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During my travels as a professional motivational speaker, I get to meet people from all walks of life. And often times I find pearls of wisdom from the most unlikely sources.
/0 Comments/in General, Professional Development /by Brad Montgomery
Third graders love to be told they are doing a good job. They love it when you tell them they did that math problem perfectly, or that their coloring is looking awesome.
Who doesn’t love that kind of feeling? As we age, we still maintain that basic desire for acknowledgement. But for some reason, the frequency in which we receive that kind of acknowledgment and encouragement diminishes. But we STILL thrive on those types of compliments.
Here are three sure fire, based-in-science, and crazy-simple ways to turn a bad day into a good day, and to morph a good day in to a great day.
My job as an insurance speaker was to reinforce and reiterate their strong and positive culture, while also firing them up with a bit of passion, meaningfulness, and purpose.
Most of us have heard the theory that it takes 21 days to develop a habit. But in reality, it takes more than 21 days to create consistency for those things we really DON’T want to do. So, how can you motivate yourself to get beyond those 21 days to generate more positivity in your life?
Sure you can.
Selected Posts from Brad’s Past
We found a few posts, videos and stories from Brad’s past, and thought it would be fun to re-publish them here. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, put on some classic rock, and check out this classic blog post from a decade (ish) ago.
What we mean is that you might consider your budget. Your people will remember the killer awesome funny motivational speaker long after they have forgotten the slightly better chicken dish, the upgraded center pieces, and the fact that they got a brownie instead of a cookie.
Seriously, I’ve been amazed at how many conventions can’t afford a top speaker but instead allocate their money towards stuff their attendees will never remember. Do you want this year’s meeting to rock? Reconsider how you allocate your budget.
Second, Brad works closely with corporate sponsors and has many ideas how to both provide value for sponsors — and in turn get those sponsors to open their wallets and help you to afford the top speaker instead of second tier speaker. Want to learn more about sponsorship and how we can help you with that process? Contact us. We’d be happy to chat and share some great success stories and resources.
Oooh. There are so many. We’ll give you three quickie mistakes:
1. Don’t hire a speaker simply to fill up a space in your meeting or convention. Hire a speaker to help you accomplish a specific goal; to create a specific behavior change; to deliver a specific message.
Not sure how best to use Brad? No sweat…just ask us and we’ll give you some ideas how to not just hire a motivational speaker, but to accomplish a goal. We’ll help you make your meeting a mad success.
2. Make sure your speaker is able to customize his program to your people, your group, your needs and your goals. You need somebody relevant to your audience. And without some customization that’s pretty much impossible.
Brad customizes his programs. Your people will experience something that can’t be repeated. (Yes…. it’s an experience. It’s not a speech.)
Selected Posts from Brad’s Past
We found a few posts, videos and stories from Brad’s past, and thought it would be fun to re-publish them here. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, put on some classic rock, and check out this classic blog post from a decade (ish) ago.
Remaining of Text
We talked about this before: you need to check the testimonials and references. But in addition, we’re convinced that you need to chat with your potential motivational speaker. On the phone. No secretaries. No speakers bureaus. You need to talk direct. Does he seem pleasant? Does he seem to understand your needs? Is he willing to shape his program around your needs, desired outcomes and goals? Does he feel more like a partner or more like a contractor?
In this video, Brad Montgomery explains his foolproof method of ensuring you get the most value from your speaker.
Selected Posts from Brad’s Past
We found a few posts, videos and stories from Brad’s past, and thought it would be fun to re-publish them here. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, put on some classic rock, and check out this classic blog post from a decade (ish) ago.
Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.
Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Seminar Leader
For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:
How do you get more value out of your motivational speaker? Well, I got some ideas for you. Here’s where this came from. You know, the economy sucks and so my clients are constantly, I think justifiably, asking for discounts. We got problems, we’re laying people off, our association’s getting fewer attendees every single year. We need a discount. Well, I’m not that interested in discounting, but I am interested in giving you more value and that’s something that’s very easy for me to do and so I wanted to make a quick video about it.
