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The speaker industry isn\u2019t broken. It\u2019s bloated and, perhaps, only getting worse.<\/p>\n
Every week, event planners are getting bombarded with pitch decks, promotional sizzle reels, and vaguely inspirational bios. The volume of noise is a problem, but the lack of substance is far larger.<\/p>\n
Christa Haberstock has been on the inside of the speaker business long enough to spot the difference. \u201cOne speaker is telling a story about how he overcame something,\u201d she told me. \u201cThe other one is giving the audience something to overcome themselves.\u201d The second one gets booked, however, the first one makes it about themselves. Who is the more strategic speaker?<\/p>\n
Haberstock is not new to the scene. As the founder of See Agency and Bookable Speakers, Haberstock spent decades serving as the conduit between the stage and the sale. Her new book, Become a Bookable Speaker, distills that experience into a single challenge: find your obvious advantage or be forgotten.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be so valuable they can’t imagine their event without you,\u201d she said. That means solving a client\u2019s actual business problem, not delivering motivational filler in a new pair of shoes, despite certain people\u2019s love of shoes.<\/p>\n
If the client or the room is looking for ROI, your job as a speaker is to hand them a receipt.<\/p>\n
This holds true in leadership, too. If the team, division, or function you are leading feels like a nice-to-have\u2014rather than essential infrastructure\u2014you\u2019re in trouble. Haberstock\u2019s concept of being bookable is relevance made visible. It\u2019s knowing your value and making it impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
The Hook<\/p>\n
Haberstock never set out to be a \u201cspeaker whisperer.\u201d<\/p>\n
She started in 1997, working 100% commission, and sold keynote talent from a windowless office in Texas. \u201cI knew nothing about the industry,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I knew how to listen and I could smell desperation.\u201d<\/p>\n
What did she smell most often? Speakers who led with emotion and personal story, but couldn\u2019t tie their message to a corporate objective. \u201cThere\u2019s got to be a hook,\u201d she told me. \u201cWhat do you offer that clients don\u2019t even know they need yet?\u201d<\/p>\n
If that sounds familiar, it should.<\/p>\n
Leaders often make the same mistake. Leaders anchor the vision in values or storytelling but frequently forget to articulate the strategic outcomes. Your job as a leader is not just to energize, it\u2019s to equip. Whether you\u2019re leading a function or running a department, your strategy should point to a hook: a defined, useful, and unexpected contribution.<\/p>\n
She put it plainly: \u201cIf a buyer can\u2019t repeat your pitch in one sentence to their boss, you won\u2019t get hired. The same goes for teams. If the CFO or COO doesn\u2019t know what you do, you don\u2019t get funded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Optional does not scale. Confusion is not clarity. Being obvious is a far better answer.<\/p>\n
From Coaching to Cohorts<\/p>\n
After a long run representing speakers, Haberstock began to demarcate her position and role. In 2020, she moved into coaching individual speakers. She wanted to help more voices get clear on their value, but, in the end, she found that one-on-one coaching wasn\u2019t scalable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got tired of telling one person at a time,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I created a cohort to teach many.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how Bookable Speakers was born: a community of speakers building their clarity together. No posturing or one-upping, just people gathering to do the hard work of refining their value with peers.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a subtle but powerful lesson for leaders: Individual coaching is noble, but community-based clarity might be a better option for you and your teams. Cohorts, cross-functional groups, and peer-led advisory councils are the modern architectures of scale. They take clarity from the individual to the collective.<\/p>\n
And Haberstock\u2019s style is far from soft. \u201cIf you’re not willing to sharpen your idea and take feedback, you’re not bookable,\u201d she said. In other words, don\u2019t build a community to feel good, but make one to get better.<\/p>\n
Partnerships<\/p>\n
A good speaker doesn\u2019t get booked once. These are the ones that build systems to make the next booking easier.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the logic behind Christa\u2019s emphasis on partnerships. Whether it\u2019s speaker bureaus, planners, or platforms, they all require one thing: packaging. \u201cIf a bureau partner can\u2019t pitch you in a sentence that makes sense to a buyer, you don\u2019t get booked,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n
Too often, we treat partnerships like passive channels. In leadership, it\u2019s no different. We build alliances across departments, but we often fail to equip those partners with the language, clarity, and outcomes necessary to effectively pitch our work up the chain. If they don\u2019t know how to explain your value, they won\u2019t bother trying.<\/p>\n
Purpose-Driven<\/p>\n
Christa Haberstock<\/p>\n
Christa Haberstock<\/p>\n
Haberstock is candid about her own \u201cpush vs pull\u201d driver. Many leaders share this tension: duty vs desire. But she\u2019s learned that when pull is aligned with obvious advantage\u2014and repackaged through purpose\u2014the grind becomes meaningful. Not just for her, but for the communities she builds.<\/p>\n
She told me, \u201cI always felt like I had to push to make things happen, but the moment I realized that my work was being pulled by a bigger purpose, everything changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaders need these skills, too.<\/p>\n
Motivational urgency works in the short term, but its long-term impact emerges when teams wake up excited to identify their advantage, share it, and use it to fuel their purpose. When push is turned into pull.<\/p>\n
External Alignment<\/p>\n
There\u2019s academic evidence that clarity and alignment impact buy-in and performance.<\/p>\n
A recent McKinsey Organizational Purpose survey<\/a> found that, in organizations where purpose is both activated and aligned with employees personally (\u201cthe sweet spot\u201d), employee intent to stay was 87%, compared to 41% in organizations lacking this alignment. Similarly, the share of engaged employees was much higher (77% vs. 20%), with additional positive impacts on organizational performance and societal good.<\/p>\n Furthermore, a Harvard Business Review article<\/a> found that companies with clear purpose and role alignment among teams have significantly higher employee engagement and team efficacy.<\/p>\n Positions backed by purpose, community, partnerships and internal clarity are hard to ignore.<\/p>\n That may explain why Haberstock\u2019s Become a Bookable Speaker reached #1 on Amazon and was named one of Forbes\u2019<\/a> \u201c5 Must-Read Books for Personal and Professional Growth.\u201d<\/p>\n The Leadership Lesson<\/p>\n Christa Haberstock\u2019s four pillars\u2014discover your advantage, build community, craft partnerships, and orient toward purpose\u2014are essential leadership principles. They match the four leadership strategies we know work: clarity, collaboration, leverage, and meaning-making.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t need to be on stage to lead like a bookable speaker. You need an \u201cobvious advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n If you start with clarity, build community that shares your advantage, design strategic partnerships that amplify it, and tie it all to purpose, you don\u2019t need performance metrics to prove impact. The results will follow the logic.<\/p>\n And you may find you\u2019re already bookable.<\/p>\n