Inside the Belly of the Corporate Beast
The following post is written by Barry Friedman. Barry is one-half of the Raspyni Brothers a four-time World Juggling Champion who works exclusively in the corporate market.
Timeline:
1978: Learned to juggle.
1982: Hooked up with my juggling partner and formed the Raspyni Brothers
1986: First of many Tonight Show appearances
1988: First corporate show – and I never looked back!
Here’s Barry…
Yep, I’m still enjoying this market after 20 years and today I’d like to pull back a bit of the curtain on this active and lucrative market. I want to share with you the common threads I have seen in professional speakers, and how they land the corporate gigs.
While most of my work over the last 20-years has been in the role of ‘entertainer’, I have worked with dozens of professional speakers. As emcee for a 4-hour general session, I not only perform my act, but will introduce a variety of speakers, along with corporate big-wigs.
The most successful speakers on the corporate market have narrowed the scope of their talk down to an edge that is sharp enough to cut. They take a broad topic and eliminate all the ideas and sections that don’t fit into the title of the talk they were hired to present. Filler is unacceptable in the big leagues of corporate speaking.
The top pros are accessible and easy on the ears. Even the most serious speakers I’ve seen tend to open with a very funny story that breaks down the walls, connects the dots, and shows their humanity. This opening story is specific to the industry of the audience – even if it means just changing one part of the same story they open with every time.
I’ve had the pleasure of introducing Michael Abrashoff http://www.grassrootsleadership.com several times at high-profile corporate events. His talks on leadership are legendary. Each time he has opened his talk with a story that ties into the introduction my partner and I just gave him. He says that last year he was at a conference and gave a talk that went over very well. His agent called him a few days later and said she had good news, and bad news. He asked for the good news and the agent said that his evaluation scores were higher than Norman Schwarzkopf’s. Then he asked for the bad news and she told him that he scored lower than the Raspyni Brothers.
It gets a huge laugh and the audience is ready to absorb every word he has to offer.
Meet and Greets are standard with corporate speakers and audiences eat this up. Sometimes it coincides with a book signing, but it can also happen in the form of a Q&A with a select group or the entire audience. This time gives speakers a perfect opportunity for brand building and plugging their programs. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t take it lightly. People are hanging around because they want more of you – give it to them!
More and more speakers offer (and almost push) a continuity program as part of their speech. It’s usually a website, training, or personal coaching that promises to take the topic of interest to the next level. The idea behind this type of offering is that if the audience is enjoying the flavor of the appetizer, they might want the whole meal.
So how does a professional speaker break into the corporate circuit and become a top-shelf choice for meeting planners? The quick answer is to do all the things I listed above!
Breaking into the corporate market as a speaker means being an authority. Not a want-to-be authority, but a verifiable, been-there-done-that expert on a very specific topic. While sales, teamwork, diversity, management, and leadership are some of the most common topics at corporate events, there is always a call for other subjects.
When shopping your talk to meeting planners and speaking bureaus, deliver promotional materials that drive the benefits the audience will take away from the talk. Pack your demo with the best stuff up front and provide letters of recommendation from people who have benefited from your talk.
I offer a free 7-day training course TrainingCourse which not only shows you how to best present yourself to this market, but helps you stay there once you’re in. Each daily short video (MP3 & PDF, too!) focuses on a primary element necessary to get you on the radar screens of this market’s top producers.
And, so to speak, inside the belly of the corporate beast.
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Barry Friedman is one-half of the Raspyni Brothers . They appear annually at over 100 corporate events in the USA and internationally. His site Get More Corporate Gigs helps speakers, entertainers, and bands to, well, get more corporate gigs!
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One Response to “Inside the Belly of the Corporate Beast”
Motivational Speakers
September 10th, 2009
There’s no question that the corporate speaking world can be competitive. This is a definitely the right attitude for anyone who is considering putting themselves out there for these types of events. Be prepared!