CHAPTER 6
LEAN AND MEAN
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YOU DON’T NEED A STAFF, UNLESS IT’S A STICK TO WALK THROUGH THE WOODS
HERE’S A verbatim conversation I had with a colleague at a speakers’ convention:
Me: How are you? You don’t look good.
Him: Not so good. I made 200 speeches over the past 12 months.
Me: Isn’t that good, cause for rejoicing?
Him: No; I was never home, and I lost my shirt.
You see, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep, and minimizing the time it takes to keep it.
WEALTH IS DISCRETIONARY TIME
One of my greatest discoveries is that wealth is about doing what you want when you want to. Wealth is discretionary time.
Time is not a resource issue, although many people think it is. We all receive a new 24 hours every day, rich or poor, young or old, sincere or passive-aggressive. We utilize it based on our priorities. Time is about assigning the correct amounts of time to the correct priorities.
Running your speaking practice is about being lean and mean. Despite the somewhat mercenary title of this book, money is merely fuel for your life. If you work so hard and so long that you maximize your income no matter what, you may ironically be getting more money while you’re actually eroding your wealth.
I can always make another dollar, but I can’t make another minute.
How Do You Leverage Your Time?
Ever since the publication of Million Dollar Consulting in 1992, people have asked me if it’s really true that I don’t have a staff. After all, we hear advice for brand-new speakers about getting administrative help; we’re told that we can’t possibly market ourselves successfully without someone taking on that accountability; and there’s no way, it would seem, to fulfill product orders without dedicated bodies. And then there’s all that follow-up . . . and it does get kind of lonely. . . .
So, if even modestly successful speakers need that kind of support, a seven-figure practice must require it, right? Au contraire.
Thank the fates that I didn’t hear all that advice before I happily discovered that I’d much prefer to keep what I make. Ever since my wife first questioned—25 years ago—why I was considering renting an office for my nascent consulting/speaking practice, the two of us have rigorously resisted putting anyone else on the payroll other than the chairman, president, and CEO (all of whom happen to be me) and the vice president and treasurer (my wife).
I have this old-fashioned idea about not taking the risks inherent in running one’s own business unless commensurate rewards are possible. Consequently, I want to keep what I make, and I’ve managed to keep between 88 and 90 percent every single year. I don’t support other people on my payroll, and that’s a large part of the financial success that places me in a tiny fraction of the general population.
How is it done? Here are my major tenets.
Alan’s Lean and Mean Speaking Practice
1. Outsource absolutely everything possible. I actually have a huge “virtual staff,” in that I hire people on a situational basis to do my books, fulfill orders, respond to messages, produce correspondence, and so on. The key point here is that all of them are paid for performance. They are compensated only for specific jobs of finite duration. I make certain that I am not their sole customer, so that there is no confusion about their being employees, and there are no benefits or fringes required. Thus, I can afford to pay very well, receive the best help available, and still save money over full-time resources.
2. Do nothing other than what you must. Most speakers and consultants I’ve observed perform too many minor tasks that have nothing to do with the client’s need or well-being. (Ironically, this includes many of those who are “organization and time-management experts”!) I make it clear that the client is responsible for a great deal of the administrative and logistical work. I make liberal use of voice mail, fax, and e-mail, which are all quick and simple. And I never perform any task just because someone tells me that “every good professional does it.” I must see a demonstrable return for the client and for me. (For example, I’ve even stopped using the sacrosanct and overemphasized prespeech questionnaire, substituting the discussions that I normally have with the client for the cumbersome paperwork and follow-up.)
3. Use leveraged techniques. For instance (hold on to your seats), I don’t follow up on every lead I get. I send out a press kit with a toll-free response number and add the name to my mailing lists. I’ve found that either people hire me (or at least respond) based upon our initial contact, or they don’t. Follow-up virtually never changes the dynamic, so I’ve stopped doing it (although I make certain that I’m very user-friendly to contact). In addition, I invest in sources that get me all kinds of media attention because I want buyers to come to me, not vice versa. This does not cost more in the long run because my time is highly valuable—too valuable to spend chasing prospects. Yeah, I know: blasphemy. But I’ve been a heretic all the way to the bank.
4. Exploit technological and nontechnological shortcuts and advantages. I can touch-type 60 words a minute. I know the language sufficiently to write a letter or report one time—I never create drafts (this chapter went from my head to the keyboard to the editor). My phone automatically dials clients. My computers can do anything but cook me a meal. I carry a phone in my briefcase. I belong to every air club in existence. If you want to reach next door, don’t go around the block.
