PR Expert Joins 10-Woman Author Collective to Break the ‘Referral Loop’ Locking Women Off Conference Stages

Women now start nearly half of all new U.S. businesses. Yet research consistently shows they hold only about a third of keynote speaking slots at major conferences. The talent is there. The businesses are there. So, what’s missing?

For a lot of women entrepreneurs, the answer comes down to infrastructure, the behind-the-scenes systems that turn expertise into opportunity. That’s the gap a new book, released during Women’s History Month, was built to close.

“Speak Your Way to Sales: Expert Strategies to Turn Speaking into Sales, Clients, and Growth” (Eaton Press, 2026) united 10 women specialists to give speakers what most business books skip over: the strategy, credibility-building tools, and back-end systems that determine whether a great presentation leads anywhere.

Heather McElrath, founder of Sandbox Communications, contributed Chapter 5: “Stop Chasing Gigs, Start Attracting Them: The PR Playbook for Speakers.” Her focus is on a dynamic she often sees play out in the small business world: skilled, knowledgeable people who are largely invisible to the audiences and event organizers who would benefit from hearing them.

“Public relations is about becoming the obvious choice,” McElrath says. “The speaking industry rewards experts who are both skilled and visible. Most small business owners are working hard on one without realizing they need the other.”

Part of what makes the visibility gap so persistent is structural. Studies suggest that roughly 70% of speaking bookings still flow through existing referral networks, which means the same circles tend to keep booking the same people. Breaking into that loop requires more than a great pitch. It requires credibility that precedes you.

McElrath’s path to understanding gave her a perspective few share. She grew up in a small gold-mining town in California where she once rode a pony to school before eventually making her way through more than 40 moves across seven states. Along the way she landed in Manhattan’s global banking sector, and has worked across fintech, non-profits, government, and agriculture.

That breadth shaped how she thinks about communication. Different industries, different communities, different ways of building trust and underneath all of it, the same core challenge: how do you help people see the value you bring before you ever walk into the room?

Like others during Covid, McElrath stepped back and reimagined what her work could look like. She founded Sandbox Communications, a boutique marketing communications agency in Virginia, around a simple but meaningful idea: that professional life should have room for joy, curiosity, and experimentation — not just strategy and output.

“A sandbox is where you build, experiment, and solve problems without fear,” she says. “That’s the environment I try to create for my clients.”

The goal, she says, isn’t visibility for its own sake. It’s making sure the right people find you, and that when they do, everything is in place to turn that moment into something lasting.

Today, McElrath also teaches PR Essentials as an Adjunct Lecturer at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), where she works with students of all ages navigating a rapidly changing communications landscape.

“Speak Your Way to Sales” is available now on Amazon in ebook and paperback. More information at eatonpress.com/speak-your-way-to-sales.