How I Landed 5 Speaking Gigs in 1 Day!

What could open up for you when you open yourself up to more visibility? How exciting would it be to get to that point where you're fielding the invitations and the requests instead of constantly seeking them out and applying for things?

This is the Entrepreneur School Podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO, while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Hello. Oh my gosh, it is nice to be back after a summer of strictly guest interviews on the podcast. Did you miss me? I mean, I feel like I'm a whole different person since the last time I actually recorded a solo episode, like I have curly hair. Now, this is new, almost 38 years old, and I just learned that my hair is curly. So that's been a fun journey to discover all of the new hair care products in the new routine that I have to figure out, but I'm kind of enjoying it. So come over to Instagram or watch this YouTube video, and you can see the craziness of these curls I'm trying to figure out. And if you have any tips for curly hair, that's a whole separate conversation, but I would welcome you into my DMs with those. So I do hope that you enjoyed all of the brilliant people who I've been able to showcase over the summer here on entrepreneur school, and I'm excited for the guests that I have lined up for the fall as well. But here today, I wanted to get, like, really granular with you about what has been working well in my business, which I find exciting, especially since we're coming off summer, and honestly, I didn't do a lot of work. Actually, I set out to have a very free, open and easy summer. We went to the UK for a couple of weeks. I have a lot of family there, so it was a really nice trip. The girls, my kids, they were so excited to meet some of their cousins that they'd never met before and spend time in England and Scotland, and we even went to Wales. Shout out to anyone who watched, welcome to Wrexham. I have now been to Wrexham. Anyways, this podcast is not about my summer travels, although, if you were interested in that, I would be happy to do an episode about that as well. But the point is, I was like, I know that it's possible to maintain visibility, to continue to be taking steps that will help set me up and push my business forward, even when I am not doing the kind of a volume of work or amount of time that I want to spend on work over the summer, right? Because I wanted to pull back my kids were not in camps. We had this big vacation, all of that kind of stuff.

And I just want to share about one day, one day of the summer, which was a couple of weeks ago, I was able to secure five speaking opportunities in one day. So let me set the scene for you. It was a Thursday. My kids were with their grandparents, and so I actually had a full day that I could sit down and focus on work, things not being interrupted constantly about who took whose tablet, or asking if they can go and play with friends, or, you know, having to deal with my dogs all day. My calendar was essentially clear. I had one networking call on that day that I was really looking forward to, and that's part of this conversation. But by the time the day was over, I had secured four guest appearances on other people's podcasts, one summit speaking spot, plus, I finished season three of bridgerton while riding my peloton. So I got exercise. I finished binge watching bridgerton, which also I became a fan over the summer, and I watched the entire series in the course of two months. So let's not add up how much TV that actually was, but all that to say you can still get visible while also doing all these other things. So I wasn't spending hours on my computer pitching myself or scouring groups for opportunities. What I want to break down for you in this episode is exactly how those opportunities came to. Be and the key factors that led them to happening. So first off, here's what I did not do. I did in my I didn't pitch myself. These were none of these were me reaching out or trying to connect with anybody or applying. So I didn't apply for them. I didn't pitch myself. I didn't find them as part of paid communities that I'm in, and I didn't hire a VA or a PR firm or any assistance to make these things happen, which is quite magical, but I can confidently say that all of these opportunities came to me because I am consistently developing relationships as part of my long term visibility strategy, so long term is the key phrase here, and while it's super fun that I was able to secure five opportunities in one day, they definitely didn't all happen overnight.

So I've spoken lots before about the ripple effect of your visibility and how you often never know what something might lead to. So for example, almost a year ago, I decided to buy a ticket to an event that's happening this September. It's called Make Your Mark live. It's hosted by Jordan Gill of systems. Saved me, and I decided to buy the ticket because that was the only way that I could have a chance to apply to speak at the event. Now I did apply to speak. I ultimately wasn't selected, and that's just great. Just fine. I still get to go to Dallas and meet some incredible people at this event, and that event is happening soon. So Jordan hosted a virtual meet and greet in August to kickstart the networking, which is really great. So I attended that and then I proceeded to have some follow up conversations with people on Instagram who connected with me as a result of being at that virtual meet and greet. And one of those people was koi Jo, who hosts the art of online business podcast. It's a top 0.5% rated podcast, which is incredible. There are over 3 million podcasts in the world, by the way. And quajo And I got to talking on Instagram, and then we booked a networking call to have a better one on one chat, which is the call that I had on that Thursday. And when we got talking, we realized we really can support each other's audiences, and we decided we both need to be on each other's podcasts. So we set up a podcast swap. I love having networking conversations with people one on one, where we can specifically talk about how to collaborate. It's like, How can I help you? How can you help me? How can we help each other's audiences? And we're all in it for the service of it, and it leads to amazing things. Lead to speaking opportunities, other events, new connections, affiliate partnerships, and, of course, great business friendships. So that was opportunity, one of five that happened in that day. Opportunity number two was waiting for me in my inbox. Now, I'm not a fan of emails. I have a podcast, and I am on a lot of mailing lists, so I get a lot of pitches, and it's a whole hot mess in there. Anybody who is a fan of inbox zero, we can't be friends because I do not delete things, and if it goes past, like the first page of 50, I probably will just never, ever see it. Sorry, but I would. And also, like I said, I was out of the country for a few weeks, so I wasn't even keeping an eye on my emails, really. And I didn't exactly set up an out of office while I was away, which, that was my bad.

