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motivational speaker

We now present the eighth in a series of video articles about:
How to work with your motivational keynote speaker to get the most from your conference investment

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 custom keynote presentation for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery,
Motivational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Customized Presentation Expert

Related Articles:
More from Brad about the art of Customizing and Tailoring a Keynote Presentation
Laugh-out-loud funny video of Brad interacting with his audience

For those folks who would rather read than watch, here is the video transcript:

Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com with another idea on maximizing your return on investment with your motivational or inspirational speaker.

So this tip is easy.  Pick somebody who customizes their program for you.  So why?  Well audiences are hip right now and audiences can see through it if the speaker just kind of walks in and delivers a really canned over-prepared program.  I don’t think today people want to see a presentation.  They want a speaker who’s talking to them about their needs, their desires, their stresses, their problems and what solutions they can implement to get to where they want to go.

So that means for you, you got to make sure you hire a speaker that can connect with that audience and delivering a non-customized speech does not connect to your audience.  And of course that connection is crucial.  That’s why you’ve hired your speaker to come in.

A customized keynote presentation is more valuable to your group

You can just hand them a photocopied packet of information if you just want to deliver “Here’s the information we want you to have.”  But that’s not what you want.  You want someone to come in and create an experience that’s meaningful and valuable and has impact and is fun and will turn them into a team, right?  I think you do.  So if you’re going to do that, I think with today’s media savvy audiences, you need to make sure you get somebody to connect and that’s going to mean customize.

So a bigger speaker who’s going to customize, it makes a huge, huge difference.  It’s worth it to you to make sure that happens.

How do you make sure you’re hiring a motivational speaker that will customize and not just tailor?  Ask them.

Your motivational speaker should customize his program to YOUR group’s specific needs

It’s a great question when you’re thinking about hiring a speaker or you’ve just hired a speaker, “What are you going to do to customize your program to my audience and their problems?  What are you going to do to help me deliver the message I have for my people?  If you’re talking to somebody and, after you ask that question, if they start to squirm and wiggle and hem and haw, you got the wrong person.

All right, my name is Brad Montgomery.  I’d love to be part of your team.  I’d love to help you take your meeting or your conference and make it a rocking success.  So give us a call, we’ll talk about how we can do just that. One of the things we’ll talk about of course is a custom keynote presentation.

Talk to you soon.  See you at bradmontgomery.com.  Have a great day.

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motivational speaker

 

In this blog post, Brad Montgomery explains the difference between Customization and Tailoring in a keynote speech – and why that is very important to you as a meeting planner.

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

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Seminar Leader

Related Posts:
Why Book Brad?

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 does it mean to customize a Keynote Speech?

Lots of motivational speakers say that they customize their speech, but in my experience, very few actually do. Instead, what they do is tailor a speech. So what’s the difference between tailoring a keynote speech and customizing a motivational speech? Well, for me, the difference is huge.

Tailoring means often the speakers will drop in a catch phrase, or a brand name, or a company name, or an association name into some sort of pre-prepared story or sentence and then repeat that technique three times in a one-hour keynote and then claim that that program has been customized. Well, pish! Customization is genuine changing of the program to meet the client’s needs.

Audiences need to know that their speaker understands them, gets them, and is fully connected with their needs, their pains, their desires, their joys and their jobs. So, tailoring just isn’t sufficient for today’s audience.

A Motivational Speaker That Can Customize A Keynote Speech

Because I’m a comedian motivational speaker, tailoring for me means more than just making sure the message is relevant and on track. For me, customizing is more than having a five quick minute conversation with a client to find out what their concerns are. For me, customization is much more than helping a specific organization get from point A to point B in concert with the top decision-maker’s desires. For me, what customization means is to make the program all of those things and in addition, make it really funny by putting in specific, relevant jokes just for that group, those people and that event.

So, before my programs I always interview the top decision-makers for the organization and besides looking for all of their desires for change and for what their people need to hear, what I do in addition is look for places where I can write specific jokes and comedy bits for that group. So it’s not uncommon for me to create full sections of my program specifically for that event and that organization.

If you are considering hiring a motivational keynote speaker, I encourage you to check their references, to have a lengthy conversation with them, and to find out what they can deliver is consistent with what you need.

But, in addition to that, I ask you to consider what it would mean to you if your motivational speaker came with a truly extraordinary customized motivational speech for your organization. And if you feel that customization would help your audience connect to your speaker and therefore, improve the return on investment for that speaker, make sure your speaker customizes; not tailors.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker
Keynote Speaker
Master of Customization

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Determining Whether The Motivational Speaker Can Customize His Program To Your Organization

All right, so here’s the favor I’m asking you. When you’re hiring that motivational speaker, when you’re talking to them on the phone, I want you to ask them this question: “What do you do to customize your program? How are you going to make it special for us?” And then listen. And if they’re good, if they’re top, if they’re pro, they’re going to have a lot of things to say about this.

I could talk about this topic for hours. If they say, “Well you know, what I do is I send out a little questionnaire and I ask you for your product names and I ask you for your company name and I ask you for the name of your top sales person ‘cause I’m going to put that person’s name in a little joke I’ve prepared,” no. That’s the wrong person. Find out what customizing means to your speaker and, you know, hold their feet to the fire. Grill them. See what they think.

I’d love to be your professional speaker. I’d love to be your keynote speaker if you’re looking for somebody who will customize and will talk to you until your done listening about what that means for you and your organization and what my speech or program would look like for your organization, give us a call. You can reach us through funnymotivationalspeakers.com or bradmontgomery.com.

So glad you’re here. Look for more videos at the links below on top mistakes people make when hiring a speaker. Really glad to have you.

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.  

Thanks for tuning in. We now present the thirteenth video blog in a series about how to get the most out of your motivational speaker.

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

Yours,

Brad Montgomery

Motivational Speaker, Speaker Who Customizes YOUR Message

Related Posts:
No Matter What the Topic, Brad will customize his message to YOUR group!

 

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

Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com with a continuing video series on top mistakes people make when choosing or hiring a motivational speaker or a keynote speaker. All right, one of the mistakes I see a lot is people selecting a motivational speaker who will not or cannot customize their message for you and your organization.

First of all, what is customize? Customize means…. By the way, it’s not tailor. Customize means creating an event, an experience for you and your team, for your organization. What customizing is not is just dropping a few little keywords, dropping in your message, dropping in your product name, dropping in your company name. No, no, no, no, no. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking creating an experience so that when your audience is sitting there in their seats watching the motivational speaker you chose for your convention, your audience knows that this speaker is there for them.

Now why is that so important? Because of the fact that our audiences are very sophisticated right now, it’s really important to put a speaker in front of them that they know is meaningful and relevant for them. That means if you’re able to put up a motivational speaker or keynote speaker on video and just like play their DVD, and it’s the same exact program you would have got had you brought that speaker in from the outside, I think you’re making a huge mistake. Your audience will know that it’s just, “Oh, like I’m watching the show,” and they’re not going to go for it.

Your audience doesn’t want to see a one-man show. They don’t want to see a presentation. What they want to see is a speaker who has relevant and meaningful ideas that are prepared and delivered to them, to their needs, to their problems, to their stresses, to their desires. And if you’re funny – I happen to be a funny motivational speaker – if you’re using humor, not only does that customized humor make sure that there is a deeper connection between your speaker and your audience, but it also, customized teamwork is funny. It’s just really, really funny. There’s nothing funnier than making jokes about your people, your acronyms, your buildings, your products, whatever.

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