We now present the ninth 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. […]
We now present the tenth in a series of video articles about:
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.
Brad Montgomery,
Motivational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Follow-Up Fanatic
Related Articles:
Brad’s books and other products for creating change
For those folks who would rather read than watch, here is the video transcript:
Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery. I’ve got another idea for you, another tip on how to work with your motivational speaker. One of the mistakes I see a lot of clients do is they don’t really fully invest in their hired keynote speaker and in lasting change, and by that I mean they fail to invest in resources or some type of follow up from their motivational speech.
So here’s the deal; I’m a motivational speaker. I love it when clients come in and say, “You got 45 minutes or 75 minutes or 90 minutes with my hour, go nuts.” I love it. And we can whip them up into a frenzy, we can give them specific ideas for creating change in their lives, and we can send them home with a ton of energy.
But having said that, I’ve never been to a course or any type of learning event where there was lasting change without some sort of follow up resource, without a book, without a packet, with some sort of accountability. Have you? I’m guessing you haven’t.
So what does that mean? I’m thinking it means you ought to be thinking about what can we do to follow up.
So here’s your homework: when you’re talking to your potential keynote speaker, motivational speaker, I want you to ask this question, “What could we do for follow up to make sure that your message, the one that we’re investing heavily in for you to come in and deliver to my audience, what can we do to make sure that there’s some follow up and stickiness with your message?”
Give your conference attendees something they can bring with them to re-inforce the motivational message
That’s a great question, isn’t it? What are you going to do to follow up? What can your people leave with or what can you reach back and touch them with that message? I get a lot of ideas for all my clients, and we’ve had some really cool success with lots of different types of follow up. Not just product, but call us and we’ll tell you.
So I think follow up is important and I think additional resources are important, and I think to really get the most out of your speaker is up to you to say, “You’re the motivational speaker. You’ve done this before. What can we do to make sure this is not just a flash in the pan? What can we do to work as a team to create lasting change?”
All right, I’d love to be your guy. Give us a call. You can find us at funnymotivationalspeakers.com or bradmontgomery.com.Hope to see you soon. Give us a call. Let’s make them laugh, let’s make it meaningful, let’s make it last.
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.
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.
We now present the seventh in a series of video articles about:
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.
Brad Montgomery,
Motivational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Breakout Session Aficionado
Related Articles:
Wyoming Speaker Has Them Lined Up At The Door
More Ideas from Brad to make your event a success
How to get more from Brad
For those folks who would rather read than watch, here is the video transcript:
Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery. Today we’re going to talk about getting the most from your motivational speaker, tips about how to work with a motivational keynote speaker. We’re going to talk about getting the most value from your speaker by asking them what else can they do.
So here’s the deal. I get calls all the time saying, “Tell me about your services as a motivational speaker.” I love that. Give us a call. But then when I ask, “Well what else can I do while I’m there to help you achieve the goals of your organization and your convention or meeting,” often on the other side of the phone all I hear is this, “Uh, I don’t know,” ‘cause they’ve never thought about it.
So here’s my tip: think about it. If you’re bringing in a professional speaker that you think is good enough to bring all the way across the country and put them in front of your audience, what else could they do to add value for your and your meeting? It’s a great question. I’d love for you to ask your speaker about that, but since you get me I’ll tell you a little bit about some of the stuff that I do.
Yes, I love doing motivational or keynote speeches; but then in addition, I love following up with a breakout session or seminar. ‘Cause the speech is great for winding them up and making them feel great and giving them some of the stuff that you do to create change in their life, but then often what’s missing is the details about how do they do that. So following up with a breakout session with more details and more about how to implement the steps is a really cool idea.
Another thing I do for a lot of my clients is I MC and I like to the be the Master of Ceremonies, and they like it because it keeps the energy and humor on high throughout the entire convention, which keeps the learning on high throughout the entire meeting.
