Who wants to be a Millionaire?

OK, hands down. I spoke last night at the Millionaires Business Club, just outside London. It was a very enjoyable evening, with well-organised networking between people who run multi-million pound businesses. It's the sort of event that makes me glad to be a professional speaker. As well as speaking to the group, I enjoyed a fine meal and was able to chat to all of the audience about business, in the splendour of the dining room at Moor Park golf club.

An obvious question, which I was far too polite to ask anyone there was "So how did you manage to become so successful?" The answer, of course was obvious. Everyone there was a good communicator, who not only spoke about their own business, but was genuinely interested in what other people did, and how they could help each other.

Like me, you have probably been to networking events where people drone on about what they can do, delivering their "elevator speech", with no regard for your interests at all. I'm afraid this doesn't work any more, if indeed it ever did. No-one is interested in what you do, unless it is something they could benefit from. And how do you find out their interests? You ask them. So, if you have an "elevator speech", then stop boring people with it. Ask them what they do, and explain how your business might help them do more or better. That's exactly what people in the Millionaires Business Club were doing last night. That's how they got there.

Gissa job...

The PSA is a wonderfully supportive organisation, through which I've made many good friends. Sometimes, I receive a call from one of them, telling me that they have referred me to a client. I'm very grateful. I refer people too, whenever I am asked to deliver a speech or a training course that is not part of my core business (media). I think that referrals are part and parcel of being in a profession. It's what we do for one another.

However, there is a limit. Recently, I have been approached by several speakers (prospective, rather than actual, PSA members), asking me if I can help them find paid gigs. I'm always as helpful as I can be, suggesting ways in which they can market themselves in order to generate paid work. One particular individual has called me several times, asking for more detailed advice on each occasion. During the most recent call, he said "Look Alan, you're a successful speaker, and you seem to get lots of work. How about signing up a client, and then giving the work to me, to get me started?"

I won't tell you my exact reply, but I'll paraphrase it. All of us in the speaking business have to sell ourselves. No-one will do it for us, not even speaker bureaus. We can get advice from others, go on marketing courses, and learn how to close a sale. But clients are buying us. If you can't sell yourself, or employ someone to do it for you, you can't rely on professional colleagues to do it. That is not what the PSA is for.

But we've always used it....

I've been getting involved recently in yet another debate about the use of PowerPoint. OK, it's a bit of a hobby horse of mine, but that's only because people tell me they "have to use it". What they usually mean is "We're expected to use it in our organisation". Well, OK. That may be a rule. But left to your own devices, you don't "have to use it" at all. The debate usually goes to and fro, until my co-debater says "OK, Alan, let's agree a compromise. There are some people who use PowerPoint badly, and they're in the majority. But some people use it really well, and it really does enhance a presentation".

Alas, I still say "no". I'm not trying to be dogmatic (I know it sounds like it), but I don't see why I have to "compromise" on the use of PowerPoint. This is a tool that has existed only since 1987 on Macs, and since 1990 on Windows. For some reason, it has now become de rigeur for corporate presentations, and worst of all, for conference speakers. What did these people do 20 years ago? Maybe some of them used overhead projectors, or even flipcharts. However, most of them just spoke to their audiences, and handed out any detailed information on paper.

At last there is a corporate rebellion under way. Even Bill Gates is reported to have banned PowerPoint from meetings, and asked his staff to "just tell me what is happening". The report into the Columbia Shuttle disaster included this telling sentence - "The (Columbia Accident Investigation) Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers as an illustration of the problematic methods of technical communication at NASA"

.....And everywhere else, in my opinion.

