Speakers are looking for support pros. Be the one they find.
Charli Jane Backstage is where speakers, authors, and coaches come to find the people who handle everything off the stage. Get listed on a domain speakers have been searching for almost 25 years.
- Twenty seven dollars a month to be listed.
- You stay independent. Your clients, your contracts, your rates. All yours.
- Open to any professional who supports speakers, authors, or coaches.
Who belongs here
Backstage is for everyone who works behind a speaker
Virtual assistants were the first category and they are still the largest, but every category below is open, and so is one that is not on this list yet. The directory is built for the whole crew behind a speaker.
Do not see your work on this list? Apply anyway. If you support speakers, authors, or coaches, we will add the category for you. Several of the categories above got here exactly that way.
The gap
A name on a list is not a way to get hired
You have probably listed yourself somewhere before. Your name, a category, a link, and then nothing. A listing like that cannot show how you work, what you are actually good at, or why a speaker should pick you over the next name down the page. And it gives a search tool almost nothing to go on.
One line, no substance
A category tag and a link cannot explain how you run a launch week, or what you refuse to let slip.
Locked inside a graphic
Beautiful one sheets and PDFs read well to a human and read as nothing at all to software.
Written for the wrong reader
Most listings are written to fill in a form field, not to answer the question a speaker is actually asking in the four minutes she is deciding.
Stale by spring
Your services change, your availability changes, and the listing keeps saying what was true a year ago.
The Charli Jane approach
AI reads the substance.
Humans experience the wow.
Substance What software can read
Your profile is written as real, plain, structured information in the page itself. Services, tools, availability, who you work with, how you charge, where you are, how to reach you. No screenshots, no text trapped in an image.
- Clear headings and labeled details
- Specific service names, not vague promises
- Public and crawlable, no login wall
- Kept current so it stays accurate
Wow What a person feels
The same information, arranged as something a speaker can move through. They see how you think, what working with you looks like week to week, and what happens after they reach out. That is the part that turns a maybe into a message.
- A profile that moves, not a static block
- Your process shown step by step
- Plain answers to the questions they always ask
- One obvious way to start a conversation
Straight talk. Clear, complete, specific, public information is what makes you findable. Nobody can promise that any search tool or AI assistant will recommend a particular person, and we do not claim that here. What we control is whether your information is worth reading. That part we take seriously.
The Profile Experience
One profile. Two very different readers.
Here is the same professional shown both ways. On the left is what software sees when it reads the page. On the right is what a speaker sees when she lands on it. This is a real listing, not a mockup, and you can open the whole thing at the bottom of this section.
Read by software plain text
- Name
- Gladys Guardiano
- Role
- Virtual assistant, CRM and automation for coaches, consultants and speakers
- Services
- Business systems and automation, funnels and GoHighLevel, executive and administrative support, marketing and content support, lead generation and research
- Tools
- GoHighLevel, ChatGPT, Claude, Notion, ClickUp, Trello, Google Workspace, Canva, ManyChat, Xero, WordPress
- Works with
- Speakers, coaches, consultants, authors, course creators, membership owners
- Experience
- 9 years
- Availability
- Accepting 1 to 2 new clients
- Location
- Philippines, GMT+8, supports US and Australian hours
- Contact
- Contact button on the profile page
- Updated
- Kept current by Charli Jane Backstage
Experienced by a person same profile
Live listing, not a mockup
Gladys Guardiano
The person who looks at your mess and asks, can we automate this?
Nine years of taking the backend off the plates of coaches, consultants and speakers. CRM, GoHighLevel, onboarding, funnels, follow up. Not just the tasks. The system underneath them.
What working together looks like
- She learns the process before she changes it.
- The loudest repetitive job comes off your plate first.
- The system gets built underneath it so it stops coming back.
Both views come from the same profile. That is the whole point. You write it once, and it works for the speaker skimming on her phone and for the software trying to understand what you actually do.
Why this matters. A speaker deciding in four minutes and an AI tool answering the question who helps speakers with event logistics are reading the exact same page. The speaker needs to feel something. The software needs plain, specific, labeled information it can actually parse. Building for both is what helps you become AI discoverable instead of merely listed, and it is the part almost nobody bothers to do.
What a listing includes
What you get as a Backstage Speaker Support Professional
Six things, and the first one is the reason the rest work. Two of them get bigger on the Spotlight tier.
