Episode 9 - Brian Lord
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[00:00:00] Richard Ellis: According to research by Brainshark, if respondents had unlimited planning power and no restrictions on a budget for their SKO, What would they improve? 56 percent said that they had improved their guest or motivational speakers. Wow, that's a lot of opportunity for improvement. Today, we're going to dive into some goodness around the importance of picking the right keynote speaker.
[00:00:33] Welcome to Some Goodness, where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and future C level leaders Maximize their impact. My guest today is Brian Lord, the president of premier speakers bureau and the host of the beyond speaking podcast. Brian is a 29 year speaking and entertainment industry veteran, and I'm excited to learn from him today.
[00:00:58] Brian, welcome.
[00:01:00] Brian Lord: Richard. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate
[00:01:02] Richard Ellis: it. This is a great time of year when we're thinking about getting ready for sales kickoffs, SKOs, and I know you've just had a ton of experience helping companies with their keynote speakers, and I'd love to dive into this topic with you today.
[00:01:18] I'll start off with, why do the keynote speakers and guest speakers seem to be such a key part of these events?
[00:01:25] Brian Lord: Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why people bring in a speaker for a sales kickoff or any type of kickoff. So one, sometimes it's a draw. Sometimes it's an outside voice that's saying what the CEO or whoever wants to say, but feels like they need somebody else to say it.
[00:01:39] Sometimes it's to get someone to refocus. You know, you've had this great year and now we need to take it up a notch or we've had a really tough year. And we need to figure out how to get back to that. And then sometimes it's just that inspiration that you've got all these different things you're trying to hit.
[00:01:54] And a lot of speakers can hit multiple levels. There's maybe one big core thing, but that they kind of ramp up and they have different things that they can all hit. And so the main overall thing, the reason why you bring in a speaker is so your people Are better after they hear the speaker than before in some way.
[00:02:11] I love that. How
[00:02:12] Richard Ellis: do we leave them better than they were before? What, what kind of value are we adding? As I think about just the ton of SKOs I've been a part of over my career, I've probably seen those different elements, the education, the skill building, the motivation, the inspiration. I'm just curious.
[00:02:28] Are you seeing any particular trends these days where companies just. In light of what's going on in the market today and B2B selling, are they trending towards one or another?
[00:02:39] Brian Lord: Well, I think it's really what each individual company is trying to do, because you can say the economy, but a lot of times people say the economy, it's almost like what temperature it is.
[00:02:47] Like in Seattle, it could be 45, but in. Orlando could be 80. So the economy is made up of a whole bunch of different little things. So the mortgage industry is different than the tech industry and different from the healthcare industry and different from oil and gas and energy. And so each of those are going to have their own little thing where, you know, if you're in the mortgage industry right now, recording this in late 2024.
[00:03:07] Like it's not a good place to be you've had a year. And so those people are saying, we need somebody, we don't have a huge budget. We need somebody who can help our people focus on the longterm, help them get out of this tough thing. How do I succeed when others are failing? And then if you're in an industry that is doing really, really well, then you're saying, okay, how do we hit that next level?
[00:03:26] How do we say, okay, celebrate what we've done, but get to that next level. So it's answering that question. Is it, how much of a draw do you want? How much does it need to be content? And how much do I want them to walk away with? Sometimes they're like, Hey, I just want my people to have fun. This is a celebration.
[00:03:39] We're playing golf. We're doing whatever. And sometimes like, Hey. I have a lot of new people here. I have, and a lot of people need to get back to the basics. How do we hit those certain things? So a lot of times just knowing who you are and what you need and sort of that push pull between what executives want, what attendees want, that sort of thing.
[00:03:55] So an event planner is a very difficult job because he or she's trying to figure out who do I have to make happy the most. That is one of the reasons why speakers are so popular, because they answer a lot of those questions and solve a lot of those problems.
[00:04:08] Richard Ellis: So you mentioned the temperature, the environment, the budget, what they're trying to get in terms of the output.
[00:04:15] As you advise leaders or companies on just making the right choice, are there any blind spots that they have? So maybe they're saying, Hey, we want to be really motivational and entertaining at the same time. Are you finding any blind spots that you just kind of help people seek?
