CHAPTER 1
WHEN ARE YOU A PROFESSIONAL?
,
AFTER ALL, WE’RE ALL SPEAKING, OFTEN SIMULTANEOUSLY
I WAS speaking at a small business awards ceremony at the Westin Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island. It was a 45-minute after-dinner, post-awards speech, a tough position. I was originally asked to do it for free, since I live 15 minutes away, but I pointed out that the three huge firms that were sponsoring the evening never gave their products away for free, and I was being paid my full fee.
I had prepared my varsity game for the tough closing segment, and 400 people rose (some rather unsteadily) to their feet, either happy with my performance or glad that it was over. As usual, a couple of dozen people waited to chat with me.
“You’re the best speaker we’ve ever had here, and the best I’ve ever heard,” announced the first woman in line.
“I’m sure I’m not, but thank you,” I responded.
“No, you are the best!” she proclaimed.
“I bet you say that to all the speakers,” I said with a smile, trying desperately to move on.
“No, you are unique!”
“Okay,” I said, facing my unmoving groupie, “why do you think I’m so good?”
“Because you are the only speaker we’ve ever had here who can walk, talk, and hold the microphone at the same time!”
Stunned, I mumbled, “What about my four transcendental points for small businesses?”
She stared back, uncomprehending. “What four points?” she asked.
WHITHER GOEST?
For a long time, if you told someone that you were a professional speaker, that person would immediately translate that into “motivational speaker,” a phrase that represents everything that is wrong and empty-headed about this profession. Calling an excellent professional a “motivational speaker” is like calling dinner at a five-star restaurant a “meal,” citing Willie Mays as an “outfielder,” or calling Judy Garland a “singer.”
Some phrases just don’t do the subject justice.
Historically, professional speakers were evangelical, professional by dint of how they were trying to move the audience, as in Billy Sunday or Oral Roberts. There is a history of superb, moving, inspirational sermonizing and homilies in every religion. There have also been speakers whose intent was to enlighten the audience members about their own potential, not so much by offering pragmatic techniques as by offering stirring messages: “You can be your own best friend”; “You are the owner of the mortgage on your life!” Accompanied by experiences and exercises (taken over from early T-group and sensitivity training1), the speech morphed into workshops and “events.”
In the 1960s we had Werner Erhart, and in the 1990s, Tony Robbins. In between and along the way, we’ve had thousands of pretenders to the motivational thrones. But these approaches were based largely on the personality of the originator, no less than the religious, charismatic speaker. (Very few Tony Robbins franchises have ever been successful, so far as I know. I used to mentor one such franchise owner. People wanted to see the master himself, understandably.)
Finally, we have “rallies,” wherein an organizer fills an arena, often with the employees of a few companies that foot the bill, and marches out the likes of Colin Powell, George Bush, Zig Ziglar, and whoever else is on that circuit to “wow” the crowd. For a few hours people can hear some stirring commentary, buy some products (which will later gather dust on endless shelves), and return to work under the temporary belief that their company has just invested in their long-term well-being.2 (It’s a lot cheaper than giving them raises or improved benefits.)
Those times have changed.
Oh, you’ll still see a group of Goldman Sachs or Prudential senior managers out on some beach racing to build sand castles under the tutelage of an “energy coach” or a “motivation manager.” But the only thing occurring there is sunburn.
Today, everyone had better be a motivational speaker, but there has to be steak to accompany that sizzle. That is, paying customers are expecting expertise in specific content areas presented in an engaging, provocative, and entertaining manner. Thus, two extremes will not work:
1. Running around like the Mad Hatter trying to thrill people with vapid affirmations, such as, “They can heat you up, but they can’t burn you!”
2. Standing rooted in the earth, talking through another boring PowerPoint presentation of 185 slides while people try to see their PDAs in the dark. (If you have enough iPhones, with screens aglow, in the audience during such a tedious presentation, it begins to resemble a silent rock concert.)
Speaking Up: Everyone who is seeking to make big money in professional speaking had better be a “motivational speaker,” while also captivating the audience with solid content and pragmatic techniques.
Here is why the market expectations and demands have changed:
• Increasingly sophisticated audiences. The mass media and the Internet have created a more intelligent expectation. People can readily watch experts on TED, for example (TED.com), and in 20 minutes (the time limit) be captivated by geysers on the ocean’s bottom, synthetic happiness, urban planning, or modern communications devices.
