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Lisa Shepherd

makers. After your speech, attendees will often come up and
speak with you directly. Your speech can serve as a subtle
sales pitch—after which, prospects will seek you out.

Speaking at third party events provides exposure for your
brand by having your name included in the conference’s
promotional material. Having your brand associated with the
other credible names on the conference program reinforces a
leadership image for your company.

A successful speaking engagement requires that you have
content that is relevant, fact based, informative, and focused
on the needs of your targets. For a speech topic, focus on
one or two key aspects of knowledge in your company’s field
of expertise. Your presentation can re-purpose content from
other initiatives (e.g, white papers, case studies, and blog
posts). Your goal in a speaking engagement should be for
your audience to get one to two key takeaways that they
can implement right away or that gives them serious food for
thought on an issue they’re tackling.

One way to capture leads from a speaking engagement is to
offer a soft copy of the materials or some other compelling
follow up to those who provide their business card at the end
of the presentation.

METRICS
# of engagements per year
# of networking/connections as a result of engagements
# of leads (contact info gained)
# of deals from relationships attributed to speaking
engagements

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© 2012 Lisa Shepherd