6 Keys of an Effective Speaker’s Bio

Photo by Frank Wales

What’s a bio? And if you’re asked for one, do you have one to give them?

Absolutely! Most places where you speak will ask for a bio that someone can read to introduce you. You should have one featured prominently on your website, but even if you do, never assume that the event organizers printed it out and brought it with them. Instead, everytime you speak, update your bio and make it personal for where you’re speaking, print it out, and present it to them!

In your bio, write exactly what you want people to say. I often will write, “We’re so glad to have Sheila visit us today, from two hours east on the 401!” Or something. I won’t just start with, “Sheila hails from Belleville….” Why? Because usually the person reading the bio is not actually comfortable speaking in public. They won’t ad lib. They will read exactly what is there, so if you want it to sound funny, or you want it to sound personal, then you have to put the personal touches in there. If the person is comfortable speaking in public, they’ll change it anyway and add their own stuff, so you haven’t lost anything.

And what should go into a bio?

1. Where you’re from and some basic demographic details.

Make sure to emphasize those that would make the group you’re speaking to most comfortable with you. For instance, when I’m speaking in the Maritimes, I mention that we have family all over New Brunswick. When I’m speaking in Michigan, I mention that my publisher is in beautiful Grand Rapids. But I don’t mention my publisher is in Grand Rapids when I’m in the Maritimes!

When I’m speaking to an older group, I talk more about my work writing a column in the paper. When I’m speaking to a younger group, I talk about the fact that I’m often a featured speaker at MOPS groups. So make sure that you’re including what will make the audience relate to you!

2. Do not give away details that are important in your talk

If  much of your talk revolves around abuse you suffered as a child, don’t mention that in your bio. Just say something like, “Jane had a difficult upbringing, but she credits God will seeing her through and helping her find Him in the midst of it”, or something. You don’t want to get people worried about the abuse before you talk about it.

Similarly, a large part of my talk is that I had a son who died, so when I mention my family, I always say that I homeschool my two children, rather than my two daughters, or else I give away the fact that he passed away before I even start my talk. And I don’t want people, as soon as I mention my son, to start saying to themselves, “but I thought she said she had two daughters. Where’s the son? What’s going on?”

3. Do mention your credentials to speak

If you have any kind of university degree, mention it. “Jane studied at Columbia University, where she studied Business, and went on to….” You don’t NEED to mention degrees, though, if you have more relevant contemporary experience. I have several university degrees, but I don’t mention them, because the more relevant credentials today would be the columns that I write and the books I’ve written.

What counts as credentials? Ministry that you’ve done–heading up ministry, or women’s Bible studies, or children’s ministry. Anything you’ve written. Anything you’ve studied. Missions trips you’ve taken. Just make sure to emphasize the important things. In other words, instead of saying, “Mary Jane has led women’s Bible studies for eight years”, say, “Mary Jane has taught Bible studies for the last few years, focusing on Galatians, Paul’s writings, and delving deeply into the nature of prayer.” The latter sounds much more scholarly, and people now begin to think of you as someone who has studied in this area. If you are teaching on pain, or forgiveness, and you’ve volunteered in soup kitchens or pregnancy crisis centres, make sure to mention that, too! Just steer clear of mentioning anything political.

4. Do stress what you are aiming to become

If you want to become a frequent speaker at women’s retreats, for instance, mention in your bio that you speak at women’s retreats. If you want to be hired to do more Christmas outreaches, mention in your bio that you’re still recovering from Christmas, the busiest speaking season.

Get people to think of you along the lines of what you want to be hired for!

5. Get the person to HOLD UP whatever item you want to emphasize on your book table

It is always easiest if other people advertise our merchandise for us, but rather than just reading the title of a book, or saying that “Jane has CDs of her talks”, it works so much better with a visual, if the person actually holds up a copy of it. So hand the bio and the item to the person, and ask them to HOLD IT UP. If you don’t ask them to do exactly that, they likely won’t.

6. Put at least one joke, or funny line, in your bio.

I often say this: “Sheila loves knitting. Even in line at the grocerystore”. Or “Sheila is the author of Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight. Apparently her husband liked the research.” These aren’t long jokes, but they tend to get a few snickers, and it loosens people up.

One last thing: a bio should never be very long. One hundred words is more than enough. But do write it yourself, rather than counting on other people to put one together, because then you can make sure that the right things are stressed.

What do you think? Do you have a bio that works well? Do you have a line you always put in? Let me know!

Use Your Words: Multiple Income Streams from Speaking

Photo by sushi-ina

Every Tuesday at noon EST I give a 30 minute BlogTalkRadio show on elements of a speaking ministry–and it’s totally free!

