How do you show the impact of your speaking engagements?

1 Why you need a portfolio

A portfolio is a great way to showcase your skills, experience, and results as a speaker. It can help you to attract more speaking opportunities and clients, build your personal brand and reputation, reflect on your strengths and areas for improvement, and document your professional growth and development. By displaying your credibility and authority in your field, highlighting your unique voice, style, and message, reviewing feedback and performance, and tracking progress and achievements over time, you can demonstrate the value you bring to any speaking engagement.

2 What to include in your portfolio

Your portfolio should include a variety of materials that demonstrate your impact as a speaker, such as video recordings or clips of your presentations, slides or handouts that accompany them, testimonials or reviews from your audience, clients, or organizers, media coverage or social media mentions of your presentations, and awards or recognitions that you received for your speaking. This collection of materials can showcase your design and content skills, value and impact, reach and influence, and excellence and reputation.

3 How to organize your portfolio

Creating and managing a portfolio can be made easier by using different platforms and tools, such as a website or blog to showcase speaking work, a YouTube channel or Vimeo account to host videos, a SlideShare account or Google Drive folder for slides or handouts, a LinkedIn profile or Twitter account to display testimonials and awards, and a spreadsheet or database to track speaking engagements. Each should have appropriate links, descriptions, tags, titles, summaries, hashtags, keywords, dates, titles, formats, locations, and outcomes.

4 How to update your portfolio

It's important to update your portfolio regularly in order to reflect your current and relevant work as a speaker. After each speaking engagement, collect feedback from your audience, clients, or organizers. Analyze this feedback and determine your key takeaways, achievements, and areas for improvement. Then select the best pieces of evidence that demonstrate your impact, such as video clips, slides, testimonials, or media mentions. Add these to your portfolio with appropriate labels, categories, and captions. Lastly, share your portfolio with your network and invite them to explore your work and contact you.

5 How to use your portfolio

Your portfolio is not only a showcase of your past work, but also a tool for your future growth and opportunities as a speaker. You can use it to apply for more speaking opportunities and clients, negotiate fees and terms, improve your speaking skills and confidence, expand your network and influence, and celebrate your achievements. When sending your portfolio link or samples along with your proposal or pitch, you can demonstrate your value and impact. You can also review your portfolio to set goals and action plans for your development. Furthermore, you can share it on social media, podcasts, blogs, or newsletters to engage with your audience and peers. Finally, you can thank your supporters and collaborators by acknowledging your portfolio.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?