Picture this, you are speaking at a big conference. You notice the agenda is way behind. There is no way they are going to start the program on time. You see the event planners scurrying around doing damage control. You are the next one up. What can you do? This is exactly where I found myself, speaking in India, a few weeks ago. Consider these important insights.
#1 It’s Not Your Call.
Even if you are the keynote speaker and the draw to the conference, it is not up to you. We are hired, whether free or big fee, to be an important part of an event. We are just a piece of the big picture. The wait staff, AV team and volunteers are just as important as you. Respect your craft.
We need to get together with our boss, the event planner, and have a discussion. We may not be aware of all of the moving parts. When a conference is happening, there is lunch to be served at a certain time, which is in motion out of sight, but never out of the event planner’s mind. Be careful with your ego. I need to keep mine in check as well. Yes, they may have brought you in for a reason to deliver a message, but they are in the middle of creating an experience for the attendees; we need to adjust as professionals.
#2 Ask.
Ask the event planner what is best at this point. More often than not, I am asked to cut my time. As a professional, I need to have my 60-minute, 45-minute and 30-minute slide deck ready to go. I should be able to switch out in less than a minute. Prepare for this ahead of time. You do not want to be deleting slides under this kind of pressure.
You have two choices; you can cut your time, or cut your relationship with that event planner. Make no mistake, event planners know event planners. It is a small world. You may win the battle and do your allotted time, but at what cost? Who else do they know they could have recommended you to? If you were hired via a speaker’s bureau, your actions on the ground will get back to the people who recommended you. Are you then hurting that relationship too?
We need to ask the event planner if they wish us to cut our time or deliver the full program. Sometimes, they do wish me to do the full program. It is up to them. I have witnessed a big-time celebrity mess up an entire conference schedule of 1,000 people doing twice the time he was allotted. I am willing to bet no one called him out on it. Word will get around and lead to fewer engagements which probably cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, never mind me as a fan. If they need us to, we can take a whole lot of pressure off their shoulders. We can quickly switch gears; that is what true professionals do.
#3 Give Them Options.
An event planner may be new to the job or even unaware of other options that we could provide. I learned so many crucial insights from Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE; and I put one into action in Kolkata, India. What else could you do?
Conference attendees were out late dancing the night before my Sunday morning keynote. We were to start at 8:00 a.m. Out of a room of 350 people, there were only a handful of them in the room by 7:55, just before I was about to speak. In their culture, I learned this was not unusual. They postponed the starting time until 8:30 a.m. Patricia’s wisdom popped into my head. She would say to take care of the people who are on time. So, I asked Vishal, the convention chair, if it was OK for me to pull up a chair and do a Q & A with the people who were there.
Again, we need to always ask permission. It is his call, not mine. I wanted to honor the people who were on time. I am there; they are there. Why not serve them? So, with Vishal’s blessing, I pulled up a chair, grabbed a mic, and explained what I was doing. They were the ones there on time. They deserved bonus material. Q & A is perfect because I don’t want to take way from my actual program. It also gives them special attention and a reward for being on time. They loved it. The event planner was happy because now he is serving people instead of punishing people who actually showed up on time by making them sit there gaining nothing. That can be frustrating to them.
Remember, this is a relationship business; and your actions off stage are equally important as your content and delivery on stage. On a side note, as a teacher, I asked someone to take a pic of this and send it to me so that I could show you what I did to pass on what I learned from Patricia. I also asked Vishal if he could offer his perspective on the situation and what it meant to him. Hear what he had to say as I sit down with him, in the moment, in this video:
Ego is a big problem once people start becoming successful in this business. Have the team mindset and set your intention to do your best for the event as a whole. Even when the event planner makes mistakes, it is their call, not ours. Respect your craft.
What do you take from this?
Great advice Darren and I agree. I love the idea you used from Patricia, using the time to do a Q&A with the audience members that were there on time. I’m going to remember that and use it. I’m also going to make different lengths of my presentations so I have them ready in case I need to cut time at the last minute. Great idea, thanks!