A room with a view

I had a splendid time a couple of days ago at the annual conference of the Association of Marketing Directors in Independent Schools. I was the after-dinner speaker, and was well looked after throughout the event. My room was paid for by the organisers, so I can't complain about value for money. Well, maybe a little. Over to the left is the view from the window of my room. It's a ten-foot high breeze-block wall, lightly suffused with algae and rainwater. It was three feet from the window. I wasn't expecting (as Basil Fawlty used to say) "Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The hanging gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically..." , but I did expect to see further than three feet. Oh well. Worse to report, I was in an "executive suite" with two king-sized beds (who knows what executives get up to in Coventry?). I wonder what the view was like from a standard room?

Anyway, as I say, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. We itinerant orators have to take the rough with the smooth. For example, I once had to spend ten days in a luxury desert spa in Dubai. The view was pretty spectacular, albeit mostly sand.

The high point of my stay in Coventry (yes, back there again) was the breakfast service. Faced with the standard buffet of bacon, sausages, scrambled egg and fried bread, all cooked some hours before, my heart sank. But salvation was at hand, in the person of Florence, one of the waitresses. She saw me looking at the buffet, and asked if I would like any freshly-cooked food from the kitchen. I requested two lightly-poached eggs on brown toast. Five minutes later, a smiling Florence arrived at my table, with a wonderful plate of hot, delicious food. I thanked her, and made a point to drop a note to the hotel manager praising her for great customer service. I left her a tip on the table too, since wages in hotels tend to be close to the minimum.

So, if you ever stay in the Hickley Island Hotel, don't pay extra for a suite, and ask for Florence to wait on your table at breakfast.

Sent to Coventry

Well, yes and no.. I am off to Coventry today, to do an after-dinner speech to a group of marketing directors, so it's true in a literal sense. In a figurative sense, the opposite is true, since rather than being ignored, I have been overwhelmed by messages of support and encouragement (with the odd request thrown in). Keep 'em coming, I say. I'm trying to respond quickly to every message I receive (other than the ones that tell me I need to help someone get 8 million euros out of a country far, far away). However, I am keeping my responses short, so if you receive only a two-line email from me, please don't be offended.

I'd like to thank both Mike Southon (the Beermat Entrepreneur, and a Fellow of the PSA) and Coutts for inviting me to a splendid event on Friday evening. Many of you will know Mike, of course, and if you ever get the chance to hear him speak, take it - no-one knows more about being a successful entrepreneur than he does.

I met some fascinating people, including (to the great excitement of my daughter) Jamie Mitchell, the "Chief Squeezer" and Managing Director of Innocent, who make those very tasty smoothies (no, they don't sponsor this blog either). Now that's what I call a cool brand.

I also met an inspiring woman, Molly Bedingfield, who runs Global Angels. Apart from bringing up some rather successful singing children, Molly is passionate about championing the needs of children around the world. Have a look at her site and see if you can help her. I certainly will.

Hey, ho, off to Coventry.... Talk to you again later.

So who do you recommend?

I'm very good at what I do. But I'm not very good at lots of other things, so that's why I recommend people. One of the great values of having a worldwide network of fellow speakers is that I always know someone who is a perfect fit for any event. That sounds like I'm an unpaid speaker bureau, which I'm definitely not, since speaker bureaus do a great deal more than find speakers.

For example, in the past few weeks I have recommended an after-dinner speaker for a large corporate bash in London, a keynote speaker for a product launch in Las Vegas, and a workshop leader for a couple of days in Dubai. When I was approached about these gigs, I was asked "is this something you could do?". In each case, I had to admit that it wasn't really my specialist area, so I'd rather pass it on to someone else. Sometimes the reverse happens, and people recommend me for gigs, for which I'm extremely grateful. But I don't recommend others to get a recommendation back. It doesn't work like that.

I hope everyone in the PSA recommends people too. That's one of the benefits of being a member. We're all in this together, and we help each other. That's the spirit of the worldwide community of professional speakers. So who do you recommend?

Do speakers have to travel, then?