But anyhow, I found one email in there when I did go filtering through that had the subject line featuring you on my podcast, Kelly. And so the wonderful patient podcast host had taken the time to follow up with me three times before I finally looked into his request, and I hadn't heard of his show before. It is called inspired Insider. So I just want to give it a shout out here. He has interviewed some amazing people, including founders of Pixar, P 90x and more, from much bigger companies than mine. And this is a top 1% podcast as well. And just little side note, if you are ever looking to go like, figure out what are some of the top rated podcasts? How do you figure out what the rating of a podcast is? You search on a website called listen notes. That's L, I, S, T, E, N, N, O, T, E, S, and you can just type in pretty much any podcast there. It is going to give you a ranking based on the frequency ratings, reviews, number of downloads, that kind of stuff. I don't know, some magical algorithm and entrepreneur school, I'm proud to say, is in the top 5% again, over 3 million podcasts worldwide. So I will take that for sure. But the really, really top top podcasts are like top one, top 0.5 Five some are even ranked top 0.1% podcast. So that's just a fun fact, in a way, to kind of look at the shows that you might be considering being part of or listening to, or eventually putting on your dream list of podcasts that you want to be on one day.

So I now have booked this interview on inspired insider to take place in September as well. I'm excited because it actually feels like a good stretch for me. It's a feature piece that the host is doing about top agencies in Canada, and so I'm going to be speaking a little bit more about the consulting work that I do and have done in the past. And that's not something that I promote as much or talk about really here, either. So you may not even know that I have done like, full scale marketing strategies, brand strategies, brand development for tourism, organizations, for groups like chambers of commerce, for business groups like that. That's just sort of the work that I was doing behind the scenes before I came out and made this podcast to support all of the individual businesses that are parts of groups like that as well. So opportunities number three and four were also invitations to be on podcasts. And these ones came because literally years ago, I set up a free profile on a website called podbooker.com so I can't even remember when I set this up, and I rarely remember to log in and check it out.

But the point is, it connects podcast hosts with guests, and people can send you direct messages if they think that you would be a good fit for their show. I can think of one podcast that I was previously on that came through there. But it just so happened that I had two invitations in the month of August as well, and I think I even also had one earlier in the spring that I'm about to record in September too. September is going to be like podcast parade month for me. I think I have five or six books. So that's different than even just like the five I secured in this one day. So anyhow, here's a hot tip for you. If you want to be on more podcasts, in particular, you can create a free profile on podbooker.com they are not sponsoring this episode in any way. It's just a great free resource for you, and there are other free podcast matching services that you might want to check out as well. So literally, search that. Search it on Facebook. There's lots of different places where people are matching up podcasts and podcast guests.

So the caveat I want to just say here is that there were those podcast invitations in my inbox, in my pod, book or inbox, but I don't say yes to everything. So this wasn't just like, Oh, here's all the opportunities. I'm going to go and do them all. I just want to bring to light some of the things that I think about when I'm assessing invitations, because the first one is, does the topic of the show or the opportunity align with my values and audience. So some of the things that I like to talk about on podcasts in particular are motherhood and business. So just that balancing act of entrepreneurship and raising a family, that's why I created this entire podcast in the first place. Or else I will go and I will talk specifically about marketing and strategies for visibility and PR, like we could get really granular with the details, or we could talk bigger picture strategy. I love anything in that realm. And I also will dip into success stories and having the conversation about the definition of success, which is actually what one of the upcoming opportunities is about, specifically, is like just sharing a personal story of my journey and how I look at success differently, because I think that's an important conversation to have, and one that I would like to be noted for, as well as part of my speaking experience. And so once I assess that, I will check out a few episodes of their show, because it's important, you know, that they didn't just have an episode that was, you know, completely out of alignment with my values, or anything or say anything that like, is a red flag for me. And then I will also check out the show host or the show or however they're represented on social media to connect, make sure it's a good fit. Kind of watch their personality a little bit and go from there. And in the end, I make decisions with my gut, and that's how I decide how to respond. And so that may be all you need, right? Do you need a little bit of guidance in some of these questions? And then in the end, just, does this feel right? And then go for it. Because the more that you're doing these things, the more speaking, the more. More guesting on podcasts, the more content creation in general, the more confident you become, the more rehearsed you get, the better at speaking ad lib, like I have notes right now, but I'm going off on tangents. I don't know if you could tell, but that's the whole point. Is that you get better at it. You sound more professional. You sound more confident, you feel more confident, and that translates into everything else that you do when it comes to sales for your business. So that was four of the five on the epic day of speaking opportunities.

