Speaking Sessions
Speaking Sessions
Unlock SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES Through GENUINE Connections
Unlock the secret to landing more speaking gigs through smart networking! In this episode, Philip Sessions shares how a simple LinkedIn connection led to a speaking opportunity at Clemson University. Learn how being open to connecting with anyone, regardless of their role, can lead to unexpected opportunities. Philip offers actionable tips on building genuine relationships and maximizing your networking efforts to boost your public speaking career. Whether you're just starting or looking to grow, this episode will help you turn connections into valuable speaking engagements. Tune in!
NOTABLE QUOTES
"As long as you are networking with people, the opportunities will come." – Philip
"When you want to get into the speaking game and get [an] opportunity to speak, you need to be speaking to everyone." – Philip
RESOURCES
Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions
If you're looking for opportunities to speak on stage, to speak in front of people, this one thing I'm about to share with you will help you be able to get on more stages. What's up, guys, this is Philip Sessions, your public speaking coach, here to talk to you about all things public speaking and communication and in today's episode, we are going to go through the one thing that I've found to be the most helpful for me to be able to get in front of people to be able to speak. And that one thing is something that you can do today. You don't need to wait and go pay $5,000. You're listening right here for free. You're watching right here for free, wherever you're at. You're getting this information for free, and I promise it will help you. Now the information can be applied immediately, but it will not take effect immediately most of the time, unless if you happen to hit it at the right moment in time, and that thing is networking. You heard me right in time. And that thing is networking. You heard me right Networking with people, with people that you know, people that you don't know, just trying to network with anybody possible. And I want to give you an example of how this helped me here recently be able to go speak in front of a group.
Speaker 1:It was probably about four to five months ago that I had connected with this student of a local university and we connected. We ended up getting on a phone call, just talking for 30 minutes, and I actually gave him some advice, I mentored him a little bit on his career, as he was becoming an engineer. He's going to school for engineering and he was working with a larger company as an intern and I talked through with him, gave him some suggestions. He asked me some questions and just told him hey, if you ever have any more questions, shoot me a text. You've got my number now, happy to hop on another call whenever. And was just really genuine about that. That was not meant to be leading anywhere and, quite frankly, I didn't think this was going to lead anywhere. Well, a couple of months down the road from that, he hits me up and says hey, I'm a part of this organization within our university where I'm one of the leaders for our group of leaders student ambassadors at this university and he said would you be interested in coming in and teaching at some point? Sure, that sounds great. And so then about he was like, well, we got to work through some stuff, we're working on this, that and the other. Okay, cool, let me know. And I've heard that same thing before where, okay, cool, whatever, maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. Well, now we've got it scheduled for in October to be able to go and do this. I think it's the third week, october. I gotta go back and look at that date exactly. But I'm going to get to speak in front of a group of like 40 or 50 people at this university, clemson university, be specific there.
Speaker 1:And it was all because we connected on LinkedIn and we started networking and I was we both, I guess, were willing to be able to just have a connection, call and get to know each other and, from the outside, looking in student and I'm in a corporate career and all this stuff where was the value that he was going to necessarily bring me? Was there anything to come from that? Maybe not from surface value, but look at that opportunity. I had to speak and so it's because I was willing to network with him, I was willing to network with anybody, and so I use that as an example, not to toot my own horn, but to let you know that you need to network. As long as you are networking with people, the opportunities will come.
Speaker 1:But you have to be networking and don't just think, ok, well, if they're not the CEO of this company or oh, they're not doing this thing, that they're not worth my time. If you are the CEO of a Google, perhaps you're not going to meet with every single student that wants to talk to you. There are levels to this networking thing, but when you're first starting out, when you want to get into the speaking game and get opportunity to speak, you need to be speaking to everyone. You need to be networking with as many people as possible and make sure that these events make sense for you. The people that you're talking to somehow make some kind of sense.
Speaker 1:I guess, in the scheme of things, going to Clemson would have been a cool thing to be able to go speak there. And here I am getting in with that opportunity. I saw it as an opportunity because he was an engineer, I've got the engineering background and so there was a fit there and I thought that, hey, it'd be kind of cool to have this opportunity. But I didn't just come straight in with that and I never really necessarily thought with him directly that that would happen, but we connected on LinkedIn and from that networking now that opportunity came up for me to speak.
Speaker 1:And, similarly, as you get speaking, you get around other speakers and speakers know each other and through that network they will refer you to other opportunities to speak. So you need to make sure that you are constantly networking and that is going to be the number one way for you to be able to speak in front of more people. That's what you truly desire to do, just like your business. Your business only grows by people knowing what you do for business and your speaking career will only grow if people know that you speak on a specific thing. So get to know people, get out there and network. That is the number one thing that you can do to get in front of more people to speak.
