8 steps to land more speaking gigs (no agent required)
Ann Handley gets most of her speaking work through referrals and inbound interest, not through a bureau or an agent. That’s not an accident. It’s the result of a specific approach to building a speaking career that most people skip straight past.
She’s listed with a few bureaus, but none exclusively. The majority of her engagements come from someone who heard her speak and hired her next, or from someone who heard her and referred her later. Which means the real lever isn’t finding representation. It’s becoming the kind of speaker people can’t stop recommending.
Here’s the eight-step framework she lays out for anyone who wants to speak more or coach someone who does.
1. Start with the audience, not yourself
Before you write a bio or pitch a bureau, get specific about who you’re trying to reach. Two or three ideal audience profiles. Entrepreneurs? HR leaders? Enterprise teams trying to figure out AI without making expensive mistakes?
The framing matters a lot here. “I am an author who speaks” is a dead end. No one programs a conference around that. The version that works sounds more like: “I help [this specific audience] solve [this specific problem] through [this distinctive point of view].”
2. Build two lists of target events
List 10 dream events you’d genuinely want to speak at. Then list 20 more attainable ones. Look 12 to 18 months out, because larger conferences often book speakers further in advance than you’d expect.
Once you have the list, find out who programs each event. Reach out individually with a speaking idea tailored to that audience. Follow up by email once or twice. Don’t repeatedly DM organizers on LinkedIn. That’s both annoying and counterproductive.
The pitch angle: not “I have a new book coming out,” but “here’s what your audience is probably feeling right now, and here’s how I help with that.”
3. Answer the three questions every organizer is already asking
Every conference programmer is silently running through the same checklist before they respond to a pitch. Get ahead of it.
- Why this person? What makes you credible on this topic for this audience?
- What’s their distinctive point of view? Not a topic. A perspective. An opinion. A stance.
- Why does this matter right now? This one separates the bookings from the passes.
That last question is the differentiator. Tie your talk to what’s happening in the world today, not to what was relevant a decade ago. Even if you speak about fundamentals that don’t change, the conditions around your audience do change. Acknowledge that. Make your talk feel current.
4. Get video of yourself speaking
You need footage. Even if you have to stage and record something yourself at the start, that’s fine. Handley once hired a speaker for the MarketingProfs B2B Forum based solely on a talk they shot in their kitchen. A polished speaking reel is not required. Watchable proof that you can hold a room is.
5. Build one great signature talk, not seven mediocre ones
Range is not your asset here. Depth is. One talk you know cold, that you’re genuinely passionate about, that you’ve refined through repetition, will outperform a menu of seven generic presentations every time.
Handley’s rule: she doesn’t accept invitations where the organizer dictates the topic instead of letting her speak about what she actually talks about. And when she’s hiring speakers, she disqualifies anyone who asks “what are you looking for speakers to talk about right now?” She wants to know what the speaker can’t stop talking about.
6. Write a description that creates a curiosity gap
A curiosity gap is the distance between what an audience already knows and what they suddenly feel they need to know. Your talk description should create that gap before anyone has even booked a flight to the venue.
If the description doesn’t make the audience want answers, the organizer won’t be convinced the audience will show up engaged. Write the description for the organizer first, and for the audience second.
7. Treat every engagement as a step toward the next one
After every talk: get footage, collect testimonials, gather audience feedback, ask for photographs. Express willingness to speak at their other events. The event-planning world is insular. Everyone knows who delivered and who didn’t. Every room you speak in is an audition for the next one.
8. Speaking for free is a legitimate strategy
Especially early on, free engagements are how you build the reputation that eventually gets you paid. Handley still takes unpaid gigs when the conditions make sense: the right audience, a venue that will produce strong footage, meaningful referral potential, or an organizer she genuinely wants to help.
The calculation isn’t “paid or not paid.” It’s whether the engagement moves you forward.
The book worth reading alongside this
Handley recommends The Referable Speaker by Andrew Davis and Michael Port as the most thorough resource on building a speaking career. The eight steps above cover the core framework, but that book goes deeper on most of them.
The throughline across all eight steps is the same: the speaking career that compounds is built on referability, not on outreach volume. Become the speaker people can’t stop recommending, and the pipeline takes care of itself.
I’m founder of BizStack at Cagri Sarigoz LLC and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.
With over 14 years in tech, marketing, and AI, including my role as Head of SEO at CitizenShipper and co-founder of TaleBot at Intale AI, I’m dedicated to sharing genuine, useful product insights and tips.
At BizStack, I aim to cut through the digital noise to provide clear, actionable advice.
And more than all else, I’m a father to a (always) little girl and a husband.
Contact me at [email protected] for assistance.