I’d never advise you not to have a staff. There are plenty of people who are highly successful explicitly because of hardworking, loyal, full-time staffers, and we’ll examine those options momentarily. I’m simply suggesting that lean, mean, and green (money) can work quite well also, irrespective of the size of your practice. Give it some thought the next time you have a hiring itch. Don’t set “automatic pilot” for the staff destination. Give it some thought because the money you spend on staff must be returned several times over through increased business, or it’s money that you’ll never see again.
If you already have a staff, think again about its size and even its necessity. I received a panicked e-mail recently from a colleague whose staff accountant had embezzled funds; neglected to pay bills, resulting in credit problems; and failed to follow up on critical leads. His speaking topic is “hiring and retaining good people.” I am not making this up.
If you’re lonely, get a dog. By the way, you can probably write off part of its expenses as a component of the security system.
In my estimation, less than 15 percent of successful speakers (that is, those who support their desired lifestyle through speaking and related activities) use full-time, paid staffs. So let’s eliminate spouses and significant others, and let’s place in abeyance for the moment those who are paid solely for performance, such as a marketer who earns a commission only on speeches sold for you. (A little later in the chapter, we’ll discuss contract players, who are people hired on a project or situational basis, and whom I don’t consider staff.)
ALAN’S FIVE ESSENTIAL AND LEGITIMATE STAFF CHARACTERISTICS
All right, let’s assume that you need a staff because of the volume of your existing business or because of your understanding of your own marketing limitations or because all the kids on the block have one and you want one, too. Here are some criteria for staff acquisition.
Marketing Skills
At a minimum, the individual should be able to handle passive marketing, which generally consists of calls made to the office while you’re not there. There’s a huge difference between saying, “Mr. Weiss will get back to you” and saying, “What dates do you have in mind? What type of audience? It just so happens that Mr. Weiss is available on that date and has worked with those audiences as recently as last month. Would you like me to place a ‘hold’ on that date, and send you specific information and a sample contract?”
Ideally, the individual should have assertive marketing skills and should be able to find prospects, respond to leads, initiate cold calls, and determine which contacts can be closed without your help, which can be closed with your help, and which should be abandoned (or merely placed on a mailing list). The individual should be able to identify and establish communication with the real buyer. Call these telemarketing skills.
Administrative Skills
The individual should be able to use standard office technology, including the creation of computer data banks; have keyboard skills and a professional phone manner; and handle the assembly of mailings, fulfilling of literature requests, product fulfillment, spreadsheet work, and travel scheduling. Routinely, I reach speakers’ offices where the voice-mail recording is more professional and polite than the live administrative help at other offices. If someone’s going to answer your phone, he or she should be nothing less than charming.
If you have a staff, “shop” your own office, or have a colleague do it for you. Test to see how rapidly literature is mailed, how quickly leads are followed up and relayed, how a complaint is handled, and what general level of intelligence is conveyed about your practice. I told one highly polished speaker that his administrative assistant didn’t have a clue about his speaking topics or background. He was aghast, but he had never educated her or tested her on the topics.
Judgment
This person is representing you to the world, and the world will have much tougher expectations and standards than if they were leaving a message with automated equipment. People are funny that way. Consequently, your office help must return calls received in their absence promptly—within three hours at the outside.1 Complaints have to be assessed as valid (“You promised a press kit last week, and we haven’t received it.”) or invalid (“Why won’t you send us a free copy of Mr. Weiss’s materials so that we can evaluate them?”).
Your staff members should be able to schedule your time and travel in full conformance with your preferences, but without your active participation. They should be able to interact with colleagues, vendors, prospects, and clients professionally, articulately (after all, you do run a speaking business), and consistently with regard to your philosophy and manner. I fall down in amazement every time I meet a speaker’s staff member who can’t communicate well.
Innovative Ability
One of the primary reasons to have assistance in this lone-wolf profession is to get feedback and to challenge “the way we’ve always done it.” Your staffer(s) should continually be able to recommend new, more efficient, and more productive methods to get results, ranging from mailings and new products to new speech topics and promotional literature. A staff person should know your business intimately, perhaps even better than you do, since he or she is watching it every day from a wide range of perspectives while you’re preparing for the next speech and a new audience.
So the staff person should be someone whom you respect and trust, and to whom you’ll listen when new ideas are explored. If you find that new suggestions aren’t regularly forthcoming or that you don’t choose to engage in business discussions with the “administrative help,” then you have the wrong resource. One of the results you’re investing in a staff commitment is innovation and new ways to grow your practice.