• Increasingly sophisticated buyers. Corporate executives and trade association directors demand a return on their investment. They don’t need someone to “babysit” the audience for a few hours during a convention; they require topical expertise that can be utilized immediately in conjunction with organizational strategy and tactics.
• An overabundance of schlock. There is no barrier—zero—to entry in the professional speaking market. A lot of people have sidled in, managed to get work, and flopped. Still more have decided to position themselves as commodities, charging very little in the hope of achieving for volume, and have done poor (and repetitive) work.
• The economy contracted. Some lingering effects even during rebound and growth will be a more zealous analysis of external expenditures. Professional speakers have never exactly proved themselves to be irreplaceable or urgently needed. So the corporate zeitgeist has incorporated a “less is more” philosophy.
• The association and (legitimate) connection with the training business. Most people who are making big money in speaking are doing so in training. (More on this later in the book.) Very few of us who are noncelebrity speakers can earn big money exclusively from keynoting, for example, and few of us want to, since the travel is ridiculous. However, training and human resources within corporations are increasingly discredited, so approaching through those routes is a rough road.
The profession is changing, but for the better. That’s why it’s easier than ever to build and sustain a thriving practice.
WHY SIZZLE AND STEAK ARE BOTH REQUIRED FOR FINE DINING
There’s a wonderful “old world” restaurant in Providence where I love to take clients. It’s called Capriccio, it’s dark, the captains wear tuxedos, and they are allowed to flambé food tableside, having been “grandfathered in” for this charming but otherwise extinct practice.3
Capriccio has both great steak and great sizzle. The ambiance and charm add to the meal (as I’m sure is true of many of your favorite restaurants). If you are intent on an excellent experience, high value for your investment, and finding someplace to which you can confidently return—as I do with clients—you don’t want to eat your steak in a parking lot and you don’t want to eat gristle in a penthouse.
Assuming that you’re salivating, here’s the deal: EVERY speaker needs to be a motivational speaker (to have the sizzle) and engage people in a dynamic manner. The steak is your expertise and your ability to convey solid material that is credible, applicable, and flexible.
Take a look at the only four conditions these two factors permit (Figure 1-1).
In the upper right, we have an engaging speaker who has original, informative, and relevant content, as well as appropriate humor, energy, and what we will call “platform skills.” By platform skills, I am referring to engaging stage presence and dynamics. In the bottom left, we have a speaker with neither, who will disappoint and disappear.
But we have two dangerous positions in the other corners for those who are seeking to be truly professional speakers. The tap dancer is the speaker who has virtually no content—no steak—but who tries to dazzle the audience with footwork, telling jokes, playing an instrument, using ventriloquism, doing magic tricks, smashing pumpkins.
The opposite is the true expert whose sizzle was extinguished by a dam bursting years ago and who shows you 120 slides in an hour of unremitting ennui.4 I took a course in undergrad school at Rutgers during which the professor literally read his dissertation notes, recorded on hundreds of sheets of yellow paper, in every class, mumbling on, turning a page with regularity, nary an inflection nor intonation ever detected. You could, however, hear some snores from the back of the room.
Speaking Up: Don’t tell people everything you know. Tell them what THEY need to know.
Too many people who are seeking to speak professionally have a “message” that they feel the universe needs to hear if it is to keep on with its cosmic ticking. (It doesn’t.) It’s somewhat threatening but nonetheless true that a major event in one’s life, no matter how splendid or traumatic, does not always translate into another person’s utilitarian need (or even rapt attention). Then there are others who simply love to speak, and feel that the content and subject are irrelevant because they are simply so enthusiastic and emotional. (How long can you really watch the frenetic Energizer Bunny?)
Most, not some, of your teachers, professors, meeting leaders, instructors, and superiors have been less than engrossing speakers. How do I know this?
Because we all make such a fuss when we actually have the good fortune to be in the presence of the exception.
THE TRUE SPEAKER IS NOT A PERFORMING SEAL
This business is about intellectual firepower. Several years ago I was part of a small task force organized by the National Speakers Association to determine what buyers5 really sought in choosing professional speakers.
Overwhelmingly, we found that they wanted expertise. That’s the “steak.”
