TA #156: 💬 NEW: 6 ways to become a conference speaker

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Welp, it's February.

This is the time of year when event planners are revving up for the fall conference season. They've had the halls & ballrooms booked for a while—in some cases, a year or more in advance.

But now they're looking to build the agenda. Book the speakers. Plan the session talks.

It's no different at the MarketingProfs World Headquarters, where the B2B Forum is November 12-14, in my backyard here in Boston. (We just announced the workshops, BTW. They're fire.)

MarketingProfs gets a LOT of speaking proposals.

The team showed me them last week. I got both instantly overwhelmed by the volume and the caliber... yet also intrigued by how some set themselves apart in interesting ways. Why didn't they all...?

"Lookee here," I said to an Imaginary Speaker (because the team looks at proposed sessions anonymously at first, with no speaker names attached). (We do it this way to consider the merit of the talk itself without considering... well, the talk-er.)

"Lookee here," I continued. "This is your one chance to stand out... see? And I want you to succeed... see? So we're gonna need you to make us feel that we *NEED* you there... see?"

Why I spoke urgently to Imaginary Future Speaker like I was an undercover gumshoe in a '40s Hollywood crime drama... I do not know. But that's how I heard myself in my head.

* * *

Actually, I do know why I spoke that way: Because it felt that way.

The cloaked submissions.

The sessions whizzing by on the laptop rat-a-tat rapid-fire.

The urgency I felt to solve a puzzle: What makes one stand out over another?

And how some submissions felt homogenous, as if they'd been modeled after those kind of ransom notes where the letters are cut haphazardly from magazines so you won't recognize the handwriting.

And how sometimes I did recognize the speaker of a session proposal: Because their voice and tone and fingerprints were all over the idea and the pitch.

So the questions are...

• What sessions shined like a flashlight in the fog?
• What are the elements of the sessions that truly captured the energy and voice and tone of the speaker?
• How do the best presenters package themselves?
• All things being equal, how do we set ourselves apart?

Before we go there... let's crack open our copies of Everybody Writes and turn to Chapter 89: "Writing Speech Descriptions."

There are 6 parts to crafting a standout speech description. I cover them in detail in that chapter, and we live-edit a session description together.

Let's silently reread that short chapter together right now... because the following Do's and Don'ts build on them. (If you don't have a copy, ask about it at your local library.)

< ...silent reading time... >

< ... >

< ... >

...you back? GREAT.

The 7 Additional Do's of Successful Speech Pitches (and 4 Don'ts)

1️⃣ DO: Submit video samples of you speaking; get creative if you have to.

You're a new speaker and you don't have any video footage of you on a stage? That's OK.

One inexperienced speaker once used his iPhone to film himself making fried plantains in his own kitchen, MarketingProfs event program manager Tenessa Gemelke told me.

"He showed me he could teach, and he also showed me his personality," Tenessa said. (Yes, she selected his talk. Unclear whether he sent her plantains. I forgot to ask. I've been wondering about it ever since.)

DON'T: Submit video of a virtual presentation if you're pitching for an in-person event. It's different. "But they'll see my energy!" argues Imaginary Future Speaker. No. We won't.

DON'T: Submit video of a speech older than 5 years. Unless it was, like, on TED's main stage. Or you're Oprah.

2️⃣ DO: Share your vibe, not only your knowledge. The opportunity is to showcase your expertise... but also show what you're like to work with.

Project a non-diva personality.

Offer to expand on an idea to suit the organizers' needs.

Tell them that if selected you'll submit your materials and deck on time; they won't have to chase you.

Those sound like small things. But they matter to event programmers, who have dozens and dozens of speakers and PowerPoints to wrangle.

DON'T: Some people go full prima donna mode when they're offered a stage of any square footage. Don't be that person.

3️⃣ DO: Use we vs. I. Why? I can work against you. 

Using We and our and us affiliates you with an audience; it projects humility. It helps the organizer (and eventually your audience) see themselves and their problems in your speech.

I and you can come across as know-it-all and boasting at best, and authoritarian and scolding at worst. Call up we and our and us from the bench and let the I sit this game out.

"But I'm in the expert!" Imaginary Future Speaker shouts. "I AM THERE TO TEACH!"

True, friend. But using our and us means you don't set yourself apart or better-than; you're saying... we're going to learn about this together. We are going to explore a topic together.

4️⃣ DO: Case studies are stories in a suit. Use them. Tease the story or stories you'll tell as an example of what you talk about. Why: You'll create intrigue and get organizers leaning in to find out more.

Conference organizers are people who watch Netflix, too. The power of story works on them, too.

5️⃣ DO: Let your pitch reflect your personality. What does Taylor Swift have to do with marketing content? I don't know... but I sure wanted to know when Ahava Leibtag pitched that talk for MarketingProfs a few years ago. (Are you a Swiftie? Me, too. Hit reply and tell me your favorite song.)

DON'T: Pitch the Taylor Swift talk. It was just an example.

6️⃣ DO: Share how you'll perform. Think about how you'll tell the story, not just what story you'll tell. Make sure the proposal shares an element or two of how you'll deliver the talk.

Will you be thought-provoking? Funny? Surprising?

Will you trigger audience participation?

Do you use props of any kind? A whiteboard? Flip chat? Handouts? A potter's wheel? (That actually happened.)

If you do... Sing it, sister.

7️⃣ DO: A speech is not a white paper: Make sure you don't write it like it is one. That means: Make session titles come alive. Use humor. Surprise. Toss in an expected word. Make it feel like a talk you'd want to hear.

A speech is educational. Of course we don't need to force jazz-hands and high-kicks. Of course we don't want to be all style, no substance.

But a speech is also entertaining. It's you. You are on a stage. It's a performance. Even in a 30-seat breakout room on the 2rd floor of a Marriott in downtown Coralville, Iowa. Or the 3rd floor of the Omni Seaport in Boston.

There are no small performances, only small performers, to paraphrase Konstantin Stanislavski.

Or maybe: There are no small marketing speeches, only small marketing speakers.

You've got this.

AI-DRIVEN AUTHENTICITY

Insightly CMO Chip House and I sat down to chat about my three-step guide to using AI tools. Actually, there are 4 steps: One is No AI At All. 

TAKE THIS SURVEY PLEASE? [sponsored]

Marketing and Creative Professionals: My friends at Cella are fielding their annual Intelligence Surveys for Marketing and Creative Ops. 

The surveys are open from now until 2/23/24... at which point the data goes into a series of tubes and pipes and crunchers and squashers and emerges with useful advice and beautiful benchmarks around critical issues affecting us all:

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Will you please take a few minutes and lend your experience + opinions? That survey link again so you don't have to scroll back. 

[NOTE: Pick one of the two options on the landing page, Creative or Marketing ops, depending on your field.]

P.S. As a thank you, Cella is giving away a free consulting session to one lucky survey taker. You don't have to take advantage of that. But Cella is good people. They know their stuff. So why not?

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

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🫡 See you March 3!