Leverage
The investment in staff must result in leveraged growth on the profit line. If you’re spending $45,000 a year on staff, enhanced revenues of $45,000 are woefully insufficient, and enhanced profit of $45,000 is breakeven. My advice is that your total outlay for staff resources ought to be returned three times over in profit or the investment isn’t worth it. That’s because, in addition to the tangible and measurable outlays, there are the intangible and immeasurable outlays of your time, attention, focus, and energy. Those of you who have managed people know exactly whereof I speak. Even with one person on board, there will be personal issues, training and education time, debate, confusion, and meetings. Multiply that accordingly by the size of the staff.
Hence, staff has to leverage your profit potential in any combination of these types of interventions:
• Acquisition of sales through aggressive cold calling and marketing
• Acquisition of sales through more rapid and effective lead follow-up
• Higher volume of mailings, client contacts, and responses
• Increased speaker sales and delivery time through less office time
• Improved visibility through increased interviews, articles, and so on
• More attractive offerings through new speech and product ideas
Let me state the obvious, in case you’ve missed it: if you are offsetting the bullet-point advantages through the investment of time required to manage, nurture, and otherwise tend to your staff, you are losing money hand over fist. You should be able to grow a successful practice by 10 to 15 percent a year simply through your own momentum and referral business, so a staff has to result in a 20 to 30 percent growth rate to make the investment worthwhile.
If a full-time staff can leverage your success, it’s a wise and prudent investment. However, if you’re not at that level or, like many of us, have reached that level and don’t feel the need to invest in full-time resources, then contracting is always a wise choice.
Speaking Up: A general rule of thumb: you should be able to support your current lifestyle through speaking and related activities, and be growing the business by 10 to 15 percent annually on the basis of your own momentum and repute. At that point, a staff might make sense. Staffs can help leverage the success that you, first, have to create.
Over the course of a year, I typically contract out for the following help related to my speaking business:
• Web and blog design and improvement
• Graphics creation
• Mailing fulfillment
• Mailing list maintenance
• Handout material creation
• Test and survey creation
• Product fulfillment
• Phone response (especially client “hot lines”)
• Visual aids
• Audiovisual editing and dubbing
• Phone interviewing
• Newsletter formatting and proofing
• Material and product storage
• Travel arrangements
Call this “just-in-time support” if you wish, because I pay for performance when I need it and to the degree that I need it. By doing this, I can tightly control my outlays, have strong influence and priority with the contractor (I pay promptly and guarantee future work as long as my quality needs and deadlines are rigorously met), tailor to client need, and create, in effect, a large, talented staff that provides “heft” to my business in the prospect’s eyes.2
Acquiring the right contract people, I’ve found, is often a matter of balancing chemistry with talent. A graphics designer might have a bit of an argumentative edge, but I’m not trying to hire a full-time staffer with whom maintaining cordial relations day in and day out is a must. If the talent is there, I can tolerate a wide variety of personality styles and even quirks. (And I have no right to demand conformance to my particular behaviors, since, like me, these people are all running their own businesses as they see fit.) However, I make no such allowances for quality, performance, and talent. No matter how well I might get along with, or even enjoy, someone’s company, failure to meet quality requirements or deadlines is anathema. If you don’t return my calls, meet my delivery dates, and have it right the first time, you don’t work for me.
Most subcontractors I’ve encountered—and by “most” I’m talking upwards of 90 percent—charge by the hour, not by value. Consequently, they represent highly definable and fixed investments, and they generally undercharge for their real worth to you. It’s not unusual for me to have a complete publicity piece designed, put through several iterations and edits, and formatted as camera-ready copy with the first 1,000 copies printed for under $750. That’s a nice payback on my investment, and it’s a spectacular return if you consider that doing it myself would have required about $20,000 of my time. (I shoot five episodes of my video series The Writing on the Wall at a time, including editing, videographer and assistant, and transfer in the proper formatting to my Web master for a total of under $600 each time.)
It often doesn’t matter where subcontract help is located geographically these days, since e-mail, fax, Skype, and FedEx can compensate handily for distance. Consequently, in my experience, the best ways to acquire contract help are
• Ask other speakers whom they use for what purposes.
• Ask other practitioners (lawyers, accountants, or consultants) whom they use for similar needs.
• Network through your local printer, Rotary, stationery supplier, or chamber of commerce.
• Place an ad for your needs in the local weekly newspaper.
