Posts Tagged ‘Leading Authorities International’

Well, as many of our readers may have guessed, there is no Commodore 64,  no slide rule, and no complex algorithm that we use to identify the 10 most booked corporate and association speakers. The list is developed over the course of the year, as a result of our interactions with thousands of meeting planners, executives, and speakers. While there is no real “science” behind our selections, there is one common denominator: all of these speakers give at least 100 commercial presentations during the course of the year. On the intangible side, they tend to be asked for by name, are rarely available when we check their speaking schedules, and their speaking fees are continuously on the rise.

A couple of notes before we begin:

  • These are all popular world-class speakers, but it does not mean that they are the right fit for every meeting or organization. Consult with a Speaker Bureau you trust before scheduling one of these speakers to make sure they can achieve your goals and desired outcomes
  • Charlie Cook is exclusive with Leading Authorities International.  They are your best source to schedule Mr. Cook.
  • The reader can gather more detailed background, contact, and booking information for these speakers by clicking on the links provided.
It gives us great pleasure to present our followers with the 2016 List of the 10 Most Booked Corporate and Association Speakers:
Linkner J-Photo

Josh Linkner – “Last year’s ASAE Keynote List. This year’s Most Booked List”

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Magic Johnson – “Triple-double on the court and on stage”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mel Robbins – “A recognized authority on leadership development, employee engagement, and motivation

Knight

Jim Knight – “Hard Rock energy comes to the corporate stage”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cook

Charlie Cook – “Iconic Political forecaster in high demand during election year”

Scott Kelly

Captain Scott Kelly – “Back on Earth and at the podium”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daymond John

Daymond John – “Shark Week is not just for Discovery TV”

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Alison Levine – “Top of the Everest Speaking Mountain”

 

 

 

Abrashoff

Mike Abrashoff – “Third year in a row on ‘The List.”

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Erik Wahl – “The 3 E’s: Energy, Entertainment and Education”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: 

Of course, it is impossible to identify the 10 most booked speakers on the speaking circuit, but you would have a hard time arguing with any one of the aforementioned speakers. The real trick is to target who will be on this list next year before it happens.

 

One speaker we feel to be a strong candidate is visionary corporate social entrepreneur Derreck Kayongo. In addition to being a compelling, engaging, and high-impact speaker, he will give the closing keynote session at the 2016 ASAE Annual Meeting this August in Salt Lake City. If past performance of ASAE speakers is an indicator of future corporate and association speaking demand, look for Derreck Kayongo to make this prestigious list next year.

 

Gary McManis & Jay Conklin

Many of our blog and Twitter followers have asked us to weigh in on the recent publicity surrounding Carly Fiorina’s availability to participate in commercial speaking engagements while seeking the 2016 Republican nomination for President. For those of you not familiar with the controversy, it was reported by Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and other major social media sites that Leading Authorities International was soliciting paid speaking engagements for Ms. Fiorina last month. The solicitation itself is in an email from LAI Program Consultant Lisa McFadden to a redacted client that reads, in part:

I wanted to send you a quick, private note about Carly Fiorina. Though she maintains an active campaign calendar, she has limited availability for speaking engagements….
We don’t advertise Carly on the Leading Authorities website, but if you have an interest in booking her for an upcoming meeting or event, please let me know and I’d be happy to share her availability and fees.

Fiorina’s campaign quickly responded that the candidate is not booking any paid speeches while she runs for president. “I didn’t authorize anything they sent out,” Fiorina deputy campaign manager Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement. “We aren’t accepting any requests during the campaign.”

Worldwide Speakers Group, the bureau who publicly lists Ms. Fiorina as an exclusive client reached out to the speaker bureau industry with the following statement:

As you are aware, last week a very untimely and unauthorized email was sent out by another speakers bureau suggesting that Mrs. Fiorina is available for speeches. Please be aware that Carly is NOT considering speaking engagements at this time. If ever her stance should change, we will be the first to notify you. Also, the organization that sent this email does NOT have a relationship with her.

