2024
Pre-Conference Sessions
Do you want to go deeper at the Speak Up Conference? Sign-up to attend one pre-conference session. Sessions will take place in person on July 11th at 10:00 AM. You can go through the pre-recorded sessions at your own pace.
If you have a Plus or VIP ticket, one live pre-conference session is included.
In-Person Session Options
All live sessions cost $100 each. Attendees can only attend one session. If you have purchased a Plus or VIP ticket, one pre-conference session was included.
Click on a purple title to learn more about what each session will cover!
Sessions For Speakers
Create Your Speaker Sizzle Reel
$150
1-Hour Blocks with Mary R. Snyder
Feeling like your speaker video is as outdated as dial-up internet? Do you struggle when someone asks for your video because you know it’s not your best! Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!
Welcome to the “Create Your Speaker Sizzle Reel” This is where your old, dusty speaker reel gets a fabulous makeover. No more dull clips that don’t do justice to your sparkling personality and your game-changing offerings.
Sign up and get ready for your close-up with a 3-minute professionally recorded and edited video! Picture this: High-quality footage that captures your best angles, your signature style, and your current offerings in all their glory. And the best part? It’s easy! We are doing all the editing, the intro and outro music, you come with an amazing 3 minutes of content.
Before you show up to record, you’ll have the chance to send in your video for a critique. Think of it as a dress rehearsal before the grand performance. This way, we ensure that the final cut is as perfect as your storytelling skills!
Give your speaker video the glow-up it deserves. With our “Create Your Speaker Sizzle Reel,” you’re not just getting a video – you’re getting a ticket to increased visibility, engagement, and impact. Let’s turn up the heat on your speaker reel, one frame at a time!
Limited to only 22 slots.
Up Your Speaking
$100
3 hours with Karen Porter
Take your speaking to a new level in this 3-hour practical and interactive session. Improve your message so audiences will listen. Learn how to put your notes away. Discover new ways to grab the audience’s attention at the beginning and keep them with you till your grand finale as you close. Learn how to uncover humor and what to do on stage by learning the hacks to great body language, eye contact, voice control, and using media. Reach the audience in fresh new ways and help them find the transformation God offers. In this hands-on class, each person will make a spectacular handout and devise a personal contract. We’ll talk about how to get more gigs and build a team. If you want to upgrade and elevate your stage presence, this workshop is for you.
Sessions For Writers
Book Proposal Intensive Clinic
$100
3-hour session with Dave & Cindy Lambert
This session is limited to 25 registrants
Prerequisite:
Complete and bring with you a working proposal. Please download and use one of the following templates, or you may use a proposal model you’ve found on your own.
A winning book proposal is a tool that entices seven audiences to grasp a contagious vision for a book and then equips them to successfully play their parts in placing the book into the hands of its ideal readership.
In this three-hour intensive clinic, you will be introduced to the following:
- The business side of publishing decisions
- The real details behind the closed doors of editors and publishing boards
- The craftsmanship to write an enticing proposal that captures the interest of publishing professionals.
Structuring Your Nonfiction Book
$100
3 hours with Janet McHenry
This clinic will teach three different skill sets. First, you will learn how to structure five different nonfiction genres: Bible studies, devotionals, Christian living books, gift books, and memoirs. Writers hear the expression “Just write the book,” but when we understand the genre form, we not only know how to put a book together, but also save a whole lot of time in the editing process and meet the expectations of potential editors and agents. Second, you will learn how to build a chapter. We also hear the expression “Study the form.” This hands-on clinic will teach writers how to study a book’s form in a hands-on exercise using a real mentor book chapter so you can see how to weave anecdote, teaching points, scripture, exposition of scripture, examples, and more. Lastly, you will learn how to storyboard an entire book outline in a dynamic exercise using sticky notes and the help of a few friends.
Sessions For Ministry Development
Create Your Podcast Today
$100
3-hour session with Stephanie Rousselle
Attendees will leave with a LIVE podcast (if they come prepared), and/or with a 30-day schedule to get it all done.
Would you like to experience what it is like to actually manage a podcast? We invite you to become a podcaster for a day! Or, are you committed and now ready to tackle the technical side of actually publishing a podcast? We invite you to actually become a full-fledged podcaster today!
Come with your podcast concept and you will leave this workshop with a ready-to-publish podcast, registered on a hosting platform for free.
Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools to Enhance and Expand Your Business/Ministry
$100
3 hours with RACHEL WOJO
Have you noticed the significant upswing in AI writing and translating tools? How can you use them creatively and successfully? You’ll leave this session with the following:
- Understanding what AI is and how it affects you as a speaker, writer, or leader.