• Post your need on the appropriate Internet bulletin boards.
• If you see something impressive, ask for the source (which is how I acquired my Web home page designer).
• Watch for ads in association newsletters (or place an ad yourself).
• Chat with neighbors who may be interested.3
• Investigate local college work-study and intern offerings.
• Investigate local students seeking research projects.
I’ve found that subcontractors are a cost-effective, highly leveraged technique to grow your business. The stereotypical test to determine if I’m ahead of the game is when another speaker compliments me on my visuals and asks if I used PowerPoint software.
“No, I have the slides created for me.”
“Don’t you realize that with the right software, which costs less than $250, you could produce these yourself?”
“The fact is that it would require about $30,000 of my time to learn and use that software, and it still wouldn’t produce the creativity I get for a $1,500 investment in their design and creation.”
We both walk away scratching our heads, except that my colleague is getting into a Volvo while I’m getting into my Bentley.
The IRS generally considers people to be employees, not subcontractors, for tax purposes if they meet the following criteria:
• Comply with employer’s instructions about the work.
• Receive training from or at the direction of the employer.
• Provide services that are integrated into the business.
• Provide services that must be rendered personally.
• Hire, supervise, and pay assistants for the employer.
• Have a continuing working relationship with the employer.
• Must follow set hours of work.
• Work full-time for an employer.
• Must do their work on the employer’s premises.
• Must submit regular reports to the employer.
• Receive payments of regular amounts at set intervals.
• Receive payments for business and traveling expenses.
• Rely on the employer to furnish tools and materials.
• Lack a major investment in facilities used to perform the service.
• Cannot make a profit or suffer a loss from the services.
• Work for one employer at a time.
• Do not offer their services to the general public.
• Can be fired by the employer.
• May quit work anytime without incurring liability.
From the General Accounting Office publication NO. GAO/T-GGD-96-130, “Tax Administration: Issues in Classifying Workers as Employees or Independent Contractors” 5 (1996).
YOU’RE A PROFESSIONAL SPEAKER, NOT A HIRED HAND
I actually heard a speaker at a major convention tell the audience that he was a “hired hand,” and that if the organizers wanted him to help move tables or hang decorations or distribute materials, he would do whatever was asked while he was engaged to be on site.
In light of that position, I’d like you to try something for me. The next time you’re with your doctor or accountant or attorney (or gardener), say the following near the end of the discussion: “Look, Doc, we’ve still got a few minutes; would you mind changing the oil in my car?” In about a week, they should allow you a phone call to relatives who may be able to get you out of the asylum.
This proves two things:
1. We are highly skilled professionals with tremendous value to offer within our discipline, and we had better act that way. (Imagine if your doctor volunteered to change your oil. Would you return?)
2. You can’t believe even half the advice you hear from the purported “experts.” That’s because they’re making their money by giving you advice instead of doing it themselves. Remember my ski instructor: in front of you, doing what you want to do, and looking back to give you feedback and make sure you’re all right, not back in the lodge sipping brandy and giving advice from a lounge chair.
You have the right to require (demand has such an authoritarian air) the following from your client:
• First-class travel domestically, business-class overseas.4
• An introducer who will read your introduction verbatim and practice it beforehand.
• The type of amplification you desire. (Never let them say, “All we have is this tin can and a string.” Tell them in advance that you require a wireless lapel mike, or whatever.)
• Lighting and seating in accordance with your preference, if they’re not fixed in place. (You can’t change an auditorium, but you can request classroom or theater style or rounds in a convention conference room.)
• A nice room in or near the speaking facility billed to the client’s master account. (That way, you won’t have to wait for reimbursement.)
• Information about the group (title, responsibilities, geography, gender mix, and so forth).
• A master copy of any recordings IF you approve of them and IF you’ve reached agreement on remuneration for permitting them.
• Transportation from and to the nearest airport.
• Access to the buyer and coordinator prior to the session to review last-minute details.
• A room or private space to wait in if you are on later in the day (e.g., you’ve done a sound check in the morning, but you aren’t on until three hours later).
You get the idea. These aren’t wild demands. They are the reasonable requests of a professional who needs certain support to ensure the best possible results for the client.
Speaking Up: The client’s best interests are best served when your self-interest is best served. Put your own oxygen mask on first.
This is why you shouldn’t deal with powerless meeting planners who are always trying to save money. Deal with the true buyer, who is trying to maximize results. Remember: the typical business or association convention is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel, fringes, salaries, facilities, insurance, and so forth. Your fee can be created merely by cutting a couple of coffee breaks. Keep things in perspective.