Get the most out of your motivational speaker with additional sessions
What else can we do? Some of you know that my background is in comedy and in magic, so some of my clients say, “You know what, we’re having Brad in to do keynote. We’re having a different timeslot where we’re bringing in some sort of entertainer,” – maybe for example after the banquet – “I wonder if Brad could do both.” Yeah, love doing that.
And the cool thing, there’s two really cool things. First of all, it saves a lot of money ‘cause we’re already there, it’s just a small incrementable – I don’t think that’s the word. It’s a small increase in fee to get both for one, right, and the advantage is two-fold.
Well my name’s Brad Montgomery. I would love to be your speaker. I know just how to make your conference investment one that will provide maximum value. Give us a call. You can find us at funnymotivationalspeakers.com or bradmontgomery.com. Thanks so much. Lets talk.
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:
Hey, it’s coffee time with Brad Montgomery and today we’re going to talk about product sales and motivational speakers and what that has to do with you. Well, I think it’s important for you to know when you’re hiring a speaker or a motivational speaker, business speaker, whatever, is what’s their position on selling product because there are two really distinct business models for speakers and you need to know what sort of business your speaker is in before you book them. And then even within that, there’s lots of variations, but let me walk through it.
There’s one type of speaker who’s main goal is not to sell to you, to be in front of your organization. Their main goal is to get in front of your audience to sell to them, which mean for those speakers, working for free is totally normal or a reduced fee or a ridiculously low fee, no problemo because they’re going to sell back of room, it’s called. They’re going to sell back of room stuff to your audience, coaching programs, books, DVD programs, whatever and sometimes the prices are exorbitant and so they can make a huge profit even if they don’t sell to you.
Now, the most common and famous take on this is when professional speakers rent out an arena. So I live in Denver, Colorado and they’ll rent out the Pepsi Center and they’ll bring in astronauts and former star athletes and former presidents and then a few killer ringer speakers and the goal really is to get the audience in there for, I mean they charge them $49 or $29 or $19 or $9 or nothing to get them in there because they know they want to sell that stuff and that’s how they make their money.
Alright, so that’s the most common model, but don’t be fooled. There’s plenty of speakers like this who are very happy to come to your association because they’re going to pitch their product to you guys. So that’s a really good question when you’re hiring a speaker is to say, tell me about product sales. Is that something you’re interested in and how does it work? Ask them what they’re selling. Ask them how much they cost. Alright, that’s going to be a hint.
Then there’s the other model of speaker. The other model of speaker is, by the way, this is my model of being a motivational speaker, my job is to come and deliver value to your audience on stage. That’s it. My job is to make sure that event totally rocks period and then in addition to that, I’ve got some books and I’ve got some CDs and I’ve got some other stuff that I’d love to sell your folks for two reasons.
One, of course, my kids need new shoes, but equally as important to that, I’m not really Wal-Mart. That’s not really where I make my income. My income comes from my clients. But I think it’s important that people leave with some sort of resource because in my case, it’s just really hard to make lasting change in 45 minutes or 90 minutes or a half day or even with a full day, it’s really hard to make lasting change without some sort of follow-up resource.
So I’m thrilled if I can get a book in their hands that they’ll refer to later or a CD in their hands that they’ll listen to in the car to reaffirm the deal. It’s not free, but that’s not where my money comes. My money comes because I charge up front for my services.
Alright, here’s another thing that I wanted to mention to you. Many meeting planners have been burned where they book a speaker that they think is that second category, somebody who they pay money to to deliver a program, but then that speaker really pushes hard and does kind of a hard sale from the stage, like you need to buy my stuff.
Well, it’s off-putting for the audience, isn’t it? It’s no good and it’s not what you want. So I think it’s really worth the conversation with your potential speaker to find out first, which business model are they in. They’re probably not going to tell you if they’re in that first category but you’ll be able to figure it out and if they’re in that second category, I would advise you not to say no immediately to product sales because I’ve done it so much, I can tell you, audiences sometimes crave it. They just really want those resources. Some of them want it as a souvenir, to be honest, to remember that event. Some of them want it to follow-up, but they’re really happy to buy it and at my live events, they’re priced really cheaply or at least affordably.
