A snapshot into the lives of the people who hire us
Debbie Cortes dreams of finding
the perfect speaker. That man or
woman, she says, is: “An expert in
their field, someone who delivers content
as well as what we call edutainment.
They’re congenial. They’re friendly. They’re
easy to work with. There are no egos there,
and they connect with the audience.”
How easy is it to find this speaker of
perfection?
“We’ve been fortunate in that we’ve
found several over the years,” she says. “We
find them through the National Speakers
Association and, several times, through
recommendations of others speakers we
work with.”
Cortes is director of sales and marketing
for Inti Publishing of Tampa, Fla., a producer
of recruiting and training tools for the direct
sales industry. Cortes runs the speaker’s
bureau for Inti ( www.intipub.com). She
books speakers for conferences and conventions for the direct-selling industry.
“We look for speakers who can provide
our clients with the training to be successful
in their professional and personal lives,” she
says. “We understand that each company
is unique and has different cultures, different personalities and different speaker
needs. So we work to provide the right person for their event—the right person with the
right message.”
Industries she works with include companies
that sell products such as cosmetics, herbal
supplements, technology services, household
items, clothing and food products.
One might automatically assume that
speakers hired by Cortes are serious busi-
ness types in pinstriped suits with a Wall
Street Journal under their arms. But Cortes
takes the edutainment aspect of her mission quite seriously.
Edutainment, in the speaking world, is a
term used to describe how a speaker can
instruct an audience by embedding
serious lessons within a fun message,
she says.
For example, Cortes cites as one of her
speaker models someone not known for
wearing a pinstriped suit with a business
publication tucked under her arm:
LaDonna Gatlin, CSP, CPAE.
“She is an example of a perfect fit for us,”
Cortes says of the Texas-based speaker
who combines songs with a powerful message of encouraging people to move forward with their lives and follow their dreams.
Gatlin, she says, does that by telling them
her story—how she chose to take a different
path from her brothers, country music’s legendary Gatlin Brothers, so she could follow
her own dreams.
“That appeals to our audiences because
many of them are female entrepreneurs
who followed their dreams on their own in
what is a non-traditional industry,” Cortes
says. “She talks about family values and
ethics and dealing with others with integrity.”
What advice does Cortes have for speakers
wishing to break into the growing direct-selling industry?
“They need to understand our industry,” she
counsels. “Preferably, a speaker should have
had experience in this field and now focuses
on speaking and training. However, that’s not
absolutely necessary. It’s a preference.”
More importantly, she says, a speaker
“needs to be able to provide audiences
with actions that they can implement in
their businesses when they leave that truly
make a difference.”
Gatlin says, “Cortes understands her audiences. She knows that they need encouragement for their home-based businesses
because, usually, they work alone. So when
they go to these conferences, they get a
strong people connection that propels them.”
Columnist Dave Lieber, a member of
NSA/North Texas, is a columnist for the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a professional
speaker. His Web site is www.yankee
cowboy.com.
