The speaker one sheet checklist

Stage one: decide who the page is for

• Name one buyer type in the first lineWrite it plainly, such as sales kickoffs for medical device teams or state association annual meetings. A page written for everyone gets forwarded by no one, because a program chair cannot tell whether you belong on her agenda.
• Lead with the topic that buyer pays forNot your favorite topic and not your newest one. Look at your last six paid dates and put the subject that recurs at the top of the page, where a committee will see it before anything else.
• State the outcome instead of the themeResilience is a theme. What a frontline manager will do differently on Monday is an outcome. Committees approve outcomes because that is what they have to justify to whoever holds the training budget.
• Add one line of proof a buyer can verifyA named association, a repeat corporate client who agreed to be listed, or a session that was invited back. One checkable fact outperforms a paragraph of adjectives and survives a reference call.
• Choose the clip a committee will actually watchThirty to ninety seconds showing the room reacting to you, not a montage over music. Put it near the top, because the video decides the shortlist more often than the copy does.

Stage two: write topics a committee can approve

• Give every topic a title and a plain subtitleThe title can have personality, the subtitle must say what the session is. The subtitle is what gets printed in the program when nobody calls you to check.
• List three takeaways in the buyer languageWrite them as things the audience will be able to do, using the words that buyer uses internally. Vague takeaways are the most common reason a shortlisted session stalls at internal approval.
• Publish the run times you genuinely deliverForty five minute keynote, ninety minute interactive session, half day workshop. If you will not do a full day, do not list one, because agreeing to a format you have not built is where reputations go.
• Name the group size and room setup each format needsRounds for a workshop, theater for a keynote, a hard ceiling on participants for anything hands on. Planners fight for room setup weeks in advance and will book whoever told them early.
• Say what customization is includedOne discovery call and industry specific examples is a normal inclusion. Interviewing eight executives and building a bespoke case is a separate line. Write which one you mean so the scope conversation happens before the quote.
• Keep the topic list to five at mostMore than five reads as availability rather than expertise. If you truly cover more ground, group them under two or three headline programs and let the detail live inside each one.

Stage three: publish money, travel and dates

• Post a fee band rather than one numberA range with a floor tells a buyer whether to start the conversation without pricing her specific room. It also stops the inquiries that were never going to reach your minimum from consuming a week of email.
• Tie each band to scope and travel radiusKeynote in region, keynote requiring an overnight, half day workshop, virtual session. When the logic is visible, a procurement reviewer can follow it and rarely argues with the structure itself.
• State the travel policy in two sentencesSay whether travel is billed at cost, included in the band, or capped, and who books the flight. This single paragraph prevents most of the awkward conversations that happen after a handshake.
• Show which dates are genuinely openBlocked weeks, held weeks and open weeks. A planner who can see that October is thin and April is full will ask about October, which is exactly the conversation you want.
• Define what a hold means and how long it lastsTwo weeks is a fair standard. Write it down, then honor it and release the week when it expires. Speakers lose more revenue to unmanaged holds than to lost negotiations.

Stage four: send it and work the reply

• Send a link, never a file attachmentCorporate mail filters strip large attachments and files go stale the moment your fee band moves. Two lines naming the event, the date and the topic, then the link, is the whole email.
• Reply within one business day with the date restatedOpen with the specific date and format she mentioned so she knows she was read. Speed matters more than polish here, because committees move to whoever confirms availability first.
• Ask three qualifying questions in that first replyWho is in the room, what is the session meant to change, and has a budget range been set. The answers tell you which band applies and whether the date is real.
• Log every inquiry with date, format and buyer typeWithout a record you cannot see that association work books nine months out and corporate books ten weeks out, which is the pattern that tells you when to push outreach.
• Follow up on the committee clock, not yoursAsk when the group next meets and follow up two days after that. Chasing weekly annoys a volunteer program chair; landing right after her committee call gets you an answer.