The last one that I want to share was an invitation to be part of a summit in September called empowered you, hosted by the pathway to more and my friend Sherry Cameron. And so Sherry is someone that I met a few years ago in person, actually, which is fabulous, because a lot of the time we don't necessarily get a chance to meet all of these wonderful online friends in real life. And I think that that's so important. I think we've also been in a mastermind together. She's taken some of my programs and workshops. She's spoken on some of my events in the past, I've spoken on some other things that she's done. And so this is just a long standing working relationship, and we keep in touch every so often. So I was invited to speak at this summit, and we were also reconnected. I decided, let's have a let's have a catch up call. Right after she sent me that invitation, and she mentioned to me that she's always following along with my emails and social media and keeping an eye on what I'm up to. So essentially, I'm staying top of mind with her, even without chatting with her one on one in a long time, and so none of this would have happened. None of the podcasts, not the summit, not anything else is waiting for me in my inboxes right now would not happen if I did not prioritize visibility.

So there are two core factors that I really believe led to these opportunities. Number one is focusing on building relationships that can create those referrals, collaborations, invitations, etc. Relationship based visibility is the core of everything that I do. It's about the people that you know and who they know and how they we can all connect the dots for each other. Essentially, that is my favorite part about being in the online space. It just allows you to really expand your network so much further and faster as well. And the second core piece here is that continuing to be intentionally and consistently visible really supports building the type of reputation that I want for my brand, and that creates an active presence that helps people to clearly understand what I'm all about when they're thinking of guests for their speaking opportunities. And this is the ripple effect for you. It keeps producing exciting invitations and opportunities more consistently as time goes by. Like, I'm thinking, you know, when you throw a rock in the water, the first ripple is, like, a big gap, and then they start getting, like, smaller and smaller and faster in between. It's almost like that, like the first effort is kind of challenging, and it can make it can take some time for you to see the result of it, but then as that time, it's like the web grows, the ripple grows, and they get closer and closer together, and there's more things just coming faster now, because literally in the time it took me to write out this podcast outline, which was, of course, broken up by my lunch meeting and having to go pick up my daughter from hockey and take her to physio. I have a handful more invitations to review. There was a DM in my Instagram inbox from a friend of a friend who connected us with a summit speaking opportunity. There were multiple bundle contributor invitations in my inbox, and I even had an influencer marketing request that I might actually entertain, which is a first, to actually see something that might actually be relevant.

So I want you to think about this. What could open up for you when you open yourself up to more visibility. How exciting would it be to get to that point where you're fielding the invitations and the requests instead of constantly seeking them out and applying for things? It can happen for you. You just have to take that first step in putting yourself out there. And of course, that is exactly what I am here to help you with. So if you want to chat more about your custom visibility strategy, you are more than welcome to book a call with me. There is a link in the show notes, or you can send me a DM on Instagram if you prefer to chat there, first, we can talk about what your goals are, what kinds of. Strategies might work best for you, because they're not going to be cookie cutter. It's not going to be the same plan for everyone. I have literally never seen the same plan created in 15 years of marketing and communications for any two businesses. So it's all about really identifying what your specific needs are and your strengths and how you want to show up and making sure that all aligns with your specific brand and your goals.

So I hope you liked this solo episode. I will be back with a couple of more in the month of September, and also some amazing guests coming up this fall. As always, I welcome you to please share this podcast with anyone who is starting or growing their business, and make sure as well to vote for us, for the women in podcasting awards, you can vote until October 1, and you will find the button to vote if you head to entrepreneurschool.ca/slash podcast. Bye for now.

You did it. You just listened to another episode of the Entrepreneur School Podcast. It's like you just went to business school while you folded your laundry, prepped dinner or picked up your kids at school. Thank you so much for being here. I want to personally celebrate your commitment to growing your business. You can imagine I'm throwing confetti for you right now. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. Make sure you're subscribed and let us know you're listening by screenshotting this episode and tagging us on Instagram. Head to entrepreneurschool.ca. For tons of tools and resources to help you grow your business while keeping your family a priority. You can subscribe to our email list and join our community and until next time, go out there and do the thing you.