5 Ways to Make the Most of your First Speaking Engagement

So you’ve been working hard and you’ve landed your first speaking engagement! You’re so excited, but you’re scared at the same time. Will you make a fool out of yourself? Will people like you?

If you want to grow your speaking ministry, then you’ll also want to make the most out of this speaking engagement, so that it will spread word of mouth about you, and help you to garner even more engagements. You don’t want to speak once and then be back where you started: with no prospects in sight.

So here are steps to take to make sure you grow buzz about your speaking ministry:

1. Give a GREAT Talk

That’s the hard part, I know, but you’ve been building towards this for a while. You deserve to give it your absolute best shot.

And don’t be too nervous about it. Remember that chances are most of the audience won’t know it’s your first engagement. Don’t volunteer that bit of information, either, or else they’ll start getting nervous for you. Just walk up there, with confidence, knowing that God has put you here.

And how do you give a great talk? You don’t want to preach at your audience; you want to take them on a journey so they’re ready to hear your central message, and they’re ready to listen to God. Telling them a bunch of facts won’t work; connecting on both an intellectual and emotional level will. If you’re unsure of how to do this, I have an audio download, with a great handout, that will take you step by step in how to prepare a talk. It’s almost a fill-in-the-blanks thing, and will help you identify your central, unique message. Find out more with this audio download, Craft Your Signature Talk.

2. Record Yourself

In the future, you’re going to get speaking engagements through word of mouth, and that’s going to work best when women’s ministry leaders who may hire you can actually “hear” you. So record yourself. Later, you can use that recording to make a 2-3 minute video and audio clip to put on your website.

Don’t worry if you don’t know how to do that. Don’t even worry if you don’t have a website yet. Just record yourself, and then when you are ready, you’ll have something to work with. But if you don’t record yourself now, you can’t get that opportunity back.

Here’s a great recorder that works for me. You’ll need an external microphone, too, to pick up your voice the best.

3. Collect Email Addresses

Hold a draw for a prize, or something, and ask people to fill out a ballot with their name on it. Provide a box they can check if they want your newsletter about (whatever your main message is). Don’t just offer your newsletter; few will take it. But if you present it like this:

• Monthly Newsletter with Devotional
• Monthly Ezine on Christian friendship
• Monthly Ezine with Mom Tips
• Monthly Ezine with God’s Encouragement

Or whatever may be relevant in your case, more people will check the box. With this method, you’ll likely get about 30% of people signing up for your newsletter, which isn’t bad. You don’t want people to HAVE to enter their email address to win, though, because it’s more likely they’ll treat your emails as spam.

4. Take Pictures

Hand your camera to someone who looks like they know how to use it, and ask them to take as many pictures as they can while you’re up there. Take pictures around the table, too. Just take as many as you can, because you can use these later on Facebook, on a blog, on your website, or even on promotional materials.

5. Get testimonials

If anyone tells you that they really enjoyed you, ask if they’d mind emailing that to you. Or ask for their email address, and then email them afterwards and ask if you can quote them on that.

Send an email to the person who organized the event, and ask her for her feedback. The more testimonials you have, the better it will be for your website!

Even if you don’t have all the pieces in place yet to promote yourself, if you follow these steps, then when you do have a website running, and a newsletter running, and a Facebook presence, you’ll have content. So don’t ignore these beginning engagements. Use them for all you can get out of them! And remember: God is opening doors. Step through them!