How Mediators Find Speaking Opportunities In 5 Simple Steps

If you’re looking to get more eyeballs on your mediation services, your website, your brand, and position yourself as a thought leader in the resolution industry, then securing really relevant, reputable speaking opportunities throughout the year should be a major piece of your PR game plan.

I'll lay out that plan for you in 5 simple steps. 

But it’s safe to assume (especially if you read my ramblings enough) that you know this part. What you might not know is where you’re supposed to find all of these relevant, reputable speaking opportunities—especially if you’re an industry newbie. 

Short answer: It’s going to take some Googling. But to make your Googlefest a little more productive, here are 5  different ways to track down the best speaking opportunities for your practice. 

1.     Association Events

Associations are great for sourcing public speaking opportunities because as well as organising events of their own, they’re also often contacted by their members who are looking for recommendations on who might be able to speak at their events. Focus on those that are relevant What events are your clients attending? Remember that you shouldn’t always look for the biggest and splashiest events—especially in the beginning—but the ones that bring together the most relevant audience for your brand.

You’ll probably get to know the bigger (more expensive) shindigs pretty quickly, but keep your eyes peeled for interesting small- to medium-sized events that offer great opportunities for you to connect with your target audience. 

Of course in any association, the key to building relationships and client- work is to network / follow up, network / follow up, and network / followup.

Find the most impressive list of associations at:

https://directoryofassociations.com/browse.asp 

2.     Look Beyond Calls For Speakers

Many events will be broadcasted openly with a call for speakers, but other opportunities are less obvious. For example, when companies merge together, it’s common to hire a speaker or consultant to excite and motivate the newly blended team. Similarly, if an industry is rapidly changing, this could be a chance to lend your expertise. You shouldn’t only focus on open calls for speakers when you might be missing something even more obvious. 

Google search RFP 

While you should always look for open events, don’t limit yourself. When you know your value areas and your ideal clients, you can always find ways to leverage your expertise. Why not pitch your assistance and discover ways to create events around your thought leadership? The best speakers understand that opportunities sometimes need to be built from the ground up. You never know until you ask!  

3.  Cold outreach

The most broad-brushed way to find public speaking opportunities is to use cold outreach, which involves asking event organizers if you can speak at their events OR podcast / YouTube channel. To give cold outreach a try, you can track down some contact details and get in touch with the organisers of those events or channels and send the organizer your pitch package. 

A pitch package.

Do Your Research

A pitch that clearly doesn’t understand the podcast or how it works will go straight to the bin without a second thought. So it’s better to do your research first. Before you even start making a pitch, listen to at least a couple of episodes. This will help you assess if you really are a good fit for the podcast. Take some notes from listening; this will help you personalize your pitch later.

What Can You Bring to the Table?

Make your pitch ideas relevant to what the podcast is about, without repeating what other guests have already said. What knowledge can you specifically bring? What do you have special insight on that other people might not have? Your goal is to show you have something to add to the conversation.

Feel free to think a bit outside the box. As long as you can bring a relevant angle, you can pitch to podcasts that might not be obviously connected to your expertise.

Get the Tone Right

The key is to get straight to the point. The host probably has dozens of pitches to wade through. A concise email that gets straight to business will be a blessing to them and is more likely to get a response. 

As for the tone, you’re going for polite, but more human than robot. They’re looking for someone who will be interesting to listen to, so injecting some of your own personality into your pitch is never a bad thing.

Follow Up

Podcast hosts get pitches all the time. So if you don’t hear back straight away, don’t worry - they might not have gotten around to reading yours yet. But if it’s been a few weeks, feel free to send a polite follow-up email. This will make sure your pitch hasn’t been lost forever in the clutter of cyberspace that is their email inbox.

Podcast Guest Pitch - Example Template

Subject Line

This needs to be short and to the point. Summarize your idea in ten words or less, and put the words ‘podcast guest pitch’ in the subject line, e.g:

Podcast Guest Pitch: Settling Bankruptcy In Mediation

Introduce Yourself

Keep this brief. Give relevant information that explains why you are best placed to talk about the topic you’re pitching, e.g:

Hi [podcast host name],

I’m Mary Mediator, Esq, and I’m a mediator specializing in bankruptcy, refinance  …. After xx years at a large national law firm, I've been mediating bankruptcy and refinance cases for the past 7 years, particularly focusing on …

Why Do You Like Their Podcast?