Your own full Speaker Support profile page
Not a row in a table. A real page of your own on CharliJane.com, a domain speakers have been searching for almost 25 years, built to be read by a person and understood by software. Here is what goes on it.
Exposure to a network of over 35,000
Charli Jane Speakers has been working in the speaking industry for almost 25 years. Being listed puts you in front of a network of over 35,000 speakers, coaches, authors, entrepreneurs, and service providers, counting the Facebook community, the email list, the Club, and the wider social and podcast audience. These are people who already trust where the recommendation is coming from.
Promotion inside the Facebook community
Every listing is promoted inside the Charli Jane Facebook community of 20,600 speakers four times a month. That is a room full of exactly the people you want to work with, and you are being introduced rather than pitching cold. Spotlight listings promote three times a week instead, can use those slots for a service, a sale, a freebie, or building an email list, and get a named Spotlight in a Charli Jane email once a month.
The private Backstage group
Both tiers get into the private group for listed professionals. It is where the people doing this work compare notes, ask the awkward questions, and find out what is actually working right now.
Built to be read by AI, not just by people
More and more, a speaker looking for help does not open a search page at all. She asks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Google's AI answers. Those tools can only work from information they can actually read: plain, labeled, specific text on a public page. Your profile is built that way on purpose, and the page is marked up underneath so software can tell what you do, who you serve, and where you are.
That helps your chances of turning up when someone asks one of these tools for a person like you. It does not guarantee it, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing. What it does mean is that your information is not the reason you get skipped.
virtual assistant for professional speakers VA who helps romance authors with launchesA direct line to potential clients
When a speaker, author, or coach finds a profile she likes, she contacts that professional directly with a Contact button on the page. Charli Jane does not sit in the middle, does not assign work, and takes no percentage of what you earn.
Who this is for
Read this part before you apply
Backstage is small on purpose. The review is quick, but it is real, and it works best when the fit is clear on both sides.
This fits you if
- You already support speakers, authors, or coaches, or you are set up to.
- You run your own business and handle your own contracts and invoices.
- You can describe your services specifically, not just as general support.
- You are able to take on at least one new client.
- You will keep your profile current when things change.
This is not the right fit if
- You are looking for a job or a placement agency.
- You want guaranteed clients or guaranteed visibility.
- You are not currently able to take on work.
- You would rather not have your services and rates listed publicly.
- You want someone else to manage your client relationships for you.
The process
You already know the price. Here is the rest.
No sales call, no application fee, no surprise pricing at the end. One form, a quick review, then your page gets built.
You fill out one form
Applying is free. Tell us what you do, who you support, the services you offer, the tools you use, and what you are open to taking on. It takes a few minutes.
A person reviews it
We check that you are a real, working professional and that your details are clear enough to publish. This is a quick check, not a gauntlet.
You hear back either way
If it is a fit, you get an approval and a payment link. If it is not, you get a straight answer and you have not paid anything.
You pay and we build your page
Payment comes after approval. Your Profile Experience gets built from what you already sent, and you review it before it goes live.
You go live and stay current
Your profile publishes in the directory and your features in the Facebook community begin. When your availability or services change, you send the update.
Pricing
Two tiers, two ways to pay
The price is on this page on purpose. You should know what a listing costs before you spend five minutes on a form, and we should not spend our time on people the price does not suit. Pay for the year on either tier and you get a month free.
Monthly
Backstage Listing
$27 per month- Full Speaker Support profile page
- Directory listing in your category
- Promoted to the Facebook community four times a month
- The private Backstage group
- Contact button on your page, no commission taken
Monthly
Backstage Spotlight
$47 per monthEverything in the listing tier, plus
- A named Spotlight in a Charli Jane email once a month
- Promote three times a week instead of four times a month
- Use those slots for a service, a sale, a freebie, or list building
- Access to the learning portal: tools and resources for running your business and working better with your own clients
Annual
Backstage Listing
$297 per year- Everything in the monthly listing tier
- Paid once for the year
- One month free compared with paying monthly
Annual
Backstage Spotlight
$517 per yearEverything in the listing tier, plus
- A named Spotlight in a Charli Jane email once a month
- Promote three times a week instead of four times a month
- Use those slots for a service, a sale, a freebie, or list building
- Access to the learning portal
- One month free compared with paying monthly
Both prices are shown here so you can compare them without clicking anything. Nothing is charged on this page. Payment happens on a separate secure page after your application is approved.
