A success story: Tara was a sustainable farmer who came to me because she needed to grow her Community Sustained Agriculture membership. Her CSA members receive a weekly box of her meats and vegetables and are the primary source of revenue for her farm.

Within a six-month period, I booked her twenty-five free speaking engagements. As a result, fifty-two families came out to tour her farm. Fourteen of those families became CSA members, spending an average of $240/month. That does not include those who did not become members but purchased food at her farm store. Nor does it include those who continue to buy food from her store, farmers’ markets, and referrals who go on to become members.

Can you see the incredible benefit of Tara’s going out and educating people about sustainable agriculture? Her business has boomed as a direct result of her public speaking and she has educated more people about the need to eat “real” food than she ever could have done just by doing farm tours alone.

I love sharing this story as it's the perfect example of just how powerful a marketing tool speaking can be!

I spent 30 years in luxury tourism in sales, marketing, event planning, and helping international ground operators grow their businesses. The tourism industry was hit hard in the economic crash of 2008 and I suddenly found myself unemployed for the first time in my life. While sending out more than 1,000 resumes I dove into social media, mainly Twitter, and found myself hired to help put on a couple of social media conferences because of my event planning experience. One of my tasks was to vet speakers for the conference hence my first foray into the world of speaking.

A sustainable farmer that I knew (the Tara mentioned in my previous story) told me her business coach said she should speak to local groups as a means to grow her business and offered to pay me for every engagement I could procure on her behalf. I had no idea what I was doing, but I jumped in and figured it out and found I was quite adept at it. She was so pleased with my services she told everyone about it and the next thing I knew I was being approached by one person after another asking for representation.

A speaker agency that focuses on platform/marketing (speak for free) speakers was born! And then...March of 2020 happened!!! Everything I booked was canceled as they were all in-person speaking engagements. That's when I decided to start booking my "grounded" speakers (for many speaking was their primary marketing tool) on podcasts. All those who embraced that platform are still doing podcast guesting even though they're back to speaking in front of audiences again. So now...Access Speakers is a speaker AND podcast booking agency... and the rest is history!