As I write this, I’m leaving the UK after a 4 day speaking tour for an organization that promised me a minimum audience of 300 people on each day. I was to be one of many speakers who were sharing ideas on various aspects of entrepreneurialism. When I arrived, this is what I saw:
I was more than a little disappointed. I was angry. I was missing Thanksgiving with my family to speak in front of 18 people! The statistical average of sales I could anticipate certainly didn’t make missing the holidays with my family worthwhile. A 300 person crowd? I was willing to make that sacrifice, but 18? This was a test for my state management, that’s for sure.
I have always operated my career on a few foundational principles. #1 Whether there is 1 or 100,000 in the audience, each person deserves my best. #2 You never know where you might find your number 1 customer of all time. So I went on stage and gave them the presentation they deserved, not the presentation I felt like giving. Besides, I knew that I had 3 more days speaking for these promoters, and surely the numbers would increase during the weekend.
To make a long story short, the crowds never grew over 40, the venues that I had to travel to were nowhere near the city the marketing advertised, so my travel was about 4 times more expensive than I had anticipated, and the hotel I was staying at felt more like a government run housing project, not a luxury hotel: The floors were concrete, the doors were metal, and the walls were industrial beige with no art whatsoever. Not to mention, no good restaurants nearby so I resolved to eating microwavable frozen food from the local grocer breakfast lunch and dinner. Hardly the environment I like to be in when I’m sharing with an audience principles of abundance and wealth.
On every presentation though, the audience got my best. They didn’t deserve to get anything less than what they expected and what was marketed. Unfortunately, some of the other speakers were so upset at the low numbers that they decided not to go on stage, and some never even came in after hearing about the attendance. Believe it or not, this upset me more than the low numbers. How can a so-called professional speaker get on stage, and say they do what they do because they love people, and espouse that they got in the business because they wanted to make an impact to as many people as possible and then refuse to follow through on their commitment just because the attendance didn’t match their expectations? I promise you these speakers have promoted their own events and people have promised to be there only to never show – those speakers judged them on their lack of integrity for not following through on a commitment. What does this say about them?
You never know who will be in your audience; you never now where you will find your #1 referring customer or your #1 income generating customer. Remember this as you enter the business of professional speaking and know that just like every other career, you have days you love and days you love to be over. But no matter what the day, give it your best.
3 comments:
Topher - I live in the UK and would have loved to have been in your audience but had no knowledge you were in the UK.
Sorry you had a bad experience in what can be a great country!
Been in your lucky enough to have experienced your amazing trainings before, I would have came if I had known, and also got others to come.
I make you right in your attitude, it shows who has integreity and who doesnt that to me sets those that truly walk the talk away form those that are acting as if.... good on you. I am sure that just made you stand out from the crowd even further but for all the right reasons.
Dare to Dream as it goes x
Mr. Morrison, you complain too much! You are lucky anyone comes to see you at all!
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