You Don’t Need More Speaking Topics. You Need a Clearer Idea.

If you want more speaking referrals and bookings, you need more than a broad subject or a list of possible presentation topics. You need a clear idea: a specific, supportable point of view that another person can understand, remember, and repeat.

I’ve been reviewing my recent consultation calls, and the same challenge keeps coming up. The woman I’m talking with has years of experience. She has credentials, stories, lessons learned, and several subjects she could speak about.

When I ask what she wants to speak about, I hear leadership, resilience, communication, confidence, organizational change, or women in the workplace. Sometimes I hear several of these at once. Then she sighs and says, “I just don’t know how to bring everything together.”

I get it. When you’ve had a long career, you’ve done a lot of things. You don’t want to leave out an important part of your experience, and you may be afraid that narrowing your message will cause you to miss an opportunity.

But here’s the problem: if the person you’re talking with can’t explain what you speak about after your conversation is over, she can’t refer you. She may like you and think you’re impressive. But when a colleague later asks if she knows a speaker, what will she say?

“I met a smart woman who speaks about leadership, communication, resilience, and women in the workplace” could describe thousands of speakers.

Your speaking topic isn’t only a content decision. It’s a positioning decision. It affects whether people can refer you, whether you can write a strong speaker proposal, and whether an event organizer can picture you in front of a specific audience.

What Is the Difference Between a Subject, a Topic, and an Idea?

We often use the words subject, topic, and idea interchangeably, but they do different jobs in your speaking platform.

A subject is the broad area you know

Think of your subject as an umbrella. Leadership, healthcare, communication, organizational culture, change, and resilience are all subjects.

Your subject tells us the general territory where you have experience. It doesn’t yet tell us where your talk fits or what makes your perspective different.

A topic is a more defined part of the subject

A topic narrows the territory.

If your subject is leadership, your topic might be leading teams through change. If your subject is employee well-being, your topic might be preventing burnout among high performers.

That’s more useful than a broad subject, but it still mainly tells us what the presentation is about.

An idea makes a claim

An idea goes one step further. It tells us what you’ve come to believe about the topic because of what you’ve seen, studied, and experienced.

“How to prevent burnout among high-performing employees” is a topic.

A possible idea might be:

Burnout isn’t only a resilience problem. It can be a sign that high performers have been given responsibility without enough authority to change the conditions creating the overload.

This is an illustration, not a claim I’m making about every workplace. If burnout were your area of expertise, we would find language that reflects what you have actually observed and can support.

But you can hear the difference.

The topic tells us what the presentation is about. The idea tells us what the speaker believes.

A topic can hold useful information, tips, and best practices. An idea gives all of that content a throughline. It creates a narrative journey from what the audience currently sees to what you want them to understand and do differently.

Why Expertise and Credentials Aren’t Enough to Make You Memorable

Your experience and credentials matter. They’re the foundation of your work.

Your credentials tell an event organizer that you’re qualified. Your experience gives you stories, evidence, and examples. But neither one automatically gives you distinctive speaker positioning.

This is an uncomfortable distinction for many accomplished women. We’ve often been rewarded for knowing the answer, presenting all sides, being thoroughly prepared, and making sure our work is beyond reproach.

When our positioning isn’t clear, our instinct may be to add more proof: another credential, another service, or another topic to the list.

The audience probably doesn’t need one more reason to believe you’re smart. They need to know what you see that they haven’t been able to see yet.

Your credentials support your claim. They aren’t the claim itself.

Can Someone Refer You as a Speaker in One Clear Sentence?

Here’s a simple referral test.

Imagine you meet someone at a conference, on a Zoom call, or through a mutual connection. You have a good conversation and tell her about your speaking.

The next day, she talks with an event organizer who needs someone for an upcoming program. Can she explain what you speak about in one clear sentence?

She doesn’t need to repeat your entire bio or list every service you offer. She needs enough language for the organizer to think, “That sounds relevant. Tell me more about her.”

If all she can say is, “She speaks about leadership,” your positioning is too broad.

If she says, “She speaks about leadership, communication, resilience, and change,” the extra words haven’t made the referral easier. They’ve made her work harder to figure out where you fit.

A stronger referral might sound like this:

You should talk to her. She helps senior leaders see why burnout among high performers may be an authority problem, not only a resilience problem, and what organizations can change before those employees leave.

Now the organizer can begin to picture an audience. She can imagine a leadership conference, healthcare organization, association meeting, or internal program focused on retention and culture.

The sentence doesn’t have to explain everything you know. It needs to open the right door.

Broad positioning creates invisible lost opportunities

Most speaking referrals happen in conversations where you aren’t present. No one contacts you afterward to say, “I almost referred you, but I couldn’t remember how to describe what you do.”

