Where Is Your … Speaker One-Sheet?
by Bart Smith
What is a speaker one-sheet?
A speaker one-sheet is typically a 1- or 2-page PDF file that showcases your speaker services to potential clients who would like to book you to speak at their next event. Speaker one-sheets help event organizers and conference planners quickly learn:
1. What value you offer a potential audience/participants …
2. What you speak on and the presentation types you give …
3. What previous clients/event organizers say about you …
4. How to get a hold of you among other things ...
Speaker one-sheets act like a resume of your speaking talents. It’s the kind of document you can also upload to your website that event planners can download and use to evaluate you as a speaker for their speaker needs.
Event planners often look at several speaker one-sheets when trying to decide what speaker(s) to book for their upcoming event. If they don’t book you now, they might keep your speaker one-sheet on file and call upon you for a future event. Your website will be lost in time, but your speaker one-sheet is in a folder on their computer, most likely, for them to quickly check you out again.
What’s more, this document can be easily passed around to several different event planners when they’re done with it to other event planners, companies and organizations which creates a sort of viral marketing effect for you to promote your speaker services all around the globe!
Why do you need a speaker one-sheet?
Speaker one-sheets make you look like a professional speaker. Without one, who are you? What do you have to offer and with thousands of other speakers having one, why don’t you have one?
While you might think you don’t need it, having one helps increase:
1. The speed to which you can reach the decision-makers who are planning to book speakers for their next event …
2. You make it convenient for them to preview what you have to offer because all they have to do is open their eMail and not hit the web trying to find all your speaker details on your website …
3. You look professional, organized and ready to speak on the topics you mention on your speaker one-sheet …
Let’s say you meet someone at a networking event who wants to book you as a speaker and asks for your speaker one sheet? All you do is log into your eMail on your phone (or computer) and send them a link to your speaker one-sheet on your website. For example:
yoursite.com/your-name-speaker-one-sheet-call-000-000-0000.pdf
Of course, you could also create a simple “redirect url” on your website and call it:
yoursite.com/speaker1sheet
… that redirects to that same, longer PDF file.
One great way to get booked by local meetup groups and professional organizations within your field is to share your speaker one-sheet with them. Once you’ve got your speaker one-sheet designed, it’s fun and easy to start contacting those groups to see if you can speak to them. Just share your speaker one-sheet after you make that initial contact.
Can you have different speaker one-sheets for different speaking niches and clientele? Absolutely. Get creative and have different speaker one-sheets for the different books you’ve written or clients you serve.
What goes on a speaker one-sheet?
I’m glad you asked, A LOT! For example, you definitely want to have your:
1. Photos: head shot, full body action shot of you speaking and an action shot of you speaking to a crowd …
2. Presentation topics …
3. VALUE items audiences will walk away with after you speak …
4. Contact information (i.e., cell#, office#, address, web address, eMail address, social media links, etc.) …
5. Type of speaking engagements you’re available for …
6. Credentials …
7. Awards …
8. Partial client list and client logos if available …
9. Your book, audio and/or video mentions with images …
10. Biography …
11. Links to a video gallery or photo gallery showcasing your speaker talents …
12. Testimonials from event planners, hosts, attendees, etc. …
13. Frequently asked questions if you have room …
… among anything else you want to put on your speaker one-sheet.
How do you design a speaker one-sheet?
While you could design your speaker one-sheet “simply” in a Google document or Word document, and then convert your document to a PDF file for distribution, it’s better that you spend some time working with either a graphic design specialist (or doing it yourself if you have the software/skills) who can put some creativity and design flair into your speaker one-sheet. You don’t want it looking like a letter or some plain document. Spice it up, display your brand colors, personality and image you want conveyed as a speaker through your speaker one-sheet.
There are TWO THINGS to keep in mind when designing your speaker-one sheet:
1. CONTENT – Make sure you have all the important sections as mentioned above on your speaker one-sheet.
2. STYLE – Don’t be boring, but create fun, use color (yes, but don’t overdo it), and create an exciting speaker one-sheet to look at. One that pops! Imagine your speaker one-sheet representing you as you would appear on stage and be received by the crowd. EXCITING, right?
Now, look at the following speaker one-sheet template I designed below. Not that this design is the end all, be all greatest of speaker one-sheet designs, but each page does serve a strategic purpose in providing the right kind of information any event planner would ask for or want to know and without any clutter or blending of text on one sheet with the same white background, etc.
That said, I’ve purposely designed it to show you what goes ON a speaker one-sheet and where. I’ve seen other speaker one-sheets and they’re either boring, not well-designed, scattered with too much information against some terrible backgrounds or (on the contrary) they really were well-designed.
Need help with your speaker one-sheet?
For starters, take what you’ve learned above, then go to Fiverr.com and look for a designer who has a portfolio of creating the kind of speaker one-sheet that catches your eye. There’s a million ways to design a speaker one-sheet. After you look through what other designers are creating for other speakers, go with the designer who best meets your design eye. Get all your information together, as described above and pick someone to design your speaker one-sheet. Look at their pricing and then tell them what you need done. “I need a speaker one-sheet similar to (point to a few they’ve done) with my content information, which I’ll provide you.”
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