turnInG poInt
A career-changing moment or experience
Writes of Passage

To say Dianna Booher, MA, CSP, CPAE, “hit the ground running” would be an understatement. Just three months after starting her business in 1980, Booher attended a seminar given by a popular consultant who ended his session with a Q&A period. When an attendee asked the speaker how he marketed himself, he admitted he didn’t.

Booher wanted to grow her business, but she didn’t want to market either. She clearly wanted to be recognized as the best in her field, so she

“ Fame is faster today, but can
be short lived for speakers,
thanks to the Internet. You
have to keep creating, ever
greater and ever better.”

wrote a book on writing. Potential clients were impressed that she was working with a major publisher—and the publisher was impressed that her clients were well-known companies. “Telling potential clients that I was publishing a book was my calling card from the very beginning,” Booher says.

Over time, Booher aligned herself with household-name publishers and producers for sub-rights to her products, including paperback books, videos and recordings. Sixteen years after launching her business, Booher recalls one night when she was flipping through and reading a pile of mail. She noticed that eight items referenced her work, including an ad placed by her software producer in USA Today, catalogs offering her video and audio programs, a review of her new book, and an excerpt from one of her other books. She knew then that prospective clients

wouldn’t miss her—she was everywhere.

Booher describes herself as an author and a content creator who speaks. In fact, she didn’t learn about NSA until 1986, when she joined so that she could subscribe to the magazine. Interestingly, Thom Winninger, CSP, CPAE, whom she had never met, contacted her to speak at NSA in 1990. That presentation was her first NSA meeting.

Risk taking is important to Booher, who credits her many small-business CEO friends for teaching her that lesson and enabling her to learn how various businesses operate. Through these relationships, she observed their goals, perspectives, hiring secrets and the importance of taking risks.

According to Booher, “Fame is faster today, but can be short lived for speakers, thanks to the Internet. You can have a Web site up in a week and be broadcast everywhere. You also can be here today and gone tomorrow with all the competition out there. You have to keep creating, ever greater and ever better.”

Forty-four books later, Booher has eight trainers helping her deliver programs on oral, written, interpersonal and cross-functional communications to organizations worldwide.

Dianna Booher, MA, CSP, CPAE, is the CEO of Booher Consultants, Inc., a global training company. A prolific author, she has published with Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, Warner,

Random House and McGraw-Hill. For more information, visit www.booher.com.

Stephanie Angelo, SPHR, who interviewed Booher, consults on companies’ costs and the impact of domestic violence by raising bottom lines and creating positive