Today I meet with Bob Mittelsdorf, an experienced trainer on Project Management for 20+ years who was interested to learn from me how he could transition to a keynote speaker. (I more or less only do keynote speeches, and mostly at global or international conferences for global audiences.)

Now let’s start by making one thing clear: Being a trainer is not, in any way, easier, simpler or less “professional” than being a keynote speaker.
If anything it is harder to be a great trainer than a great keynote speaker.

But for some reason “keynote speaking” as a nicer ring than “trainer” for many and many trainers want to transition to becoming keynote speakers.

In these times of Summer Olympics let me make a comparison.

Being a keynote speaker is like being a “100 meter runner”: It is a “main event”, full of energy and focus . It’s over in a flash – and the performers (let’s call them that) are some of the biggest stars of the event.

Being a trainer is like being a “3000 metres steeplechase runner”: It’s hard, tedious work, it drains you of energy and goes on for a long time – and the practitioners are usually not stars at all, even though their achievement in many ways is bigger than their more famous colleagues who run for 100 meters.

I totally get why trainers want to become keynote speakers, and many trainers are very well suited to become keynote speakers (since they tend to have a very deep understanding of their subject) but at the same time we have to remember that being a trainer is not the same as being a keynote speaker. (Just like a 3000 meter runner can not just suddenly decide to compete in 100 meter sprints.)

Keynoting and training are different, which means that selling yourself as a Keynote speaking is different from selling yourself as a training.
But how?

That is the purpose of this post, and I will illustrate it with what I said to Bob.

As an expert trainer on Project Management Bob knows exactly how to talk to Project Managers about Project Management.
The problem is that there is a very, very slim change that the organisers of a keynote speech at a big annual conference for a big company decides that “Project Management” should be the theme for their external keynote speaker.

Not because Project Management is not important – hell, if you ask me project management is what gets things done in a company, so of course it is a very important message.
But my point is that that is not the kind of theme that people who organises annual conferences think that the conference should focus its keynote speech on.

I said to Bob: “People outside project management do not care about project management, so you need to redefine what you talk on to make it a more universal subject.”

Bob said: “So I should call it “Project management for managers?” or “The business of project management?”

And I replied: “No. You are not allowed to use the words “project management”. Not in your title – not even in your speech.”

The reason is that a keynote speech (most of the time) benefits from leaving the “practical” and instead speaks to the audience from a more general and higher level.

If you are a trainer who train on “Presentation skills” then your keynote should be on “Making an impact” or “The Power of being Understood.”

If your theme as a trainer is “team building” then your keynote should be on “The Power of Together.”

If your theme as a trainer is “Diversity” – then your theme as a keynote should be “From Man to Human”.

And so on.

I challenged Bob to write a full 45 minute keynote speech on project management that did not mention the words “project” nor the word “management” a single time.

I suggested the title “How Business Gets Done” for his speech and that he then would use all the knowledge he has about project management to build a speech around examples of how successful things get done (from the chaos of creating 7-course dinners at 3-star kitchens to buildings of airports and the Great Wall of China (which all are examples of different types of project management, of course.)

I asked him how he would describe what project management is for someone who has never heard the phrase and Bob smiled and mentioned a quote he has in his office from Eeyore (from Winnie the Pooh). It says: “Brains first then hard work.”

That’s what project management is. (Eeyore says it during a story where Winnie and friends need to build something in one of the Winnie the Pooh stories.

I encouraged Bob to go out and find inspiring stories of successful companies, managers or other people who had succeeded by planning and then executing something and to then talk about these examples with his project management knowledge as support but in a style that inspires people to create great things, not to feel that they just listened to a training on project management.

In a simplified way you can say that “Trainers train” and “speakers inspire”. So in a way you could say that trainers get people to learn and speakers get people to want to learn.

And that’s why selling a keynote is different from selling a training course. You are not selling the training. You are selling inspiration.

(Bangkok, Thailand)

How do I get more speaking engagements internationally?

That is one of the most common questions that I get.

And the answer is: Speak more internationally.

But more specifically the answer is: Speak more at global conferences.

Because at a global conference there will be people from all over the world in the audience, so if you do a great job on the stage then you will have people from all over the world come up to you after the speech to want to book you for their home market.

Which today was a great example of.

Because today 1300 Entrepreneurs from 130 countries gathered in Bangkok, Thailand for the Global Learning Conference of Entrepreneurs Organisation – a global organisation for entrepreneurs with more than 11 000 members from all over the world.

I was one of the speakers.

When I summarised the conference and went through the business cards that people had come up and given to me, I could see that I had received concrete invitations to come and speak in 41 (!) different countries from 6 continents. People from South Africa to New Zeeland, from Canada to China had approached me and asked me to come and speak in their country as well.

Let me say that again: Concrete leads from 41 different countries. All from speaking to one audience. One global audience.

And I am now in the process of going through these leads to convert them into bookings.

So if the answer to the question “How do I get to speak more globally” is “speak more at global conferences”, then the follow up question becomes: “So how do I get to speak more at global conferences?” 

And the answer to that question is: Make sure you have a great speech that is universal (meaning it will work as well on a Chinese as on an American etc.) And then go speak at local and regional conferences.

If your speech is universal enough the people who organise global conferences are going to hear about you. Because the people who organise the global conferences listen to the people who organise regional and national conferences to find out about great speakers who they can use for the global conference.

It is of course not so easy that this is the ONLY answer to the question “How do I get to speak more internationally”, but it is one piece of the puzzle of how to increase your global foot print as a speaker.

If nothing else, the fact that I got concrete leads from 41 countries today from one conference should in itself inspire you to work towards getting to speak at more global conferences – at least if your goal is to be a global speaker.

 

(Cairo, Egypt)

Speakers might just have the easiest job in the world: Work for one hour, have someone organise and fix everything around the conference (from conference room, to inviting delegates, to audio and visual technology, etc etc). All we have to do is show up and speak.

Compare that to the event organiser who is in charge of one million things. One million things that can go wrong I should add.

Today I was the keynote speaker at the “IATA Aeropolitical Forum” in Cairo and got to see first hand how event organisers work hard to make a conference happen.

When I arrived at 8 am in the morning and stepped up on the stage to get a “feel” for the stage I see two men sleeping (!) behind the stage.

Turns out it is the AV-guys who had worked non-stop until 6.30 in the morning to get the screens to function properly. Now they were taking a nap for 90 minutes before being in charge of the technology during the one-day-conference…

Conference delegates hardly ever notice all the chaos that goes on behind the scenes (in the case of today it was literally “Behind the scene”…)

Event organisers hardly ever get the appreciation they deserve for all the (very stressful) job that they do.

The least thing we could do for them is to make their job as easy as possible with regards to our small role in making the conference a success.

So it was with great joy that todays event organiser went up to me today and said: “I have never worked with a speaker who is so easy to work with than you.”

Thank you! One of the best feedbacks an event organiser can give a speaker if you ask me.

Lesson: Be easy to work with. That is the least you can do to help the people who are doing the heavy lifting of making a conference happen. We might be promoted as the “star” of the conference, that does NOT mean we should behave like “pop stars” and demand all kinds of crazy stuff like they have a tendency to do. (click here for 13 11 Bizarre Celebrity Backstage Demands And Concert Riders.)