I am the process. Part 1

If you use guest speakers, keynote speakers, trainers and after dinner presenters,  have you ever found yourself thinking; 'Wouldn't it be nice if there was a quick way of sorting out; which speakers are good, which will give me the content I need, which are worth the value and which ones will bring that 'x' thing to the event and my audience?'

I know my creators used to think this every time they were on a hunt for a new speaker!

And then it's all the hassle of gathering the bios,  asking around, checking your networks, seeing them in action if you can, reviewing, trying to get hold of them if you want to go direct or pay over the top commissions to middlemen.  And even then it doesn't guarantee that the speaker won't fail to deliver simply because they were slick at getting onto the stage, but not once they are on it!

No wonder why so many of you decide building a little list of speakers you can trust because they are reliable, won't let you down and always deliver becomes the tool of the trade for the most experienced of organisers.   However, using the same speakers means the audience becomes tired of hearing repeats and over time, the event suffers and in some cases, the once trusted and praised Event Organiser is asked to 'move on' politely.

Then there's the problem of going online and researching speakers, only you start to see everyone seems to be a; 'best seller or the Number 1 in their field, or an international guru or global leader or THE leading expert....'  So where has the uniqueness gone because they can't all be right?

It's all starting to sound like one big cliche out there...

And when you do find a colleague who has a process of engaging with speakers like someone who works the peer to peer networks and they rave about a speaker being great for their groups, it doesn't always mean that speaker works for your peer to peer network group or for your conference audience or corporate meetings...

And that's before you consider if a 'professional' speaker is best, or someone with the right job title and background company would be better and even then, just because they say they are professional or they have the job title, do they know their stuff and can they deliver?

There needs to be a collective standard - a minimum level of professionalism either in the way the topic is presented or the level of the content and ideally both.

But what one bureau says is good is different to a speaker's being good to an event organiser's being good to an audiences.  So we need to work collaboratively and get smart!

Fraudsters, scammers, bad content and people who have big egos and should be in their local amateur dramatic societies are taking advantage because there is no collaboration.

Collaboration builds trust. Collaboration builds openness and accountability.  Collaboration builds a professional standard, and Collaboration builds a self regulating environment, which all starts with a single, simple way of doing things - a process. 

I am that process and that's why I was built - iwantaspeaker.com