The business of speaking

The business of speaking

Why competing with the best is easier than competing with the not so good.

By Fredrik Haren

Today 15 000 people met for a huge Canon Event in Paris.

Canon’s clients from all over Europe, Middle East and Africa had flown in for this two-day event that only happens once every five years.

All the clients from Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa had their own “event within the event” which begun with a passionate keynote speech by the amazingly dynamic and active 80-year old (!) Chairman of Canon Fujio Mitarain. 80 years old!

During the whole day there was only two external speakers:

One was Gary Knight – an award winning war-photographer who is starting a CSR project for Canon in East Africa.

 

The other one was me.

 

That Canon invites Gary Knight makes total sense since he has a connection to Canon, is an awarded photographer and is running this CSR project.

But I have zero connections to Canon.
I do not even live in the region.

So one way to look at it would be to say that Canon could have selected any professional speaker in the world to close their conference, yet they selected me.

For that I am, of course, very happy.

It was one of those conferences that has it all: big audience, people from all over the world, big, global company as a client, in a nice place (Paris) and with an interesting industry (digital imagining is ready to explode and Canon is at the heart of it and I saw some really, really cool technologies that they are ready to launch soon.)

So I must have been very lucky to get this speech, right, considering how many speakers from around the world who probably would have loved to do this assignment.

Yes, I think i was lucky.

But actually, and this is the point with this post, it is EASIER to get a big, global speaking gig than a small, local one.

That might sound counter-intuitive but let me explain.

If you look at yourself as a “local speaker” (say a “Singaporean Speaker”) who only speak in Singapore you might think that there is less of competition because you are “only” competing with the other local Singaporean speakers.

But that is not true.

Because someone who is booking a speaker in Singapore might very well decide to fly a speaking in from somewhere else.

Now, if you instead look at yourself as a “global speaker” then yes, it is true that you compete with “all the other speakers” BUT you also have a much larger pool of potential speeches that you might get.

The completion has increased by going global, but so has the supply of potential speeches you could get.

Insight: There must be tens of thousands of conferences in the world on any given day that is looking for a speaker. By considering all of them your potential market your market has become virtually infinite.

Have the mindset of abundance and think global, instead of having a mindset of scarcity where you narrow your potential business opportunities.

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The business of speaking

The age of The Gentle Speaker

By Fredrik Haren

A surprisingly large amount of people seems to think that a keynote speaker is a person who goes up on stage and behaves as some kind of “management guru”, that you have to walk up on stage and dominate in an alpha-male-kind-of-way.

And it sure used to be like that. That’s what people thought speakers “had” to be like.

But something has changed.

And I know that this might be hard to believe when you attend conference after conference filled to the brink with alpha-male-guru-speakers, but hear me out.

TED is a conference and website (www.ted.com) that gathers some of the world’s greatest thinkers on its stage. It is arguable the worlds’ leading site for watching speeches.

Now here is the thing: There is hardly a single traditional “alpha male” out of the 50 most popular speeches on TED.com.

Sure, Tony Robbins made the list, but so did Stephen Hawking and Hans Rosling – two men who are very intelligent, smart and passionate – but who perhaps are as far away as we can come from being Alpha Males…

As a matter of fact the majority of the men on the top-50-list of most watched speeches are non-alpha males. Not even Bill Clinton made the list. But Monica Lewinsky did (with a speech on the Price of shame.)
21 out of the 50 most watched speeches are from women, including Maysoon Zayid, an arab-American woman with cerebral palsy. A very innspiring and funny woman, who in almost every way is the opposite of the “physically strong, dominant, white, middle aged alpha-man” that many people “see” when they hear “keynote speaker”.
The fourth most watched speech is a speech on the power of vulnerability. The 11th most watched one is on the power of introverts. (Both delivered by women.)

I am convinced that we are entering the “age of Gentle” – in a world where people in higher degree than before are empowered to do what they want, instead of what they are told to they do not want speakers who tell them what to think in an authoritative style – they want speakers who can inspire them in a gentle manner.

To be “gentle” means to be a a person who is mild in temperament or behaviour; kind or tender.

Almost all of the top 50 most watched speeches on TED.com are from smart, knowledgeable, passionate speakers who communicate their message in a mild temperament, kind way. Every single one of these speeches has at least 5 000 000 views. Those numbers do not lie.

The number one speech, with a staggering 35 000 000 views, is by Sir Ken Robinson, a man with a speaking style that is entertaining, funny and thought provoking. He has the ability to get respect from the audience, not by using a dominant or domineering style – but by arguing logically, making fun of himself and speaking softly.

By being gentle.

Ladies and Gentle Men: The future of speaking belongs to the gentle men and women who speak.

 

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The business of speaking

Around The World On Around-The-World Tickets

By Fredrik Haren

IMG_0874

Bangkok, Thailand.

 

I am writing this at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. I am on a short stop-over after the first leg of an around-the-world ticket that will take me from Copenhagen-via Bangkok-Singapore-via Seoul-San Francisco-via Zurich-to Split in Croatia. The ticket then continues back to Copenhagen, but by then I will have left to fly back to Singapore.

So why did I start an around the world ticket in Denmark?

Because the next few weeks will take me to speak in Singapore (my home town), San Francisco, and Split.

By getting an around the world ticket that starts in Copenhagen, I get an “extra” stop in my home town of Singapore, that makes it possible for me to achieve the three “24-hour-stops” needed when buying such a ticket.

The last 24-hour-stop will be in Split where the airline thinks that I will stay for 48 hours. They do not need to know that I would have left Split in less than 24 hours on a different ticket back to Singapore.

So why this strange way of buying tickets?

Because this around-the-world ticket cost me just 10,000 SGD for an all-business-class ticket. Just a simple Copenhagen-Singapore return ticket on Singapore Airlines would cost almost the same amount.

Buying “around-the-world tickets” is an amazing way of getting cheap flights and a “travel trick” that many frequent fliers forget to check out.

It will not work for everyone since you need to have a travel schedule which will take you to places all over the world — and in an order where you are able to continuously fly in the same direction (east to west, or west to east).

But when the “stars align” and such a ticket becomes an option, it’s a great ticket to get.

With some planning and creativity, it can be an option that is available more often than you would think. I have, for example, bought 5 around-the-world-tickets in the last 2 years and will buy 1 more in a few weeks.

Lesson: Plan your trips.

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