The referral simply stalls.

Ask someone who knows your work:

If you were going to refer me as a speaker, what would you say?

Then listen without filling in the gaps for her. If she repeats a clear idea, that’s useful information. If she gives you a long list of keywords, that’s useful information too.

How Do You Find the Point of View Inside Your Experience?

If your current answer is too broad, the solution isn’t to choose a random niche because someone told you that you need one.

You’re looking for the tension, belief, or counterintuitive observation inside your experience.

This is what I listen for when I’m working with a client during a VIP Day. She may use familiar keywords such as leadership, culture, communication, and resilience. I’m listening to those, but I’m also paying attention to what she says almost in passing.

She might say:

Everyone assumes the communication broke down. But what actually happened was that no one knew who had the authority to make the decision.

That’s when I say, “Hold on. Say more about that.”

The sentence she almost skipped may be much more interesting than the polished topic she came prepared to discuss.

After working on hundreds of talks with hundreds of clients, I listen for what doesn’t sound like everyone else. Where does her energy change? What has she seen that causes her to question the usual explanation? What frustrates her because people keep trying to solve the wrong problem?

The signal may appear only once because she hasn’t realized how important it is yet. That’s the part I love about this work: hearing the signal, reflecting it back, and staying with it long enough to discover the idea.

Three questions to uncover your speaking idea

Ask yourself:

1. What have I seen repeatedly that other people may be missing?
2. What common advice in my field do I believe is incomplete, ineffective, or aimed at the wrong problem?
3. What change do I want an audience to make because they heard me speak?

These questions move you away from “What subjects should I cover?” and toward “What am I willing to be known for saying?”

How Does the I.D.E.A. Framework Strengthen a Signature Talk?

Once you have a possible idea, you need to test whether it’s strong enough to build a signature talk, thought leadership platform, and speaker positioning around.

That’s where my I.D.E.A. Framework comes in. I.D.E.A. stands for Interesting, Debatable and Defensible, Emotionally Resonant, and Actionable.

I developed this framework through our work with speakers and thought leaders because a strong idea has to do more than sound intelligent. It has to earn attention, express a real point of view, matter to an audience, and help create change.

I: Is the idea Interesting?

Does your idea make someone curious?

“Leadership is important” isn’t interesting because it’s too general and almost everyone agrees. Even “burnout is a problem” doesn’t tell us what you see differently.

When you say burnout among high performers may be connected to responsibility without authority, there’s an angle. The listener wants to know what you mean and whether that dynamic is happening in her organization.

Interesting doesn’t mean sensational. You don’t need a manufactured hot take. You need to be specific enough that the audience can see something new.

Ask yourself: What is the less obvious observation inside my topic? Where would the right listener say, “I’ve never thought about it that way”?

D: Is the idea Debatable and Defensible?

Could a thoughtful person disagree with your idea, and can you stand behind it?

If no one could disagree, you may have a topic, theme, or piece of general advice. You may not have a point of view yet.

Debatable doesn’t mean argumentative. You aren’t going on stage to fight with the audience. It means you’re willing to make a claim instead of hiding inside universally agreeable language.

The idea also has to be defensible. What supports it? Your professional experience, patterns you’ve observed with clients, research, data, or a personal story?

This is where your expertise and credentials provide the receipts behind the idea.

It may feel safer to say, “Here are five best practices for preventing burnout,” than to say, “I believe we’re diagnosing part of this problem incorrectly.”

But that second sentence is the one people can remember and repeat.

E: Is the idea Emotionally Resonant?

Does the audience recognize herself and the stakes in your idea?

You can make an interesting, well-supported claim and still leave the listener thinking, “Okay, but why does this matter to me?”

We want an audience to understand an idea intellectually and feel why it matters. The combination of head, heart, and body helps people recognize themselves and see that there may be a better way.

In the burnout example, emotional resonance could come from a personal story about being a high performer who was responsible for outcomes without having the authority to change the conditions creating the overload.

Sharing a personal story can feel uncomfortable in a corporate or professional setting. But the right story helps the audience see themselves in your experience and recognize that they aren’t alone.

That connection also makes you more memorable—and more likely to be referred and booked.

A: Is the idea Actionable?

What can the audience see, decide, ask, or do differently because they heard you?

Actionable does not mean putting 20 tips at the end of your presentation. A long to-do list usually doesn’t help the audience change.

Focus on one meaningful shift.

Maybe leaders examine where employees have accountability without decision-making authority. Maybe they stop treating every burnout conversation as an individual time-management problem. Maybe they ask a different question before adding another wellness benefit.

