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I believe my job isn’t to be “good enough”. Or to earn evaluations that are high enough that nobody is unhappy. My job is to absolutely rock an audience in a way that everybody congratulates my client for picking the perfect speaker. The speaker that they’ll never forget. The speaker that will make next year’s speaker look bad by comparison.
My goal is always to create an experience that is meaningful for all. It’s not all content. If audiences are looking at their phones, not listening, and having a hard time focusing, it’s a wasted opportunity for all. But it’s also not all entertainment. They want to be engaged…but they don’t need a comedian.
We now present number 4 in our series of articles about:
Top Mistakes People Make When Hiring a Motivational Speaker
Hire a motivational speaker who knows what they’re doing. And by that, I mean somebody who has done it so much that every conceivable combination of disasters has already happened before they hit your event.
The reason you want an experienced speaker is in case something goes wrong. In case your audience is tired. In case your audience is difficult. In case something happens before, during or after your meeting. In case the weather is bad. In case the speaker doesn’t feel well. These are all things that could completely throw off an entry level speaker. In other words, make sure your person has done this a thousand times before. The main reason for hiring a speaker who does not have sufficient experience is to save money.
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.
Make Sure Your Speaker Has a LOT of Experience
Not Hiring Somebody With Sufficient Experience?
But as I’ve discussed in other articles in this series, the savings made by hiring an inexperienced speaker is not worth the increased risk of failure. Now granted, inexperienced speakers often will do great. They can hit a home run even. They could do fabulous. But in my experience, having been an inexperienced speaker, is that it is hit and miss. If you are a client who is planning an event and are willing to take a chance on a miss, well then by all means, save those few bucks and book an entry level speaker. But if your organization, your meeting, the changes you’re trying to create for your group require a hit, then you need experience.
I’ve got tons of experience. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. I’ve had important people die hours before my keynote speech. I’ve had the electricity go off three times during my speech. I’ve had microphone failures. I’ve had the CEO literally crying into the microphone as he introduced me because of an upsetting bit of news. I spoke to an audience during the 9/11 disaster as the news was being unfolded.
Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and the result is that now, no matter what happens, I’m ready because it’s happened before. There’s nothing that can surprise me and that means that my level of comfort with having anything happen is very high, which translates to the comfort level of my clients being equally high that no matter what happens, we’re going to be fine.
Are you looking for a motivational speaker and want somebody who has sufficient experience? I’d love to be your guy. Contact us at www.bradmontgomery.com.
Brad Montgomery, Experienced (i.e., nothing can surprise me) Motivational Speaker
Related articles:
Second in the series about tips for hiring motivational speakers
Third in the series about tips for hiring motivational speakers
Meeting Planners Have a Lot at Risk
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:
Some motivational speakers have a hidden agenda – read on to find out about their technique.
WHY I HATE MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS
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:
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.
Hire A Motivational Speaker That Delivers Real Value
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.
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
Hey, welcome back to my blog. It’s Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com and funnymotivationalspeakers.com here with the series:
Don’t Make This Mistake When Hiring a Motivational 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.
Top Mistakes People Make When Hiring a Motivational or Keynote Speaker.
Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here
Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Seminar Leader, Would Love To Be On Your Team!
Related Posts:
It’s Not Just About The Money – It’s About Lasting Change!
For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:
One of the problems I see happening a lot is really a mis-allocation of your convention or meeting budget. And I’d like you to consider spending a little bit more on your speaker than you thought. The big mistake I see is that people will invest a huge amount of money on things that have no lasting value or impact on their attendees and then spend very little on their professional, and the overall return on the investment for the meeting stinks.
