Maintaining Contact

Some meeting professionals fear that if they book speakers through a bureau they will lose the interpersonal contact that is so crucial for assuring success. As the client, however, you largely get to dictate what kind of relationship you want with both the bureau and the speaker.

For example, if you insist that the speaker call you directly on all matters related to the presentation, that the speaker stay in touch with you during the time leading up to the presentation, and that there be a full exchange of participant materials prior to the actual meeting date, all of this can be stipulated to the bureau representative.

Working with Bureaus

Some of the advantages of working with a speakers bureau include the following:

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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

Top Bureaus, Great Results

As a professional speaker, I have had the privilege of working with many outstanding bureaus. Among the many traits that excellent bureaus have in common, these seem to show up often: they return phone calls properly, keep advised as to the status of held dates, gather comprehensive background materials from the client, collect fees as originally negotiated, and have a well-developed follow-up procedure in practice.

Think of using speakers bureaus in this way: You use a lot of professional services in your organization and your life, including attorneys, accountants, bankers, computer consultants, and tax advisors. The essence of any good professional is that the price you pay for his or her services is more than justified by the benefits. As it turns out, dealing with speakers bureaus works exactly the same way.

Relying on Bureaus

Why Would You Want to Use a Speaker Bureau?
* because the agents are dedicated professionals and among the tops in the field.
* because they work with only the best speakers who do a consistently outstanding job at every speaking engagement.
* when they've been in business for at least 10 years and know how to serve meeting
planners effectively.
* because they are efficient, responsible, flexible, and stay highly attuned to your needs.
* when their bureau representative will meet with you on site at your location.

Save Time & Money

Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE offers eight tips for corporate meeting planners to save time and money:

Tip #1. After every meeting and event, do an "after action analysis." Write down what went right, what went wrong, what you would do differently if you were planning the meeting today, and who the vendors were who made your life easier.

Tip #2. In hiring vendors, do not always go for the lowest price. Whoever you hire, it affects your image. Reliability and follow-through are more important than a lower bid. Everyone is downsizing and looking for new ways to cut costs, but a vendor at a lower price may not be the answer.

Tip #3. Learn to make other people heroes. Whether dealing with vendors or people in other departments of your own company, if the person works hard and well, write a note of thanks to them and send a copy to their boss.

Tip #4. Make sure your speaker knows the terms used in your associationi.e. these people use "clients" not "customers." Also, alert the speaker to particulars of his/her audience...for example, mention the women in the audience are members, not spouses. One professional speaker was not warned and spoke "down" to his audience, making them feel bad, and the meeting planner look bad.

Tip #5. If you do mailings before a meeting or convention, be sure to put the speaker on the mailing list. This way the speaker knows what else is going on at the meeting, what the various topics are, if the schedule has been revised, and if his/her speaking time has been changed and no one remembered to tell the speaker.

Tip #6. If you are expecting a speaker to arrive the night before an event, leave them a note asking them to let the meeting planner know they have actually arrived. If you know the speaker has in fact arrived, you will undoubtedly sleep better. Leave an emergency number where you can always be reached.

Tip #7. Don't save the best for the last. Often corporations take their top performers to a fancy resort for a meeting of several days. They have one important outside speaker and they want to send the employees back to work with a bang. You will get more value for your money if you schedule the speaker the first day instead of the last. At the end of the conference the employees may be tired, hungover, or worried about packing and making the plane.

Tip #8. Use E-mail. Get on-line with networks of meeting planners who can share their experiences. Find a group similar to yours and find out the names of the most successful speakers they have used and which vendors made their lives difficult or easy.

Call 800 634-3035 or email PFripp@Fripp.com to request other articles.

Speakers Bureaus: More Reasons

Some meeting organizers fear that a speakers bureau representative can't know enough about the industry, the audience, and the particulars to find the right person. Among the larger bureaus, however, many of the booking agents have developed specialties. Such agents can do an outstanding job of finding the right speaker based on your industry, your audience, and your particular needs.

In many cases, such agents have a better grasp of the situation than you do because they have encountered similar situations on many past occasions. Fortunately, it only takes a few minutes to ascertain if a booking agent has sufficient background to assist you in very precise ways.

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.

More Useful Websites

100 Ultra-Useful Websites For Bureaus, Part 2

partial list, continued:

Marketing

	Human Click -- give your Web site visitors Live Help when they need it the most
	Link Popularity -- a detailed listing of all sites linking to your URL
	Link Spy -- keep tab on all sites with which you have reciprocal exchanges
	Your Web Address -- insert your own address and see who's linking to you
	Egrabber -- build a database with a list of contacts and names

	Flip Browser -- site visitors can peruse a photo album of your featured speakers
	Spy On It -- complete the form and receive alerts when you're cited on the Web
	Expert Click --help generate publicity for your speakers and your bureau
	Prof Net -- submit press releases to key media with one email
	Phone Spelling -- enter your phone number to what words it spells

Corporate Profiles

	Annual Report Service -- a huge free directory of online annual reports
	Hoover's Online -- 1000's company profiles; find new customers, research markets
	Private Eye -- search real property records, credit ratings, and more
	Corp Tech -- a high-tech business directory
	Vault -- information corporations and hiring practices
	Tracer Lock -- scan thousands of articles daily to find what you're seeking
	Wall Street Journal -- Wall Street Journal's corporate database, updated daily

100 Websites For Bureaus

Here is a partial list of the 100 Ultra-Useful Websites:

Business

	CEO Express -- a spectacular all-in-one site for business owners
	All Business -- many services and features designed for business owners
	Tropica -- provide details on hundreds of mailing lists
	Insure.com -- quotes for every kind of business and domestic insurance
	Let's Talk -- offers comparative analysis of cell phone calling plans

	Package Tracking -- trace your express package with UPS, FedEx, Airborne, etc
	Dial Pad -- make phone calls from your PC to others' phones
	Phone Deal -- all things related to phones and phone services
	Do Not Call -- remove your number from telemarketing lists
	Report Fax Spam -- inform the FCC about unsolicited fax marketers
	Botspot -- bots for every type of automation need

Bureau's Pet Speakers

Some meeting professionals fear that speakers bureaus will only recommend "pet speakers" -- the ones that they always recommend. This may be true to a certain extent; however, if a bureau recommends the same handful of speakers over and over again, chances are that those speakers are good.

No bureau would risk its reputation on continually sending out a speaker who does not do a stellar job. Sure, in some cases bureaus owned by one spouse will continually recommend the speaker spouse. Ethical bureaus will be up front about this. In general, speakers bureaus and their respective agents do their homework to make sure they have identified whom they believe to be the right speaker for your situation.

These days, with everyone having websites, you could get on a search engine, type in the word speaker, and get hundreds of hits. While it is easy to identify many, many speakers, the task of weeding out who exactly represents the right match for your needs can be a daunting task. All the more reason to turn it over to a speakers bureau.