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Hire a Certified Speaking Professional to Guarantee Your Success

Okay, maybe not guarantee but definitely improve the likelihood of your meeting being awesome.

What is a CSP?  Certified Speaking Professionals have earned the highest designation awarded by the National Speakers Association.

To be a CSP is a big deal.  You’ve got to do way more than just fill out a form.  They pretty much examine your career, they look at the number of jobs you do per year to make sure that you’ve done a lot, they look at the amount of income that you have earned through speaking to make sure that you are working professional events, and then, here’s the killer, they call an alarming number of your clients to make sure that you were delivering excellence.  When I earned my CSP I was told that fewer than 7% of professional speakers worldwide have earned their CSP.

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 is the point?  The point is is that when you’re hiring a motivational speaker you want the very best.  And one easy litmus test that you could put up is to see if your prospective speaker has met the qualifications for this very straightforward designation.  If they have, you know a lot about them.  You know they’ve done a lot of work, you know they have a lot of experience, you know they’ve worked at a certain fee level which guarantees that they are not just working at the Optimist Club and the Lion’s Club, which by the way is important.

Just because somebody says that they’ve given a lot of speeches doesn’t mean they’ve given a lot of speeches in front of business audiences or audiences like yours.  What else do you know?  You know that somebody, at least one person, has checked up on the speaker to make sure that they’re not complete fluff – that it’s not just marketing.  You know that this speaker has met a certain level of professional success.

Make sure your speaker has the title, CSP after their name!

Happily, I’ve earned my CSP.  I’m proud of this!  It took hours and hours of paperwork.  My office went nuts for about six months trying to get this done.  Plus, of course, it meant an absolute headache with arranging a database.  But it was worth it to me because it is worth it to my clients.

Next time you’re considering hiring a speaker make sure your speaker has the initials CSP after their name.

Are you looking for a professional motivational speaker who also is a CSP, Certified Speaking Professional?  I hope you will contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Certified Speaking Professional, and proud of it!

Related Articles:

Can You Guarantee Success?

How Do You Know If Your Speaker Is Any Good?

Check Out Brad On YouTube

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motivational speaker

 

What is a Certified Speaking Professional and why should you care?

 

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, Certified Speaking Professional (CSP)

For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:

Alright so check that out. It’s my CSP medal. So what is a CSP? What is a Certified Speaking Professional and why do you care?

Alright, so here’s the short story. A CSP, again Certified Speaking Professional, comes from the organization of professional speakers called the National Speakers Association. I’m a member, I’m a proud member, I’ve been a member for years and they’re the ones who gave me, kapow, that thing, it’s a CSP.

So what it means, the short story is to get the CSP you have to have had a whole bunch of clients and the National Speakers Association checks up on that. You have to have earned a certain amount of money and not that money is the Holy Grail, but it proves that you’ve been working over a certain amount of time.

And by the way, this is over a long time. It’s over five or six years, so it’s not, you can’t have a short flash. They want to know you have a ton of speakers over five years and they want to know you made a significant amount of money over five years, proving that you’re in the game and then also, the coolest thing is they check up on your clients and make sure that your clients are happy with you.

So, and again, not the last month, not the last two clients, not the last clients over a year, we’re talking over a long period of time. And I don’t mind telling you, I think the standards are pretty low. You really don’t need that many jobs and you don’t really need to have made that much money as a speaker in order to be eligible for your CSP. And if you can’t round up a few clients who aren’t willing to vouch for you when the National Speakers Association calls you, you’re just not doing that well, which brings up the point, if it’s so easy to get a CSP, why don’t more speakers have them? Seriously, it’s just not that hard.

So you just have to do some paperwork and get it done. What’s that got to do with you?

Looking for a speaker? Ask if they have their CSP Medal.

When you’re looking to book a speaker, one of the things you ought to ask is, are you a Certified Speaking Professional and if not, why not? And then listen. And if the answer is a lot of excuses, well, because of this or it’s just not important or, you might ask them, I heard it was pretty easy to do, why can’t you just do the paperwork and do it if it’s so easy?

But what I think you’ll find is that there are tons of speakers who say they have the experience that don’t. There’s tons of speakers who say they have the expertise that don’t and most importantly, there’s tons of speakers who say they have the continual track record which for you, is your level of guarantee. That’s what’s going to guarantee that your speaker kills for you. If they don’t have that, you ought to really ask them why.

Alright, that’s my CSP. I’m pretty proud of it. Didn’t really change my life, but it was kind of fun and when we just set up the office, I hung it up because I thought it was kind of fun.