But if that bothers you, what you need to do is have that conversation with your speaker and say, well tell me about how you have mentioned your products on the stage, is there a time limit, how hard do you push and then here’s going to be the hard part. Follow-up, check references.
So then check their references and say, I’d really like to book this speaker, I’d like to honestly make sure the reference or the stuff is available for my people, his books and his CDs, but how is this selling from the stage? Was it pleasant and fun? Was it funny? Was it on target? Was it overdone? Was it heavy-handed? Was it brutal? Or what was it and then check with their folks and you can go forward. Was that helpful? I hope so.
My name is Brad Montgomery. I’m a motivational speaker. I’d love to be booked at your event. I promise, I won’t push hard for selling from the platform, but I think it is a good idea to sell because I think it helps you, it helps your audience and it helps you get that group from point A to point B.
Alright, you want to learn more? Come visit us at bradmontgomery.com.
Some motivational speakers have a hidden agenda – read on to find out about their technique.
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:
Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery and I’ve got something to tell you about what I hate about motivational speakers. Alright, what I hate about motivational speakers doesn’t apply to all speakers. It applies to some of them and when you’re picking a speaker, you might as well know ahead of time what to look for.
One of the things I hate about some motivational speakers is their whole game, their whole plan during that entire keynote speech is to pry your wallet out of your pants or your purse, to pry it open and to pry out that credit card so you can sign up for their coaching or their seminar or their boot camp or whatever. I don’t have any problem, by the way, with seminars and boot camps and all that stuff. What I do have a problem with is motivational speakers who don’t motivate you to do anything other than give them money.
Well, they have a lot of techniques. These are really bright people. Some of them are my good friends. I don’t mind telling you. They’re really good people, but they just have a crazy business model and their business model involves this technique.
The technique is don’t tell you what you need to know. Don’t give you the answers to the questions you have. Don’t help you with your concerns and your problems. Instead, they kind of label your pain and they dig at it a little bit and they say, wouldn’t it be great if you had relief from this pain and then they say, and you can. You can buy this product. You can buy this service. Right?
So in other words, they don’t help you. All they do is they’ll help you label the problem, they tell you how great you would feel, how much better off you would be, how much richer you would be, how much healthier you would be, how much happier you would be if you didn’t have that problem and then they tell you the answer to that problem is in their product.
Alright, to me, that’s just crap. Here’s why. My clients hire me to deliver value for their audiences. They want me to come and create lasting behavior change for their organization, their people, their company, whatever. And that means that my job is to come in and give it to them.
My job is not to hold back, whereas these other motivational speakers’ job is to sell. Their job isn’t to create lasting change, their job is to sell crap that may or may not create lasting change. That means, they come in there and all they do is they get you excited and you feel great and you, oh my gosh and really in the end, you realize, I didn’t get anything. I didn’t get anything.
What I got was these unbelievably talented speakers who use very clever, honed techniques to make me feel like what I got and really all you got was motivated to buy the next thing, the next package, the next service, the next DVD series, whatever. That makes me crazy.
Alright, just a pet peeve. I just happened to be invited to work for a seminar and that was their business model. It was a weird deal. They are bringing in speakers who are getting paid zippo, but they’re happy to be paid zippo because they are going to be selling from the platform. They’re going to be selling their coaching and their whatever, but they wanted me to come and master of ceremonies, to emcee the whole thing and also to motivate them generally.
So it was a weird thing. They wanted me to actually give value and set them up for these other speakers who were not going to give value, they were going to give a sales pitch. They were going to give motivation to spend and in the end, I just didn’t feel like that was a good fit for me because it just felt icky. It just felt icky.
