The Approach · The Core Framework
VCT: Visible, Connected, Trusted
You don’t get booked by chance: you get booked by being Visible, Connected, Trusted.
VCT describes the three things that have to be true before a speaker gets booked on purpose: people and AI systems have to be able to find you, the relationships behind the booking have to be real, and once you’re in the room, what you say has to hold up.
Everything else here is a specific way of building one of those three.
The problem this solves
Most speaking businesses run on hope: hope for the next referral, hope someone remembers you from a conference three years ago, hope the algorithm decides today’s your day. Serendipity isn’t a strategy. VCT is what’s left when you stop waiting and start building the three things booking actually depends on.
Visible, Connected, Trusted: how they work together
Visible
Being found by the people and systems that decide who gets considered, before you’re ever in the room. That used to mean staying top of mind at the right events. Now it also means AI models recommending you when someone asks.
How this works: Known, Recommended, Chosen →
Example: more than one speaker with a genuine, ongoing volume of podcast appearances has been surprised to find none of it translated into AI visibility and new opportunities.
The activity was real, but it wasn’t structured in a way that added up to anything a system, or a person searching, could piece together. Being active isn’t the same as being visible.
Connected
Real relationships, not a contact list. The difference between someone who recognizes your name and someone who’d actually pick up the phone for you.
How this works: The Pyramid of Understanding
Example: Jonathan once walked into a training session where the person leading it on the other side was visibly cold: you could feel the disdain in the room.
Instead of pushing, he stayed curious, asked questions, stayed professional. By the end of the day, that same person was fully engaged.
The read: territorial distrust, not personal dislike, and it dissolved once she saw there was no threat.
That’s Connected in practice: a real read on a person, tested and adjusted in real time.
Trusted
Credibility that holds up under scrutiny, in the room and outside it, so what you say actually changes how someone acts.
Connected and Trusted are both built the same way: by understanding people, not just gathering information about them.
How this works: The Pyramid of Understanding
Example: Repeatedly going to a busy contact with small asks is, in Jonathan’s words, like being a yappy dog at someone’s feet: annoying, not endearing.
The alternative is positive deposits: a note about something they care about, no ask attached, made consistently over time.
Trust isn’t requested, it’s earned one deposit at a time. It’s built the same way a bank balance is: not that it’s about a transaction, but you always want to have “money in the bank” if you want to reach out to someone.
Give more than you take.
My approach, especially as it relates to Connected and Trusted, is built from numerous realms: sociology, psychology, cultural studies, criminal and national security, behavioural science, and more.
Building an understanding of someone can be complex, whether that’s a geopolitical leader, a CHRO you’re targeting as a prospective client, or someone in your personal life.
You don’t need years of intelligence-analyst training to use this.
My approach takes what you already know, and what you can find out, and turns it into something usable: before you build an approach to someone, make a decision about someone, or act on anything involving another person, you need a real understanding of who they are.
This is always done in proportion to the context: you don’t need someone’s life story for them to grab you lunch.
The Pyramid of Understanding is built to give you that. Whether you’re meeting someone for the first time or you’ve known them for twenty years, it gives you a way to prepare, read the room while you’re in it, and follow up afterward, the same before, during, and ongoing structure that builds real connection and trust.
Where do you stand with Visible, Connected, Trusted?
- Are you visible to the people and systems deciding who gets considered, or only to people who already know you?
- Are your relationships real, or just contacts?
- Are your real relationships actually booking you?
- Does what you say change how people act, or just how they feel for an hour?
- Do you have the right network today to move your speaking business forward?
Answering “no” to any of these is common, not fatal. It’s what the frameworks below this page are built to fix.