So check it out. Are you hiring a CSP? Good. If not, find out why not.

My name is Brad Montgomery. If you are looking for a motivational speaker who has earned their CSP, this is the highest earned designation from the National Speakers Association, if you want one of those, I’d love to be your guy.

Check out the preview video. It’s here somewhere. Click the link. Is it there? I don’t know. You’ll find it. Check out the preview video and if you have any questions, give us a call at bradmontgomery.com or funnymotivationalspeakers.com. Make it a great day!

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Brad had a blast working with employees at Enterprise Bank in MA recently. Here are video testimonials from employees about what his message meant to them.

Brad with audience:  What if I gave you a couple of specific ways to stay happy, to remind yourself to stay happy?  Would that be helpful?  Of course it would because we spend so much of our time at work. 

Fun at work makes us better at work

Doesn’t it make sense to invest some energy, some calories into making sure that time at work is fun?  And the science backs us up.  We know this.  We know that if we’re better, or we’re having fun at work, we’re better at work.  We’re healthier, right?  Wellness?  We saw that.  We’re healthier, we’re better, we’re more resilient.  We’re everything we need to be.  Customer experience is easier.  I just dropped that customer experience in there because it’s in my contract, so.

Next speaker:  Brad really had them laughing and his message hit home for our employees.

Next speaker:  Yes, actually, I would say Brad’s experience as a certified speaking professional, you can tell that he’s taken the time to get to know the company and you don’t always get that with other speakers.  So I think this is probably one of the best ones we’ve had so far.

I love working with banks and I’d love to be on your team to bring a laugh-out-loud message of fun and your bottom-line. Call me, we’ll put together an unforgettable experience for your next meeting! Brad

 

 Time Machine 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?

Smiley face

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Fan of Enterprise Bank

Related links:
More Banks That Love Brad!

For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:

Speaker:  It turned out to be great.  Employees loved it.  I suggest you look him up and take him up on speaking at your next event.  Thank you.

Brad with audience:  What?  What?  Did I miss something?  What did I miss?      So here’s the deal.  We’re going to talk today about connecting fun and levity with excellence and what I love about you is you already get that.  Enterprise, you guys are experts at this.  You know, fun place to work, whatever.

Jamie:  Hi, I’m Jamie Gabriel.  I work for Enterprise Bank.  I’m the Senior Human Resources Manager and I just had the pleasure of working with Brad Montgomery on a all-employee meeting session.  Brad was lively and engaging and of course, as you would have expected, humorous.  His presentation was filled with excellent stories that people could take back and apply within their own life and he also brought in some of our own business challenges that we wanted to consider and he had some humor to those as well.

Next speaker:  Well, we have two sessions that Brad’s speaking at.  The morning session’s already happened, got a lot of great feedback.  People loved it, lots of laughs and we’re looking forward to his afternoon performance.

Jamie:  We had two sessions, one in the morning and Brad’s presentation was all the buzz throughout the course of the day.  So employees loved it, they felt energized and they left feeling like they could make a difference and be humorous in their own work environments.

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I was speaking to a potential client on the phone today and I was impressed with some of the questions she asked me. I was amazed at the quality of her questions. It was clear that this woman had a clear plan in mind when she started to choose and select her motivational speaker.

Most of her questions were centered around my experience; basically she wanted to make sure I had lots of it. Tons of experience. And I was impressed with her questions. And it struck me that she — perhaps without knowing it — should teach a short class in how to Make Sure Your Speaker Has a Proven Track Record. She wanted to make sure I:

•Am a motivation speaker with a long list of happy clients.
•Consider booking only speakers who have earned thier CSP (Certified Speaking Professional… this is a pretty big deal.)
•That I am a speaker who can provide RECENT references. And that ALL of my recent clients are happy clients.
•That I am a speaker who’s clients are not only numerous, but go back a LONG way. (She wanted to make sure that I had experience over time.)

What a great idea. It reminded me of how my wife and I engaged a construction firm to re-do our kitchen. We did check references, but we did not ask for the firm’s Six Most Recent clients. We should have done just that. That contractor was a nightmare.

He had references, but heck… anybody who has been in any business a few years can find happy clients. What I should have checked was this: are ALL of his clients happy? At least the ones in the last year?

So when this perspective client wanted more than clients… she wanted recent clients … I was impressed. And totally thrilled to give them to her.

Bottom line: book a speaker with a LONG and PROVEN track record. (Of course.. I’d love it if you book me. : )

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