[00:04:31] Brian Lord: Well, I think one of the biggest ones is getting on the same page.
[00:04:33] So in talking to speakers, one of their biggest issues with some companies. So a lot of them are really good about, okay, the event planner and the executives and everybody that is in on the decision making process is on the same page. You have other times where the speaker will go in, they talk to the event planner, maybe they talk to a couple of attendees and this is what we really want to hit, and then 20 minutes before they get on stage, they're The executive, the CEO comes up, Hey, I really want you to hit this, this, and this, and it's completely different than what somebody told us.
[00:05:02] They have a prep for this and anything else is the executive is judging. How much is this person working on what I just gave him 20 minutes ago. And the event planner who's writing the reviews, sending to the speakers bureau, whoever is judging them on what they've worked on for the past two months. And so the good speakers will get this figured out early.
[00:05:20] So they have time to loop back in with the event planner because it happens really, really frequently. That they'll do that. Now, really good speakers will also like, I attended the dinner that before now we're doing the speech at 9am. I'm working in some of those things are working in some of your language, which is more like adding in some seasoning as opposed to changing the core of what it is.
[00:05:39] So the most successful speakers are the ones who can hit a lot of things naturally hit a lot of those key points naturally, but also knows how to balance what they're hearing from each of the parties. Because, you know, when you work with anything. You've got a lot of decision makers that are part of it.
[00:05:54] Your constituency, like in politics, like a constituent is anyone who can say no. So the executive can say, the event planner can say no. The sound person can say no, whoever. So you've got to talk to those different people. And the event planner has to figure out what those things are and balance them. And also hopefully they've been there for a while.
[00:06:10] The new event planner, I feel sorry for because a lot of times they don't know what they're allowed to say and what they can't, they're on thin ice. And the veteran event planner knows where they can go to or who, okay, this executive doesn't like it. I'm going to get this executive to talk to this person.
[00:06:21] So they get back on my way of thinking. So we can really hit at home with what the audience needs. So it is figuring out those things. What is the best speaker for your event? Well, it's kind of like saying for your wedding, what is the best type of music? Is it rap? Is it classic? Is it rock? And then I would say, okay, well, here's your five best rock artists.
[00:06:37] I used to be in the music industry. We're in music city here. Practically everybody here used to book bands. And that's what I did at William Morris before any of this premier for the past 25 years, it's finding out that thing and getting closer to, because I can't know your audience better than you do.
[00:06:50] Part of it is knowing your audience, whether that's the people in the seats or the executives who are judging you on your job and whatever that may be. And then how you relate to the speaker and get the speaker to be on page to make the executives and the audience happy. Because a lot of times there are a lot of different things that go into it.
[00:07:07] And from that sort of standpoint there, you've got to balance what people think they want and what people actually want. There's a speaker, we work with Stephen Little, he wrote a book called The Milkshake Moment and he used to work at this company and they were selling potato chips. And whenever you did the writing sample, you say, okay, what do you want to chip?
[00:07:24] We're like, we want low fat. We want low sodium. People always say they want that. They do the taste test, high fat, high sodium. And so people will say, I really want good content. You know, I really want this thing. And then the highest ratings are for some former athlete, especially for sales, because like you and I know a lot of people in sales come from sports backgrounds, right?
[00:07:46] And so they resonate with that. And also. You get a lot of people that aren't competing. A lot of salespeople are very competitive. And so in a way, if you get a sales speaker to talk to a sales person. That sales bureau is really good about not being competitive. Like I'm on your side, because when they go here, like somebody who won an Olympic gold medal or somebody who climbed Mount Everest or somebody who won the Superbowl, you're not competing with that person, right?
[00:08:11] You can go ahead and you can take that stuff. So one of our jobs as speakers, we are agents. They make sure you have really good takeaways. What are the steps you took to go from. Late round draft pick to super bowl champion. Like, how do you work every day? How do you commit? How did you work on teamwork?
[00:08:26] So those things you can actually take away that can be just as valuable to a salesperson as, okay, here are three different ways to work with rejection. Because they can say, okay, this coach passed me this code. So these are different things you can use. Because those stories resonate and you're not competing with them.
