You’ve hired a motivational speaker for your event and it’s
a name everyone recognises. You chose
this speaker because they said they could impart invaluable knowledge and a
winning method to your audience.
You also chose this speaker because you didn’t have to try
and ‘sell’ them to your colleagues as they’d heard their name too.
You’ve done your background checks and they seem to have
been booked many times before without issues.
Come the big day and the company’s management team are in
the auditorium, all primed and ready to hear the famed speaker. Mics have been arranged around the room to
help create an ‘interactive’ feel to the session. The speaker is on for a period and then opens
the floor up to the room to ask questions about the information they’ve just presented.
You’re pleased as punch when one of the managers asks for the
mic. And then they ask a question: ‘We’ve paid you how much for this rubbish?’
Feeling a tad embarrassed, you politely grab the mic and go
to the next enthusiastically hand waving in the air. It’s one of the other managers from another
department; ‘And we’ve booked you to do this for 3 of our others areas too? Why?’
At this precise moment in time, you’ll probably find
yourself going through all the process of how you went about finding, selecting
and negotiating a speaker the moment you realise the audience has started to
heckle the speaker. You will now be trying
to work out what went wrong in the process and at what point you might have
missed something because you just know questions will be asked about who wasted
the company budget on this!
The sad truth is, you probably haven’t done anything
wrong. Even if you have a strong
process, you still have to rely on a speaker understanding their own strength
and level of content needed for the audience in front on them and then to say
openly if they can or cannot meet your audience requirements.
And because there isn’t a standard process for working with
speakers, you have no way to validate the level of audience and content they
gave for the previous engagements they’ve received testimonials for. In fact, each speaker, bureau and organiser
has their own way of working, their own process and their own standards – all
which increases the chances of someone getting through your process who shouldn’t
be getting through being able to be standing on your stage, disappointing your
audience and letting you down.
To avoid being put in this position, check:
- Have they presented to your level of audience before and if yes could they provide you with a Review
- Are they willing to have a conference call with key people of the audience beforehand to give a presentation outline
- If they are insisting on being paid upfront, will their Terms & Conditions refund 100% immediately should the audience deem them unsuitable.
- If it involves more than one area, would they be happy to treat each area as an independent booking.
- Would they be happy for you to publish a Review of their presentation on Social Media afterwards.
If a speaker is in any doubt about their own abilities and delivery, you will find they would prefer to find a method to steer you towards their process of working which is in their favour only. If they are confident in their own value of delivery they will be happy to work with you and your process and flexibly enough to accommodate your process.
iwantaspeaker.com is based on the same process as used by the professional bureaus to engage their speakers on behalf of their clients. This process is open to anyone who books and works with speakers, providing them a professional standard when working with speakers.
The iwantaspeaker.com process ensures the speakers will have the experience needed for the audience as it quickly highlights those that do not have the experience required or are unwilling to be Reviewed afterwards. Giving a perfect process for contracting and working together.