The action should grow directly from the idea.

The I.D.E.A. Framework works for your positioning as well as your content:

• If your message is Interesting, people lean in.
• If it’s Debatable and Defensible, they know what you stand for and why they should trust you.
• If it’s Emotionally Resonant, they recognize themselves and the stakes.
• If it’s Actionable, they can picture the outcome of bringing you into the room.

That makes it easier for someone to refer you, pitch you, and book you.

What Does an Event Organizer Need to Understand About Your Talk?

An event organizer isn’t only asking, “Is she knowledgeable?” That’s probably a given.

She’s trying to make a match between the speaker, the audience, and the need. She needs to understand:

• Who is this talk for?
• What problem is already present for that audience?
• What will the speaker help them see differently?
• What will the audience be able to do as a result?

If your pitch says you speak about leadership, communication, resilience, and transformation for organizations that want better results, the organizer has to do too much work.

Which audience? What kind of leadership challenge? Why this talk now? How is it different from the other leadership speakers in her inbox?

Compare that with:

I speak to senior leaders who are trying to retain high-performing employees. My talk shows them why burnout may be connected to responsibility without authority and helps them identify where their systems are creating overload that individual resilience training can’t fix.

Now the organizer can picture the audience. She understands the tension, hears the point of view, and has a sense of the outcome.

You still need credibility markers, a strong bio, relevant stories, and a clear talk description. Now those elements support a recognizable idea instead of sitting beside a broad topic.

A Practical Exercise to Clarify Your Speaker Positioning

Start by writing down the subjects, topics, and keywords you currently use to describe your speaking.

Then complete this sentence:

I speak to [specific audience] about why [the usual assumption is incomplete] and what they can [see or do differently] so that they can [achieve a meaningful outcome].

Don’t worry about making it clever. Use language you would actually say.

Next, run the sentence through the I.D.E.A. Framework:

• Is it interesting enough to create curiosity?
• Is it debatable and defensible?
• Will the intended audience feel why it matters?
• Does it change something they can see, decide, or do?

Finally, give the sentence to someone you trust. Don’t explain it for five minutes first. Let her read or hear it once, then ask what she would say if she were referring you to an event organizer.

Pay attention to what she remembers. The words she repeats may show you where the idea is already strong. The places where she becomes vague show you what still needs to be clarified.

You don’t need an exhaustive speaker-page list of every topic an organizer could possibly book you for. You need the idea that brings your experience together, gives the right audience a reason to care, and gives other people language they can use when you aren’t in the room.

Frequently Asked Questions

How specific should my speaking topic be?

Your topic should be specific enough that an event organizer can identify the intended audience, the problem the talk addresses, and the outcome. A strong idea goes further by stating what you believe about the topic and what the audience should see or do differently.

What is a thought leadership idea?

A thought leadership idea is a clear, supportable point of view developed through what you’ve seen, studied, and experienced. It makes a claim rather than merely naming a subject or offering general best practices.

How do I know whether my speaker positioning is too broad?

Ask someone who knows your work to describe you as a speaker in one sentence. If she gives you a list of subjects, searches your website for an answer, or can’t explain what makes your perspective different, your positioning probably needs more clarity.

Do I need to choose only one speaking topic?

You don’t have to discard the full range of your expertise. You do need a recognizable idea that brings your experience together and gives people a clear reason to refer you. Related topics can support that central positioning.

What makes a speaking idea defensible?

A defensible idea is supported by credible evidence such as your professional experience, recurring client patterns, research, data, or relevant personal experience. Your credentials strengthen the claim, but they don’t replace it.

How does a clear idea help me get booked as a speaker?

A clear idea helps an event organizer understand who your talk is for, why the topic matters now, how your perspective differs from other speakers, and what the audience will gain. It also gives other people simple language they can use to refer you.

Your Experience Makes You Credible. Your Idea Makes You Different.

At Speaking Your Brand, we don’t simply help you choose a topic, organize your slides, or fill in a speech formula.

We work with you one-on-one to uncover the idea you should be known for, identify the audiences that most need to hear it, shape it into a complete signature talk, and develop the positioning that makes you easier to refer and book.

If you have several topics, aren’t sure how to bring everything together, or have trouble explaining what you do, schedule a consultation call.

You can also learn more about Thought Leader Academy, our comprehensive program that includes a one-on-one VIP Day to uncover your thought leadership message and map your signature talk, along with small-group coaching to refine it and position you as a speaker who can get referred, booked, and paid.

For your ideas to travel, other people need to be able to understand them, remember them, and repeat them.

Listen to Episode 483: How an I.D.E.A., Not a Topic, Makes You Easier to Refer, Pitch, and Book