[00:08:41] The audience isn't competing with the speaker. I think that's why some of those inspirational speakers are so successful and resonate so well with those audiences. So for us, it's making sure those people with those great stories, make it obvious what those takeaways are so that you can go and apply it to your Salesforce or whether you're the leader going, bringing it back to your team or just working it in for your personal
[00:09:00] Richard Ellis: productivity.
[00:09:01] Got it. Such great advice. So you mentioned some characteristics and priorities that can help you really have some direction into the type of speaker that you want to go with. One thing that you mentioned was budget, and I'm just curious, for those companies out there that might have a small budget these days, are there some creative ways to think about how to get an inspirational, engaging, educational speaker that's going to hit the mark for a small budget?
[00:09:26] Brian Lord: So for small budget, figure out what is most important to you. Because if you have to get people there, so sometimes corporations are like, okay, you have to go to this event. So then a draw is not very important to you. Once they get there, they can have somebody they'd never heard of who has this great story.
[00:09:41] So like Kenny Thomas, nobody knows his name, but they know Blackhawk down, or maybe they know some different things. He's been a part of or Devin Harris. They don't know Devin Harris, but they know the Jamaican bobsled team. And so these are speakers that are 15, 000 or less that once you get there, they do a tremendous job and the people go out inspired and everything else.
[00:09:59] And they're kind of a draw, but they're not this huge draw.
[00:10:03] Richard Ellis: Just in terms of the context here, when you're talking about a draw, that's important for conferences, for customer conferences, or partner events and things like that, where you want to attract and draw people, if we're talking about a sales kickoff, where it's a mandatory event for sales and marketing.
[00:10:19] Then the draw is less important. They're going to be in the seats. And so some of these less expensive options would be still highly engaging and motivating, but just not quite as expensive.
[00:10:31] Brian Lord: Yeah. You don't have to get people in their seat. You want to keep them in their seat, but you don't want somebody walking out and checking their phone 15 times a holiday and it's gets up and goes.
[00:10:38] So like Jason Young's great. He worked for Southwest Airlines. He talks on service and culture. And so he's a 7, 500 at the time of this recording. Speakers fees change all the time. So that's somebody that you can bring into like, okay, I know Southwest. So it's really kind of dialing in on what you need and what your budget is.
[00:10:53] And, you know, sometimes you do have a hundred thousand dollars and you're like, okay, I want to get Damon John and I want to get Emmitt Smith and I want to get whoever it may be. And so you can get those speakers who do a tremendous job. They've got big platforms. They've been on Dancing with the Stars and I have a TV show, you know, all those sorts of things.
[00:11:07] And those speakers also drive home their messages and do a great job speaking. So it's really just finding out what you need with your budget and then also being able to talk to executives. So I'll have somebody say, Hey, they've asked about these three people. I know their way out of my budget range.
[00:11:19] Can you just give it to me so I can make my executive be quiet? And you say, okay, we've got 10, 000 and we want to get whatever Hall of Famer and sorry, we can't do that. Okay. Okay. Then who do you have? So a lot of times it helps, but we do have a lot of clients that do book those bigger name speakers and they have a great result for it.
[00:11:36] They get more people there and you divide by, okay, we had. A thousand people there and did they each get 1, 500 better by doing that, by being inspired by this person they want to come back next year so they can meet this person, get their picture and get an autograph or whatever it is. And you see a much bigger bump than the 1, 500 per person that you saw go out to that speaker.
[00:11:57] So it really just kind of depends on what your goals are and if it's an incentive trip. And you promote this speaker, they're going to be able to meet the speaker or hear the speaker or whatever it may be, or ask questions. A lot of times those big name speakers, they have those big fees and it's a really big draw and it really makes a difference and you can still make a lot of impact again, are you better from hearing that speaker and how much better are some of those questions that you ask as you're planning your sales kickoff.
[00:12:21] Richard Ellis: And do they align to that purpose? Like you were talking about earlier, what are you trying to get out of it? Is it motivational? Is it educational, et cetera? That's great. I'm just curious. We live in a diverse world these days, and we've got just a wide variety of differences in ages and preferences and cultures.