One thing I’ve learned from my previous career (an independent contractor working for companies that had me working at their customers location) is that every time, and I mean EVERY TIME, I made my customers, customer the main customer, it helped me greatly with MY customer. As a result, I was in high demand. So much that I had to turn down some offers because I was already booked elsewhere. By treating their customer as my important customer, I became the ‘go to’ contractor.
Thanks for the advice! (and thanks also to Patricia for the start of that advice.) 🙂
Paul
I have an “emergency exit” short ending if I see the red light and have to cut short. (I have been disqualified several time due to being attached to my ending)
However— I never thought of having a 30 min, 45 min and 60 minute presentation in case of the event timing being “off”! I have seen many an event NOT start on time. We were very pleased one time when we pulled off the speech contest ON TIME. You see, we only had a few active members. (ok, the minimum was six and we had three peper memhbers and three active members!!!) but I pulled it off by going to other clubs and asking for specific roles to be filled. I flled them all. I got my church (where the event was held) to bring treats in addtion to the ones we had. ANYway, most contests do not start on time.
I will remember to plan any speeches I do with different timing, so I can gracefully fit the time I am given.
thanks!
Betsy Coss
transformative Toastmasters
Cleveland (ok, Shaker Hts.) ohio
Darren,
As always you give such valuable advice. Your wisdom and experience is why I always recommend you to fellow writers and speakers.
I love your three points–we should never assume we can just take our allotted time regardless of what’s happening with the agenda. I’ve advised our newest speakers in Toastmasters to make sure they are prepared to go longer if asked, yes I’ve been there! Or to be ready to make our presentation shorter to help the event planner if needed–yes, I have been requested to do that too.
I especially liked your advice to do the Q&A with those who came on time, but most important was your recommendation to ask!
Thanks you for all that you do for those of us coming behind you.
What a perfect reminder on how to be a better speaker. Advice that applies not only to the professional speaker but to all of us in our daily lives and personal interactions.
Happy people and successful relationships have flexibility and grace.
I love it when advice is so simple and useful that you immediately commit it to conscious memory. Thanks Darren!
Hi Darren,
This is fabulous advice. I can think of at least 10 people off-hand that could use it. Being considerate of other people will always work out for the better. I remember one speaker in particular who never went less than 15 minutes overtime. He was a lawyer by trade and his ego was so huge that he never even considered that people just might have somewhere else they had to be. As un-Christian as it is, I still have feelings of resentment towards him to this day because of his rudeness.
On the other hand, Whenever I speak, I check the clock before I get up and tailor my speech to the time available. I can do this because I know ahead of time that stuff happens and being considerate to my audience of anywhere from 12 to 2,000 people far outweighs any ego boosting experience that I might have from delivering my entire message. I always speak from well-researched materieal. I am well aware of what the most important content is. Fewer stories, fewer examples, the message is still going to come through clearly.
And, on the rare occasions when I actually get to stretch, (and believe you me, they are rare) I have enough research material ready that I can easily fill twice the expected time and keep the audience well entertained. This is part of the reason that speaking is more art than science.
And yes, I love Q and A. This is when I get the most direct interaction with my audience. I had the privilige once of hearing a speaker who threw out his entire speech and did Q and A with us instead. It was one of the best experiences I ever had.
Bravo!
Regards,
James
Yo Darren, Again I like the perspective, professionalism, and personablness regarding the information you shared. As I was reading it I had several thoughts about how applicable the considerations that you stated are for our daily lives in dealing with various aspects of society. Relationship building and valuing others seems to be a dying art and surely decreasing in practice. Thanks for sharing and “Keep On – Keeping On!
Tony
I’m adding my comment from the perspective of an member…I’ve learned to be on time/early to these kind of events. And here’s a prime example of why. My very first district conference in Toastmasters, there was a first timer’s meeting. I was at the event plenty early, but a fellow TM was also a first timer and I wanted to make sure she was comfortable being there, too. Instead of heading straight for the first timer’s meeting, I dawdled in the hallway with her as she was socializing. Because of that, we missed Darren speak to the small group. Bummer!! Luckily we ran into him on his way out and got to introduce ourselves. But the point this article drives home to me (as an audience member) is to be there early—how lucky were they to get a small group Q&A?!