What’s your worst speaker nightmare?
Mine is that the speaker doesn’t show up for the event.
The only two things that can really derail a speaker’s appearance is bad weather/mechanical problems or ill health.
You can’t avoid a health issue but travel can be guarded against. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that before we ever even accept an offer, we scope out travel to make sure there are sufficient backups in case of weather or mechanical issues. One more booking is not worth putting an event in jeopardy.
In spite of careful planning, the unexpected can happen. That is my segue to talk about our speaker MIKE ABRASHOFF and his travel heroics last week.
Last week saw HORRIBLE travel issues across much of the U.S. Winter storm Finn was expected to dump up to four inches of snow in Des Moines, Iowa where Mike was speaking at noon on Wednesday. Having never missed a speech in 23 years due to detailed planning, Mike began scoping out travel options as soon as the forecast became clear. He arranged a non-stop flight from his home in Miami to Des Moines, and also booked backup flights and rental cars in Kansas City, Omaha, and Minneapolis. Worst case, he thought, he would drive three hours to get to his event.
At the last minute, the weather turned much worse than predicted. Instead of four inches, Finn not only dumped a foot of snow on Des Moines and also spawned tornadoes, flooding, and caused travel chaos all the way to the east coast.
Mike got to the airport not knowing which travel option would work. He and I spoke Tuesday evening about all kinds of travel scenarios – including sourcing private jets (at his expense!) to make the last leg of the trip, depending on where he wound up. It never came to that because one by one, the four flight options Mike had arranged all were canceled. At just after 1:00 AM Wednesday, we were out of options – and his speech was in just eleven hours.
While all this travel drama was unfolding, we had reached out to the agent to give an update and ask whether there was an option to move Mike later in the day or the next day if the worst happened. Because it was very late, we heard nothing back.
After going home and getting two hours’ sleep, Mike was back at Miami airport at 4:30 AM to catch a 6 AM flight to O'Hare. He called to tell me that flight was leaving late which would mean he was going to miss his connection to Des Moines, the only option to get him there on time. Mike said he had one more thing he could try. He boarded the flight to Chicago without a firm plan in place.
While in the air, Mike called in a favor with a previous client, and with only two hours’ notice, they had a jet at the O’Hare FBO which whisked Mike the last 250 miles to his talk. Mike arrived 30 minutes prior to going on.
When Mike arrived, the meeting planner, a sweet and delightful grandmother, said to Mike, “I was never worried about you. The only speaker I ever worried about was the one who died in his sleep the night before the event here at the Holiday Inn."
Best of all, on two hours sleep, Mike got two standing ovations! The client and audience were ecstatic with his presentation. (Makes you wonder what the response would have been if he’d gotten three hours of sleep!)
Bravo, Mike! Your record is intact. In 23 years and thousands of speeches, you’ve never missed one! You’ve shown, over and over, that you will fight through whatever travel adversity comes your way and move heaven and earth to keep your commitment. We are totally with you on that mindset.