A few years back, I was a coaching call with the legend that is Katelyn Bourgoin and (clearly exasperated) drops this bombshell…
'Alex, people don't wake up in the morning and suddenly decide their team need a public speaking coach. Something must have happened.'
It took me a while for that to sink in.
But when it did, it singlehandedly changed the trajectory of my business (and I hope it does for you too).
In the context of speaking, the three types of trigger:
Event Triggers 🎭
The most obvious, least compelling, most competitive.
Example: “International Women’s Day’s coming up, if you're running an event and need a speaker, pick me!” 🙄Situational Triggers ⚡️
Something’s happened that's made your topic urgent. Like…
Trend Triggers 📈
Something is happening in the world that your audience can't ignore.
E.g. "AI is changing everything and we don't know what it means for our business."
Being able to speak to both situational triggers and trend triggers is a skill. One that requires a deep understanding of your audience.
It's why, when you master this skill, magical things start to happen:
You get booked more consistently ♻️
Because you're not limited to the 3 month window when companies run events.The enquiries start coming to you 🧲
Because you’re able to speak to the exact situations and trends that make your topic important AND urgent.Every speaking engagement generates more ROI 💰
Partly because audiences who feel understood take action, but also because important, urgent problems earn bigger budgets
Needless to say, trigger events are the foundation of a solopreneur's entire business.
If you are unable to articulate the situational and trend triggers that make your topic urgent, you won't just struggle to get booked.
❌ Your content will flop
❌ Your talks won't land
❌ Your products won't sell
❌ Your pipeline will dry up
❌ The opportunities speaking was supposed to create will never materialise.
Get it right and the opposite becomes true.
In fact, when I think about some of the most successful founders I know, their entire product suite is built around trigger events.
An example? The Audience Whisperer
Which we gave you all access to for free last week last week. (Not technically a product, because it’s free, but look a this…)
Notice how Richard (hi Richard!) literally mentioned the trigger event upfront!
That’s exactly how this tool is designed to be used.
Another person who understands this is MicDrop member, Alice Driscoll.
She’s the author of Smart Conflict (highly recommend) alongside Louise Van Haarst and together they’ve built a nearly 7-figure speaking business in the last 12 months.
We hosted a Q and A with Alice last week to share her story with other members. It’s an unbelievable story (they’ve certainly broken my own belief barriers), but when you think about it:
Conflict inside organisations is rife.
And it’s costly.
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When a new member joins MicDrop, they get immediate access to our Speaker Foundations course.
Identifying trigger events is one of the most important exercises we get them to do. It's also one of the hardest.
Which is why we spent months building a tool to help them nail it.
It’s called the Audience Whisperer.
And every single one of you reading this has access to it for free.
If you haven’t given it a try yet, click here.
Happy Monday all!
Alex
MicDrop is my community for founders using speaking to grow their business. We’ll be opening our doors to new members again in June.
Click here to join the waitlist