Alright, if you want to go to a boot camp, go to a boot camp. You want to buy a training series from people that you think can teach you, do it. But when you’re booking a speaker, what I want you to do is really consider whether or not that speaker is going to give you value and help move your people to where they need to be moved and to where you want them to be moved or if that speaker is going to motivate them to get out their credit card and sign up for some crazy stuff.
Alright, it’s Brad Montgomery at bradmontgomery.com. Are you looking for a motivational speaker who delivers real value? I don’t even offer a boot camp. I don’t even have a DVD training series because I believe I give it to you on the platform. Alright, love to be your guy. Call us today.
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,
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.
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.
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,
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Seminar Leader
For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:
Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com. We’re going to talk today about motivational speakers’ fees, what are they, how to think about it, how to do this. Alright, I’m on the road right now so I’m hiding in the coffee shop because it’s way more fun than the hotel and the drinks are better. But I just talked on my cell phone with two different clients and they both had the same confusion about motivational speakers’ fees and so I thought, let’s just put up a video real quick.
Let me tell you how speakers do not think about fees. What we don’t think about is time. I don’t charge by the hour. I don’t work at Wal-Mart. I don’t punch the clock. I’m not a plumber. I don’t charge like, okay, the first two hours are, I don’t do that. I’m much more interested in charging for value. Value, so I want you to think when you’re hiring a speaker and you’re computing what you want to invest in your speaker, what would be the return on that investment for you if your speaker rocked and really made a huge difference for your organization, for your team?
So in my case, I’m a motivational speaker. If we’re able to motivate them to do the things they are not doing, what would that be worth to you? So for example, if you’re in sales and we’re able to increase sales, let’s just think small, just to make the point. If we’re able to increase your sales team’s sales by 1% for one week, which is pretty crappy, right? We ought to be able to do more than that. But just 1% for one week, what would that do? You’d be able to compute that and then you start thinking about, well is that a good investment or not? And for most of you, that’s a great investment, so why wouldn’t you want to do it?
And then two, why wouldn’t you, if you really want return on your speaker investment and you’re thinking value, then that’s when you might really think, well spending a little bit more for a guaranteed motivational speaker, somebody who you know can deliver because they’ve got the credentials, they’ve got the testimonials, they’ve got the long client list, they’ve got the experience, really seems like a good value.
So you notice I’m talking about value. I’m not talking about time. I’m talking about value.
Let me tell you another way we think about fees and pricing, just to help you see into our brain and our office. So Eric and Renee and I do not think about minutes. My keynotes are priced, my events are priced for under 90 minutes. It’s like my keynote is generally 90 minutes and under, 90 minutes and above, seminars for a half day, full day, whatever.
That means if you call and say, well it’s only 25 minutes after lunch. Well, I’m happy to do that and do that all the time, but for me, it doesn’t matter if it’s 25 minutes or it’s an hour and 25 minutes because my costs are fixed.
What costs do I have? I have limited number of dates I can sell, 365 days in a year, but I’m only going to be a keynote speaker on X number of days. We only schedule me out a certain number of days per year and then because of that, if I work for you, I can’t work for somebody else, right? Because I’ve sold the date. That means it doesn’t matter to me really if I work for you for five minutes or for five hours and five minutes because I can’t sell that date to somebody else so it’s going to take a minimum just to arrange that. So I’m not going to be thinking, oh it’s only five minutes. Even though you might be thinking about that, that’s not the way we think about it.
And then the other thing that’s important for us is I have to prepare every day because I do customized keynotes and I know you want that. You don’t want just somebody to come in off the street. You want someone who knows you so I should prepare about the same amount of time for a half day seminar as I do for a 45 minute keynote.
