You can’t have a summit without speakers, discover how to find the right ones for your next event.
While having an application for your summit is an amazing thing to have, our favorite way is get speakers is with personal outreach. (Actually we pair the two!)
Speaker outreach is important because…
- It helps you secure speakers who don’t usually apply for these types of events
- It lets you to foster relationships with fellow business owners you might have already started
- It allows you to have more control over the quality of the speakers and the summit content
It is important to note, that this doesn’t mean that quality speakers can’t come from applications. We have always been introduced to AMAZING speakers through our application.
Top tips for speaker outreach
Email list size DOES NOT matter when you are doing personal outreach.
We generally ask about email list size on our speaker application because we want to get an idea of potential reach, but we never ask potential speakers who we’ve personally reached out to.
The most important thing to us is that a speaker can present an informative and compelling presentation.
We’ve also learned that speakers with smaller lists tend to be the ones who go all out on promotion, which gives us better results than just having people with 10K email lists for the heck of it.
A diverse lineup is non-neogotiable.
To learn more about creating a diverse summit lineup, check out episode 5.
Create an outreach lise BEFORE you begin to even reach out.
We use AirTable to create our summit speaker outreach list because it is so versitale and allows us to group and filter in so many different ways.
We highly recommend you create a list of about 50 people to reach out to, especially if you are new.
You will need to keep track of:
- Name
- Topic you would like them to cover
- Ranking (of your preference, so you can outreach in batches)
- The status of the outreach, did they say yes?
Our biggest piece of advice when it comes to speaker outreach
Don’t get down if someone says no!
It will happen, and it isn’t a big deal.
This is part of the reason we suggest you create an outreach list of at least 50 people.
So keep your head up, you’ve got this!
So tell us, what is your favorite way to find your summit speakers?
Resources Mentioned
- Take our fun quiz “Is hosting a virtual summit right for you?” to discover is a summit should be in your future!
- Download our free Summit Planning Blueprint to learn more about our signature 5P Summit Planning Framework™ today.
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