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Offering your expertise as a guest speaker is an excellent way to introduce yourself, your company and your products or services to potential customers. You have immediate credibility and a captive, pre-qualified audience.

So how do you make the most of the opportunity and not shoot yourself in the foot?

First, be very conscious of the fact that it’s not a sales presentation. Go easy on the self-promotion. You’ve been asked to speak because you’re an expert. So talk about the ideas, insights and the marketplace. Give them information they can use. That doesn’t mean you can’t talk about yourself, but do it in the context of case studies or examples.

Don’t forget about the audience. Are they middle-level managers? Mostly retirees? Men who’ve served overseas? Kids? Also find out where you are in the program. Is it an all-day meeting, and you’re the 3:30 p.m. speaker? Or are you the first of the day? These tidbits of information should help you craft a presentation with the right information, tone and energy level.

Once you know whom you’re talking to and what you’re going to say, avoid gimmicks or A/V tricks. Sure, using PowerPoint to highlight some facts or enhance some visuals is nice. But just standing there reading the slides to them is not going to make anyone “ooh and ahh” about you and your expertise.

When you think about the presentations that you’ve really enjoyed and talked about afterward, you’ll realize they were engaging, personal and insightful. You didn’t feel that you were being preached to or given a hard sell. If you think in those terms, the business will come naturally. So will more speaking invitations.

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and blogs at www.drewsmarketingminute.com. He can be reached at Drew@MclellanMarketing.com. © 2008 Drew McLellan