Expertise can be defined as a thorough and encompassing knowledge of a particular subject matter, including its origins, application, strengths and weaknesses, future probabilities, and so forth. It’s not about perfection or absolute wisdom, or even a personal repository of global information.
It’s about helping others to improve in a given area. That improvement may be in the form of more knowledge, changed behavior, new standards, reduced stress, a more balanced lifestyle, more enduring relationships—whatever.
It’s not about jumping through hoops, donning strange clothing, balancing blocks on your nose, juggling fireballs, or reading people’s minds. All of the foregoing may be important at times and, if done well, certainly have entertainment value (well, not the juggling), but they are not what professional speakers focus on. Every gimmick you introduce dilutes your educational and developmental message. And there are myriad jugglers and ventriloquists.
But there are relatively few effective and engrossing professional speakers.
So unless you prefer to be paid in herring, here are some parameters for your professional conduct and demeanor.
ALAN’S MILLION DOLLAR SPEAKING PROFILE
• Focus on the power of your words and reduce gimmicks to a minimum. You may choose to use visuals or audience interaction, or to play a bit of music. But if these actions are more than 10 percent of what you do (six minutes in an hour’s keynote, a half-hour in a morning’s workshop), then you’re confusing your image, your brand, and, probably, the audience. (Ninety percent of the time, you should not require visuals in an hour’s keynote.)
• Create and maintain a professional image. If you’re wearing strange hats, weird clothing, or outrageous accessories, or if you’re selling T-shirts and flip-flops from the stage, you’re in the merchandising business, not speaking. (Always dress a step above the group, for example, if it’s business casual, dress in business attire; if it’s resort casual, dress in business casual.)
• Don’t allow the organizers to dictate your approach or demeanor. You are the expert in the craft, so you decide how you’ll approach the stage and leave it, how you’ll be introduced, and whether or not you’ll take part in related activities. You’ll lose your gravitas if you’re dunked in a water tank at the company “carnival.” (I once had to assertively explain to my client that it was a very bad idea to ask for a moment of silence to honor a deceased colleague immediately before I was introduced with the topic of “Innovation for Tomorrow.”)
• No matter how talented you are, don’t muddy up your intent. The fact that you can play the piano, shoot a decent game of pool, sing (most people who think they can actually can’t), or create animals out of balloons is nice but hardly relevant. You’re not speaking to showcase your ability or to show your vacation slides. You’re there to improve the condition of the audience and to meet your buyer’s objectives. (I once watched, horrified, as a woman began her presentation by announcing several awards that she had just won, waiting for the delayed applause, and then acting as if she were surprised at the reaction.)
• Be concerned about, aware of, and willing to change your environment. In the next section, we’ll talk about varying scenarios, but try to understand the milieu so that you can appraise whether it makes sense for what you intend to do. A performing seal will honk and balance balls anywhere the handler takes it. But even the seal is not at home when it’s out of the water.
Speaking Up: You are not a “hired hand.” You’re a professional who knows the craft better than the client does, just as the doctor knows medicine better than the patient does.
THE DIVERSE (AND DAUNTING) SPEAKER SCENARIOS
When I talk about “speaking” in this book, I’m embracing any and all of the following:
• Keynotes. The keynote is literally the “key note” to a convention or conference and is properly the opening plenary session. When someone says, “I delivered the closing keynote” or “I was one of the four keynoters,” that person is a tad confused.
• Plenary sessions. These are general sessions to which the entire conference is invited, and there can be only one or many. The keynote is always a plenary session. Plenary sessions can last from 20 minutes to 90 minutes, but are typically an hour.
• Concurrent sessions. These are longer sessions that run simultaneously. Participants generally have their choices of which to attend, although they may be assigned based on need. These generally run from an hour to three hours, but are typically about 90 minutes.
• Workshops and seminars. These are full-day and multiday programs. They may be within one organization or be “public sessions” that strangers are invited to attend. They are generally much more oriented toward skills transfer, practice, and application.
Generally, when you work for a large client, you are delivering sessions internally for that client. But when you are delivering public sessions, you are promoting these yourself and charging each individual attendee (although you may be subcontracted to do this by larger seminar training companies, which is like being in indentured servitude—at this writing, some are paying $300 per day).
