Why I Love This Job

The Loss of Jeffrey Zaslow, and the Art of Storytelling

This past week saw the sudden and unexpected loss of author, speaker, and journalist Jeffrey Zaslow.

I never met Jeffrey in person, but I would have had the opportunity in April 2012.  I had just gotten mutual agreement to book him for an event which I personally would be attending, and I was looking forward to hearing him on stage.  Such fascinating stories, such high-profile lives he's touched, such a gift for description, emotion, and most of all, storytelling.

One of the real roots of this industry of guest speakers, public speakers, professional speakers - however you choose to describe it - one of the most important ways to characterize this job/calling/gift of being a speaker is storytelling.  You have to tell a good story.  More than one in any given speech, actually, woven together in such a way that raises the simple relaying of information to the level of artistry.  

I was looking forward to seeing Jeffrey do that.  He did it so well in his books; I was sure I had a lot to look forward to in person.

Jeffrey died in a car accident in Michigan, while on tour supporting his recently-released book, "The Magic Room."  It hadn't originally been on my radar for books I must read soon, but it is now.  I understand it's about a bridal shop, passed down through four generations, and about some of the specific brides that pass through the shop doors, on their way to seek long-lasting love and happiness. 

Jeffrey himself has three daughters, so I'm sure this was a very personal book for him; its subtitle is "A Story About the Love We Wish for our Daughters."  Amidst their sorrow at the tragic loss of their father, how very glad his daughters must be that he had the opportunity to leave them this book.   While he will never attend their weddings, they will know, at least, that he understood, and wished them the best.

His other books include "The Last Lecture" with Randy Pausch, and a book about Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, entitled "Gabby:  A Story of Courage and Hope."  He also co-wrote a book with Captain "Sully" Sullenberger, of Hudson River plane-landing fame.

My job is many things.  It's work, it's pleasure, it's fun, it's challenging, it's rewarding, it's unique (or at least unusual).  Sometimes, it's also a privilege.  And sometimes it's a wake-up call. 

Thanks, Jeffrey, for reminding me that I need to get out and see more of these fascinating speakers I book, meet more of them in person.  They are such very amazing people, which, of course, is why someone would want to pay them to make a speech.  

And of course, I need to make sure I enjoy every minute with my family and friends.   While I can. 

To his family and friends, to those who did know him, I'm so sorry for your loss. 

There's Nothing Old-Fashioned About Having Good Manners

Sometimes I'm amazed at what people will say in an email.  Things that they'd never say if they were standing in front of me.  Sometimes it's a poorly worded joke, but often it's just someone being a little quick on the draw when deciding whether to write down some angry, insulting, or critical words. 

I suppose after all these years of increasingly text-based communications, I shouldn't be surprised anymore.  Shameless optimist that I am.  So I continue to be amazed that some folks find it so easy to be rude, mean, angry, or disrespectful, when texting or sending email.

Some folks need a time-delay installed on their "send" button.   It would give them time to remember that sarcasm and humor do NOT translate well in an email.  And that rudeness is always uncalled for, even when delivered electronically.   It's unwelcome in our personal lives, of course, but especially unwelcome in the business world; these two worlds have increasingly overlapped in our society anyway.

One of my favorite things about the speaking industry, and the meetings industry in general, is the overall upbeat tone of the people I encounter.   It is a normal and expected part of my job to call total strangers.  Often very famous or important strangers, people who run companies or win Nobel Prizes or write best-selling books.  Sometime I am calling or writing executives or event planners who are so busy their laptops have become their new spouses.

Yet they are almost always polite.  Polite and pleasant.  Cheerful, even.   And I appreciate it, every time.  You don't get to the top by being a jerk, after all.

And then there are the times when I expect to be met with the politesse and mutual respect so common in our industry, and instead get a metaphorical slap in the face.  Whoops, looks like someone just had a bad day, and decided to try to pass that bad day on to me.  

Well, no thanks, I'll pass.  And next time I'll remember to call someone else instead, someone with whom it's a pleasure to do business.  

