http://www.speakerscommunity.com/blog/2008/07/06/speakers-behaving-badly-are-you-guilty-of-platform-abuse/ Grow your Business and Income Thru Speaking Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:26:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.3 http://www.speakerscommunity.com/blog/2008/07/06/speakers-behaving-badly-are-you-guilty-of-platform-abuse/#comment-1930 Joel Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:11:54 +0000 http://www.speakerscommunity.com/blog/2008/07/06/speakers-behaving-badly-are-you-guilty-of-platform-abuse/#comment-1930 The comments about 'platform abuse' are correct. But the speaker doesn't address what could be a correcting influence ... if audience members had the guts to stand up and confront a speaker who was cheating them. Eg. "Mr. Spkr, we've paid good money to come here and hear expert advice on [whatever] and you're cheating us if you talk about politics, your family, or anything else. Will you give us what we paid for, or cheat us and force us to leave and get a refund?" Another problem is hosts who don't make it clear to a guest speaker that the host and audience WILL NOT tolerate the talk being a disguised sales pitch. This is a severe problem in groups such as real estate investment clubs. Only the strong arms of my two companions kept me from confronting such a speaker at Sam Sadat's Real Estate investment club recently. The comments about ‘platform abuse’ are correct. But the speaker doesn’t address what could be a correcting influence … if audience members had the guts to stand up and confront a speaker who was cheating them. Eg. “Mr. Spkr, we’ve paid good money to come here and hear expert advice on [whatever] and you’re cheating us if you talk about politics, your family, or anything else. Will you give us what we paid for, or cheat us and force us to leave and get a refund?” Another problem is hosts who don’t make it clear to a guest speaker that the host and audience WILL NOT tolerate the talk being a disguised sales pitch. This is a severe problem in groups such as real estate investment clubs. Only the strong arms of my two companions kept me from confronting such a speaker at Sam Sadat’s Real Estate investment club recently.

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