A snapshot into the lives of the people who hire us
Get Over Yourself!

“Top 10” list of priorities. (See sidebar.)

It is a humbling experience
for speakers to acknowledge
that meeting planners are fo-
cused on a hundred other
details to ensure that events
go off without a hitch. For
example, the price of a gal-
lon of coffee can fuel heated
online discussions, followed
by helpful advice. Attrition of
hotel rooms can drive meet-
ing planners bonkers. Airline
cancellations can create chaos
for the entire conference and
lead meeting planners to lose their hair.

Here are some tips that speakers can follow to make meeting planners’ lives a little easier:

• Show up the day before the event or at least five hours before your sched- uled time if you are in the local area. There are no excuses for arriving in the nick of time unless you are the Pope, the President or a presidential candidate.

• This is a relationship business. Meeting planners want to know you, and they want you to know them. Take the time to slowly build a relationship with planners.

• Make sure your reputation spar- kles. Meeting planners view speaker bureaus as valued partners and respect their recommendations. Speaker bu- reaus help present speakers in a favor- able light, and really promote NSA and the quality of NSA speakers.

• Do you know what people say about you behind your back? If not, find out. Ask for an honest apprais- al. Everyone knows everyone in this business. If they don’t know you, they know someone who does and they will do a background check.

Forums offer an incredible learning experience. When you join one, howev- er, check your ego and marketing pitch at the door. You’ll gain tremendous in- sights into the enormous responsibili- ties of meeting planners who can make organizing and coordinating a stunning and well-orchestrated event look like a piece of cake.

Do you ever walk into a con- ference believing that you have the starring role at the event because you were hired to motivate, inspire and educate the audience? Well, get over yourself. Even though you are a legend in your own mind, you are a small piece of the pie that meeting planners are baking.

For the last five years, I have par- ticipated in the MiForum and MeCo online forums, which include meeting planners, destination management com- panies, hoteliers, suppliers and a sprin- kle of speakers. One forum has approx- imately 2,500 active meeting planners worldwide—the other has even more. Both forums have extremely strict rules about promotion, marketing and sell- ing. In fact, more than one participant has been banned from a forum after one slip. These forums are not places to promote; they are places to learn.

In these online chat rooms, I have learned about meeting planners’ real lives and their top concerns. And guess what? Speakers aren’t even in their

Top Priorities

Meeting planners have many concerns, but speakers don’t even crack the top 10. here’s a list of what keeps planners up at night:

1. the hotel

2. Food and beverage costs

3. room blocks

4. travel (flight delays, costs and airline bankruptcy)

5. Arrival of international guests 6. theme

7. Destination management 8. staffing

9. social media

10. location, location, location!

Former Bronx TBG girl gang member, Pegine (Pe-geen) Echevarria, MSW, is one of 58 inductees into the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame by the No. 1 motivation site, GetMotivation.com, along with Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) named Pegine one of 100 Global Thought Leaders in diversity and inclusion. Visit her on www.pegine.com.