So preparation and then finally the travel and problems of getting there. It doesn’t matter if I’m crossing town or if I’m getting on a plane and crossing the country or crossing the world, I got to get there, right? So once you’re there and you’re in the hotel and you’ve done all the travel and the security and the TSA and have bothered to put on a clean shirt, which comes with it, what the heck, again, that helps you see that it doesn’t matter to me whether or not I’m working for 15 or 20 minutes or all day long because those prices are fixed. That expense is done.
So next time you’re thinking about keynote speakers, I want you to not think about fees as like a per minute or per hour thing. I want you to think about it as what value are you getting, what level of guarantee are you getting and then can the speaker help you make the changes you need? I’m guessing you’re hiring a speaker because you need some changes in your organization. You need your people to be doing something differently now than they were doing before. Well, if you feel like a motivational speaker or inspirational speaker can help you get there, what’s the value in there for you? You ought to be able to calculate that. Or at least guess and if you need help on that, call us. We do that all the time. That’s the way we think. Alright, hope that is helpful to you.
I guess one final thought. Often, I get people who call me in to say, well what is your fee, Brad, to do one keynote speech? Well, what I do varies so much based on what my clients need so there are some price ranges we could give you, but more what we like to do mostly is then not give you one set price, but instead to ask you, what is it you need, what value are you after, what changes are you after, how can we best help you get your organization from point A to point B and then based on that conversation, we kind of look through my toolbox of all the things I could do and then what I’ll usually do is send you a proposal with a few choices on there and then you can choose. So that’s why it’s not really like a loaf of bread. They’re making some heavy coffee over there. It’s not like a loaf of bread or a set of headphone speakers where you can just look it up online and find out how much it costs. Instead, it’s a process. We’re going to deliver something very customized just for you, just for your organization, just for your people, just for your audience and that’s why the pricing is based on value, not time.
Alright, if you want a motivational speaker, I’d love to be your guy. Give us a call. You can contact us at bradmontgomery.com or funnymotivationalspeakers.com.
But in particular, if you want some help thinking through this value proposition and pricing, I’d love to further explain it and then of course, make it relevant for you because I know of course I understand that budgets are an issue and you want to work it out but that’s what we’re here for, which okay, one more thought. I’m going to do one more thought.
One of the ways to think about it when you’re talking to a speaker is to tell them what your budget is. So in my case, I like to know what sort of fee family you’re in. Are you in this family or this family this family because if you’re in this lower family, there are some ideas that I might be able to help you with that can still fit in your budget or most of my clients might fit here, but a few of my clients, they really want to invest in change and lasting change and so we really can pull out the whole show for them. So that means my proposal can vary depending on your fee family, so when you call a speaker and they say, well what’s your budget, can you give me an idea of what you’re working with? In our case anyway, in our office, it’s not a negotiation tactic. In our case, it’s an effort to narrow it down so we can help give you some ideas that fit with you and fit within your budget.
Alright, hope that helps. Come visit bradmontgomery.com . So glad for your time. Gosh, I’d love to be part of your team, but if I’m not the guy, make sure that whoever you’re hiring delivers value, delivers a guarantee and fits within your budget in a way that afterwards, you can really be feeling like that was the best investment we made to make the best meeting or conference we possibly could have had. Have a great day! Thanks.
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, Team Player for YOU
Related Articles and/or Videos:
Brad’s actual coaching tool – the Pre-Engagement Questionnaire
For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:
Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery from funnymotivationalspeakers.com, and bradmontgomery.com, with a continuing series of videos about how to hire a motivational speaker. What do you need to know to choose your motivational speaker? Well one of the mistakes I see people making when hiring a motivational speaker is not coaching your speaker with enough information to really deliver the presentation that you paid for.
So what do I mean by that? A few times, not many, but a few times I’ve had clients who’ve gone through the trouble to choose me partly because I customize my programs. And then what they do is because they’re busy, because they have a life and because organizing this meeting is one of the many things in their life on their list and organizing their keynote speaker is one of the many things on that list, they never get around to really coaching. Don’t let that happen.
