great business speakers

AN EVENT PLANNER’S BIGGEST FEAR 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 month, I was approached by BRINK to comment on the future of corporate events in the era of COVID-19. The full article appears below. This article first appeared on BRINK on August 23, 2020. A BRINK interview with Tony D'Amelio, Principal of D'Amelio Network

Virtual events look like they are here to stay. To make them effective, though, we have to learn a whole new skill-set.

As I was thinking back on 2018 I realized that this year is the 35th anniversary of a milestone event that rocked the speaking industry; something that’s not been repeated since. If you were in the industry back in 1983, you’ll remember just how profoundly things changed.

"BILL WALTON is as good on stage as a speaker as he was on the court as a player. My client, the donors, and guests were completely blown away,” said the organizer from the Utah Clean Air Partnership fund-raiser. The email went on, "To be honest, our board of directors questioned my recommendation of Bill as the keynote speaker. After the event, they apologized for questioning me...profusely. We are not sure how we will top Bill's passion and the memorable delivery he gave at next year's event.”

THE DRAMA-FREE WAY OF BOOKING EVENT SPEAKERS Choosing a speaker for an important event can become a frustrating experience. There are so many choices it can become difficult to know how to sift through them all. And then there’s the challenging process of getting all the stakeholders to agree on the candidate.

TIPS FOR YOUR EVENT PLANNING CHECKLIST Taking your time to choose the right speaker is a great first step to a successful outcome. After that, a well-planned pre-event call, about 3-4 weeks in advance of your program, will make certain your speaker has the best chance to shine and meet your objectives.

As anyone who has been booking speakers for events can readily attest, the speaking industry can be one very confusing space to navigate to the outsider. Those of us on the inside are used to it, but if you only step into this world a few times a year, making sense of how things work can be a daunting prospect. As someone who’s been involved in bringing talent and audiences together for my entire career, I thought I’d offer up a few essential insights that would be useful to corporate event planners - both novice and veterans alike.

This is the last in my series on avoiding disaster when booking event speakers. The idea is for top speakers to talk about their onsite experiences in a way that provides some useful lessons and reminders. Ideally, their insights will find their way into your event planning checklist.

TAKE CONTROL OF THE CONTENT/MESSAGE How can you generate maximum impact from the outside speakers at your next meeting or conference? How can you make sure the speakers’ insights are relevant and focused on what matters most to your audience? In my years helping event planners wrestle with that challenge, I have found there is sometimes no substitute for adding an experienced interviewer, discussion leader, or panel moderator. The difference it can make to the quality of the content delivery can be sizable.