Andrea Gold has had a rough time of it lately. The president of Gold Star Speakers Bureau in Tucson, AZ, has been dealing with meeting planners who are often unsatisfied with what they see among her extensive roster of speakers.
Problem is, the planners only seem to know what they don't like, making Gold's job akin to finding a needle in a haystack. "I'll send them 25 suggestions and tapes," she notes, "but planners come back saying, 'None of these is quite right, though I can't be more specific on what they're lacking. I won't know exactly what I want until I see it.' "
In fact, her conversations with other speakers bureaus reveal the same behavior from their clients too, "and that's a very difficult way for all of us to work," she says.
When some planners complain vaguely that most hired speakers have begun to sound alike, Gold tries to find the lesson hidden in that dissatisfaction. "I love the speakers I work with; they are all incredibly talented and have their own story and their own way of saying it. But between the lines, I see that planners have an unarticulated need for something new—and it just may be that what they are looking for is extremely rare."
Meat, Potatoes, and a Hook
Today's time-compressed, technology-saturated audiences expect speakers to have a specific knowledge of who they are as a group. But these generationally diverse business audiences also need speakers to employ a style that resonates with each attendee. In short, "We're being asked to find the bread-and-butter businesspeople who possess a sophisticated speaking ability, and that's really a challenge," says Laurie Sharp, president of San Francisco-based Sharp Events and immediate past president of Meeting Professionals International's Northern California chapter.
Gold recently fielded a call from a multinational firm's Southeast Asian office seeking a speaker. "They said, 'We don't want a rah-rah guy who bounces off the walls. We don't want a celebrity. We don't even want Donald Trump. We want someone whose content has an effect that's measurable, with growth strategies we can apply tomorrow—but who isn't dry.' " Further-more, Crista LeGrand, of Baltimore-based association management firm Clemons & Associates, says her trade groups "won't pay for someone to come in and cheer for them and tell them that they can do anything they put their minds to. They don't want someone who climbed the mountain or flew the jet or won the title, if that person can't also talk about attendees' specific industries or responsibilities. And most of those people can't."
The Why Factor
For the few speakers who can actually perform at that level, there is another hurdle to clear. "More than ever before, people in the workforce don't think in a linear fashion," says Eric Chester, president of Lakewood, CO-based consulting firm Generation Why, which specializes in helping organizations understand the under-30 crowd. "Younger people think in DVD mode, not VCR mode. So they don't read the paper from front to back, and they don't take notes from top to bottom. They've been exposed to unlimited choices, they know they can do things in a way that best suits them and get good results, and they expect that the speakers who address them are aware of that."
But before you dismiss this as an age-old generational difference that applies only to the youngest segment of the overall business audience, Chester emphasizes this: "The most recent generation has educated and influenced the older generations like never before. Having been exposed to technology by their kids, and thus conditioned to absorb information in new ways, more older people now think in a nonlinear fashion."
So when a speaker can't hold the attention of a large part of an audience, there's something that boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Y folks will do in unison. "Within 30 minutes, many people start tapping on their BlackBerries and stop listening," LeGrand says. "I've even seen that in board meetings. People are so tempted to reconnect to the outside world and do something useful with their time that they aren't embarrassed to be blatant."
"I still see too many of the 'old school' speakers making the rounds, chronicling their own successes and how their experiences could apply to the audience," says Chester, who occasionally plans regional meetings for the National Speakers Association. "But many of them had their big successes 10 or 15 years ago, so the audience is thinking, 'The world has changed so much since then; how could this possibly be useful for my current situation?' "
What's more, although attendees want business-specific content, "A speaker can't simply stand up and list the ways he or she is going to help the audience, such as 'Here are five ways to make a more powerful team' or 'Here are three ways to boost sales,' " he adds. "That is linear thinking in a utilitarian costume, and it's simply not enough."
Shaking Things Up
Some planners are responding to the fickle nature of today's audiences with major changes to their programs. Tammy Swartz, president of Square One Meeting Planning in Mt. Pleasant, SC, says that some of her medical groups have shortened lectures significantly while inserting interactive formats between each lecture. "We've set presentations at just 30 minutes per speaker, so over two and half days we now have at least 18 speakers," she says. "We pay them honoraria plus travel expenses, but we aren't paying more overall—thanks to session sponsorships and mild tweaking of our registration fees."
Even for high-profile presenters, Swartz allows just 45 to 60 minutes. And though she has used electronic-response keypads in her audiences to promote a more interactive, customized session, "People lost their enthusiasm for that feature after two or three years, so it's not worth the expense to us."
But that doesn't mean that her attendees have no desire for interactivity. To the contrary, "We are doing many more roundtables and panel discussions," she says. "And because we have so many speakers each day, we hold an end-of-day panel discussion, with all the speakers there so people can ask them anything from that day's lectures. That usually lasts an hour, and it is incredibly well attended."
Besides all of that, Swartz also uses lunch to promote interaction. "Roundtable discussions work better at lunch than breakfast, because people aren't motivated in the morning. And we get 95 percent attendance at lunch because we have our presenters sit with attendees to stimulate dialogue." She'll also ask lecturers to be present at each night's cocktail reception as well. Clearly, Swartz is quite demanding of her speakers. "Yes, we're asking more of speakers. We want them to stay at the conference as long as they can—it makes a difference."
For Crista LeGrand, roundtable sessions are also quite effective. "After the keynote address—which is the only 90-minute session anymore—the next session has nothing but 10-person tables, with moderators who rotate from table to table, starting conversations on particular aspects of the keynote," she says.