What it costs you
Put the price in your own hours
Move the slider to your hourly rate. This is what a listing costs measured in your working time, nothing more.
A year of being listed costs about 7.5 hours of your work. Paying monthly is about 41 minutes a month.
This is arithmetic on the listing price and your rate. It is not a projection of what you will earn.
Being straight with you. A listing is advertising. Nobody can guarantee who will see it or who will reach out, the same way nobody guarantees the result of a Facebook ad, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we can tell you is exactly where your ad is placed: in front of a network of over 35,000, inside a Facebook community of 20,600 speakers, on a domain speakers have been searching for almost 25 years, and written so that both people and search tools can understand what you do. Where it sits and how well it reads is the part we control. That part we take seriously.
Who is behind this
I have been on the booking side since 2002
I am Wendi McNeill, founder of Charli Jane Speakers. For almost 25 years my work has been about one thing: helping speakers get in front of the people who hire them. Leads, opportunities, and the unglamorous work of staying findable.
Along the way I kept hearing the same thing from the speakers I work with. They needed help. Not advice, help. Someone to take the calendar, the inbox, the travel, the bookings, the follow up, the social media, the presentations, the design work. And they had no good place to look.
Backstage is that place. It is built the way I wish every directory was built, with real information a person can read and software can understand.
Wendi McNeill, Nebraska
Who you will be working with
Charli runs Backstage
Charli Cotner manages Charli Jane Backstage day to day. She is the one who reads your application, answers your questions, and gets your profile built and published.
She is also a five times published author, so she has been on the other side of this. She knows what it looks like when the work piles up and the person handling it makes the difference.
How Backstage fits
Two sides of the same brand
Charli Jane Speakers works with speakers. Charli Jane Backstage lists the professionals who work with speakers. They sit beside each other, and they stay separate on purpose.
Free for the people searching
Speakers, authors, and coaches browse Backstage at no cost. Speaker support professionals pay for their listing.
You are not an employee
Charli Jane does not employ, assign, manage, or pay listed professionals. You are an independent business.
The work stays between you
Contracts, rates, scheduling, and payment are handled directly between you and your client.
Built on a Facebook community of speakers and almost 25 years in the industry.
Questions
The things people ask before applying
Why is there a review if it is only twenty seven dollars?
Because the value of this directory to a speaker is that everyone on it is real and current. The review is short. We are checking that you are a working professional and that your details are clear enough to publish, not putting you through an interview process.
Do I have to pay to apply?
No. Applying is free and the price is published on this page. Payment only happens after your application is approved, and it happens on a separate page.
What is the difference between the two tiers?
Both tiers get the full profile page, the directory listing, the private Backstage group, and a contact button with no commission taken. The listing tier is promoted to the Facebook community four times a month. The Spotlight tier promotes three times a week, can use those slots for a service, a sale, a freebie, or list building, gets a named Spotlight in a Charli Jane email once a month, and gets access to the learning portal.
How long does the review take?
The goal is a few business days. If something in your application is unclear, we will ask you before deciding.
Will this get me clients?
No listing can promise that, including this one. What a listing does is make your work visible and understandable to people who are already looking. Whether a conversation turns into work is between you and them.
Does Charli Jane take a cut of what I earn?
No. You pay for your listing and that is the whole arrangement. Client payments go directly to you and Charli Jane takes no percentage.
Am I working for Charli Jane?
No. Listed professionals are independent business owners. Charli Jane does not employ, assign, manage, or pay them, and does not handle their contracts or client relationships.
What goes on my profile page?
Your name and photo, bio, services, specialty, the industries you support, your experience with speakers, authors, and coaches, the software you use, testimonials, website, social media, contact information, pricing or starting rates, and availability.
Who can apply right now?
Any professional who supports speakers, authors, or coaches. Virtual assistants are the category we opened with, and they are the largest one. If your work is something else, a presentation coach for example, apply anyway and we will add your category.
Can I cancel?
Yes. When you cancel, your listing and profile page come down at the end of the period you have paid for.
How do I update my profile?
Send us the change and we update it. Keeping availability and services current is part of what makes the listing worth having.
Backstage listings
The speakers are already looking. Give them something worth reading.
Twenty seven dollars a month, one short form, and a real person reads it. You will hear back either way.
Applications are reviewed by a person. Approval is required before payment and before publication.