The Speaker Experts have no real interest or insight into what transpired behind the scenes in this situation other than it always catches our attention when the speaker bureau industry becomes a national story. What is of interest to us as professional lecture agents is the concept of compensating a declared presidential candidate to speak at an association or corporate event. This is generally something we advise our mainstream clients against doing. Whatever juice there is in the publicity squeeze of landing a presidential candidate, it can be quickly mitigated by the following pitfalls:

    • The strong degree of cancellation risk created by the candidate’s fluid campaign schedule. A commercial speaking engagement can easily be pushed aside by a breaking news story, fundraiser, debate or other pressing campaign event.
    • No matter what side of the political spectrum your membership or employees fall, you risk offending a significant portion of the cohort by not only giving the candidate a platform but compensating the speaker to do so.
    • While the axiom of “there is no such thing as bad publicity” may hold some truth, your organization does risk potentially unfavorable media exposure if the appearance does land on the radar of national press.

Should Carly Fiorina not be successful in her presidential bid, she, like many of the other candidates, will certainly be in high demand on the commercial speaking circuit; however, the time to consider “booking” one of these political titans is after they have left the race.

Side Note: It is always important to keep your guard up during the political season to make sure your contracted speakers do not use the platform for any type of unwanted campaign speech or political endorsement. This point was driven home recently to The Speaker Experts when a national media figure we scheduled to speak for an influential trade association gave a 30 minute stump speech for a candidate instead of the contracted content. Set your content boundaries with a conference call prior to the event, reinforce these boundaries with a meeting on-site the day of the presentation and develop an exit strategy if for some reason the speaker does not respect these boundaries while on stage.

Gary McManis & Jay Conklin

East Coast followers of The Speaker Experts may remember the iconic slogan of Syms Clothing Chain: “An educated consumer is our best customer”. Well, The Speaker Experts feel that “An educated meeting planner will always be in the position to secure the best price and service” (you can see why we are lecture agents and not marketing jingle writers!). In our July 22, 2014 post “The Four Myths of the Speaker Bureau Co-Broker” we covered the potential pitfalls of not working directly with the exclusive agency for the speaker you are contracting. You first line of defense in this regard is to understand which speakers are exclusive with which agencies. In order to assist you in this endeavour, The Speaker Experts present an “insiders” list of 2nd Quarter Exclusive Speaker signings:

Washington Speakers Bureau

Charles Plosser
    • President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (2006-2015)
David Gregory
    • Renowned journalist and former moderator of NBC News’ Meet the Press
Ali Wentworth
    • Actress, comedienne, and author

Harry Walker Agency

Lara Logan
    • “60 Minutes” correspondent
Joyce Banda
    • First female president of Malawi and 2nd female president of an African country
Henry Waxman
    • long-serving US House Representative from California

Leading Authorities International

Salim Ismail
    • Best-Selling Author of Exponential Organizations, Executive Director of Singularity University, and Former Vice President of Yahoo!
Mitch Joel
    • Marketing, Media Hacker and Business Innovator
Bob Schieffer
    • Former Moderator of Face the Nation and Former CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent
Mike Allen
    • Chief White House Correspondent for POLITICO and Author of Playbook
Michael Vickers
    • Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Peter Bergen
    • CNN National Security Analyst and Best-Selling Author of Manhunt

Greater Talent Network

Alan Gross
    • U.S. Humanitarian aid worker wrongfully imprisoned in Cuba for five years
Ray Kelly
    • Former Commissioner of the NYPD & leading expert on national security
Dan Harris
    • Award-winning ABC News Anchor and #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
George Takei
    • Actor, social justice activist, social media mega-power

American Program Bureau

Judy Smith
    • Crisis management expert and real-life inspiration for ABC’s political thriller show, Scandal
Dr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates
    • Emmy Award Winning Filmmaker, Cultural Critic & Journalist
Samantha Harris
    • Fitness advocate, Breast cancer survivor and a former eight season host of Dancing with the Stars

Executive Speakers Bureau

Ronan Tynan
    • Irish Tenor, Paralympic Champion, and M.D.