Here are some variations of these roles:
• After-dinner speakers. An after-dinner speaker is addressing a general session with a dozen or a thousand people to conclude an evening. It is one of the most difficult types of speaking in that the audience has usually experienced an open bar, a heavy dinner, wine with the meal, often an awards ceremony, some boisterous banter, and some droning talks by the top executives. It is not for the unconfident, inexperienced, or thin-skinned.
• Humorists. These folks may appear anywhere on an agenda to lighten things up (if they’re good) or poison things for everyone who follows (if they’re not good). They often incorporate information about the organization and the people sponsoring the event into their humor. (Once again, we’re not talking about celebrities such as Jay Leno or Jerry Seinfeld, although they’ll do this kind of work if you pay them enough.)
• Character portrayers. There are people who dress like Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, or, presumably, Zorro who use the persona of their subject both to entertain the audience and to convey some pertinent points about personal and professional development. They frequently provide an exegesis of their subject’s famous speeches or roles. These are novelty acts, tightly choreographed, that are often quite successful in schools as well as businesses.
• Facilitators. Facilitators facilitate—that is, they are supposed to enable groups to communicate better, to resolve issues more expeditiously, and to deal with difficult issues in a collaborative, constructive manner. The best facilitators allow the groups to do most of the speaking, but they are often required to present summaries, demonstrate what’s occurring, describe obstacles, and provoke debate.
• Moderators. The moderator is typically the panel emcee who provides brief explanations of subjects and procedures, introduces the panelists, handles questions from the floor, and keeps the proceedings on time.
Speaking Up: You can provide a variety of these roles. Most noncelebrity money in professional speaking is being made by trainers.
Nowhere on my lists do I include the phrase “full-time” or “part-time.” That’s because those delineations make no sense in professional speaking, despite the fact that so many people seem preoccupied with them. I spoke 50 times last year. Am I a part-time speaker? Would you have to speak every day to be full-time? And speaking is seldom all that you do, especially when you’re successful. You’re probably doing a little consulting, perhaps serving as a coach, maybe creating and selling products, and generally seeking ancillary sources of income. Full-time and part-time are irrelevant.
Paying the mortgage is relevant.
Finally, there are three types of speakers that I’ve observed; these are given in Table 1-1.
Table 1-1 Three Types of Speaker Focus
The trouble is that audiences know what they want, but they seldom know what they need. The buyer, presumably, knows what the audience needs, and if he or she doesn’t, then it’s your job to provide still more value and help the buyer discover what those needs are. Audience-centered speakers are often quite popular, and sometimes that’s good enough.
THE VAGARIES OF THE TRADE
The odds are that most of your college professors were deadly dull. That’s because they were (and are) compensated for performing a task, which is to hold a class session and deliver information. If teaching is defined as imparting knowledge, few of them actually teach, since precious little knowledge is transferred and only a scintilla is retained, let alone utilized, after the examination.
Most speakers approach our profession in the same manner. They believe that they are being paid to deliver a speech. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Yet that is what most speakers convey in their interactions with the buyer, and that is what most of them cite in their fee schedules. Speaking has become a commodity business, with bureaus (and speakers themselves) providing hourly or daily rates for the presence of a body on stage. That’s roughly the equivalent of a doctor who charges by the hour for performing open-heart surgery or an architect who charges by the size of the building. Plumbers, who do charge by the hour, do noble work, but it’s much more difficult for me to ensure that my speaking pipes will hold water.
Speaking is a business that provides for the enhancement of the buyer’s objectives in return for remuneration to the provider. So let’s establish some definitions and parameters prior to delving into the rest of the book and its specific techniques.
The buyer is the person who signs the check or causes it to be signed. The buyer is rarely the meeting planner, although that is the person with whom some bureaus are most comfortable working, which is one of the weaknesses of that system. A buyer is not necessarily the CEO, although he or she may well be in smaller companies or in larger ones that are organizing a top-level meeting. When I spoke at GE, Jack Welch didn’t hire me. People five levels down hired me, but they were able to make the decision and cut the check. The buyer is inevitably that person whose objectives are to be enhanced. He or she “owns” the outcome of the event.
Whether you are pursuing an organization or responding to a contact that the organization has initiated, try to find the buyer. If you can do so, you can connect your involvement to his or her desired business outcomes, thereby increasing not only your chances of obtaining the assignment, but also your ability to obtain higher fees.