Well, that's a good question (as I teach my media clients to say, to give them five more seconds of thinking time). Basically, the life of a professional speaker revolves around travel arrangements. The nature of the job is that we need to be in lots of different places, some of them quite remote, and possibly never visited before by people from more than ten miles away. The speaker's job is to locate the venue (and the audience), delight them with eloquence, and find somewhere to eat and sleep before heading home or (if lucky) to another gig.

Charlie Watts, drummer with the popular beat combo The Rolling Stones, was once asked what it was like being on the road for twenty-five years, playing in the best rock and roll band in the world. "I haven't done that for 25 years" he protested "I've only played with them for a year. The other 24 years, I was hanging around in a hotel or an airport".

So, in order to be a good speaker, you need to get a good travel agent. Whenever I travel overseas, I call my chums at Trailfinders. They always answer the phone quickly, remember that I called before (I know, they've looked me up in the contact database, but it still makes me feel good). Most of all, they know that I'm 6ft 3, so always tell me where the seats with good leg room are on the plane. That's what I call service.

No, this blog is not sponsored by Trailfinders, or by anyone else for that matter, more's the pity.

Back to Business

After a hectic week, it's time to get back to looking after some of my media clients for a day or two. However, I have made use of meetings at the BBC and Sky News to promote the PSA, and let people know what we do. The general view of paid speakers is that they have to be celebrities or recently-retired politicians, so it's been useful to talk to journalists about what expertise there is within the ranks of the PSA. At both meetings, the subject of Tony Blair's recent speech in China came up, where he was reportedly paid almost a quarter of a million pounds for one speech (though the currency conversion may have been a bit off). Apparently some of his audience were not impressed, although I'm sure he's used to that.

I also had an excellent meeting with Roger Harrop, who is helping to organise next year's PSA Convention, which will take place almost a year hence, on 7th-9th November 2008. These events have a long lead time, and involve a lot of work for a dedicated team. As President, I'm fortunate to have brilliant organisers on the case - Bob Ferguson as Conference Chair, and Roger Harrop as President-Elect.

I've been overwhelmed by good wishes in the week or so since I took over the Presidency, and I'm trying to get back to everyone to thank them personally. If I haven't contacted you yet, please accept my thanks via this blog - I promise to be in touch soon.

Tomorrow, I'll be starting my round of the Speaker bureaus to tell them how the PSA is changing, and why they should have more PSA speakers on their books.

It's a team thing

As I've mentioned before, the PSA has the most generous members of any organisation that I've ever been involved with. I spent some time at the Convention taking people into dark corners (no, not like that), and asking them what they could contribute in the coming year. Without exception, everyone offered to take on a task. Even a couple of people who said they were too busy to do much, agreed to come up with some ideas for discussion.

Most professional speakers run their own businesses, often with a small staff. No-one can be an expert on everything, so it is important to delegate. The PSA is fortunate to have a talented Board of Directors, with a range of skills. Everyone on the Board has an area to look after (sometimes several), but they don't try to do it alone. They put together a small team of experts to help them. The same applies in the Local Chapters, where dedicated teams, led by the Chapter President, provide members with meetings delivering great value.

At a rough estimate, there must be between 50 and 100 volunteer members working actively for the PSA on a regular basis. My thanks go to each and every one of them. If you're reading this, and you're not contributing, consider what you could do, however small the task, to spread the load even more. It's a team thing, so get yourself involved.

Who pays your airfares?

I visited a meeting of the North-West Chapter of the PSA in the SAS Radission Hotel at Manchester airport last night. I received a warm welcome from Chapter President Chris Davidson , along with a group of members from around the region. PSA Chapters are the lifeblood of our organisation, and provide members with regular doses of encouragement and support. I aim to visit the chapters as often as I can, since I believe that it is important to be accountable and available.

The two main speakers, Elaine Hanzak and Sue Tonks had both overcome setbacks in their personal or business lives, and had turned the experiences into positive messages. There was also a remarkable session where every member of the audience was asked to report their recent successes, showing what a hardworking and talented bunch they are round there. Of course I knew that. My paternal grandfather's family hailed from Ashton under Lyne, and my great-great grandfather, John Kerrison, was chief reporter for the Oldham Evening Chronicle in the mid-1800s. Journalism is in my veins.