[00:12:39] I'm assuming it seems like an impossible task to try to find a speaker that resonates with everybody, but do you have any particular advice to. Pick that well rounded speaker or somebody that just has general applicability.
[00:12:51] Brian Lord: Yeah, I think you want to have different backgrounds as you go through, whether that's age or race or whatever it may be.
[00:12:56] And so you, and just be intentional about having your rotation. So if you're getting four speakers for an event, You can get speakers with four different backgrounds. If you're getting one speaker and it's an annual event, we'll make sure you're rotating the backgrounds you have for speakers. Luckily, you shouldn't have an issue finding a great speaker.
[00:13:12] It's one of those things where you really want to have those diverse backgrounds. You want to have results, you want to have entertainment, and it's really just balancing what you want to have and what's most important to you. And what really resonates with your audience and makes that biggest impact.
[00:13:25] Got it. Got it. So
[00:13:26] Richard Ellis: speaking of going in with a purpose, then you want to know if you hit the mark. Right. And certainly there are some metrics that you can track analytically, but are there some anecdotal feedback that you would want a company to capture from the audience? That's helpful for making sure that they maximize the opportunity to put good speakers in front of them beyond just, Hey, did you have fun?
[00:13:46] Did you enjoy it? Did you stay in your seats? Anything interesting, just in terms of feedback. I
[00:13:51] Brian Lord: mean, I always say, well, what would you do differently? What are you going to do differently today than you did yesterday before you heard the speaker? So, you know, somebody goes out here and hears this and say, okay, well, next time I'm going to try and figure out what both my executives and my audience want to hear.
[00:14:05] If you heard your Richard Ellis's podcast and said, okay, we heard this. Tomorrow, we're going to go out and do this. Then Richard Ellis succeeded in that goal. And the more things you change from this, the more you improve, the better they off they are from having some goodness. So it's one of those things where is with the same thing with speakers.
[00:14:22] So if you go through and you get one little change, it could be a huge thing. If you go through and make three things that help you increase your sales by 5%, I mean, that's a big deal. Just say, what are those things you're going to go and put in an impact and then just follow up One thing I do too, is speakers who are really good on like LinkedIn or social media, where it's not just that speech.
[00:14:41] And obviously you can get a book, books are great because that's a way to keep it going. But they end up following, you know, a John Acuff or whoever it may be. And that way they are getting better for the year or years afterwards. Because those speakers are so active, they have so many great tips. And of course you just invested on that one, you know, January 15th, 2023, but through 2025, 2026, they're still getting better because they follow that person that's very followable and has actionable takeaways that they keep getting and they attach to them because you brought them to the, to your event.
[00:15:11] That's really
[00:15:12] Richard Ellis: great advice. I just never even thought about thinking about their social presence, right? Do they have a LinkedIn practice and following and cadence, right? Because to your point, you can get a lot of bang for your buck. If your participants, your employees follow them after the event, that's great.
[00:15:29] One question that I didn't warn you about this one, but what could go wrong, right? What's something we should not do or any kind of horror stories? Please don't do this or stay away from that. Anything like that, that would just be good advice. Well, I think it's
[00:15:43] Brian Lord: knowing your audience. If it's something where you have to do something really different, have something fun that goes with it.
[00:15:50] So I always think about like my uncle was an engineer. And I've told him this story before, hopefully it's okay to share. But anyway, so he got me, so I was whatever, 10. I really want to get the Millennium Falcon for Christmas, just desperately wanted to get it. And so we each had this cousin thing and that year was the exact amount of the Millennium Falcon.
[00:16:07] So I made it overtly. That's what I want for Christmas. I was sure I was going to open it up and instead I opened up. He got me what he would have wanted when he was 10 instead of what I wanted. It was some like engineering set. He was an engineer. He thought it was the coolest thing. So he got me what he wanted.
[00:16:24] And it did not go well. Now, had he gotten me the mundane Falcon and added in this engineering thing, I probably would have loved it played with all the time instead of like immediately wanting to destroy it, you know? So if you're with a company to kind of have to mix in the fun with the lesson, whatever you're trying to put in, having something that's so far off what the audience would want.