Speaking Up: The more you focus on objectives and end results, the more valuable you are. The more you focus on events and tasks, the more vulnerable you are. A client can easily replace a one-hour talk with another one-hour talk. A client can rarely replace “the ability to close sales at a faster rate” or “the improvement of customer service to decrease failure work” quite so easily.
Objectives are the results that are to be achieved through your participation. Delivering a keynote, speaking after dinner, facilitating a breakout group, and conducting two concurrent sessions are not results. They are tasks, and therefore they are commodities, subject to tough comparative shopping. This is why you’ll hear a meeting planner so often say, “We’ve got $5,000 for this slot. Who can you get for us?” It’s the height of absurdity. The real question is, “Here’s what we want to achieve. What value do various alternatives provide so that we can make an intelligent ROI (return on investment) decision?”
Listen carefully. The mere act of helping to explore, understand, and clarify the buyer’s objectives will add tremendous value to your contribution. That’s why you should relentlessly pursue discussions with the buyer and submit your proposal directly to that person. Only the buyer has the volition and capacity to arrange for investments based upon return. (Meeting planners merely have budgets and have incentives to stay within those budgets, and they sacrifice quality for economy every day.) A key aspect of what consultants call “process consultation” is that a collaborative, diagnostic approach is itself intrinsically valuable. Many buyers tell me that they aren’t sure that the objectives have been formally articulated. “Well,” I respond, “wouldn’t it be useful to do that now so that you have a standard by which to measure success?” It’s hard not to get the business after that.
The process you engage in is more valuable than your actual time on stage. The reason that the heart surgeon is so valuable is not the hours that it takes to remove diseased arteries. The value is in the 20 years of practice, the continuing study, the experiential base, and the superb judgment that enable the surgeon to perform such a delicate operation in those few hours. Doctors don’t get paid by the blood vessel, and you shouldn’t get paid by the adverb.
The process behind virtually any speech includes the following:
• Initial talks with the client to determine the desired outcomes and your contribution to those outcomes
• Often, additional conversations with intended audience members to determine their points of view and their challenges, and to develop some client-specific examples
• A study of the industry in general, the competition, and the client’s role within that scenario
• Design of the actual speech, which may consist of 50 percent standard points that you make, 25 percent specific client-centered material, and 25 percent audience exercises, interactions, new material, and so on
• Discussion of your speech with the client and coordination with what precedes and follows you, as well as with any other speakers on the agenda6
• Preparation of visuals, handouts, and/or performance aids
• Practice
• Actual delivery of the talk
• Postsession follow-up with the client to determine what else may be necessary (e.g., another copy of some of the visuals), what the reactions were, how well the objectives were met, and so on
If you emphasize the process—and you may well have additional components—then the buyer can understand the comprehensive contribution you can make to his or her objectives. If you emphasize the 60 or 90 minutes, or even the full day, that you’re on stage, then the buyer perceives that payment is due only for that relatively brief duration. You have the ability to educate the buyer, but you can’t do that if you’re not talking to the buyer and/or if you don’t understand your own value in terms of that process.
SUMMARY
Professional speaking is a craft that revolves around the use of words to meet buyers’ objectives. The outcome of a successful speech should be an overjoyed buyer, whose resultant testimonial is a paean to your skills. You manage and guide this process by focusing on the outcomes, understanding the overall value of the process that culminates in your time on stage, and dealing with people who make investment decisions based upon value delivered, not minutes spent.
Professional actors aren’t speakers. While it’s important for you to be thoroughly prepared, it’s sterile to be so tightly orchestrated that the audience perceives an off-the-shelf performance rather than an engaging interaction. People choose the plays and professional performances that they attend, but they usually have their speakers chosen for them. If you do a thorough job at the front end, understanding the audience and basing your value on the difference you can make in the members’ personal and professional lives, then you’ll be positioned to reap huge rewards. Ego-needs fulfillment, product sales, and adulation will follow as by-products. They should never be pursued as primary goals. When speakers appear primarily to meet their own needs, they are as obvious as a ham sandwich (emphasis on the ham).
Now that we have some common understanding of what professional speakers do and why, let’s take a look at how to choose a market and why most speakers inexplicably foreclose options rather than expand them.