THE SOURCES OF SOUND, OBJECTIVE, PROFESSIONAL FEEDBACK AND WHY UNSOLICITED FEEDBACK WILL KILL YOU
A man attending my keynote in Birmingham, England (a “speech coach,” no less—what else?), asked if he could give me feedback after I walked off the stage.
“Is there anything in what’s left of the British Empire that could possibly stop you?” I asked.
Unperturbed, he said, “When you roamed the stage, I couldn’t focus on a single point, but when you stood rooted in one spot, I absorbed everything. Do you know what that’s called?”
“Yes,” I said. “A learning disability.”
After a speech in New York City, the usual line had gathered to ask me questions. The fourth person in line gave me her card and said, “I can help you fix your speech impediment.”
I ripped her card in half, gave it back, and said, “Can you fix this?”
Unsolicited feedback is ALWAYS for the sender. It’s a technique that the inferior use to prove that they’re better than you, even if you have the spotlight, have been paid, have been chosen, and have received the accolades and applause. Only solicited feedback, sought by you from sources you trust, is worth listening to, but even then you should not automatically act on it.
None of us in the speaking profession ever receives enough feedback. I know that’s strange to hear, given the fact that we face audiences on a regular basis who are usually encouraged to fill out the ubiquitous feedback forms. But there are two things wrong with using such responses as your sole—or even main—source of assessment.
First, the audience feedback isn’t from the buyer. That’s like Mercedes asking the family members how they liked the ride, but neglecting to ask the purchaser, who is the person most likely to buy again in the future. Since buyers used both rational and visceral impulses to hire you (logic impels people to think, but emotion galvanizes them into action), it’s important that you hear what the buyer’s reaction is. Speakers whose feedback loop ends at the “smile sheets” completed before the audience leaves the room seldom have comprehensive information and rarely make improvements based upon the real buyer needs. (You’re being compared with the temperature controls and visual aids, not to mention the lousy food.)
Second, with the best of intentions, the audience seldom knows what to look for. The buyer’s objectives might have included shocking the audience members or provoking them or driving them to action, not entertaining or comforting them or making them feel safe. Every audience member reacts slightly differently to what he or she hears because unconsciously each is seeking to establish relevance with his or her background. That’s why (good) speakers use multiple stories and examples to try to appeal to a gamut of experiences and perspectives.
The advice that we tape all of our speeches and listen to them is among the most simplistic and specious. Our frame of reference is severely limited. Hearing ourselves and trying to decide how to improve is like asking the famous question, “What’s different about a duck?” Well, a duck has feathers, but so does a goose. A duck has webbed feet, but so does a frog. A duck can swim, but so can a fish. A duck can quack, but so can a duck hunter. Perhaps there’s no such distinct animal as a duck, then? The point is that the question is wrong. It should be, “What’s distinct about a duck as compared to what?” (It’s smaller than a goose, frogs can’t fly, fish don’t swim on the surface, and duck callers can’t mate with another duck, at least not in most states.)
Speaking Up: We need independent feedback that includes external frames of reference. Otherwise, we keep getting better at what we already do, and what we already do might be the problem.
As a business requisite, you need support in the form of qualified, external advice and mentoring if you are to grow as a professional. You trust your finances to the advice of a CPA, your health to your personal physician, your corporate status to your attorney, and your graphics to a designer. Why wouldn’t you trust your professional development to equally qualified sources? And why would you ever use people who aren’t as good as you are and have very personal agendas?
If you do record your speeches, send the DVDs and downloads to trusted confidants who you know will give you candid, blunt reactions. If you want to feel warm and loved, watch exercise infomercials. But if you want to know if you’re growing as a speaker, find people who can provide honest feedback and advice and not worry about your sensibilities. These people can be other speakers, but shouldn’t be limited to them. Here are some sources for your mentoring and feedback needs.
Techniques for Professional, Honest Feedback
1. Recruit a mastermind group of people whose judgment you respect and who are familiar with the type of business you are in. These folks might include your financial planner, a colleague on a civic association, another entrepreneur (e.g., the person who owns one of your supply sources), a local politician or school board member, a business consultant, your attorney, and so on. They needn’t be geographically proximate because this can easily be done via e-mail and computer.