If you do that to me, I'll assume that someone just made you feel inferior about something, and you are trying to pass that bad feeling on to someone else.  You've just cast yourself as the patronizing clueless character who thinks he's/she's a bigshot, but really just lacks judgement.

There are countless articles and studies about this problem.  A few examples, written by Keynote speakers, can be found here, by Tony Schwartz, and by Sue Hershkowitz-Coore.   Some people think it's a sign of declining civility in our society in general:  another example on a slightly different topic can be found here.  Some people blame it on the increasing texting and emailing, replacing face-to-face and telephone conversation. 

Some people see it as a byproduct of the media; it's okay for political pundits to yell at each other, to make up statistics and 'facts' to support their points, to insult each other, so it has become increasingly normal for the rest of us, too.  Even celebrities will tweet nasty comments sometimes, and they should KNOW they're in the public eye, so it must be OK for the rest of us as well, right?

There's nothing like good old fashioned civility.  Mutual respect, too.  I promise to use them both.  Waiting a few hours before sending a negative-sounding email, to give myself the chance to re-read and re-think it, has saved me burned bridges on more than one occasion.

I'm human, so I may slip up occasionally, but I promise to do my best.

Will you promise, too?  Let's all promise, and we can remove one more piece of unnecessary aggravation from our lives.

And for anyone who's been keeping track, I know it's been a terribly long time since I posted anything.  You wouldn't believe how busy we've been (and that's a good thing!  Hooray!), and you wouldn't believe how many great ideas I have lined up in my draft posts, just waiting to be fleshed out.  Lots of speakers with new books, new ideas, new issues, lots of stuff to tell you about. 

The problem is, clients wanting to book speakers RIGHT NOW trumps everything, so sometimes the blog gets put off.  For way too long.  Sorry.  I'll try to do better.

More, More, More!

Wow, it's been a while since I had a second to post something!  We are on fire over here at Keynote, and are currently interviewing for at least three open positions.  Yay, I love opportunities for new ideas, fresh faces, and a chance to grow in a positive direction!

Between needing more qualified personnel, and lots and lots of bookings, the annual IASB Convention (congrats to myself, I was just elected a Governor of IASB, the International Association of Speakers Bureaus!) held in San Diego this year, the phenomenal popularity of some of Keynote's speakers (Guy Kawasaki and his bestselling new book, Enchantment!  Louis Zamperini, subject of Laura Hillenbrand's number one bestseller Unbroken!) I am just full of exclamation points this month.

So for now I'll just say this:  if you're awesome, we want to talk to you.  If you're an awesome salesperson/agent, if you're an awesome speaker, if you're an awesome website designer, or (especially!) an awesome client who wants to book fantastic speakers, we want to talk to you!

Speakers and clients can come from all over the globe, but Keynote employees must live in the San Francisco/San Jose/Silicon Valley area - this is such a high-touch job that telecommuting doesn't work for us. 

If you want to see more about the open positions, we're advertising on Craigslist, MPI, and IASB's website. And if you are a fantastic speaker, please email Melissa@KeynoteSpeakers.com to find out what to do next.

And if you're someone who books speakers, and you'll only accept fantastic speaker options, well, you already know whom to call.  If you don't have your own personal agent here yet, email me and I'll hook you up with the best of the best.

So if you're awesome, please email me at katrina@keynotespeakers.com.  And do it soon! 

More, more, more!  Hooray for the resurgence of the corporate/association events industry.  Bring it on; we're ready!

To Book Great Speakers

Why do I work here?  And how do I succeed?  Important questions indeed.  

For me, as it turns out, the answers are simple. Hard to execute, but simple to understand.

The reason for today's particular rant is the result of the latest newletter "Perspectives", from the Northern California Chapter of MPI. 

By way of introduction, the Northern California chapter of Meeting Professionals International is the largest chapter in the country.  And as you'd suspect, the high quality of the companies located here in San Francisco Bay Area means the level of professionalism of the planners and suppliers around here is extremely high.