This is where you show that you’ve actually listened to their podcast. Make sure you’re specific here, as it shows you’ve taken in what they talked about. Mention points from the episodes you listened to, e.g:

I really enjoyed the episode where you discussed how corp. finance/bankruptcy/refinance claims are …..

Ideas For Your Episode

Again, the key here is to be specific. Give two or three bullet points of talking points that you could talk about in depth. Think about what you are uniquely positioned to give information on, and think about what their audience would want to hear. Give the episode title, or even a few example questions that you could answer on the podcast, e.g:

I believe there is a gap in the conversation where we don’t consider the representation of xyz or an abcd perspecttive. I have a few ideas of what I could talk about on your podcast to address this. I could make an episode on any of these, or any other ideas you have that your audience would find interesting.

How ……..

5 Steps to …….

Why ……

Mistakes to avoid …

3 Ways to win in settlement …

5 negotiation techniques that always persuade ….

Relevant Credentials and Experience

This is the time to sell yourself. This part should be all about proving that you’re the best guest to talk about the topics you’ve suggested, e.g:

I have litigated, heard, and mediated and settled billions of dollars in cases …..

Contact Details and Links

Close the email by making it easy for the host to find out more about you and anything you want to promote. Make sure you link to LinkedIn, Buzzsprout, YouTube and of course your website.

You can find me on YouTube at link, on other podcasts at Buzzsprout link, my website at link, and on LinkedIn at link.  You might also enjoy the philanthropic presentation I did at Will Work For Food: The New Possibilities Hour at link. 

The goal is to keep your pitch as brief as possible while still conveying the value you can bring to their audience. 

4.      Calls-to-action

A call-to-action is essentially a short statement that tells people what action you want them to take. As a public speaker, you’ll want to include a call-to-action at the end of all of your podcast, video content, as part of your email signature, or writing articles for an industry publication. If you’re focusing specifically on finding more public speaking opportunities, your calls-to-action should encourage people to book you for their next event. 

Don’t forget to list your speaker availability on your social media profiles and website.

5.  Other speakers’ events lists

This one’s probably the cheekiest tip on our list, but it’s still worth doing because it works. Simply write down a list of your competitors and then slowly go through their websites to see where they’re speaking. It’s a bit of a risk to pitch yourself to corporate clients sourced in this way, but you can often find trade shows or other events where it’s fair game. Combine this with cold outreach to tap into a powerful and almost limitless source of potential speaking opportunities. 

Additionally, you don’t have to stay entirely in your own lane. If you know your top competitors in your industry, it’s smart to consider what they’ve done in the past. In other words, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  

Who are your competitors’ past clients? What events did they speak at? These are most likely a good fit for you as well, and they were clearly open to hiring speakers at one point. You could always reach out with a helpful pitch. For example, say something along these lines: “I saw that you hired Speaker Name a few months ago. I have a great keynote that builds off of that.” From there, this is an opportunity to start a conversation. 

There’s nothing wrong with piggybacking off competitors. However, make sure you don’t copy them. You want to always do your own thing or build upon their expertise. What can you do better? What unique perspective do you bring to the table? When you understand your value, it’s easier to sell yourself when it matters the most.  

This is another reason why it’s important to be an active part of your community. When you’re engaging with other speakers, thought leaders, and experts on social media and at in-person events, you discover gaps in the space. This is a prime opportunity to get noticed.  

Now that you know just a few of our top tips for finding public speaking opportunities, it’s over to you so that you can put what you’ve learned today into practice. The good news is that there are plenty of opportunities out there if you know where to look, and so it’s all about doing what you can to get your name out there to your industry as well as those for public speakers if available in your part of the world. 

In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you, so be sure to let us know how you get on in the comments and to follow us on your social media channels of choice for further updates. We’ll see you soon!