What I Wish I Knew When I Became a Speaker

You have a message worth sharing, but landing the right speaking opportunities takes more than being great on stage. Welcome to Landing the Gig, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the speaking industry, I'm your host Kelly Woodhouse, and each week I bring you honest conversations and practical strategies to help you strengthen your message, stand out to event organizers, and turn more speaking opportunities into impact and income. Now let's land the gig. Hey there, Kelly Woodhouse. So I'm going to share with you a couple of the things that I dealt with

when I first became a speaker. I was just basically taught write a speech, pick your favorite topic, write a speech, and so I decided I was going to do a topic about confidence because people always say to me, "Oh, Kelly, you're so confident, and so what happened is I ended up taking a workshop called the Keynote Queen, and basically it was Cheryl Cran, who was my trainer at the time, who put on this weekend course, and so I came up this confident topic, and we put it out to the whole group. There was I think 10 of us, and the trainer asked, "Would anybody like to listen to Kelly speak about

confidence? And only one person said they wanted it, and I was like, "What? What do you mean? Nobody wants to learn about it. So what did I do? I switched topics. That's the beautiful thing about having a mentor or a coach is because a lot of times we get these ideas and we think they're great ideas, and we think, oh yeah, everybody's gonna love it, and then we put it out there and we find out nobody wants it. And that was one of my biggest mistakes: is that I didn't know what topic people want it to hear, and so that's why it's so important to research, put it out on your social media, and

one of the things you can do is just easily say, "Hey, I'm thinking about this topic. What do you think? and get their feedback because they are the buyers. They are the ones who are going to buy the ticket to your event, or buy a ticket to any event that you're speaking at. So if they don't like the topic, and they don't feel any value in it, they're not going to hire you for that. Now, here's something I also believe that every speaker needs to do. I believe you need to have a book to go with your speech. So this is my very first speech, and it was called No Risk, No Rewards. Okay, so this

is the very first book that I did in 2010, and I was just so proud of this book because it was my very first book. And my speaker coach said to me, Kel, now that you're a speaker, you need to have a book. And I was like, What? What do you mean? I don't know how to write a book, and she's like, "No, you need a book for three reasons. One, so that when people ask you to speak for free, you've got a product to sell because you are going to get asked to speak for free. So this way, you can at least still make some money. Second of all, you are going to stand out above the speaker who doesn't have

a book. Okay, so if an event planner is trying to decide between you, who doesn't have a book, and the speaker like me who does have a book, I'm going to look more like the expert than the person who doesn't have a book. So I'm likely to get hired over someone who doesn't have a book. The third reason you get to raise your fees. Okay, so speakers with books and or who are bestselling authors get higher fees than people who don't have books. So my question was, how was I going to write a book? I didn't know how to write a book? I just knew that I had to write one, and I remember approaching a

friend of mine who, you know, was is a book publisher. She's an editor, and she was she was pitching me to her publisher, and her publisher said, "No, I don't want to do her book. I don't think she has enough of a story.

But my coach said I needed a book, so I said I don't care what the publisher says. I'm gonna do it anyways because at that point self-publishing was coming out and it was becoming easier and easier to write a book. So I found a way to write that book, and then six months later, I ended up writing my second book, and this one ended up being a best-selling book. Self-esteem doesn't come in a bottle. Now, here's something special about this book. This book also became a workshop, so it was not only just a 20-dollar book; it was. My topic, so I did speeches for years and years and years

on self-esteem doesn't come in a bottle. It also became a brother-daughter workshop, right? And it became other stuff. So that's why I always encourage every speaker, and this is something I believe every speaker needs to have a book, and today with AI, it's easier than ever to write a book. I also believe that every author needs to be a speaker, because then you learn how to talk about your book and sell them, and market your books. So always reach out. That's something I do. Is I help people take their stories and become speakers and authors together? Because we need to get your story out

there in a bigger way. We don't always know how impactful our story is. So Ghoulcast did this video about my story? So they took pieces of my documentary, and they took some pieces of me speaking. So I had to give them some videos of me speaking, and then what they did is they made this four and a half minute video, and they put it out onto social media, and it got over 10 million views. I was like shocked. Me and my daughter were watching the numbers, and in one hour-no, it was like in six hours-we got 1 million views. Now here's the cool thing about it: someone commented and said, "Hey,