Tell these people that you’ll ask their help no more than two or three times a year. On those occasions, send them a tape (or invite them to hear you if you’re speaking in their neighborhood) and ask them for their assessment of how you should reach the next level of the profession (larger audiences, larger companies, media work, high-visibility keynotes, and so on). Ask them what you do well, what should be further developed, and what underwhelms them, which might be abandoned. Don’t react to stray comments,but if you see a pattern emerging, take action. (If one person says, “I didn’t like that story,” ignore it. But if five people say, “You seem to have no energy in those stories,” then you know you’ve probably told them a few times too many.)
Guideline: Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.
In return for their kindness, take your team out to dinner, offer to reciprocate for them, and/or provide a gift. You don’t have to accept their advice, but you won’t have it at all if you don’t ask for it.
2. Seek out other speakers who are successful. Note that I didn’t say “whom you like” or “whom you respect,” because that leaves the door open for the mutual admiration society. There are a lot of speakers who don’t make more than they do because they spend so much of their time telling each other how good they are and bestowing awards on each other.5
Find exemplars who represent success with which you can identify. Don’t be taken in by the publicity klaxons wailing away. Everyone lives in an “oceanfront home,” drives a “foreign car,” and is “a prolific writer.” (When I was helping someone else in this capacity and was critiquing his promotional literature, I was compelled to remind him that Peter Drucker and John Updike might be among “the world’s most prolific writers,” but he certainly was not, despite the claims to that effect in his press kit.) Find the time to develop relationships with those whom you see addressing the organizations you want to address in the capacity you want to assume. Or find someone with a platform presence that you admire, a visibility that impresses you, or a business acumen that you’d love to acquire.
Develop a network of several of these people whom you can access just a few times a year. Don’t try to emulate their style or their attributes. Simply obtain frank feedback on your style, business, and direction that you can use to critically examine your progress. What’s good for them might not be good for you, but their insights are from a highly valid frame of reference.
3. Invest in a formal mentoring relationship. There are some of us who are called upon so frequently for advice and guidance that the relationships have to take the form of formal consulting. In general, these relationships are focused and directed toward specific growth goals. You can stipulate what you want to tackle: penetrating the corporate market, using more humor, publishing, ancillary products, raising fees, and so on, and you can determine the duration. In my experience, you need at least six months of regular contacts with a mentor—which, again, needn’t be in person—in order to create the follow-through and discipline to reach your goals.
The characteristics of a professional, effective mentor who will provide you with the proper ROI include
• Success as a speaker, not just as a mentor (a “doer,” not an “expert”)
• Unlimited access during the period, not designated days or times
• “Real time” help with actual prospects, fees, presentations, and so on
• Requirements for action and follow-up on those actions
• Contacts provided, such as book agents, speakers’ bureau principals, and so on
• Solid references from other speakers
Mentors can be highly effective and well worth the investment if they can focus on your particular needs and offer specific, pragmatic techniques to grow your business and meet your personal objectives. Always eschew a “blanket” approach. This must be an individualized process.
4. Choose an association of professionals that is geared to provide feedback. At preliminary levels, Toastmasters International is a good alternative because it offers (predominantly amateur and/or infrequent) speakers the opportunity to hone their skills in front of a supportive audience. There are also contests run by the parent organization on local, regional, and national levels that provide the opportunity to perform in front of judges. The disadvantages of Toastmasters are that the feedback won’t always be crisp and honest (I’m the next one up there, so I’m going to be kind) and that the criteria for speeches are narrow and somewhat inappropriate for corporate speaking.
The National Speakers Association (NSA) has a membership of about 3,000 speakers, ranging from the highly visible, professional keynoters and high-income training professionals to entry-level and aspiring speakers. It’s a good vehicle for meeting potential colleagues, advisors, and mentors, and the local chapter meetings provide “spotlight” opportunities to make a brief presentation and receive feedback from the audience. Some chapters provide videotaping and much more personalized feedback, as well. Although (no one uses this construction) NSA considers itself the voice of the profession and provides various levels of accomplishment, its membership represents a minority of actual professional speakers and it’s hardly known beyond the meeting-planning industry. Nevertheless, its conventions and meetings can provide camaraderie and an excellent feedback source for those who have the discipline to use them as such.
5. Seek help on the Internet. There are numerous speakers’ chat rooms, home pages, association listings, and similar sources. Allocate a morning to using the relevant search engines to generate alternatives. The beauty of the Internet is that you can exchange visual aids, speech transcripts, actual recordings, and online discussions if you have the proper equipment and software. On many sites, mine included, you can actually watch videos of keynotes and training sessions.
