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.