we should hire her to speak at our women's event, and then someone else said, "Oh, but she's probably too expensive, and then my daughter caught it. Okay, so my daughter caught this message, and she said, "Hey, I'm Kelly's daughter. She might be available. How about I reach out to her for you and find out? And sure enough, I got the gig. See, and so it was so amazing because I got this gig, and so I had to fly down to the states, and I gave my daughter, you know, a commission for finding me the gig and everything, and it was just so cool that she was able to get the gig for me. Okay, so

that's also another reason we never know where we're gonna get the gigs from, and that was so cool that I did get the gig from that Ghoulcast video. Not only that, I used that Ghoulcast video to open up my speeches because it's a great summary of my story. So we always want to see how can we also repurpose some of the the content. Now I also want to share another little story, and this is of one of my clients, Sean McIntyre. Heal the boy, build the man. That's his book. So when he came to me, he had no idea about his story. Like he knew he had a story, but he didn't really know he had a

story. Kind of like when I first started as a speaker. And so Sean said to me, Kel, not only do I want to write a book, but I also want to be a speaker. And I was like, okay, cool. So we wrote the book, and then it came time to also writing the speech. Now, when Sean came to me, Sean is, you know, he's number five in the world, fitness model. He's, you know, he's doing amazing things, and so he said, Kel, how do I open my speech? And he said, "I'm thinking about telling them about you know, like I've accomplished this and that and this and that, and you know, I think that would be a great

way to open my speech. What do you think? And I said, "Sean, no, don't do it that way. Start with your story, okay.

Start with how you were held at gunpoint, and you had no idea how you were going to make it out alive, and somehow you found a way, right? And talk about your divorces and how you know he had two divorces, and you know talk about how that made you feel, and and how you didn't feel good about your life. Don't just go on and on and on and brag about how great you are, because people will just tune out. Go and tell them the story of your painful past. Get vulnerable. Share that vulnerable story with them, because that's going to get them related to you. That's gonna get them to connect to

you. We want to know that story. When you show your vulnerability, that helps us to to see that you're real. So that was one of the lessons that we learned. Now, guess what happened when Sean did that to the. Okay, so he phoned me in the morning, and he said, "You know, Cal, I was thinking about doing this, this, and this. And I said, "Son, no, you're not doing this, this, and that. You need to go back and do what we talked about-the painful path story that we talked about. Share it, and then share how you used your framework to get out of that painful path and become the success you are, take

them on the journey with you. And when you take them on the journey, that's what's going to get them connected to you and see how vulnerable you are, and see that hey, you're just like them. They, so Sean did, and guess what he did? He landed a $12,000 client just from that, just from following my advice, and sharing his story of his painful path and moving through it and becoming the success he is and sharing his heal the boy, build the man framework, and then he also landed more speaking gives. So that's a thing we never know where our speaking gives are going to come from. I'll never

forget with this book. So with this book, self-esteem doesn't come in a bottle. What happened was a Rotary Club. They contacted me and said, "Hey, our speaker canceled, and they won't be there tomorrow. We have our meeting in the morning. And I had just done this book launch. They said, "Can you come and speak? And I said, "Sure. Now you don't get paid to speak for Rotary Clubs in their monthly meeting. By the way, that's another hot tip. Reach out to the service clubs, they need speakers every single week. I know they don't pay, but you never know who's in the audience, and that was

a a really fine case with this. What happened? I wasn't getting paid. I did the speech the next morning, and then who happened to be in the audience was the president of the Fire Chiefs Conference, and guess what? He came up to me and he said, "You know what? We're having a conference in a couple months. I want you to be our keynote speaker. And I was like, "Yes! And so they paid me 1000s of dollars to speak. Guess what else happened when I spoke at that event? I had books on all the tables, and then people would come up and buy the books from me. Not only that, another fire chief came to

me and he said, "Hey, we're having an event. Can you come speak at our event too? So you never know where you're gonna get the gifts, and that's why it's so important to be your best. And of course, watch landing the gig because you're going to learn even more secrets. There you go. Have a great day.