Found. Vetted. Booked.
You know the material better than the speaker on stage. So why are they up there?
An event planner is not a talent scout. They are a risk-manager with their name on the event, and they book whoever is easiest to say yes to.
What's inside
- The 5 stages that take you from best-kept secret to the speaker planners come to.
- A 25-statement self-diagnostic that names the one stage actually blocking you.
- A 90-day plan for the stage you land on, so you stop rebuilding everything at once.
Found. Vetted. Defended. Then booked.
Three things have to be true before a planner ever emails you.
Found
Most planners don’t start with a search box. They ask another planner for a name. Either way it ends at a page whose only job is booking you, and when the search stops there, you never hear that it happened.
Vetted
The first pass is 90 seconds on a phone. Survive it and you get 20 focused minutes: footage, outcomes, and a talk described in language they can paste straight into a programme.
Defended
Then your material gets forwarded to a committee who have never heard of you, read it on a phone at 9pm, and have nobody in the room to argue your case. Their names are on the event too. They pick what is easy to defend.
Which is why the speakers getting the stages you want are rarely winning on talent alone. They are winning on plumbing.
Who this was written for
This book assumes something about you, so I would rather say it out loud than waste your quarter.
It's for you if…
- You're established. Real expertise, real results, gigs that have actually happened — even if every one arrived by referral.
- You sell keynotes or workshops to organisations, and you control your own positioning, fee and calendar.
- Audiences respond to you, you've been asked back at least once, and your delivery holds a room without the slides carrying it.
- There's proof worth collecting — results, praise, outcomes someone would care about.
It fits less cleanly if…
- A bureau represents you exclusively. They already run much of the pipeline this book teaches you to build.
- You're a household name. Demand already finds you.
- You speak mainly to sell books or to build academic standing. The talk is marketing for something else, not the product itself.
- You're building toward your first paid gigs. The stages don't change, but read it as the map of the road ahead.
And if any of those made you wince, spend the money on a speech coach before a marketing system. The book will still be here.
Eight chapters. You only need two of them tonight.
Chapter one reframes the problem. Chapter two tells you which of the five stages is blocking you, and skipping a stage is why everything after it underperforms. That’s about 40 minutes. The other six are there for when you know where to start: 32,000 words, with homework you can finish in an afternoon.
Stop Being the Best-Kept Secret in Your Field
Being great is the price of entry. Being bookable is a system. How a referral-only pipeline caps you, and the five-stage map you use for the rest of the book.
Score Yourself the Way a Booker Would
The diagnostic. 25 honest statements across five dimensions, and one rule for finding the single stage that is blocking you, so you fix that first instead of all five at once.
Claim the One Idea Only You Can Own
Get Clear. Your one-sentence position, your named framework, your signature story, your point of view — the sentence a planner could print on a programme.
Build the Platform Planners Say Yes To
Get Market-Ready. The Talk Menu, the Fee Ladder, the speaker page, the Credibility Kit, the Proof Bank and the booking basics. Everything a planner checks before she says yes.
Turn One Talk into Ninety Days of Visibility
Get Seen. A publishing rhythm sized to your worst week, a Target Map of the rooms worth reaching, and an outreach cadence built to survive a full calendar.
Convert Interest into Signed Agreements
Get Booked. The inquiry flow, the fee conversation, the follow-up engine and the Clean Yes. Why warm interest dies without anyone saying no, and the system that catches it first.
Make Every Stage Buy the Next One
Build Momentum. Install the Flywheel: the post-gig ritual that turns every talk into proof, content, introductions and subscribers while you are still packing up.
Run Your First Ninety Days
Five starting plans, one per blocked stage, an honest look at what each one takes, and the choice between doing it alone and doing it with me.
Found. Vetted. Booked.
Tell me where to send it and it’s yours. The whole book, free.