Why Do Some Brilliant Speakers Stay Overlooked and Under booked?
This might have happened to you.
You walk off stage buzzing.
The keynote was electric - your timing was sharp, your stories hit home, and the audience leaned in the whole way through.
You know you nailed it.
But then comes the gut punch.
All that effort, all that brilliance - and somehow your phone is still not ringing. After you left the room, somehow, you were forgotten.
And in this business, forgettable means unbookable.
Because here’s the hard truth...
It’s not enough to be good.
You need to be clear.
The Hidden Cost of Brand Fog
Here’s the painful irony: it’s not your talent holding you back.
It’s the brand fog around you.
When people can’t clearly explain your value:
They don’t remember you.
If they don’t remember you, they don’t recommend you.
If they can’t recommend you, you don’t get booked.
Decision-makers rarely book alone. They have to sell you to a committee, a board, or an executive team.
If they can’t explain your value in one simple, specific sentence…? Well, you’re out of the running, no matter how skilled you are.
The Trap of Oversimplification
To help people remember you, you’ve been told a solution is to narrow your focus.
The idea is that if you pick one narrow lane, that brand fog will clear…
You might have been told to “pick a niche.” But for multi-talented speakers and MCs, that advice feels like wearing a straitjacket.
You’ve worked hard to develop a wide range of skills. You know you can help different kinds of people in different contexts.
Why would you throw most of that away?
Here’s the truth. Picking one rigid niche isn’t clarity.
It’s just oversimplification.
There’s an important distinction…
Simplifying isn’t the same as oversimplifying.
Oversimplification cuts off parts of your talent.
Simplifying is about clarity…
It’s about shaping your message so that, when you speak to a specific audience, they instantly know the value you bring.
That clarity is the real work - and it rests on two pillars.
Let’s get into those with some examples so this makes even more sense to you when applying it to your own personal brand.
From Oversimplification to Clarity
So, how do you do it?
How do you become the kind of speaker that decision-makers can remember and confidently recommend?
There are two pillars of clarity that will help you ger more referrals...
The first deals with how memorable you are.
As a speaker, you likely hear it all the time...
"People won't remember what you said, but they'll remember you you made them feel."
The question then becomes...
How do you get more spin off events and referrals when people don't really remember what you say?
The answer...
1. Simplicity
Most people overcomplicate or over-communicate their message.
They try to explain everything they do in one go.
The result? Their bio or tagline sounds like a word salad, and their introduction makes people’s eyes glaze over.
But when you take the time to refine your message down to its simplest form for the audience you're speaking to, everything changes.
Your value becomes easier to share.
Easier to remember.
Easier to spread.
For a speaker, that’s gold - because your message travels further when other people can repeat it.
So, let’s go from messy to memorable with an example:
Overcomplicated:
“I’m a keynote speaker, trainer, and author who helps healthcare leaders and teams improve resilience, reduce turnover, increase job satisfaction, boost collaboration, and build a culture of wellness through my multi-pronged model that includes neuroscience, mindfulness, storytelling, and interactive practices that can be scaled across departments.”
Oversimplified:
“I help people feel better.”
Just right (clear, simple, audience-specific):
“I help burned-out healthcare workers recover energy and purpose so they can thrive at work.”
Why this works:
- Audience named: healthcare workers.
- Problem identified: burnout.
- Outcome promised: recover energy and purpose.
- Repeatable: a hospital administrator could say this line to their board without losing meaning.
Clarity doesn’t come from cramming in everything you do - it comes from choosing the one message that matters most to the people in front of you.
*Pro Tip:
When you’re multi-talented and great at a lot of things, it’s not about picking one thing, it’s about the synergy and throughline of how these things work together to create unique value for your prospects.
When I’m working with my clients on identifying their Throughline of Awesome, we come up with a two to five phrase or term that gives you strategic clarity around how you help people and the impact you make as a personal brand.
Simplicity is 80% of the game.
The easier it is for me to Remember & Repeat : the easier it is for me to recommend.
Simplicity will help people recommend you...
Once you get recommended, there is something else that will help you get booked more...
2. Specificity
Simplicity is step one. Step two is specificity.
And specificity is the power move.
Because vague promises don’t sell.
Generic:
“I inspire audiences.”
Specific:
“I help burned-out healthcare workers rediscover their passion through my three-step resilience framework.
Even More Specific:
“In the past 12 months, 82% of the healthcare workers who completed my three-step resilience framework reported lower burnout scores and higher job satisfaction in follow-up surveys conducted by their employers."
Notice the difference?
Which one would they feel most confident pitching to their board?
- The generic statement is most forgettable.
- The specific framework-based statement is most memorable
- The measurable, verifiable statement is most credible.
Measurable specificity are the details decision-makers need to make and justify why they should hire you. And possibly why they should pay you more.
When your promise can be backed up by results that are observable and confirmable by others - whether that’s survey data, client metrics, or third-party validation - it shifts you from “motivational” to “trustworthy.”
At the end of the day, specificity removes fluff and replaces it with what sounds like a commitment from you.
It transforms your promise into something not just repeatable, and recommendable, but something believable.
*Pro Tip:
When you’re in your discovery meeting with prospects, determine how you are going to measure success as well as how you can track results.
This gives them clarity on what success looks like so they can see the value of your impact. It gives you the data you need to strengthen your specificity even more if the future.
People aren't likely to remember the specifics. That's why Simplicity is step 1 and 80% of the game.
But the 20% that gets you hired more and paid more is Specificity.
Start with simple clarity for referability and then add in specific clarity when and where you need more believability.
Both matter.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
The speaking world is more crowded than ever. Decision-makers are sifting through dozens - sometimes hundreds - of potential voices.
Charisma alone doesn’t cut it anymore.
What cuts through is clarity.
Because clarity makes you referable. And referral is a top driver of speaking opportunities.
Think of clarity as the multiplier of your talent.
Clarity doesn’t diminish your versatility. It amplifies it…
Because now people finally understand and remember what you can do.
The First Step Forward
So, where do you start?
Not by boxing yourself into one narrow niche...
Start by sharpening the way you communicate what you already do.
Ask yourself:
- How could I make my current answer about what I do simpler?
- How could I make it more specific for audiences?
That small shift could be the difference between being forgotten and being booked.
Your Challenge
Here’s your micro-experiment for today:
Take one line from your current bio or speaker pitch. Rewrite it so it’s both more simple and more specific.
Then review the “before and after.” Is it more memorable or more credible or both?
Even better, have someone else review the before and after” and tell you if it seems more memorable or more credible or both?
You’ll be surprised at how powerful this exercise is - and how quickly you start to see how this shift makes you more memorable. And how freeing that is.
Because at the end of the day...
clarity doesn’t limit you. It liberates you.
With you in the pursuit of Awesome,
Nathan & The ICON Guide Team,