SPE A K IN G?
Start by Asking
Future-Focused
Questions
nowing the future in ancient times
was pretty straightforward. You traveled to the Delphic shrine on Mount
Parnassus, made an offering, and
waited to hear your fate from the mysterious Pythia,
the High Priestess of Apollo. The equivalent today
might be a visit to a psychic who spreads out a deck
of tarot cards on the table before you.
Either way, the accuracy of the predictions are
… well, chancy at best. “Why bother thinking about
tomorrow?” you might say. “Take life one day at a
time. Nobody knows what the future will bring.”
Unfortunately, as professional speakers and
entrepreneurs, we don’t have the option of sitting
back and letting the future come to us. What worked
in our industry 20 years ago is not working now. And
what’s working now won’t cut it tomorrow. It’s our
responsibility to understand, as much as possible,
what is coming next. Otherwise, we risk playing
catch-up again and again.
Take two tradition-bound industries that have
been rocked by change in the past decade.
¢ In higher education, the rise of Massive Open
Online Courses (MOOCs) has enabled students around
the world to take ownership of their own learning, and
opened the entrepreneurial door to professors who can
successfully adapt to this new kind of delivery.
¢ In 2006, the Metropolitan Opera introduced
live high-definition broadcasts in theaters across the
country. Singers and directors who embraced the
dramatic camera shots and close-ups of HD have flourished and discovered new ways of sharing their art.
ARE YOU FUTURE-FOCUSED?
Professional speakers shift to future-focused by paying attention to three critical relationships:
1. Clients: How is their world changing? What
worries them, and where do they see opportunity?
Do you know who their bleeding-edge thinkers are?
What are they talking about?
2. Buyers: Who is going to buy our expertise in
the future? What kind of relationship will professional
When they’re not organizing
Winter Conference 2018, S YLVIE
DI GIUSTO and BEN
WOLFF are leaders of the NSA-New York City chapter as president-elect and immediate past-president.
More than anything else, they love
their city and will happily take you
to their favorite places (New York
Harbor and Central Park) when
you visit. Learn more about them
at executive-image-consulting.com
and bwolff.com.
FUTURE
K
Are You Ready
for the
BY SYLVIE DI GIUSTO
AND BEN WOLFF
of