The Fastest Way to Build Authority as a UK Business Owner? Get on a Stage

remotebob
Jul 18, 2024
5 min read

Updated: May 5

Here's a number worth sitting with: 287 speaking gigs booked in two years, with no advertising budget.

That's what RemoteBob's virtual assistants have achieved for clients across the UK and beyond — purely through time, research, and a repeatable outreach system.

Speaking engagements are one of the most underused growth strategies available to UK entrepreneurs. Not because they're hard to land, but because most business owners don't know where to start — or don't have the time to do the outreach consistently.

This guide shares the exact process we use. You can run it yourself, or hand it to a VA and let them do it for you.

Why Speaking Gigs Are Worth Pursuing

Before the how, a quick word on the why — because if you've never thought of yourself as a speaker, it's worth understanding what's actually at stake.

Every speaking engagement RemoteBob's founder Barbara Maheshwari has done has resulted in new client enquiries and partnership conversations. Not sometimes. Every time.

That's because speaking positions you differently from any other form of marketing. You're not running an ad or publishing a post — you're demonstrating your expertise live, in front of an audience that came specifically to learn. The trust that creates is almost impossible to replicate any other way.

For UK business owners, the benefits stack up quickly: stronger personal brand, greater visibility in your industry, credibility that attracts premium clients, and networking opportunities that wouldn't happen any other way.

Barbara had zero speaking experience when we started. Over two years, we secured more than 25 engagements for her — conferences, podcasts, university guest lectures — spending nothing but time.

Here's how.

These are speaking engagements that our Founder attended...

Ok, enough with the bragging. Let's cut to the chase. Now we will explain how you can replicate what we were doing in order to book speaking gigs for yourself.

Process: How to Land Speaking Gigs

First Step - Understand Target Audience

What events is your target audience participating in? Which podcasts are they tuning into?

Where does your ideal client frequent?

For example, Remote Bob offers virtual assistance services to Coaches, Consultants, and small entrepreneurs.

Our potential clients are visiting conferences like Web Summit in Portugal, Finance Week in London, or Marketing Madness in Croatia. They are listening business and tech podcasts, about leadership, growth, blockchain, team management etc. Start with defining your target audience.

You can find a template like this in Canva...

Second Step - Research

Start by making a list of 20 business events or conferences, and 20 podcasts where you would like to speak. We recommend using a shared Excel sheet for tracking these details.

Column 1 title: Name of the Event

Column 2 title: Which Company is organizing it

Column 3 title: Date of the event

Column 4 title: Email or contact form

Column 5 title: Name of organizer

Column 6 title: LinkedIn Link

Column 7 title: Outreach Status (First Contact, Second Contact, Arranging Meeting, Meeting Booked, Speaking Gig)

Column 8 title: Priority (High, Medium, Low)

Column 9 title: Notes (empty space to add comments)

You can download this sheet and use it as template.

But here’s what’s new:

We’ve recently added a powerful upgrade to our approach - actively searching for calls for speakers and submitting applications directly. This method has helped us uncover hidden opportunities and fast-track results, especially for clients who want to speak at larger, curated events.

Third Step - Write Compelling Intro Message OR Fill In the Application Form

Mention in your intro message:

1) For which event or podcast are you interested?

2) What is your expertise? About which topics can you speak?

3) Where have you spoken before, and what kind of positive results did it cause?

4) Call to action - Where can they book a call if they would like to hire you?

We recommend that you prepare 2-3 different versions of an intro message and test each one of them.

Example of intro message...

Hello,

I see you are facilitating the Leap Summit event for startups next year in October. I assume that you are currently searching for passionate speakers for your event.

Our founder, Barbara Maheshwari, could be a great addition to your list of speakers. She often speaks about these topics:

How to manage remote team
Leadership
How to scale online service-based business
Success story: Remote Bob

You have probably seen her already at the Marketing Madness conference, The Future is Remote event, or Web Summit as a speaker, or as a guest lecturer at Manchester University, Hult Prize, or IT University in Croatia.

We always announce Barbara's speaking engagements on our social media channels, which frequently triggers more ticket sales. She is one of those speakers that leaves everyone astonished!

If you would like to explore booking her as a speaker for your next event, book an introductory call here https://calendly.com/remotebobuk/

Kind regards

If you are taking the "calls for speakers" approach, you'll find yourself filling in the application forms. Some of the most common info asked is:

Talk title and description
2–3 key takeaways from the talk
Speaking experience (if any)
Personal information (name, job title, location, phone, etc.)
Short bio
Professional headshot

Fourth Step - Consistent Outreach

Continue doing research and outreach daily. Reaching out to 10-20 contacts per day, Monday to Friday, for one month will definitely show results. We advise you to set a fixed time to work on this, for example from 9 AM to 10 AM daily. Combine email outreach and LinkedIn outreach.

If you choose the relevant target audience, write a compelling intro message, and stay focused on outreach persistently for at least one month - after 2-3 weeks, you will start getting meetings with event organizers and podcast owners.

After consistently applying this approach for several months, you can start to see tangible results in the form of confirmed speaking engagements or invitations to participate in podcasts and events.

Persistence is crucial as it keeps your profile fresh in their minds and increases the chances of receiving positive responses.

Fifth Step - Track Progress

Track progress in Excel sheet, calculate every week how many messages were sent, and how many positive replies were received. If you are delegating this to a Virtual Assistant, ask him to send you a weekly update on Fridays about this.

Get ready for your first speaking gigs soon!

We have hundreds of resources and materials in Remote Bob, that help our clients to delegate work, and our virtual assistants to achieve better results on projects. If you are interested in hiring our VAs to support you with seeking for speaking gigs, book a Free Consultation call here https://calendly.com/remotebobuk/

Schedule This is just an example of the work schedule that our virtual assistant would receive from us for the first week on a new project. I hope this was helpful for you.