How to Build a Speaking Career: 5 Steps to Grow Your Platform and Get Booked.

If you want to build a speaking career, having expertise and something important to say is only the beginning.

Whether you’re an author, consultant, executive, entrepreneur or thought leader, becoming a sought-after professional speaker requires more than simply getting on a stage. You need a clear speaking platform, a compelling message, the right speaker assets, ongoing visibility and relationships within the professional speaking industry.

So, how do you build a speaking career—and when should you consider working with a speakers bureau or management company?

Smith Publicity’s All Things Book Marketing podcast Building a Speaking Career: Positioning, Platforms, and Speaker Assets conversation, Sandy Poirier Smith, CEO, and Mirjana Novkovic, 25-year veteran of the speaking industry who spent 16 years at the global Harry Walker Agency, shared practical advice for speakers at different stages of their careers. Today, through her company Speaker Story Bank, Mirjana helps speakers sharpen their positioning through a bureau lens and build strategic relationships with speaking professionals.

Her advice offers a useful roadmap for anyone who wants to turn expertise and ideas into a stronger speaking business.

The First Step to Building a Speaking Career

The first step isn’t creating a speaker reel or contacting a speakers bureau.

It’s figuring out why anyone should want to hear you speak.

Mirjana recommends starting with three questions:

1. What problem do you solve?

Your topic should address a real challenge, question or need for a defined audience.

2. Why are you the person to solve it?

What experience, expertise, credentials or perspective gives you credibility?

3. What transformation do you create?

What should the audience understand, do or see differently after hearing you?

These questions are foundational to a speaking career because they shift the focus away from simply having something to say and toward providing something valuable to an audience.

That distinction matters.

As Sandy noted during the conversation, authors often need to make the same shift when marketing a book: people don’t necessarily care that you wrote a book. They care about what the book can do for them.

The same is true of speaking.

People don’t need another person who simply wants to be a speaker. They need someone with ideas, expertise and insight that can help them.

2. Define What You Want Speaking to Do for Your Business

Not every speaker wants the same thing.

For some professionals, speaking is the business. They want to build a career around keynote presentations and travel from stage to stage.

For others, speaking is a business development and thought leadership strategy. A consultant may use speaking to reach prospective clients. An executive may use it to establish authority in an industry. An author may use speaking to expand the reach of a book and ideas.

Understanding your objective affects your entire strategy.

Ask yourself:

Do I want speaking to be my primary business, or do I want speaking to support a larger business, brand or thought-leadership platform?

That answer can help determine which audiences you pursue, how you position yourself, what opportunities you accept and what type of professional support you may eventually need.

3. Build Your Speaker Brand and Platform

Once you know your core message and objectives, it’s time to make your expertise visible.

Your speaker platform should make it easy for someone to understand:

• What you speak about
• Who you speak to
• What problem you address
• Why you’re qualified to address it
• What transformation you provide
• What makes your perspective different

Start With Your Website

You don’t need an enormous website with dozens of pages.

You do need a professional online presence that clearly communicates your expertise, speaking topics and value to an audience.

Your website should make it easy for a meeting planner, event organizer, bureau or potential client to quickly understand what you offer.

Make LinkedIn Part of Your Speaker Marketing Strategy

Mirjana specifically points to LinkedIn as an important platform for speakers because speaking professionals and potential buyers are active there. Her recommendation isn’t simply to post constantly. It’s to get into the pool—follow speaking professionals, pay attention to what they’re discussing and engage thoughtfully with their content.

Consistent visibility can help you become familiar to the people who may eventually recommend or book you.

4. Create the Right Speaker Assets

A professional speaker needs more than a biography and headshot.

One of the most practical pieces of advice from the conversation involves creating multiple types of speaking video.

Your Three Essential Speaker Videos

If you have a strong keynote recording, you can create several useful assets from that single presentation.

1. A short sizzle or highlights reel

A 60- to 90-second video can quickly demonstrate your energy, stage presence and communication style. The opening moments need to capture attention quickly.

2. A content reel

A roughly 10-minute video should focus on your actual content rather than flashy production. It should allow a potential buyer to hear your ideas, understand your expertise and see how you communicate.

3. A full keynote

Keep a polished version of your complete presentation available as well.

Together, these assets give different audiences what they need to evaluate you as a speaker.

5. Develop a Signature Keynote

One of the biggest mistakes speakers can make is trying to appear versatile by creating too many keynote topics.

Instead, consider developing a signature keynote with one strong, recognizable idea that you can own and develop deeply.

Rather than presenting three or five keynote titles that ultimately turn out to be variations of the same presentation, make the central idea clear. Then show how that idea can apply to different audiences or organizational challenges.

As Mirjana explained, speaking professionals are busy. Making them figure out how your five topics differ creates unnecessary work. A strong signature keynote, clear takeaways and a defined transformation make you easier to understand—and easier to sell.

This is also where your speaker story bank becomes valuable: the stories, examples, strategies and lessons that support your central idea and give speaking professionals memorable ways to talk about you when pitching you to clients.

Key Takeaways for Building a Speaking Career

• Identify the problem you solve, why you’re qualified to solve it and the transformation you create.
• Understand what role speaking will play in your overall business or career.
• Build a clear speaker brand and professional platform.
• Use LinkedIn strategically to build visibility and industry relationships.
• Create the video assets buyers and speaking professionals need to evaluate you.
• Develop a signature keynote rather than presenting a confusing list of similar topics.
• Build relationships by being useful and relevant—not simply by asking to be booked.
• Maintain your visibility so you’re ready when speaking opportunities arise.

Listen to the Full Conversation With Mirjana Novkovic

Want to hear more about how to build a speaking career, develop your speaker platform and work effectively with speakers bureaus and management companies?

Listen to the Smith Publicity podcast conversation with Sandy Poirier Smith and Mirjana Novkovic, Building a Speaking Career: Positioning, Platforms, and Speaker Assets

A successful speaking career isn’t built simply by getting on more stages. It’s built by developing ideas worth sharing, making your expertise easy to understand, creating a platform that supports your message and consistently building the visibility and relationships that lead to opportunities.

At Smith Publicity, we help nonfiction authors, experts, thought leaders, academics, and business leaders build visibility for their books, ideas, and expertise—reaching new audiences, strengthening credibility, and opening doors to new opportunities.

Our tailored campaigns bring together book publicity, media relations, author platform strategy, and expert positioning based on each client’s goals, audience, and unique areas of expertise.

Whether you’re preparing to publish a book or ready to bring greater visibility to your ideas and expertise, we invite you to start a conversation with the Smith Publicity team.