Make It Visible
You’re full of amazing coaching skills, ideas, and a desire to make a difference, but marketing your coaching biz isn’t your thing?
Meet Michelle, your business bestie who knows exactly how to help coaches like you get seen, get heard, and get paying clients.
No more feeling invisible. Let’s make marketing easy-peasy and magical.
Make It Visible
#213: How to Get Paid Speaking Gigs from Scratch (Even if You Have Zero Audience!)
If you’ve ever wondered “How do I land paid speaking gigs when I don’t have an audience, connections, or experience?” — girl, I’ve got you.
In this episode of Make It Visible, I’m pulling back the curtain and sharing exactly what I’d do if I had to start from scratch.
No guesswork, no fluff — just real, practical steps to help you get booked and paid to speak.
Here's what you'll learn from this episode:
- Why clarity on who you help and what problem you solve is key
- How to find the right events and build a curated list of opportunities
- The importance of pitching yourself (and following up!)
How every speaking engagement can lead to your next one
🔥 Plus: I’ll share the two non-negotiable things you need before pitching any event organizer — and how you can learn them inside my free 3-day masterclass, “Get Clients and Speaking Gigs.”
🎧 Press play, grab a notebook, and get ready to book your next paid speaking gig faster than you think!
➡️ Join the FREE Masterclass here: getclientsandspeakinggigs.com
Drop me a line and share your thoughts!
Meet Your Host:
Hey there! I’m Michelle Kui—Visibility Marketing and Speaker Success Coach.
I’m the founder of Elevate LifeCoaching, where I help coaches like you build a stand-out brand, attract high-quality 5-6 figure clients, and land paid speaking gigs—all by leveraging the #1 most important asset in your business (hint: it’s not JUST social media!).
My Journey into Public Speaking & Visibility
My speaking journey started early—at 9 years old when my dad voluntold me to enter a speech contest (thanks, Dad!). Since then, I became the go-to speaker whenever someone needed a voice on short notice.
From leading corporate workshops to running training sessions, I thrived where most people froze—grabbing the mic while others sat back, hoping not to get called on.
After working with hundreds of coaches, I realized a HUGE missing piece that most entrepreneurs completely overlook—and it’s the #1 strategy top coaches use to grow their business, attract premium clients, and get booked on bigger stages.
Are you using it? If not, let’s change that. 🚀
🐦 SOCIAL STUFF:
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Facebook ➔ / coachmichellekuei
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If you are a coach, speaker or entrepreneur looking to land pay speaking gig, even if you have zero connection, no audience and zero experience, this episode is for you. Today, I'm going to break down the exact five-step strategies that I'll use if I were to start over from scratch. No fluff, just actionable steps. That's going to help you to book your first or maybe your next couple of pay speaking gig. So grab a notebook, let's dive in. Hey, you're listening to Make it Visible podcast. I'm your host, michelle Kui. I am a visibility marketing coach and soon to be your business bestie in the coaching business world. Not knowing how to connect with your audience, grab people's attention and get them excited to buy from you should never be the reason you give up on your dream to become a full-time coach. I'm all about making marketing the easiest part of your coaching business, so that you can turn a passion for coaching into a visible and profitable reality. So buckle up ladies, let's get started. This is something that I teach all my Signature Talk Blueprint students on how to find and look for those events. That's already hiring and paying speakers. Number one you can Google this right. Google what industry you would like to speak on. Look for the conference, looking for a keynote speaker and looking at their past speakers whom they have invited to the event. That will give you some clue of which type of speaker they're looking to hire, looking to invite. And what you also can do is checking some of the speaker directory, like Speaker Hub or, if you happen to be a member in the National Speaker Association. That would be another way to connect to these paid speaking events. You can also look at connecting with other speakers who's within your niche and look at how they got booked, and you can create your own network there of referral. So what you want to do in step number two is focusing on the right event, and so you're going to be able to shortcut a lot of the frustration and these like where do I look? Are they actually paying it? What's their budget? Am I doing this for free? So do it more professionally and just by looking at places where they're already looking for speakers like yourself.
Michelle :Step number three is you want to reach out to event organizer with the pitch, and one of the steps that a lot of speakers and coaches are missing is to follow up, which is another thing that I teach inside the Signature Talk Blueprint, where I actually provide them templates on how to pitch your speaking topic and also how to do the follow-up. Now you might have found the right event and it is time to pitch yourself, but a lot of coaches and speakers they don't know how to pitch, and I personally myself because I have a podcast, so a lot of time I receive these pitches and I'm sitting there thinking you definitely need my help to pitch. So what you want to do is your email needs to be short, it needs to be clear, it needs to focus on the actual value that you're going to bring to the audience that they're inviting you to speak. Keep it short, introduce yourself and explain the problem that your talk is going to solve for their audience. And don't forget never, ever forget to follow up, just like when you're booking a potential coaching client. You want to do the follow up and most speakers and coaches, most of the time they don't get booked on the first email. So you want to send a second reminder email that I haven't heard back from you within the week, just to follow up on what's up with their decision making. So don't forget that.
Michelle :Step number three pitch, but also do a follow up. Step number four is every speaking engagement should be the opportunity that leads you to the next one. Now here are some of the mistakes I see coaches and speakers are making they speak on one engagement and that was the end of it. They don't turn it into a future engagement. So a lot of times you have to go up to the event coordinator or event organizer or at the event you wanted to connect with other organizer and ask them hey, where else? Or maybe someone else that you know would be looking for a talk like this, who can I connect to? If you do this right, that one speaking engagement can turn into five or maybe even more, without you having to pitch every single time.
Michelle :Step number five is you want to start charging instead of doing this for free. Now let's talk about getting you pay for what you're worth. A lot of the new speakers are undercharging because they think that I need to earn their way to the premium fee. But if you're positioning yourself as the problem solver, not just a speaker, then you can start charging at a higher rate sooner than later. So if you truly dial in into your talk, into your messaging, you can start charging the premium fee rather than just doing it for free, just talking for fun. You don't need to have years of experience to charge your premium fee. You just need to have the right positioning, which is why I teach Signature Talk Blueprint, because that one talk is your perfect asset to create your positioning and making sure that you are at the right place at the right time, charging with a premium fee All right.
Michelle :So if I were to start all over again, these are the five steps that would totally be my roadmap to get book speaking gig all the time. Number one is get clear on who you're helping, what their problems solve right, what are you helping them to solve? Number two is to focus on the event where they're already hiring and paying speakers. Number three is to have a pitch and don't forget to do your follow-up. And number four is making sure that every speaking engagement is going to lead to the future booking. And number five, make sure that you're charging for your worth and never, ever speak for free, thinking that your experience is not good enough.
Michelle :If you got value from this episode, I would love for you to share it with a fellow coach or speaker who actually needs to hear this. And if you're landing a speaking gig using these five steps, I would love for you to send me a DM or drop it into the comment. I would love to celebrate with you and don't forget to hit subscribe or follow if you don't want to miss any future episodes. Let's get you booked on the bigger stage. I will see you next time on Make it Visible.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Make it Visible podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support for your coaching business, head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and see how we can partner together to turn your passion into a profitable business. I help female coaches launch and scale their coaching business faster than ever, without wasted time and money, filling the gaps in your marketing strategies, creating a simple and easy to follow system so you can accelerate on the path of coaching business that you love to wake up to. Head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and grab a free strategy audit today.