Premiere Speakers Bureau

Rebekah Gregory
    • Boston Marathon Bombing survivor
Judge Jeanine Pirro
    • Fox News legal analyst and women’s issues advocate
John Acuff
    • New York Times best-selling author

Creative Artists Agency

Gerald Huff
    • Principle Software Engineer at Tesla Motors
Brian David Johnson
    • Chief Futurist at Intel
Kevin Jorgenson & Tommy Caldwell
    • The El Capitan Climbers

Keppler Speakers

Amy Curtis-McIntyre
    • Former founding Chief Marketing Officer, JetBlue Airways
Glenn Thrush
    • Chief Political Correspondent, POLITICO
Joe Tripodi
    • Former Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer, Coca-Cola

**You can access our insiders listing of first quarter exclusive speaker signings by clicking on this blog post link**


Please check back next week when The Speaker Experts release our listing of the 10 most “booked” speakers in America over the past 12 months. This was our most popular and most requested posting last year and we promise not to disappoint this year!

Gary McManis & Jay Conklin

Our most popular and, oddly, most criticized blog post to date is the July 22 article, “The 4 Myths of the Speaker Bureau Co-Broker”. In this post we discuss the practice of speaker bureaus making their exclusive speakers available to competing bureaus via co-brokering. We cover the pros and cons of this process as it applies to the actual organization that books the speaker. In order to be an educated buyer of speakers, it is important to understand which bureau is the direct source for the speakers who have opted to sign an exclusive bureau contract.

A recurring feature on The Speaker Experts will be a quarterly posting of the latest signings by the nation’s leading speaker bureaus. For the first quarter of 2015, they are as follows:

Washington Speakers Bureau

Secretary Chuck Hagel
    • Former Secretary of Defense (2013-2015) in the Obama administration
Richard Fisher
    • President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Governor Rick Perry
    • Longest-serving Governor of Texas (2000-2015)
Charlene Li
    • Founder and CEO of Altimeter Group and the author of the New York Times bestseller, Open Leadership
Governor Martin O’Malley
    • Former Governor of Maryland (2007-2015)
Mike Rogers
    • Former Chairman of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (2011-2015)

Harry Walker Agency

Senator Wendy Davis
    • Former Texas Senator (2009-2015); gained national attention for an 11-hour long filibuster
Michael Moss
    • Pulitzer-prize winner and New York Times Bestselling author, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
Senator Tom Coburn
    • Doctor and former Representative (1995-2001) and Senator (2005-2015) of Oklahoma
Governor Deval Patrick
    • Civil rights lawyer and former Governor of Massachusetts (2007-2015)

Leading Authorities International

Amy Purdy
    • Co-founder of Adaptive Action Sports, American actress, world-class snowboarder, and author
Jonathan Perelman
    • Vice President of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures and former Global Lead for Industry Relations at Google
Kevin Kallaugher
    • Editorial cartoonist for The Economist
Michael Flynn
    • Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and national/cyber security expert

Greater Talent Network

Representative Michele Bachman
    • Former U.S. presidential candidate and congresswoman
    • First doctor to discover and diagnose chronic brain damage in NFL athletes
Kevin Lacz
    • Former Navy SEAL and co-star of American Sniper
Eli Manning
    • Quarterback of the New York Giants and two-time Super Bowl Champion and MVP

Worldwide Speakers Group

William Joseph Burns
    • Former Deputy Secretary of State; president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Premiere Speakers Bureau

Greg Gutfeld
    • Fox News Channel host and New York Times Bestselling Author
Brian Kilmeade
    • Co-host of “Fox and Friends” and New York Times Bestselling Author
Robert Guest
    • The Economist US Editor and author of Borderless Economics
John Ratzenberger
    • Emmy-nominated actor, philanthropist, entrepreneur and host of “Made in America”

Keppler Speakers

    • Xbox visionary and former President of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft

Next week we will be offering a new book featured on our August 4 post 10 Speakers with Upcoming Book Releases (Actually, 11. Bonus!). The books are always made available first on this blog before they are posted on our Linkedin page. Please check back next week to reserve your copy.

Gary McManis & Jay Conklin