[00:16:44] Because you think the audience needs it, you got to figure out a way to do it. Now, there are some speakers out there who they know they're brought in to be sort of the hammer of something that needs to change in the company. So you need to find somebody who can do that, that they know that's their job and they do it in a really funny way.
[00:16:58] It's actually kind of interesting. A lot of times you get a speaker with an international background to do this because somehow somebody has a British accent. It's not as bad. Um, and so that's kind of one of these little tricks. You get somebody who's, you know, from somewhere else and somehow it's okay.
[00:17:11] It's really funny. If somebody is chewing you out with a cool accent or you mix it in with some other things. So you have to have a, you know, that spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. I have a lot of kids. I watched Mary Poppins way too much, but that's a very true thing. Also just knowing your audience.
[00:17:25] Like if you have an audience that's 90 percent male engineers, they're probably not going to go for something that is super fluffy. Whereas that speaker may do great in another one. And so that's where they're like, okay, we'll get a pilot because they kind of speak that engineering language. And it really hits home with our people because they're so process oriented on how you get to the success.
[00:17:44] It's cool, but it also fits in with what they're doing. So we're going to get fighter pilots. So it really is knowing who your audience is and making sure you're balancing what you want with what they will actually take and what they need.
[00:17:56] Richard Ellis: Uh, that's such great advice. Know your audience. So we got to start with a strong purpose, right?
[00:18:01] Know what we're trying to accomplish. Make sure that we're leaving them better than we found them. And then we match it in with understanding our audience and what they want versus what we need to give them. Really good practical advice. Well, uh, unfortunately our time has flown by and, uh, we are out of time.
[00:18:17] And so I want to be sensitive to your time. Uh, but, um, before we wrap up, we, we always like to just share some extra goodness, uh, outside of our topic of the day. And so anything going on with you personally, or maybe a recent hobby or gadget that has brought you some goodness that you would want to share with us?
[00:18:34] Brian Lord: I love coaching. So I've got four kids. I've coached over 20 seasons. Because of a 12 year age gap between our oldest and youngest, I've been able to watch players that I've coached or now one just committed to college, you know, 20 some softball players that are playing high school ball. And for me, like, I don't know if I was put on this earth to be a speaker's bureau agent, but I know I was put here to be a coach.
[00:18:55] And so I love that. And I cheat a lot. So I do, you know, you mentioned the beyond speaking podcast. So I host that. And a lot of times I will ask these hall of famers Olympians. Okay. If you were to go back as a kid, what would you do differently? Or what advice do you have for somebody who's coached? So I'm stealing this information.
[00:19:09] Like I'm getting way overqualified information for like a 6U, 8U, 13U coach, you know, whatever it may be. For softball or soccer or basketball or whatever it is. So for me, I love that. I love taking those different things that are making successful and teaching little eight year old girls how to walk up to an umpire.
[00:19:26] Like we do pregame handshakes. Like, how do you look him in the eye, shake his hand confidently. So that eight year old girl, she does that for a few years. Like how is she going to be in her first job interview? How confident is she going to be in standout compared to everybody else? Because she can confidently grow up to, cause a lot of umpires are like big former athletes.
[00:19:42] Right. You know, um, she can confidently go up some 6'3, 250 pound dude, shake his hand, look him in the eye. I mean, that's a huge thing. And so how do you take those success things that make a big difference in the boardroom and break it down to like eight year olds, six year olds, that sort of thing. And taking all these different things that we get to learn from the best in the world at what they do and then apply that with our own kids.
[00:20:03] That is so good.
[00:20:04] Richard Ellis: You've just got so many great stories to tell. I could go on and on with you, but, uh, but thank you for your time today and just sharing your wisdom and just all of the different aspects of finding the right speaker. There's a lot to it, but I don't think it has to be hard if you just keep some of those practical tips that you gave us in mind.
[00:20:23] So thanks once again. Hey,
[00:20:26] Brian Lord: well, thanks Richard. Thanks to you and your whole team. I really appreciate giving the chance to be on your podcast. Thank you again.
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