Motivational Speakers Bureau Blogs:Speaking on Speaking by Steve Gardner

Speaker in the News|Who Has Time To Read?|Don't Be ApPauled|Speaking on Speaking

7/9/2008

Are you Hiring Multiple Professional Speakers?

When our clients are trying to hire motivational speakers, athletes or celebrities we often get some interesting requests. Once they have visited our website, they will routinely give us some suggestions for who they are interested in hiring. They find these names both on our site and on other sites on the Web. Once we identify their objectives for the event, how they define success and their budget range, etc, a very interesting thing frequently happens. The objectives and the speakers don't quite fit.

I'll use a recent example as a case in point.

A client is hiring several motivational speakers for their event. They gave us a list of people they had researched and when they were ready to go to contract, they asked us to put together the entire program for them. (We save them time by creating a very efficient approach to hiring several speakers and we provide risk insurance at no additional charge. If anyone backs out at the last minute, we will find a high quality replacement on very, very short notice.) Three of the speakers they wanted to hire did not fit their stated objectives or needs. In fact, they even wanted them to speak in a format they won't do. Our client was not aware of these issues. You may ask what the big deal is with that…they had already spent hours and several meetings discussing internally how they were going to put this program together without our input.

When hiring motivational speakers, it is critically important to make sure your bureau is involved in the process from the beginning. We will save you hours of work and streamline the process dramatically. And you'll wind up with a much better program as a result of it!

Posted at 3:49 PM by Steve Gardner | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/23/2008

Are we all in a trance?

Are we all in a trance?

Yesterday we had a very interesting guest at our office. Business, Performance Motivational Speaker Anthony Galie is one of our speakers and a "business hypnotist." We watched a very entertaining show with a couple of our employees being hypnotized and doing some entertaining, but not embarrassing things! When Anthony put me under, I was completely unable to pick up a little stress ball that weighed less than one pound because Anthony convinced me that it weighed 500 pounds. One of our employees was unable to say her name even though Anthony was offering her $400 in cash if she could just say her name. Another employee was thoroughly convinced her name was Bob and nothing could be done to dissuade her from this thought.

All of this was entertaining, but the real question was how does this apply to business? There is a powerful argument that most of us spend a fair amount of time in a "trance." Have you ever arrived somewhere in your car and not remembered how you got there? Most of us have experienced that at one time or another. It's because we were in a trance…thinking about something to the exclusion of everything else. We went on autopilot. That's largely the same as being hypnotized.

So here's the argument. If we are all "hypnotized" a bit throughout the day and falling into a habitual pattern of activity, why can't we hypnotize ourselves to implement more of the success principles we all know? Anthony was quite clear we can. When habits become so ingrained in our lives that we do them without thinking that is essentially a state of hypnosis. His argument is that the most successful people are, in fact, hypnotized into a pattern of successful behaviors.

So how do we hypnotize ourselves into greater success?

Here are 3 things Anthony recommends:

Write down your goals (a vast majority of people have never done this). Make them specific, measurable and always remember to make them big goals.
Record those goals on an MP3 or a CD and listen to them whenever you've got some driving time on a daily basis. You will literally program your mind to accomplish those goals.
Be extremely conscious of everything you listen to and watch. Everything you watch and listen to "programs" you to think about those things. (If TV and radio commercials didn't actually change our opinions, why would everyone use them???)

May you find yourself in a success-oriented trance!

Posted at 10:46 AM by Sarah Whitten | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/4/2008

Are you giving away your time to speakers bureaus?

A few years ago, my wife and I were in the habit of donating to a lot of those "good causes" that call you at home. We'd give $25 for this group and $50 for that group. Then we realized we weren't really helping anyone all that much. We'd rather focus all our giving with the 3 causes/organizations we believe in and are actively involved with. We decided we could do much more good by channeling those funds to a couple groups than to 15-20. So we made the change, and our lives have definitely benefited tremendously. We're more engaged with those groups we believe in than ever before. And we went on the 'Do Not Call' list on all the others.

Our phone doesn't ring nearly as much. And our time is not wasted as much. It's all good!

This got me to thinking about this question…are many of our clients doing the same thing with speakers bureaus?

Dabbling with many speakers bureaus causes the same problems. None of them really get to know you much and often wind up throwing a bunch of stuff on your plate without adding much value. You do a little bit of business with different people each year and then you have to start the process all over again the next year. You probably even get that same, boring, sales call from new people every year! Yikes!

So how do you get out of this mess?

If you're already working with several speakers bureaus, take an honest assessment of who is consistently delivering value and giving good ideas. Then think about who is just costing you valuable time from your day. Who do you really enjoy working with? When the phone rings, who are you happy to talk to? Focus on the 2-3 you like and let the others know you're not working with them anymore.
The next speakers bureau who calls just let them know you're already working with a couple key speakers bureaus and are not open to new business relationships right now.
The next professional keynote speaker who calls, let them know the speakers bureaus you are working with and give them the number.

Your life will be much less complicated. The process will be much more effective and efficient. And you'll get better results at your events with far greater impact. Not a bad trade-off!

Posted at 12:27 AM by Steve Gardner | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/21/2008

Do you have objectives...or just a budget?

Do you have objectives...or just a budget?

In the 17 years I've been in this industry, there is one specific thing I have seen happen with my clients over and over and over. And it happens to be one of the biggest mistakes made by our clients. When planning an event, is the decision to hire a speaker based on having a particular budget...or is it based on having a well-defined and clear focus of what you want the speaker to accomplish?

Too often, our clients fall in the former category. Don't get me wrong. Having a budget is certainly an important element, but it's not the leading or even the primary element. The more our clients are able to truly understand the answers to some of the following questions, the better the fit will be.

When the program ends, what happens next? Do you have a plan to implement behavior change after the excitement of the initial speech fades away?
Is there a need to have anything happen after the program is over?
How will you measure the results of the program?
What do the attendees need (not want), when the session is over?
If implementing a new initiative, in what ways has the leadership team bought in, and will there be measurement to the follow-up? Without significant leadership buy-in, any initiative is doomed from the outset.
What kinds of speakers have you used in the past who were very effective with your group? Any who weren't effective?

When booking a speaker, organizations need to primarily stay focused on the desired end result after everyone goes back to the office. The best of intentions frequently get lost amidst the busy-ness of life. The best way to be sure the return on the investment of the event is high is to make sure you're measuring and reinforcing the program on the ground.

Posted at 11:55 PM by Paul Schmidt | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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7/9/2008

5/23/2008

5/4/2008

2/21/2008