Think Apple, Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Google, Pixar, Oracle, Salesforce.   Not to mention The Gap, Wells Fargo, Visa, Charles Schwab, Blue Shield, Genentech, Clorox.  And the host of this blog, Typepad. And of course Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and UCSF.  And there are more. We have no room for mediocre around here, apparently.  (We have room for people to try, and fail, and try again.  Recovering from failure is actually considered a credential around here.  But we have no room for mediocre.)

Need a job?  Like beautiful weather? Wow, come live here.  No, no, wait, please don't.  The traffic here is already terrible and all the houses cost at least a million bucks.  Hey, we're like Paris, without the Eiffel Tower and the haughtiness!  

So anyway,  the MPI's local chapter magazine is of unusually high quality, and usually makes it to the top of my reading pile, along with the National Speakers Association magazine "Speaker", which I've mentioned in previous posts. 

And now, by way of this very long introduction, the article that caught my eye:  Raising Your "Return on Energy" by David Gabri. 

David, the president and CEO of Associated Luxury Hotels International, suggests a tool to focus yourself on the job.  He provides a list of simple questions that can get to the heart of what we are supposed to be doing with our time, in between coffee breaks and commuter traffic. 

As I read these very simple questions, I was pleasantly surprised by how simple the answers are, for us here at Keynote.

 

1.  What is the purpose of my job?   To book great speakers. 

To drill down another level, to book great speakers, who will in turn contribute to great events.  To make our clients' lives easier, by making the process as simple and efficient as we can.

  

2.  What are the measures of success?  How happy our clients are with the speakers they chose.  And, how happy our clients are with the support they received from Keynote.

  

3.  What is considered exceptional performance?  Booking even more fantastic speakers, every year.  Raising our clients' expectations for our performance, and the performance of those speakers, every year.  Every event, every time.  Year after year after year. 

  

4.  What are the priorities and deadlines?  Priorites?  Top quality speakers, top quality service from everyone at Keynote.  When?  At the time when our clients need us, whether that's a year before the event, or the day of the event, or after the speech and the event are long gone.

And all this made me realize why this job is fun, but not easy.  It's challenging to have one great event.  But it's way more challenging to have every single event be great, every time, so that people can rely on quality as being a constant.

And now, putting all cards out on the table, I tried answering these questions from the point of view of an agent at Keynote.  The answers were very simple, but different.  Agents, of course, work on commission.  So they want their client to have the best possible experience, and one of the reasons for that is: so that the client works with them again for the next event.  But they also need what every sales person needs:  volume. 

So here, again, the questions, and answers from the point of view of a Keynote agent.

1.  What is the purpose of my job?   To give my clients such a great experience, with me, and with the speakers they select, that they come back and book more speakers with me.

  

2.  What are the measures of success?  How happy my client is after the speech, with me and with the speaker.  And, how many clients return to me, to use my services to book speakers again and again.  

  

3.  What is considered exceptional performance?  Booking speakers for the same repeat clients every year, year after year.  And adding more clients every year, year after year.  And I can only do this by being exceptionally useful to my clients.   If I'm not useful, they won't be back.

  

4.  What are the priorities and deadlines?  Quality of speaker, service, experience, and results.  At the time that the client wants them.   In short, everything. 

Relatively simple to figure out.  Very hard to execute. 

We promise, we'll keep trying, every single time, every day. 

 

What's New These Days: Part One

Couple of quick updates for you today, regarding some speakers with a lot going on right now.  Please forgive the random sizing of the book cover images; I was having trouble making the images all the same size.  I'll get better at it next time, I promise.  So here we go:

 

        Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy: 

        New book "Now...Build a Great Business!"

 

 

 

Dick Hardwick: Received an honorary degree from Westfield University.

Comedian/Entertainer Dick Hardwick was celebrated at a recent performance with an honorary Doctor of Performance Degree!  Dick was totally surprised by the presentation before his show at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. The inscription reads: (shortened by me, Katrina)

Richard John Hardwick

Master of the spotlight and stand-out among stand-up’s,

You take the high road to comedy and never fail to make us laugh.

