You have heard “build your brand” a hundred times. You know it matters. You have probably nodded along in a session about it before. And then you went back to your desk and nothing changed, because nobody told you what to actually do on Monday morning.
You have probably given this talk. The content was right. The structure held. You finished on time, the audience nodded in the right places, and two or three people came up afterward to say they enjoyed it.
Most of us speak for a living because we love to share our knowledge. We build keynotes and websites, one-sheets and speaker reels, systems, and the next clever AI tool. It feels like progress, and most days it genuinely is.
You can be a strong speaker and still not know how to get booked. You can have a powerful message and still struggle to package it for the right audience. You can be confident on stage and still not understand speaker fees, event planner expectations, contracts, positioning, or business development.
Most speakers struggle to get noticed on LinkedIn—not because of ability or messaging, but because their approach keeps them invisible. To build a successful speaking business, visibility and relationship-building on LinkedIn are essential.
The room gets quiet in a way that feels different. Not polite. Not distracted. Focused. Someone steps onto the stage. No slides. No safety net. Just a story. You can feel the shift almost immediately. People lean forward. Heads tilt. Phones go down. There’s a subtle, collective agreement happening in real time: this matters.
The speaking world is competitive, and speakers need to cut through the noise and dominate a brand position, especially in their own marketplace. I discuss how to do that with my guest, Marti Konstant. As a workplace futurist and inventor of the term career Agility, Marti is a keynote speaker, an AI trainer, and designer for speakers and authors.