I spoke briefly at the end of the meeting, and mentioned my commitment to international travel, to visit other speaker conventions. When I called for questions, I was asked "Who pays for your airfares?" A good point, since a year of international travel could be quite an expense for a small organisation to bear. I was happy to reply "I pay for it all, personally". I don't claim a penny from the PSA, since it's my choice to travel, and I feel that members' subscriptions should not be used to subsidise my activities as President. That's a view shared by members and officers of all speaking organisations around the world. I'm always humbled by speakers from overseas who we invite to speak at our conventions. They pay not only their fares and accommodation, but also their conference fees. I know of no other organisation with this level of generosity from its members. But, as they say, "givers gain".

Lobbying for business

After a "relaxing" day in the office on Monday (well, it was meant to be...), I was back on the road on Tuesday. First stop was Warwick, to meet up with a couple of newish PSA members, who are setting up in business together. Since I was on my way North anyway, I said I'd drop in and offer them some advice. The initial rendezvous was the lobby of the Warwick Hilton Hotel, just off the M40. I arrived first, and sat down at a table to check my emails. As I glanced around the vast space, I noticed that there were at least thirty other tables, all occupied by one, two or three business people, with groups engaged in what were audibly (the closest ones anyway) productive business meetings. The foyer clearly acts as a hub and meeting place.

The business hubbub in the lobby gave me an idea, which I passed on to the people I met, and I pass on to you now. If you see a group of people who are your potential clients (as these clearly were for the people I met), how do you get your message to them? I suggested to my pal that he should find out the name of the hotel manager (which he did by asking the coffee waiter, of course), and contact them, offering to come in and train their senior staff for free for a couple of hours one morning. (Obviously, you need to offer them something valuable, such as improved productivity or better customer relations). In return, ask the hotel to place your marketing material on every table in the foyer for, say, a month. Since you use the place regularly, you can check. I noticed that people often arrived early for meetings, and looked round for something to read, even grabbing the hotel brochures from the lobby displays. How much better (for you) if they could browse your marketing material for a few minutes over a coffee.

As you probably know, there are plenty of other ways to use hotels in your marketing strategy. I'll mention a few more another time. After a very pleasant meeting, and a fine bistro lunch (thanks Dave and Bernie), I was back on the road to Manchester, to speak at our North-West PSA Chapter meeting.

Founded in January 1999, the Professional Speakers Association (PSA) represents experts based in the UK who speak for a living.

On November 3rd, 2007, I received the honour of being elected as their 9th President, an office I will hold until November 2008. It is a privilege to be allowed to serve fellow professionals, and I am fully committed to doing as much as I can to raise both the standing and the standard of professional speaking in the UK. I'd like to pay tribute to the team who organised a great event, and look forward to next year's event in the Birmingham area.

We are fortunate to have some of the greatest speakers in the world, here in the UK. Over the coming year, I will be travelling all over the UK, meeting as many of them as I can.

I have also made a committment to travel Internationally, visiting the Annual Conventions of speaking organisations in every other country that has a professional body dedicated to the speaking profession. Currently, there are around ten of these (more are being formed all the time), - USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Germany and the Netherlands.

There are several purposes of this blog:

1. To let members of the PSA know what I am doing (Presidents must be accountable)
2. To give members a chance to comment and ask me questions (see above)
3. To raise the profile of professional speaking
4. Some others I haven't thought of yet

I'll be posting as often as I can (though don't expect a daily update, since I'm really a speaker, not a blogger)

I encourage you to post comments and questions. I'll respond as soon as I can.

My next stop is Manchester, to attend the meeting of the PSA Chapter in the North West.

I hope to see some of you there.

Best wishes

Alan