Meetings Strategies
The Benefit of Speakers Bureaus
By Leo Jakobson
November 21, 2011
Finding a speaker for your company meeting is easy. Just about any former politician, retired CEO, best-selling business author, or Hall of Famer you can think of is willing to give your top sellers, key executives, or best customers the benefit of her wisdom and experience. Some of them are even good public speakers.
But finding the right speaker—one who meets your budget, is available on your schedule, has a message relevant to your audience, and has the ability to capture and hold their attention—on your own can be tough.
That’s why speakers bureaus are a great resource for executives who have to find a keynoter to lead off or close every day of an event, if not both. Not only do they have lists of hundreds of speakers they work with on their websites, they know what each speaker talks about and how well they interact with audiences. They’ll have an idea as to whether a speaker can discuss your event’s goals and how a particular speaker can help you meet them. To say nothing of working with planners to ensure the arrangement go smoothly.
Bureau personnel also have a good handle on trends in the corporate speaking world—which speakers audiences are responding enthusiastically to, what new topics and content audiences are hungering for, and what your competitors are doing.
“The hottest business topics right now are relationship building, teamwork, innovation and creativity, entrepreneurship, and motivation,” says Michael Frick, president of Palm Springs, CA-based Speakers Platform. “Some of the topics that were very hot last year and earlier this year, but are waning towards the end of this year are economics, ‘celebrity’ speakers, and healthcare reform.”
John Truran, senior vice president of Arlington, VA-based Keppler Speakers, says that companies understand that “the value of having an athlete get up and tell locker room stories isn’t what it once was.” At the same time, he adds, “there are still plenty of athletes and adventurers or people like that that have an awesome story that you can translate to anything you do in your life.”
Writing a best-selling business book that everyone wants to hear more about may make you an in-demand speaker, he notes, but it doesn’t necessarily make you a good one. “Only a few of those guys are good speakers,” says Truran. “A lot of them are pretty boring.”
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