
This is just the beginning. There’s a lot more that goes into your speaker marketing materials.
And if this sounds like a lot, that’s because it is.
Speakers who get lazy with their marketing materials don’t get booked…it’s that simple.
Never get lazy with your marketing. Never get complacent.
There’s a lot more than goes into your speaker marketing materials…and a lot more that goes into your website but I think you get the gist.
If you want all the details of how to create your speaker marketing materials in a way that gets you booked, then click here to take a look at the SpeakPro Academy Program.
Above all…just remember this one thing when you’re creating your speaker website…
If you want to charge $10,000 to speak, you have to look like a $10,000 speaker.