You’re able, through cyberspace, to access a network of self-selected advisors who can provide you with downloadable examples of promotional literature, critiques of your speeches, advice on your business plans, opportunities internationally, and a host of other potentially useful feedback. If you’re technologically able and individually willing, you can find a trove of help sitting right at your desk.
No matter what method you choose, find a source of direct and honest feedback: people who will tell you the truth and not simply stroke your ego. “Care more for the truth than what people think.” Aristotle said that, and he wasn’t a bad advisor.
SMALL PRINT: INCORPORATION, LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, INSURANCE, TAXES, YADA YADA
There are some random issues that don’t belong in Part Two or Three of the book, and that haven’t fit in smoothly up to this point. So this final section of Part One will deal with the things that I need to say somewhere. There’s a chance that not all of this will apply to you at the moment, so I’ll use headings to facilitate your selections and provide for referencing if and when the time comes for their application.
Note, as always, that you should consult the proper insurance, legal, financial, and assorted other experts. However, make sure that they are also experienced in solo practices and in professional services firms. I’m not kidding; these are specialized fields, and you will otherwise get some awful advice.
Incorporation
By all means, incorporate your business, no matter what its size. (At this writing, Subchapter S and LLC are better bets than Chapter C, but the laws can change.) Do not listen to anyone who tells you that you don’t have to incorporate. I don’t care how many degrees these people claim to have; they don’t have any brains.
Incorporation affords the following benefits and protection:
• A legal entity that can borrow money, sue, or be sued (so that your personal assets are safe—this is a litigious society)
• A professional status and sometimes a preferred status—that is, as a small business—when seeking contracts or responding to RFPs (requests for proposals)
• Corporate benefits written into your bylaws, which may (consult your attorney) include a health plan, company car, and retirement plan; board of directors meetings; directors’ fees; and other corporate amenities and perquisites
• Payment of all reasonable business expenses from before-tax funds
• Inclusion in certain lists and memberships restricted to corporate entities
• Favorable retirement plan options
• Favorable purchasing and health options
Incorporation can be accomplished painlessly by any competent, appropriate attorney for several hundred dollars or so, depending on your state’s requirements. (You will probably get a nifty corporate seal, which I’ve had occasion to use exactly five times in the past 25 years!)
Insurance
Aside from the basic lifestyle insurance that you should carry—health, life, dental, umbrella liability, whatever suits you—there are several other types that you should be absolutely certain to obtain:
1. Errors and omissions. This is typically called “E&O” in the insurance industry and “malpractice” by the rest of us. It protects you when you are being sued by a client for purportedly providing bad advice that has injured the client’s firm. (Accidents such as someone tripping over your projector wire are covered by general liability insurance, which you should also carry; this is discussed next.) This type of suit has actually become more of a likelihood, given the increasing extent to which litigious remedies have replaced discussion and debate. Theoretically, if you gave a speech on strategy that included warnings or opportunities for the audience, and the company acted on them and lost its corporate shirt, some legal beaver on the client’s staff might advocate a suit against you. Consulting firms are being sued with increasing vigor, and a speaker’s advice can be construed as consulting (and many of you are consultants, as well). Do not proceed in this business without E&O coverage. Do not pass “go.” Do not collect your next fee without investing it in such protection.6
2. Liability insurance. If someone trips over your laptop power cord, that person will sue the conference facility, the computer manufacturer, the electric company, and YOU. This is the sad state of litigation these days. Liability insurance is cheap, is often provided by the same carrier that provides E&O coverage, and is a must.
3. Disability insurance. There is a far, far greater chance of our being disabled than of our dying during the most productive portions of our careers. Yet few speakers comprehend the importance of disability coverage. Choose coverage that pays you for as long as you cannot return to your full and normal type of work (some coverage applies only as long as you can’t be employed, irrespective of whether it’s your normal type of work). The law and insurance company procedures usually dictate that you can carry total coverage equal to some percentage of your normal income, generally about 80 percent. As a speaker, you’ll need to work with brokers or companies that are sensitive to the swings in potential income in this profession and can arrive at equitable average earnings in deciding about policy coverage amounts. As with any insurance, group plans are less expensive than individual plans, and a wide variety of trade associations—not necessarily speaking associations—offer the former with a variety of options (e.g., the longer the waiting period before the insurance kicks in, the less expensive the premium). You cannot afford not to have disability insurance, even if it means taking less life insurance for the moment.
4. Long-term care insurance. Usually referred to as “LTC,” this provides for support and assistance at home when you are incapacitated for a long period, either now or in your elderly years. I mention it here because it is far cheaper to obtain when you are younger, and it provides the kind of financial support that can mean the difference between having to go to a nursing home and being cared for in your own home. I consider this coverage also to be a “must.”
