Article: Find Your Speaking Audience

Are you a public speaker who thinks it’s hard to find speaking audiences? Or are you a relatively new speaker or wannabe who finds it hard to get started? Perhaps you are in a services business and want to add speaking to your marketing to grow your business. Or you might be looking to add another revenue stream. Don’t let finding your speaking audience keep you from sharing your message.

Imagine walking into a room filled with your target market. Here’s a key to reaching more people so they can hear you and hire you. And the good news is, the same key ingredient is also the secret to your success at marketing yourself as a service provider.

THE SECRET HAS TWO PARTS: You need to know your WHO and your WHAT. First, get clear on your target market audience, or your WHO. This is who you serve. Second, determine the outcomes you deliver, or your WHAT. This is what you do for this population of people.

Sounds pretty simple, right? And yet I’m one of hundreds or thousands who resisted narrowing my target audience and niche for a long time; years. I didn’t want to exclude anyone and, as a new business owner, I didn’t want to turn people away and I would happily work with anyone so I started making money! The surprise, which might seem counter-intuitive, is that choosing a narrow market and specialty is THE best step to market your business, get invited to speak, and to receive referrals.

WHO YOU SERVE. Think of a population of people who you enjoy being around, care about, and whose problems you are familiar with. Consider with whom you have an affinity and the problems they typically have that you enjoy solving. Think in terms of their demographics; age, gender, profession, level of education, location, interests. Examples: women dentists, mid-life women, divorced fathers, first-time home buyers, single professional women, young male lawyers in their first 2 years of practice.

WHAT YOU DO. Now that you have identified a sub-group of people with some characteristics in common, what problems or complaints do they share? Think in terms of outcomes. What results do people have after they’ve worked with you? What problems do you solve? EXAMPLES: Going back to our sample target markets above, you might help women dentists get more clients or help mid-life women build a first-time business or plan for their retirement activities or retirement finances.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? Generally, in terms of marketing, once you can identify a sub-population of people, you can begin to figure out where they “hang out.” As a speaker, this also helps you find your speaking audience! Does an association exist for these people? Is there a specialty sub-group in the Chamber of Commerce for this population? Perhaps they read the same publications and hear speakers in an organized setting. This is a great avenue for you to publish articles they might read and to get invited to speak at their meetings.

Knowing WHAT you do for your audience also helps you prepare to speak by handing you your topic! By knowing the minds of the people in your speaking audience, you also know the problems they have in common and can provide them with answers, resources and a taste of what it’s like to work with you.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP. It’s time for you to get in action to find your speaking audience. Ask yourself the questions above to see who you have the strongest desire to work with. You can also make a quick review of your past and current clients, find your favorites, and then observe all their identifying characteristics, both demographic and by personality and behavior. Notice any patterns? Make a choice and claim your target market so you can find your speaking audience. They are waiting to find you, hear you and hire you!

Go to www.howtolovespeaking.com and sign up to get notices of future classes.

Comments

[Jennifer Anderson]

Thanks, Gail for delivering your teleclass, "Find Your Speaking Audience," to my CoachU Public Speaking SIG. Here are comments from one of our participants and my client.

"I liked her pointing out and defining how important it is to focus on a specific market. I appreciated her honesty in stating it's contrary to what you'd think would be the best approach. I liked the reference to [being] more memorable and more referable!

I liked the 5 doors; work, health, relationships, home and money. I thought it was valuable to think through talking to your target audience and imagining what they do, where they go, gender, age, life stage, etc.

I believe it was helpful to consider the "what" and come up with the measurable, tangible, concrete results of working with me. I liked hearing the sample statements to fully understand how to be more specific.

Gail has a down-to-earth approach, provides great examples and seems very easy to relate to.