Four Biosheet Fundamentals That Will Get You Hired

Now that you know your ministry niche, you’re ready for a bigger project, developing a speaker biosheet that will get you hired.

I had an interesting conversation recently with a savvy leader who asked me, “Aren’t biosheets old-school?” We discussed that many speakers today simply let their “About” page on their website stand for itself. Ultimately, I became convinced that speakers still need a biosheet.

Think about the concept of creating any message, either spoken or written. Step one is to know your audience and their needs so that you can speak directly to them. Speaker biosheets are designed to speak directly to event planners who have a whole different set of needs than the audience who visits your blog to read content there. Here are some of the main needs of event planners:

They need a speaker who they can trust and in whom they have confidence. It’s scary to pass the mic to someone!
They need a speaker who will address the needs of their women.
They need a speaker who is professional and will be a partner in ministry with them.

Those aren’t the same needs of your blog visitor. They’re much more specific and event oriented, so I’m convinced there needs to be a separate document for them. There are a lot of speakers out there, friends, but meeting an event planner’s needs makes it more likely that you are the speaker she’ll pick.

Clear Value

Event planners need to know specifically what you’ll give to their audience and that it’s something of value. Speakers need to be clear about their own ministry niche so that they can express the takeaways that they’ll give to their audience. That starts with your tagline but continues with developing values statements. These are statements that break down your tagline into smaller parts. Here are the values statements I have on my speaker biosheet:

Amy Carroll’s passion is leading women to deeper delight through rich relationship with God and others. For over 10 years, she has shared messages that enable you to:

Release the grind of perfection and grasp the joy of living in God’s incomparable love.
Celebrate the full satisfaction found in moving to deeper relationships.
Invest yourself in what truly fills instead of chasing what only leaves you hollow.
Walk away from loneliness and isolation into the delight of sharing life.

Ask yourself what you want your audience to have when you leave, and express those in values statements.

Credentials

Event planners need to know you’re qualified. Before you break into a sweat thinking you don’t have any qualifications, really think it through. You have qualifications that you might not have considered! Credentials come in many forms including life experience and personal study that leads to a specific passion. Volunteer activities count too. Show a planner that you’ve persevered in some areas and where you’ve served. You want to build their trust and confidence that you’ll be able to handle their event.

Personality

Speaker biosheets generally express more personality than corporate vitae or resumes. Planners want to get a feel for you and who you are. Tell about your family, where you live and maybe a cute quirk. Use a few sentences to let your hair down at the end!

Captivating Topics

Finally, you should use topic descriptions that are carefully crafted to speak to the heart of an audience. Be aware that not only will event planners read these, but they often copy them into promotional materials for your event. You’ll want to speak to the needs of the audience. Take time to work on great titles and more value statements that describe the takeaways from that specific message.

If you include these four basics in your speaker biosheet, you’ll be well on your way to convincing an event planner that you’re the speaker for her!

Make sure to join us next week when I give a practical way to use your new biosheet to launch your speaking ministry or build the number of your events. In the meantime, work on your biosheet, and go visit the Proverbs 31 speaker page if you’d like to see lots of samples in one place.

Note: There won’t be a FB Live this week since I’m traveling, but Melanie and I will be back on Thursday, April 12th at 2:45. Make sure to follow us on Facebook by clicking here, and mark your calendars for our next conversation!

~Amy

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Would you like Amy to walk with you through developing a biosheet? If the answer is “yes!”, there are two great options for you.

Biosheet Coaching— Amy delights in walking through the process of creating content for a client’s new biosheet. It includes creating a tagline, values statements, bio content and topic descriptions. Click here to read more about her coaching, and if you’d like more information about coaching, click here to fill out the form to schedule a FREE consultation with Amy.

Biosheet Video Course— If your budget is limited or if you’re a DIYer at heart, you can have the same curriculum that Amy’s coaching clients receive including handouts and instructional videos, walking you through content creation for your biosheet. The only thing that is different from the coaching is that you won’t have one-on-one feedback from Amy. Click here to read all the details about Next Step’s exciting new video courses!