Whether headlining for families at Disneyland

Landing one-liners for troops in Iraq

Or punctuating the punchlines for corporate executives

You model the hard-working life of the professional entertainer

Who is ever willing to be there for an appreciative audience.

 

 

 

Guy Kawasaki:  Upcoming new book in March, The Art of Enchantment.  

More on Guy's book in future posts. 

Sure to be a bestseller; they always are.  

 

 

 

Louis Zamperini:  Laura Hillenbrand's book about his life, Unbroken, has maintained  a steady #3 on Amazon's bestseller list since it was released.  Louie has also been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair, and has been profiled by the New York Times and The Washingtonian, and has appeared on The Today Show, among other recent media outlets.  Since Laura Hillenbrand, the author of previous best-seller Seabiscuit, does not do personal appearances, Louie is traveling to all book publicity events as well as private speaking engagements. 

Someone to add to your "Favorite Speakers" list: Louis Zamperini

I have a new person on my "favorite speakers" list:  Louis Zamperini. 

Wow.  I think Louis qualifies as both the luckiest, and the unluckiest, person on the planet.  His life is an amazing combination of incredibly lucky saves, amazing personal strength, and remarkable occurances and coincidences, both good and bad.

Reasons he's the unluckiest:

Survived near death, and near destruction of airplane,  after attack by enemy planes, while an airman in the Pacific theater during WWII.

One of only three survivors from a plane shot down by enemy forces over the Pacific Ocean.  Actually sank with the plane, with his clothing hooked onto the plane itself, but miraculously managed to regain the surface.

Survived 47 days in an open rubber raft in the Pacific Ocean, with no food or water on hand except the occasional rain shower, unlucky seabird, or particularly gullible fish.

Raft experience also included having to fight off sharks, (including one great white shark) which followed his raft relentlessly for most of those 47 days.  He and his two raftmates even had to prevent sharks from breaching and grabbing them out of the raft.

Raft experience included being spotted, not by friendly rescue plane, but by enemy plane, and having to hide under the raft (with the aforementioned sharks still trying to eat him) while enemy pilots strafed the raft.  Twice. Resulted in raft deflating.  This is not good.

Was finally recued, again not by friendly ship or plane, but by enemy forces, which resulted in becoming a POW in Japanese camps for over two years.

Was discovered to be an American Olympic athlete of note, resulting in"special treatment" in POW camps.  And not the good kind of "special treatment".  The kind that makes you wish you were just a regular, no-name, nothing-special POW.

Reasons he's the luckiest:

He survived.  See above.

Not only is this story already extraordinary, there is more.  A lot more.  Louis Zamperini is also an incredibly gifted athlete.  He was discovered, after humble beginnings (as a juvenile delinquent, actually) to be a terrific long distance runner. 

Louis competed in the last Olympics prior to World War II, held in Berlin.  This should have been the beginning of a fantastic career as a world-class record-setting miler, but instead, war erupted;  Louis joined the front lines as a bombardier.  See above plane-shot-down-sharks-coming-two-years-of-POW-camp story.  

After being given up for dead by the US military, Louis was discovered alive at the close of the war, was returned to the US, and....well, I'll let you read the rest of the story for yourself.

Read what story?  Oh, yes.  Remember the phenomenal bestseller and later movie Seabiscuit?  Written by Laura Hillenbrand? Well, that was her first book. 

Louis Zamperini's story, Unbroken, is her second.   Released on November 16th, 2010, it's already a bestseller.

Incredibly well researched and detailed, it's an amazing book.  Laura Hillenbrand has an uncanny talent for uncovering details about people's lives that they themselves didn't even know about.  Her research techniques include such efforts as sending deep sea divers down to a sunken ship to recover records and manifests, convincing a military officer to come to her house and demonstrate the secret workings of a WWII-era Norden bombsight, and conducting hours and hours of telephone conversations with not only Louis Zamperini himself, but the friends, relatives, and acquaintances of all the other individuals who appear in the book. 