If you’re looking to hire a Motivational Speaker and budget is an issue, and isn’t that pretty much all of you? What I’d like you to ask yourself is how can you get more out of your speaker to justify the expense? So for example, one of the things I do is I try to offer more. You want me for a keynote speech? I love doing that, but it’s just really hard for me to do just the keynote speech without offering a breakout session following the keynote speech and I’ll tell you why. The keynote speech is fun. I’m proud of it. It gets them revved up, it buys them into my concept, which is using levity and lightheartedness and humor to create more, to deliver more, to produce more at work. And they’re ready to go and the ideas are swimming in their head and they want to go, but there’s a disconnect sometimes between that feeling that they have and then translating that into action items because I know that they’re going from my keynote right into the next breakout session that’s going to be some high content, Powerpoint-rich, crazy thing and the power already of that keynote will fall away quickly.
So I love having that keynote where we can say, alright now you got the idea, now you’ve got the buy-in, let’s roll up our sleeves, get out your notes, let’s figure out how you’re going to incorporate this into action steps. Now, how are you going to implement this stuff that we gave you earlier?
Got it? So the point is this, what I want my buyers to see is that if you’re able to book me for both, we can add both for a discount. In other words, you could get one keynote speaker and you can get one breakout speaker. But if you get one person to do the same because I’m able to offer a discount, it turns out to be a terrific savings.
But why stop there? I feel like I’m on TV with that. But wait, there’s more.
What else could you have your speaker do? Well, you know, I’m speaking from personal experience. I do a lot of corporate emceeing. I’m a comedian. So it’s not only easy for me, it’s fun for me to emcee a meeting. I just did this for a meeting in Las Vegas and it was a blast because one, I had fun, but really the best part was that the audience really got something out of it and that meant a lot, of course, to the buyers.
And the question is, what did they get out of it? Energy. So here’s what happened. I started the day with a keynote speech and then they were going to have really high content. It was a medical conference. Super high content all day long and this was information their people wanted and it was information their people needed and it was unbelievably boring. Plus, you add in to the fact that our bodies are just not meant to sit in a chair all day long and learn. You know, we can’t do that. It’s just really hard on us, so what they did is they brought me in after the keynote and between every speaker. I came in, I gently teased, but constantly celebrated that speaker. I joked about the medical issues and this medical device is what it was and then told them, here’s your break time, here’s when to come back and here’s what’s going to happen when you come back and what happened is they came back on time, but then also when they came back, I was able to raise the energy up to prepare them for this really important learning they were to do for the next session.
What Your Motivational Speaker Can Do That Makes Him More Affordable
Alright, so what’s the point? The point is that we were able to get more value to this client at a much reduced fee than hiring a keynote speaker and a master of ceremonies. You starting to get it? So ask your speaker, if you’re looking to hire a speaker, I hope it’s me, but if you’re looking to hire a speaker, I’d really like you to ask them what can you do in addition to your keynote speech that will bring me, my meeting, my conference, my people, value in a way that makes this whole thing more affordable? That’s a great question and if your speaker can’t answer that one easily with 15 ideas, they’re crazy and you ought to keep dialing. In fact, you ought to go right to bradmontgomery.com and visit me.
Alright, so added value, that’s what we’re doing all the time now. It used to be, you know I don’t mind telling you this. When I first got started, I was an entry level speaker and I had my speech like this and I hoped you booked me and I came and I did it.
Well, that’s not the way I work anymore. Instead, my questions are: tell me about your meeting, what are your problems, what are your concerns, what do your people need, what does your meeting need and then how might I be of service to help you to get all of those things?
And it might be to come and just deliver a keynote speech, but probably not. Probably it’s deliver a bigger variety, a package of services and ideas of energy and excitement to create an experience from which your people can learn, they can be excited and they can leave feeling like that was the best meeting ever and all of this is a long way of saying there’s many ways to get more value out of your speaker without necessarily getting a discount. I think that’s right.
Alright, Brad Montgomery, if you want a speaker, I’d love to be your guy. You can learn more at bradmontgomery.com. Give us a call and ask the question, well, Brad, if you’re not going to give us a discount, how can we get more value from you? Love to chat.