And in breakouts, "People want a business-focused person to tell them how to be more successful in their specific position or industry." So LeGrand seeks recommendations from board members and from attendees who've been to other conferences, she scours corporate press releases for interesting people who are making news, and she otherwise immerses herself in each group's industry to find presenters who will hit the mark without hitting her budget too hard. But regardless of whom she lands to address her audience, "Attendees today feel that the speaker isn't the only expert in the room, so the sessions need to be set up to account for that craving for interaction."
Finally, LeGrand always looks for an opportunity to bring a meeting to its speakers. "One of my groups is meeting at the Disney Institute in part to learn how Disney teaches its employees management and leadership skills," she says. "Being mostly managers and executives, my attendees will take those best practices back to their workplaces."
Laurie Sharp finds that the best way to elicit key information from business-specific speakers and the audience alike is to find an outstanding moderator. "I would pay handsomely for the right moderator—someone who can glean key information from each panelist, even if those panelists are not good speakers," she says. "But finding the right one is even more challenging than finding a good speaker. A moderator must understand that particular industry and its dynamics, and be able to tap the assembled experts so that they put out their best information in the right context. This is what gets the audience riveted and engaged."
On the other hand, when she creates sessions that must rely on speakers who may not be ideal for the task, Sharp makes sure to change the mode of presentation several times in the course of a session. In fact, "You can even go for 90 minutes—but you'd better have a lot of stuff going on." For example, you might begin with a business-specific speaker; move to a video presentation; create a panel to banter about what's been presented so far; allow the audience to throw questions at the panel; have a brief comedic or musical performance where the content connects specifically to your attendees; and then close with a motivational speaker, again having a working knowledge of your audience.
With today's demanding attendees, planners can't afford to do any less.
SIDEBAR
Teen Talk
This speaker regularly steps before the most unforgiving audiences and makes an impact
Have you ever seen your attendees act like a bunch of high-school kids when a meeting session misses the mark? Eric Chester can sympathize. The president of Lakewood, CO-based youth consulting firm Generation Why has not only spoken at many corporate and association meetings, but has also addressed gymnasiums full of teenagers on more than 1,500 occasions. "And believe me, none of those kids asked to be there," he quips. "They're just happy to not be in class so they can hang out with their friends or take a nap." Such crowds practically dare Chester to say something that piques their interest, so "if I don't have my act together from the first five seconds, I'm dead to them, and it becomes the longest hour of my life."
Out of necessity, then, Chester is constantly reshaping his presentation. "I do not speak today, in content or style, the way I spoke yesterday," he says. "I need to think about reinventing every time. To be an effective keynoter, a speaker must know his own material cold, and must know the circumstances of the particular audience, and must solidly connect his material to that day's audience."
With his teenage audiences, Chester researches who the students are at that particular school, what they are facing (Was there a suicide recently? Is the football team doing especially well or badly?), what their feelings are this week, and what is coming up in their collective life that could make those feelings change. "This audience demands validity," he says, "and I'm going to know what they are thinking in order to win credibility from them."
Chester does this the old-fashioned way: He gets in their faces. Besides interviewing a sampling of kids well before the event, he'll also stand at the venue's entrance immediately prior to speaking, approaching kids to get up-to-the-minute details on the buzz and the mood among different segments of the student body. "I show them out in the open that I am gathering information specific to them," he says. "I interact with as many kids as I can and collect a few great anecdotes. From that, they see that you've made yourself a part of their situation. And as the session unfolds, I'll bring other kids up with me and create a dialogue with them on the spot. I know my stuff well enough, and I know that particular audience well enough, that I have no worries about doing that."
The biggest mistake Chester sees other speakers make is trying to establish credibility by relying on a unique talent that nonetheless has no relevance to the audience. "You cannot be a poser. If you're a great singer, you might start your presentation with an impressive song that straightens up the audience before you get into your topic," he says. "Yes, that's a quick attention-getter. But if its connection to your larger message isn't established shortly thereafter, the audience will first be confused, and then disgusted, by what it deems a cheap trick. At that point, you've lost their trust." The second mistake speakers make is using lame attempts at audience involvement. "You can't just ask for a show of hands in response to a question, or simply say, 'Now turn to the person next to you and tell them the biggest challenge you face in your job.' Those are crutches."
In the course of each presentation, Chester uses many modes of communication so that people who absorb information through different means won't miss an important point. For instance, he uses visual elements to support his most important spoken points—but never puts up a slide or sign that has more than two or three words on it, and "I never draw attention to it verbally. I want them to casually glance at it as I am speaking—it's just a way to reinforce the impact of what I am saying, not a substitute for it or a cheat sheet for me to deliver my presentation. The same goes for other audiovisual elements: They should not dominate." He also catches audiences by surprise. "I won't show them the visual they might anticipate is coming. I might put something under their seats that they don't even know is there until I draw attention to it. The element of surprise keeps people interested, and makes them nod when you are able to create a solid connection between the point you made and the situations they face. You'll also get them to wonder what's coming next." The cumulative result of these tactics, he says, is this: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I'm going to cram two hours of learning into my sixty-minute slot."
Finally, Chester has advice for planners looking to hire the right speaker for their groups.
"If the presenter says in his interview with you, 'Well, I talk about the importance of customer service,' make him pitch you better than that. Make him prove his value for your specific audience. Make him do some homework on your group. And make him have the right mix of entertainment as well as a relevant hook that pulls your audience in—not his standard hook. And if you ask a speaker whether there's a chance he's not the right choice for your group, if he immediately says no, do not hire him."