What Your People Will Remember About the Motivational Speaker After the Convention Is Over
So here’s the question I want you to ask yourself as you’re deciding what to buy: what are your people going to remember after the convention is over? Are they more apt to remember the slightly better chicken that you upgraded to? Are they more apt to remember that you’ve got brownies instead of cookies? Are they more apt to remember that you got the really cool ice cream or whatever? I mean are they going to remember the fact that you upgraded even your hotel or venue a slight bit? Or are they going to remember the speaker that came, shook them until it hurt, dumped them out of their chairs because they were laughing so hard, and six months later, a year later they’re still echoing and repeating what that speaker taught them? They’re still adapting techniques they’ve learned from that speaker. Are they going to remember that or what they had for their final dessert?
Of course, you know, I’m biased. I’m a speaker. I’d like you to invest in me, I don’t mind telling you. But no matter who you hire I want you to consider what is going to make the most difference for the longest amount of time to your people. My guess is that you want them to have a good time. That’s a great idea. My guess is you want to treat them really well and feed them really well. That’s a great idea. But I know also that at the very basic level, you’re trying to create lasting behavior change. And my suggestion to you would be to take some of that budget and reallocate it and get a top professional motivational speaker and pass on a few little extras that they will not remember.
Well I’d love to be your guy. If you’d like to talk to me about my fees and what we offer for it and why we think my investment is worth it, I hope you’ll give us a call, funnymotivationalspeakers.com. My name is Brad Montgomery. Make it a great day.
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.
Change Management Comes Down to a Simple Choice
As a motivational speaker, almost 9 out of 10 clients ask me to address change management. I’m honestly amazed at how many of my clients are freaked out about change. The change is real, and their pain is real. But the answer to their stress and unhappiness might be more simple than they think.
Check out two of my recent clients, both of whom are dealing with a ton of change.
Client 1:
- Hired a Change Management Consulting Firm
- Lots of analytics, measurements and surveys around prepping for change
- Work culture is toxic
- Huge exodus of people on all levels
- Profitability is down
Client 2:
- Focused on growth, profits and the future.
- Feels a positive work culture is crucial to success.
- Like Client 1, has had major changes in their technology, client base, and organizational structure. But they consider all of these things, “Challenges we are making progress on.”
- Has a VERY positive and well-loved work culture
- Profits are up
- Growth up
- Future is bright
Client 1 Is freaking out.
Client 2 has most of the same issues regarding change, but just considers constant adaption as part of their business.
So What is My Point?
What you focus on is where the power is! In order to stay relevant and profitable, every organization is going to have to adapt to changes in our markets, our technology, and even our employees. Change is just a given. You don’t have a choice regarding change, but you do have a choice in how you react to it. You can freak out. Or you can roll your sleeves up, get started, and move forward towards success.
Client 2’s focus is on epic culture, and epic customer experiences. That’s the focus. Yes, they have to constantly deal with sometimes HUGE changes, but for them it’s just part of their job.
The management at Client 1 is freaking out, and everybody on staff knows it. They feel unsettled and upset, and they are NOT doing well with productivity or profitability. They need to calm down, take a breath, and just get started with moving forward. I’m convinced that the very fact they are surveying and analyzing every person and every bit of their company is primarily telegraphing their anxiety to their staff.
It’s not easy, but it is simple. When it comes to change you either have to accept it as a constant part of your job, or … You need a new job.
Dealing with change is simple, but not easy. Do you want to get behind it? Or do you want it to happen to you?
Yes, I know I’ve over-simplified. Yes I know that sometimes you DO REALLY NEED a huge amount of study regarding workplace processes, structure and culture. But on the other hand, it isn’t THAT complicated. Change is the new constant, and if you let it freak you out you are not going to do well.
Take a breath, roll up your sleeves, and start chipping away at your new problems. Give into the fact that you’ll NEVER be “finished” with these problems. (If you ever do finish with these problems, you’ll be out of a job!) And see if you can find some joy in the phrase, “We’re working on it, and we feel like we are making progress.”
You can do this. You’ve got this. Now stop whining.
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Brad Montgomery is a business and motivational speaker based in Denver, Colorado. He speaks to the people side of business. Call today to bring him in to speak to your group about change.
