Jaimie: Welcome to this week's episode of Pitch Perfect. Today we're talking about how to pitch yourself without sounding desperate. This is probably one of the most important conversations that we can have if you want to start getting paid to speak. Because, let's be honest, so many aspiring speakers struggle with this. How do you pitch yourself without sounding desperate? You know what I mean, right? That email or that DM that practically screams, please, please hire me, I'll do anything. I'll even do it for free. You can feel the energy of desperation coming off the page. And here's the thing. Event planners and decision makers can feel it too. So in this episode, we're going to break down exactly how to pitch yourself with confidence, clarity and authority so you come across as the solution they've been waiting for, not the person begging for a chance. All right, first of all, why desperation shows? Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room. Why does desperation creep into our pictures? For most of us, it's rooted in fear. Fear that if we don't say yes to everything, we'll never get booked. Fear that if we charge too much, we'll scare them off. Fear that if we don't oversell ourselves, they won't see our value. I. I've been there. Early on, I sent emails that were way too long over, sharing my entire career story, attaching my cv, even dropping the dreaded I'll do it for exposure line. And guess what? Crickets. Or if I was lucky, I'd get a polite thanks, but no thanks. Why? Because desperation repels. Confidence attracts. Here's the mindset shift. Pitching isn't begging. Pitching is serving. You're not asking for a favour, you're offering a solution. Event planners aren't, sitting around thinking, who can I do a good deed for? They're thinking, who can solve my audience's problem? Who can inspire them and make me look good for hiring them? So when you pitch, you're not saying, please pick me, you're saying, here's how I can make your event a success. That little reframe alone just changes your tone, your confidence and your results. Now let's break down what a confident, compelling pitch looks like. Step one, lead with relevance. Don't start with your life story. Start with their event. So you might say something like, I saw your conference is all about leadership in small business. That shows that you've done your homework. Step two, position your topic as the solution. So you frame it as. One of the biggest challenges for small business leaders is X. My keynote and Insert your title is designed to solve exactly that. Step three, keep it concise. A great pitch can be one or two paragraphs. If they want more, they'll ask. Step four, add credibility. Not a novel one or two credibility markers. So I've spoken for. And then insert a company you might have, worked for. Or you might say, I've trained over 500 business owners. That's enough. Not your entire CV. Step five, call to action. Always end with clarity. So you might say, would you like me to send through my media kit or is this relevant for your audience this year? Notice that that's not pushy, it's more invitational. Here's what not to do. Let's talk about some desperate mistakes to avoid overselling. And that is listing every achievement since high school. Stop undervaluing. So, offering to work for free when you don't need to. That screams lack of confidence. And also over apologising. So phrases like sorry to bother you, or I know you're probably busy, ditch them. chasing. So following up 10 times in a week. Persistence is good, but pestering is not. And also copy paste templates. I used to do this. Guilty as charged. But if your email looks like it was blasted to 500 people, it'll be deleted just as fast. Now, I want to share a personal story with you. I once pitched for a corporate client and I had a simple three line email. I said, you know, like, hi, John, I saw your upcoming event on and I inserted the theme. one of the challenges in that space is X. And my keynote that I talked about, is how to master your public speaking. And it's designed to help audiences walk away feeling more confident with speaking. Would you like to send over details? That's it, three lines. And you know what they came back with? Yes, Please send details. That actually turned into a $7,500 gig. Now, compare that to the early days where I'd write essays with attachments and promises to do anything. Which one do you think worked better? All right, let's wrap this up. You don't need to sound desperate. You don't need to beg. What you need is a clear, relevant topic, a short, confident pitch and a mindset that says, I'm, here to serve, not to beg. Remember this, the right event organisers aren't doing you a favour by hiring you. They need you. You're helping them create a memorable event. So pitch boldly, pitch confidently, and next time you sit down to draught that email or that dm, ask yourself, does this sound like I'm begging or does it sound like I'm offering value? If it's the second one, you're on the right track. Thanks for hanging out with me. Hey, if you want to make pitching even easier, grab my paid speaker checklist. you can go to my website, jamiabott.com au even better. I'm running a sprint to stage challenge. It kicks off October 14th. if you're listening to this, we are in October now or almost. Almost. This week it hits October. But it's happening in yeah, two weeks time. Really. Go to sprinterstage.com or jamiabott.com sprint to stage. We're going to three days for an hour each day and I'm going to show you how to pitch, how to land the speaking gigs, how to reach decision makers. You're going to get templates, prompts, all the recording, chat, GPT prompts that is. It's going to give you everything you need to start launching your paid speaking career. Until next time, go pitch with confidence and get paid to speak.