The reason why coaching your speaker about what you need, what you want, what you don’t want, what you don’t need, and a little bit about what your people are going through, what they’re stressing about, what they love, what they hate, some of the inside jokes, the reason some of those things are important because they really help me, or whoever your speaker is, to prepare a customized program that’s meaningful and relevant. And I know that’s what you want.
You don’t want just a presentation, kind of a cardboard cutout of the speaker talking to you and your audience. No. You want somebody who can really reach through and grab them and let them know that he’s speaking to them, about them and for them, and that way they’ll really internalize and be prepared to accept and make lasting behavioral change based on that event.
So that’s pretty good, right? But all of it really in the end comes down to you. Yes, you’re going to hire the right speaker, yes you’re going to hire a speaker who can customize, but then don’t forget you need to go through and help your speaker know. You got to do a little bit of coaching, a little bit of talking.
Now in my case my job is to make it easier for you to do that. We don’t want to make it like a homework project where it’s just a horrible to-do to get me ready to go. We’ve got a really streamlined process, it’s very easy and it’s surprisingly quick, like shockingly quick. But at the same time, working with your motivational speaker is important.
So next time you’re hiring a motivational speaker or a keynote speaker, I want you to ask: What are you going to do to customize, and then I want you to follow up and say, What do I need to do to make sure you get all the information you need about us. My needs, my desires, my wants, my team, my organization, whatever.
All right, that’s easy, right? You can do that. I’d love to be your guy. I’d love to be the one answering that question. You can reach us at bradmontgomery.com or funnymotivationalspeakers.com. Make it a rock on day. Thanks.
Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.
Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Seminar Leader, Proud to call Colorado home
For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:
Hi, this is Brad Montgomery. I’m a Colorado speaker and I wanted to talk to you about what that means and why should you care.
Well, in my case, I happen to be a national speaker. I speak everywhere. I’ve spoken in all 50 states. I’ve spoken on four continents and I’d love to speak for you no matter where you are, no matter where your event is being held. Having said that, I happen to live in the very fine state of Colorado where it’s snowing outside, by the way, and if you’re planning an event in Colorado, well I really hope you consider me especially hard for that event. Yeah, no matter where you are, I’m interested, but if your event’s in Colorado, I’m double-interested.
And how does that help you? There are two reasons if you’re having your event in Denver or in Vail or one of the resorts in the Rocky Mountains. If you’re having your event in Colorado, there’s two reasons to hire a Colorado speaker.
Number one, it saves you some money. Right off the top, you’re saving all the travel expenses and not always, but usually, the hotel expenses.
I just bought a ticket to Florida. I bought with plenty of advance notice, it wasn’t first class, it was nearly $1,000. Alright, so that’s just crazy expensive, I know. I know your conference is wildly expensive, but wouldn’t it be nice to save nearly $1,000 on the airline ticket? Sure.
But the other savings you’ll have is anxiety because I’ve learned, depending on your personality type, if you’re like most of my meeting planners, there’s always a tiny bit of anxiety that that speaker won’t make it because of some travel dilemma, some weather dilemma or something that’s outside of your control and then you’re looking at a blank stage, having to explain to your audience of 12 to 12,000 people why you don’t have a keynote speaker.
So when you’re booking somebody who doesn’t have to go through the airlines and just has to, you know my car can break and I could take a cab, I guess, right? I can get to your event if it’s here in Colorado. So one, saves money. Two, saves anxiety.
Alright, hope that’s helpful to you. If you’re looking for a Colorado speaker, I’d love to be your guy. If you’re looking for a motivational speaker who’s funny, who’s relevant, who can connect lightheartedness and humor to your bottom line, I’d love to be your guy no matter where you are. But if you’re in Colorado, I really hope you’ll give us a call.
Alright, bradmontgomery.com, you can learn more at funnymotivationalspeakers.com. Would love to chat with you. Give me a call and we’ll figure out how to make your event a rocking success.
