Record all Presentations

The advantages of recording all conference presentations can't be overlooked. Particularly if you use your own equipment, the cost is nearly negligible, while the benefits abound:

* You get to review what was said and maintain the recording in your archives.

* The recording may be sellable.

* A transcript of the recording may be sellable.

Such considerations need to be cleared with the speakers in advance. Many will be amenable, and will allow such recording based on negotiation, perhaps at no extra fee. Some simply ask that they get a copy. Obviously, any recordings containing presentations not worth retaining can simply be discarded. Sometimes, organizations witness fabulous presentations that represent landmarks for their members, but unfortunately, the presentations were not recorded

Good Speakers Eliminate Risk

“Consider the risks a buyer faces if the speaker he or she hires doesn’t fulfill the desired outcome,” says sales trainer Ron Karr. “I once received a call from a client looking to hire me. He talked about how he always holds his breath when the speaker takes the stage, because his neck is on the line. Now that is a risk.”

If a meeting costs a company $500,000 to produce, Karr notes, including travel, meeting location, food service, and so on, the meeting planner is under intense pressure to ensure the group has the best speaker(s) available to generate a proper return on investment.

The risks of the organization not achieving its overall objectives, such as a 10% increase in sales, or the attendees learning a set of skills or leaving with a renewed attitude, is considerable. So, what does a good speaker have to offer? Desirable outcomes -- return on investment.

Bargaining with Speakers

Are there instances when speakers can legitimately fit an organization's budget without altering their fees? "Absolutely" says negotiating specialist Jim Hennig, Ph.D. Speakers can legitimately charge different fees in different situations:

1. Multiple Engagements: two or more bookings deserve quantity discounts.

2. Dual Purpose Engagements: when the speaker accomplishes several thing at once speech.

3. A Shared Speaker: when an organization cannot afford a speaker, they include another organization to share the costs.

4. Product Sales: book, audio and other products:

5. Trades: Many speakers will trade for a needed product or service from host organization.

6. Different Fees for Special Groups: non-profit organizations, government agencies, etc

7. Time of Year Fees: lower fees for slow months, such as August or January.

Identifying the Right Speaker

Speakers bureaus have been an effective way of identifying and retaining the right speaker for your upcoming meeting since the time of Mark Twain. Yet, many meeting professionals have still not tapped into the power of using speakers bureaus to identify the right speaker with the right topic at the right price, thereby saving a ton of work.

One of the common myths that prevail today, which has kept some meeting organizers from employing speakers bureaus, is the pervasive belief that somehow it is more costly to retain a speaker through a bureau than by trying to contract with a speaker directly. In rare instances this may be true, but among ethical speakers and ethical bureaus, which represent 95% of each industry, the fee of retaining a speaker is the same whether you contract with that speaker directly or book the speaker through a reputable speakers bureau.

For example, if a speaker charges $8,500, that $8,500 is the same to you whether you pay the speaker directly or you pay the bureau. The bureau takes a percentage from the speaker, hence the speaker is paying the bureau’s fee, not you.

Why would a speaker ever want to be booked through a bureau when ostensibly he or she could consummate bookings directly? The short answer is that many speakers do not wish to engage in marketing; they do not have the time, energy, or resources and haven’t developed a long-term client base, as a good bureau has done. The fee that the speaker pays to a bureau to be booked with you is well worth it for the speaker. He or she gets to lower overhead and spend more time on presentation skills, subject matter development, and understanding of your industry and your audience members’ needs.

Speakers Bureaus offer Benefits

Five advantages of working with a speakers bureau for meeting planners include the following:

1) Should the situation arise in which you are not happy with the speaker's performance or any other aspect of your interaction with the speaker, you have a legitimate third party, the bureau, to handle your concerns. You are in a position of even greater leverage because it is in the bureau's best and long-term interest to ensure that you are happy.

2) The bureau's loyalty is to you--you are the customer--not the speaker they assign to meet your needs. Some speakers never quite understand that, but the bureaus have a very clear understanding of who signs the checks.

3) In the rare event that the original speaker cannot make the appointed date, the bureau can more easily get you the right back-up speaker than if you face this task by yourself, especially at the last minute.

4) Many bureaus require speakers to sign various pledges indicating, for example, that they will abide by certain travel expense limitations, not use offensive or off-color language, and so on. In this manner, working with the bureau affords many more protections than you might otherwise have when working with a speaker directly.

5) The bureau can also help enforce your policies regarding selling from the platform and engaging in other types of promotional behavior. A small percentage of speakers will flat out upset the tone of your meeting by using a portion of their time in front of your group to engage in aggressive marketing. The incidence of this happening when retaining speakers through a bureau is far less, and for the most part can be eliminated all together.

Don't Offer a False Front

Dr. Dean Ornish once said that the elaborate effort to support a false front is one of the most stressful things a person can do. In the context of speaking, that means be yourself: you'll have more energy and you'll connect better with the audience.

Addressing a Group's Anxiety

John Kenneth Galbraith once said, "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

In the context of speaking to a group, what can you do to address their major anxiety and give them a path, or hope, so as to raise the value and impact of your presentation?