When I got started speaking, one of the best things I did was learn from people who had done it before me. It takes a lot of work to become a dental speaker. You need to establish a message, learn speaking skills, build a profitable business model for your speaking and more. My mentors and coaches helped me avoid a lot of the mistakes many other people make when trying to build a speaking career.
If you’re interested in breaking into dental speaking, I highly recommend doing the same. Learn from other people’s experiences and get guidance to help you. To get started, watch to this interview I conducted of Vanessa Emerson of The Dental Speaker Institute in the Nifty Thrifty Dentists Facebook group. Vanessa has helped hundreds of dentists break into dental speaking. She can do the same for you, helping you develop speaking skills, secure engagements and use dental speaking to grow a business as a subject matter expert.
In the interview, Vanessa shared three steps she dentists must take to break into dental speaking.
1. Establish a Vision for Your Dental Speaking
One of the biggest mistakes people make when starting a business is not first establishing a vision. Why do you want to get into dental speaking? What do you want it to do in your personal life? What do you want to do for your professional life?
Do you want to use dental speaking to transition away from your practice full time? Do you want to use dental speaking to help shape the dental industry for the future?
What products or services do you want to offer? Many speakers consult to dental practices, for example. Others coach individual dentists or other dental professionals. You could also build a service-based business, such as copywriting or marketing for dental practices.
There’s no wrong answer but it’s important that you understand your vision for your dental speaking so you can focus your efforts in that direction.
2. Establish a Strategic Plan for Pursuing Your Vision
Once you have your vision in place you should establish a strategic plan that leads you toward achieving your vision. If you are unsure of what steps to take, don’t worry. You will learn and can adjust as you go, especially when you’re just getting started.
If you’re looking to get expert guidance, this could be a good time to start learning from other people’s mistakes by hiring a coach who has built a successful speaking business or speaking expert who has learned from helping others.
3. Develop Presentation Skills
While you do not need to be a big, boisterous speaker to break into dental speaking, it’s important to take your speaking skills as serious as you treat dentistry. Most dentists know how important it is to continue clinical training to improve their skills. The more training and experience you have, the more complex, life-changing, and profitable procedures you will be able to perform on patients.
Dental speaking is the same. The better you communicate and entertain audiences, the more you will be able to impact audiences and get closer to your goals. I highly recommend treating dental speaking with the same professionalism that we treat clinical skills and either work with an expert one-on-one or attend speaker training to hone your skills.
4. Develop Speaker Business Skills
Running a speaking business is different than running a dental practice. If you run it the same way that you run your dental practice, you could waste a lot of time and money. Vanessa’s Dental Speaker Institute helps people develop these skills if you’re looking for help.
5. Market Your Speaker Business
Just like other parts of running a speaker business, marketing a speaker business to gain the right type of exposure is critical to your success. You will need a professional speaker packet to send to meeting planners. Your speaker packet should include your presentation information, a short bio, lists of past presentations, professional testimonials, and learning objectives. Include any information you can to let meeting planners evaluate you and your presentation.
Do you want to break into dental speaking?
Like any business, it takes a lot of work to break into dental speaking. But following these five steps can help you get started fast and build momentum over time—especially when paired with the right guidance and mentorship.
If you have not watched my interview with Vanessa, visit the Nifty Thrifty Dentists Facebook groupand watch it today. You can also connect with Vanessa at The Dental Speaker or learn more about speaker education at the Dental Speaker Institute.
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