- Exposure to a variety of AI tools that will spark new, efficient work methods
- Hands-on experience with step-by-step instructions on implementing AI tools in your business or ministry
Create a Stellar Companion Product—Carol Tetzlaff (3 hours)
$100
3 hours with carol tetzlaff
Developing a product to give your reader added value as you reach your audience with the message of your book in print or the one you are currently writing. Companion products will assist in marketing your existing book or create a following to purchase a new release. Creative ways to develop a unique resource will be explored along with navigating the process so you walk away with content and a plan to get it into the hands of your reader.
- Determine your audience and what makes them unique.
- Develop objectives to bring value that corresponds to the message of your book.
- Devise a plan that fits your style:course, devotional, journal,online content, video content,creative elements, or a combination.
- Determine the writing styles needed to create the content within your plan.
- Discover the platforms to use to reach your audience with your content.
- Develop an outline to reach the objectives of your product including the basic content.
- Demonstrate companion product in small groups to receive feedback for further development.
- Develop branding for your product to coordinate with your book.
- Discover marketing techniques to promote your products.
Create with Canva : 10 Ideas – Shannon Popkin (3 hours)
$100
3 hours with shannon popkin
Come with your laptop ready and learn some of Shannon’s favorite tips and tricks for using Canva to shape your brand and create content. She’ll be sharing 10 ideas for using Canva to streamline your efforts, save time and money, spotlight your message in a way that honors both the Lord and your time budget.
Pre-Recorded Session Options
All pre-recorded sessions cost $50 each. Pre-recorded pre-conference sessions are NOT included in the basic, plus or VIP tickets and should be purchased separately. Attendees can purchase as many pre-recorded sessions as they want.
Click on a purple title to learn more about what each session will cover!
Book Proposal Intensive Clinic
$50
3 hour session | Presented By Dave & Cindy Lambert
We’ve all heard it said, “Write to your audience, not to yourself.” Good advice! Many authors, however, may know the audience of their book but have no understanding of the true audience of their book proposal.
In this three-hour intensive clinic, you will be introduced to the business side of publishing decisions, discover what really happens behind the closed doors of editors’ meetings and publishing boards, and learn how to craft an enticing proposal that captures the interest of editors and publishers.
Broken into four segments, this hands-on interactive clinic will begin with an in-depth presentation, then offer individual time to work on and refine specific proposal elements of your own, then break into small groups for fiction and nonfiction personal feedback and critique, and finally come together again for advice and guidance to launch you into the world of meeting with editors.
Marketing and Platform: Turning These Twin Dreads into Your Biggest Assets
$50
Presented By Cheri Cowell
They ask, “What is Your Platform?” and “What is Your Marketing Plan?” These two dreaded questions are part of the publishing reality. But how do you get a platform if you don’t have one, and what are you to do when the whole marketing thing overwhelms you?
In this class, you will learn to build on your strengths while tapping into a plan any writer can put into place. You will leave this class with a step-by-step course of action so you can confidently answer the twin questions with, “Yes, I have a platform and marketing plan; let me show you.”
Key concepts we’ll cover:
- Are you a speaker or someone with a message?
- Becoming the “expert”
- Getting the gigs
- The business side of writing- dollars and cents
- Marketing verses Promotion
- Getting more done with templates
- Social Media, Article Writing, Networking
- Begin before the book is written
- A blueprint for action
Increase Your Influence & Find Your Stage
$50
Presented By Jill Savage
Years ago, a speaker’s primary stage was one he or she actually stood on in front of an audience sitting in chairs. The internet and social media have completely changed that. There are dozens of stages you can “stand” on each and every day. In this 3-hour pre-conference session, you will:
- Expand your understanding of what a stage is
- Identify next steps to embrace each kind of stage
- Getting the gigs
- Discover different audiences who need your message and influence
- Learn the language of online marketing and educational platforms
- Getting more done with templates
- Be inspired to broaden your influence
- Strengthen your ability to deliver a power-packed message on any stage
Prepping & Polishing Your Pitch
$50
Presented By Katie Reid & Michelle Nietert
In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to prepare and design each element of your One Sheet. Authors, speakers, and marketers Katie M. Reid and Michelle Nietert will also help you find a unique angle and give you time to practice and polish your elevator pitch. As a result of this interactive session, you will have a professional-looking One Sheet and a game plan for standing out during your one-on-one appointments.