Virtue and sin, survival and redemption, aching loss and incredible suffering and starvation and pain, and ultimately, forgiveness:  it's all in there. 

Hillenbrand's life itself is amazing.  The victim of the chronic, severe, mysterious, and debilitating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she does not leave her home.  That she can undertake such a monumental effort as writing a book, and such a long and detailed one to boot, is nothing short of astonishing. 

Louis Zamperini, as described by Laura Hillenbrand.  And incredibly action-packed, detailed, and gripping story, and all the more amazing because it's all true.  As political comedian Will Durst says, "you can't make up stuff like this."

The reviews keep piling in:  from the Wall Street Journal to Vanity Fair, People Magazine, Newsweek, even the Today Show.  A phenomenon in the making.  Can't wait to see who gets to make a movie about this.

 

 

Photos from Guy Kawasaki's visit to Ho Chi Minh City - Holy Kaw!

Today I'm running against a deadline for the book release of new Keynote exclusive speaker Louis Zamperini (amazing man, you must check him out - he is the topic of the new sure-to-be-another-bestseller from Laura Hillenbrand, entitled Unbroken) so instead of writing something new, I'll share one of my favorite recent blogs from Keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki.

To see the photos, open Guy's Holy Kaw blog link below.  Really amazing stuff, especially considering he had only 4 hours to sightsee. 

Looking at photos like these make me wish I could travel more with the speakers we book, but then I remember how tough their lives are, being on the road all the time.  And then all of a sudden my comfy office chair doens't seem like such a bad deal after all.  Not compared with a cramped economy size airline seat, on a flight for 36 hours to Asia. 

I'm copying one of my favorite photos here,  just to give you a preview,  but looking at them all on Guy's blog is worth the couple seconds and the extra click.  Enjoy!

I recently visited Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam for a speech for Abacus International. Unfortunately, I was in Vietnam for only twenty hours, and I only had about four hours free to see the city.

via holykaw.alltop.com

 

Vote. Vote vote vote vote vote. Okay everyone? Good.

No political statements from me - that's not what this forum is for. Though this is admittedly not a strictly business topic....

Please vote. 

Everyone. 

Even the people I don't agree with.  (And I'm not telling y'all who that would be. )

Well, okay, I guess this is a political statement of sorts.  People, humans, men and women, thousands and thousands of them, over several hundred years now, fought and bled and died so that all Americans would have the right to vote.  And marched and protested and wrote speeches and listened to speeches so that we'd have the right to vote.  And showed up in the pouring rain, or endured discrimination and recrimination, or bullets, or hunger strikes, so that we'd have the right to vote.

I could come up with more, but I think you've figured out what I'm getting at here.

Please, vote.  You are lucky enough to have a voice;  many people in many countries, far too many, don't have that voice.  You are lucky enough not to have to earn your right to vote; someone has already done that for you.  So honor their sacrifice, figure out what you believe, and vote for it.

If you don't, your voice goes unheard.  And even if I don't agree with what you have to say, I think that would be a shame.

So that you know I put my money where my mouth is, we at Keynote have booked speakers of many political stripes.  Some of them are people I think are on the right track.  Some others, not so much.  But it's not my business to tell other people what kinds of opinions it's okay to express, or listen to, or whom to invite to speak.  Freedom of speech, right?   

It's just my job to help give people a forum for expression, to help people have an opportunity to listen to opinions, open their minds, learn about something new.  Even if it's not something I agree with.  I am not the world.

Actually, come to think of it, that's part of why I love my job. The opportunity to hear all different types of topics, theories, opinions, facts, research, and even imagination.  So maybe my little rant here isn't quite so off-topic after all.

Thank you to all the people who made it possible for me to vote.  I stand on the shoulders of giants.  Some of them were our Founding Fathers, some of them were those who fought and died in the War for Independence, some of them fought and died in the Civil War, and all the other wars in which American has fought, some of them were Suffragettes, some of them were Civil Rights protesters, some of them are the members of the US Armed Forces today. 

