Waiving your fee

I believe in speaking for free, however, I don't call it speaking for free. I call it "waiving my fee". Is it a matter of mere semantics? No! Whether I get paid or not, I do a professonal job. Further, I'm not a free speaker, so why say I am?

I just did a program (waived my fee) for MPI (Meeting Planners International). They had their Mid America meeting in Nashville last week. I had a ball!

Things don't always go as you plan. I didn't get to use my powerpoint because the LCD machine wouldn't "talk" to my computer. (That's how it's explained to me.) We went on with program anyway. Guess what? It went well! It went very well!

This was a reminder to me that information is king, not technology. In this situation, the attendees were looking for information. Powerpoint would have been nice, but over and over I heard the comment "you didn't need powerpoint". Interesting comment! I use powerpoint for the audience, not for myself! I believe that it helps the "visual learners" in my audience.

Things don't always go as planned. Doesn't matter! If you have great information, that's enough. That's what the attendees want, that's what the people who hire us want us to deliver. If something unexpected happens (and don't kid yourself) it will, go on. True professionals can deliver under any circumstances.

Comments

[Ariel Coro]

Congratulations on your new blog!

I couldn't agree with you more. I've been on that same boat and it's not pretty at the beginning but then people get used to it and everyting goes well at the end.

Ariel

[Ann]

Great blog! And your Nashville gig sounds like fun - you didn't need the Powerpoint to get your message across. You just talked!

[Deb Potter, PhD, CMC]

Lois -
You are such a pro! It's always great to hear these kinds of success stories.