Yesterday I talked about how to create multiple income streams from speaking. That sounds very high falutin’, but its meaning is quite simple: most of us just make speaking fees when we speak, but that often isn’t enough income to support the amount of time that we put into speaking. So let’s find other ways to make money from speaking that can help boost the income, so we can afford to speak more!

Let me give you an example: say you’re just starting out, and you’re beginning to get paid engagements, and your fee is $250 for a one-time talk, or $800 for a retreat. In order to make $20,000 a year, a part-time salary, you’d have to speak for 10 weekends a year, or 1 a month (excluding December & January), and 48 evenings a year, or roughly 1 a week. That’s really very busy, and probably not all that likely.

On the other hand, if you start selling CDs when you speak, or workbooks, then you increase your income without a whole lot more time. CDs are easy to produce, and workbooks are easy to produce, too! You can also sell e-books off of your website.

Listen in to the show to hear more! And here are some other blog posts that deal with this subject of how to boost your income when you speak:

What to Put on your Book Table
Making a Living from Speaking (goes over this show’s content in much more detail!)

Finally, if you want to go in depth in this topic and figure out how you can create products that will actually sell and generate some income–and how to sell them–my audio download on Creating Information Products will have you brainstorming for days!

Use Your Words: What Goes Into a Speaker’s Website?

This week on Use Your Words we talked about what goes into a speaker’s website to make it effective! If you missed that show, you can listen in to the archives right here.

Usually every Tuesday at noon EST I give a half hour long show of tips for expanding your speaking ministry! I won’t be doing it next Tuesday, but I’ll be back on the 15th of February with more! And if you ever have topics you want me to cover, just leave them in the comments.

Today let me give  you a synopsis of this show.

Think of a speaker’s website as the place where organizers will go to “check you out” before they decide to contact you about a prospective booking. Rarely will conference organizers get a recommendation and then contact you first. Normally they’re going to check  you out on the web before sending off that email! So think of it this way: if you want to get bookings, then you need to make sure that when someone types your name into Google, you come up.

That’s why it’s important to use your name in your web address or your blog, if you’re using that blog primarily to get speaking engagements. If  you have a website for speaking, and then a blog for blogging, it’s fine to call your blog whatever you want. But the place where people will go if you want them to hire you must have your name, or else you won’t rank high in search engines. If your name is already taken as a domain name, just add the word “speaks” to the end, like janesmithspeaks.com, or something like that.

If you’re using your blog to get speaking engagements, then make sure the blog allows multiple pages (like WordPress does). Here’s what you want on your website:

1. The main landing page should announce that you are a speaker

Make it generic. If you want to speak to youth, don’t necessarily put that in bold letters when you’re just starting out, because the more generic you are, the more likely you are to get hired. Make sure your main landing page has a big picture of you!

2. Topics

Have a page listing your topics. If you feel called to a certain  niche (like youth), let that be one of your topics. But do have some generic ones so that you’re able to be hired by churches for other events, which are important when you’re starting. It’s easier to get hired for something general (there are a whole lot more general events than specific events in churches), and then specialize in a niche once your name becomes known.

When you’re starting, three topics for single talks and one retreat package is enough. And you don’t have to have all of these written yet! Have your signature talk written, but remember that if you’re hired, you’re not likely going to speaking tomorrow. You’ll probably have a few months’ lag time. So write your topics knowing that you can fill in the talk later.

3. Samples

People like to actually hear you! So when you speak, record yourself. Take that audio and then turn it into a video using a video editing software. Just choose a 2-3 minute portion where you’re telling a funny anecdote, or expounding a Scripture passage, and use that as the audio. Then add still photos to it, and some text at the end about how you’re a speaker and what your website is. Now upload that to YouTube, and presto, you have a video! If they can hear you speak, they’ll be more likely to hire you.

If you don’t have audio, then arrange for a group of friends to come to church to hear you deliver a message. That way you’ll  have voices in the background. We always speak differently in front of a live audience, so make sure that you have something recorded that’s live!

4. Testimonials

After people hear you speak, encourage the organizer to write you an email about what she thought of you. Or, if you have evaluations taken, use those evaluations to find testimonials. You can put these on a video, too, with text and music, or you can just write them in text on your page.

A good thing to have on your testimonials page, too, is a lot of pictures of you speaking (preferably in different outfits to stress that you’ve done multiple engagements). The more people can see that you’ve been hired before, the more they’re likely to hire you again!

That’s a low-down on the show, but you can hear details about these specific strategies by listening in. Hope to have you live at Use Your Words soon!