Financial Planning
For many speakers, financial planning means whatever is left after the checks are deposited and the bills are paid. That’s not financial planning, but there is a name for it: bankruptcy.
It’s silly and irresponsible to take the risks associated with an entrepreneurial business such as this one and not reap the rewards. While some of the rewards may be in instant gratification (especially for those of you from California), and you may feel that you can speak until you drop (and some people are apparently continuing to speak after they’ve dropped), you should have an intelligent long-term financial security plan.
Consult a first-rate financial planner (someone who charges a fee for the advice, not someone who earns a commission by selling you securities), set up a plan appropriate for your circumstances and objectives, and contribute to it faithfully, as though you’re paying off the mortgage or the local utility. There are a variety of options and the laws change frequently, so keep abreast of what’s best for you. Just one example: a SEP IRA, which is like a personal IRA, at the moment allows up to $47,000 a year to be contributed by your corporation, tax-free, to your retirement account. There are other goodies like this, so invest in professional help. You may also be able to set up 401(k) plans. The benefit of solo practice is that, while these plans often mandate that employees be covered, you have only yourself and perhaps a spouse to worry about.
Banking Relationships
My preference is to have a professional, as well as personal, relationship with a bank. Especially as your business grows and prospers, it makes sense to arrange for credit lines, references, advantageous interest rates, and all the other perquisites that remain hidden until, magically, they appear when you ask about them.
My personal banker is on my mailing list. I meet with her once or twice a year, and I keep her highly informed about my work and its impact. (For example, she gets a copy of every book I publish.) Every so often, a new client’s purchasing department will ask for a bank reference, and new vendors request them all the time.
Increasingly in my global practice, I’m paid by wire transfer. This can be tricky and lengthy unless you can work hand-in-hand with your bank. You can also speed foreign checks along and get credit sooner rather than later.
One other perk of this relationship: if you can become a “private banking customer” or whatever the euphemism is in your area, you can shortcut banking lines, obtain easy overdraft protection, and even have the bank cover an inadvertently unsupported check (or allow you to draw on un-collected funds). Banks do a lot for good customers that they obviously don’t choose to advertise. If your bank is intractable about affording reasonable benefits, find another bank while saying a silent prayer for the competitive benefits of deregulation.
I personally carry a dozen credit cards, including four different American Express cards. These are of tremendous help in utilizing travel counselors 24 hours a day, having a concierge work for you in a given city, arranging for gifts, and so forth.7
Motivational Summary
How many of you couldn’t resist this heading? My final point is a simple but often ignored one: you are as successful as you position yourself to be.
As your business takes off, don’t continue to regard it (or yourself) as the same enterprise it was when you received your first $500 check for speaking to the local trade association that couldn’t find anyone else. The people who reach out to you usually want something—your dollars, your advice, your support, your repute. You have to reach out to make certain things happen on your terms. I’m astounded by the people who try to sell securities over the phone, since that seems to me to be the ultimate personal relationship business. But someone must be buying that way. Don’t purchase insurance, vendor services, retirement plans, advice, or even pencils from just anyone who offers—and I’m someone who has seen speakers choose their attorney from the Yellow Pages of the phone book or an online experience on Facebook.
You’re a success. Act like it. Choose your help carefully, but choose it now. The savvy of this business is in carving out your own route. Only the lead dog ever sees a change in scenery.
SUMMARY
You’re a professional speaker, not a corporate manager. Your success is not a factor of how many people you hire; in fact, your success may be undermined by hiring a lot of people.
Lean and mean is the way to the green.
Above all, remember that true wealth is discretionary time. Speaking is a way to improve your life—you don’t rearrange your life to enable your speaking. If you are happy and gratified only when you’re in front of an audience, you need to seek help. If standing ovations and high “smile sheet” scores are your validation for occupying space on the planet, you have the depth of lawn clippings.
Be proud of your work, by all means, and be proud of your life, at all costs. Utilize subcontract and “virtual” support before you build infrastructure, which is not only expensive, but also very difficult to disassemble. Don’t allow a corporate welfare state to build up around you. If you find you need constant adoration, get a dog.
Be careful about your corporate structure, bylaws, financial reporting, insurance, and related business needs. Maximize the use of pretax income. Don’t let bureaus or tax authorities needlessly hold your money.
Be cautious about the people to whom you listen. Don’t just speak like a pro. Listen like one, too.