Thank you.  That's all that's on my mind for today.  Thanks for listening.

No, but thanks for asking. Well, okay, maybe. Oh, sure, why not.

Today, I found myself pausing from my overly packed list of things I absolutely must do today, to write the following thank you note.

Hi John.  I just wanted to let you know, I appreciate so much the fact that you asked before putting me on your newsletter list. 

 

In fact I do not usually subscribe to any speaker newsletters.  As I'm sure you can guess, it's not because I don't find them of value; it's because if I read them all properly I wouldn't have any time left to talk to my clients!  I find myself unsubscribing to a newsletter which I have involuntarily received about twice a week, so it was such a refreshing and positive change that you took the time to ask.  Thank you.

 

We do appreciate you as a speaker and I look forward to doing business with you again soon.

Best wishes,

Katrina Smith

The recipient of this letter was speaker John Hersey.  Well done, John.  He is not the only who has asked recently - it happens occasionally, though I've never taken the time send a thank you note before.  

I got a particularly funny email last week from another Keynote favorite, Joel Zeff, entitled "I Hate Newsletters." It made me laugh, so I'm keeping that one. 

And me personally, I don't hate newsletters.  They're a great way to transmit information in short form. And there are some speakers who are just great writers, or particular friends of mine.  

I just like it when someone asks. 

 

Keynote sends newsletters to its clients occasionally.  Since I dislike unsolicited email so much, as many of us do, we try to be very careful about to whom, and how often, we send our marketing.  Since we do represent some speakers exclusively, we want to get the word out about them.  But we try hard to make sure we don't send the updates too often, or to anyone who doesn't want to receive them. 

Emailed documents and blogs have taken the place of the tree-eating catalogs we used to mail every year, so hopefully we can all join together in appreciating how efficient and quick these new information delivery methods are.

I hope we at Keynote are as kind and polite about our marketing as John was.  If we're not, please let us know.  You can email me at katrina@keynotespeakers.com, without even signing up as a commenter on the blog. 

And thanks again John Hersey, and Joel Zeff, and all the other polite speakers and entertainers we book and recommend, who take the time to ask.

Keith Harrell: a great loss for all who knew him

From time to time a member of our community, the world of professional speaking, passes away unexpectedly.  While death is inevitable for us all, when an individual who has made an impact in your life dies, it can shake your world for a little while. 

Keith Harrell was in the speaking business since before I came to Keynote, and thus I got to know him after he was already a successful and popular speaker.  Our agents here were all fans of Keith, whom we booked and recommended a great deal.  

Though Keith was already a successful speaker when I met him, I know he must have understood, or remembered, how beginning speakers struggle.  This must have been so, because throughout all the years I knew him he always seemed to have at least one "protege", someone whom he was helping to in their path to success, or someone he was hoping to inspire, or someone who just needed more encouragement along with practical advice.

He was known for his trademark phrase "super fantastic".  Those words would sound over the top perhaps, coming from someone else, but from Keith they were genuine. 

As someone who evaluates speakers for a living, I can spot a phony (or so I like to think, anyway) from a mile away.   And Keith Harrell was someone I respected as being absolutely genuine. 

Clients hate phony canned speakers, which was probably one of the reasons Keith was so phenomenally successful, and had such a tremendous rate of repeat bookings and long-term clients.  Almost no one wants to rebook you unless you walk your talk.  Keith absolutely did that, and it showed.

While I was his business associate, rather than a close friend, nevertheless I can understand how Keith touched so many lives.  He had drive and enthusiasm rarely found in this world, even among inspirational speakers:  his famous, and inspiring, "attitude". 

I'll close with a few lines taken from a letter from his close family members, about Keith's life and the experience of his death.

"....Keith fought a courageous battle with cancer and he fought it with the same positive attitude and energy that he pursued in every aspect of his life. If you asked Keith how he felt each day, you knew his answer would be “Super Fantastic".....We will miss his laughter and the smile that lit up any room...”

To Keith's family and close friends, I am so sorry for your loss.   We will miss him too.