Going Green Early

What is less expensive than taking your one year old to Chuck E Cheese to play in the ball pit? Let her climb into the recycling bin in your kitchen pantry. Syd absolutely loves playing in the bottles. Its a huge mess, but she's so cute, we can't help but let her do it.

Premiere has gone green as well. We now have 'green' eContracts. Rather than a lot of printing, signing and faxing, you can now sign offers electronically. Add that in with thousands of contracts annually, and you save a lot of paper (not to mention time and money). Not too bad!

BRIAN SOLVES THE WORLD CUP OFFICIATING PROBLEMS

7/6/06 BRIAN SOLVES THE WORLD CUP OFFICIATING PROBLEMS

I'd never really watched much soccer before this World Cup, it's actually very entertaining. I know many of you may not have much of a background in soccer,

or 'futbol', as its called, so I thought I'd put together this brief tutorial for you. In the World Cup, each country gets together its very best, highly-talented and skilled male models to play against another country's male models. It doesn't matter the country- Portugal, Ghana, Brazil, England- they all come straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. David Beckham is the rule, not the exception. It's a little know fact here in the States, but the entrance to the field from the locker rooms is actually a catwalk, which the players traverse after watching Zoolander to get pumped up for the match.

It's very important to be good-looking, because the most important skill- more important even than running, kicking, or even breathing- is getting sympathy from the refs. I've not yet seen a World Cup match that wasn't in some part decided by the officials making a bad call. What happens is, a player from team A runs within 10 to 15 feet of a player from team B, trips on thin air, then writhes in pain and desperate agony on the ground with his hands covering his face. ("Oh, no, we can't see the pretty man's face!" yells the crowd.) The referee then crosses the field to where the player from team B is standing, and holds up either a yellow card or a red card, depending on how wide the grimace is of the player from team A. The player from team A was inevitably 'attacked' near his opponent's goal, so he gets a free kick from within 3 feet of the helpless goalie. It's amazing how the game works. But its not really the players' faults. They have to act this way, because if they don't, the other team will, and they'll end up getting blown out by devastatingly one-sided scores like 2-0. However, I do have a solution to this problem, and I'm going to send it on to soccer's governing body of FIFA (complete name: FI-FA-FO-FUM). Instead of just having yellow and red cards, the refs can also have a blue, water colored "cry-me-a-river" card. After a player flops, the ref can run up to him, shove the blue card in his face, and tell him in his language of choice to stop being a cry-baby. After a player receives 3 blue cards, he is forced to grow a pencil-thin mustache, which will invariably make him less good-looking (except in France), therefore limiting his ability to get endorsement deals from Adidas.

I'm actually going to wear my France shirt on Friday, just to upset another agent in our office, Taylor, who is very much against the French team. Why? He went to Auburn, and since they pretty much haven't won anything in forever, he's pretty much anti-everyone else. Maybe he thinks France is the Crimson Tide of Europe. Anyway, the World Cup Final on Sunday is pretty much a win-win for me. My wife and I went to Paris for our anniversary, and I speak a little French, so I'm happy if they win. My wife is Italian, so we're also very happy if they win. The other cool fact is they if Italy wins, there's a silver lining for the US team. The only team that has played Italy and didn't lose to them, is the US. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

WHEN NOT TO LISTEN TO MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS

6/27/06 WHEN NOT TO LISTEN TO MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS

Due to several consecutive rain-outs, our church league softball team was forced to play back to back to back to back make-up games this past Saturday in 85 degree heat with no breaks. We'd just lost the third game by a heart-breaking 22-21 tally, and were emotionally and physically exhausted. We clearly didn't want to be there, and the other team opened up a commanding 16-0 lead. Now, I had just recently finished reading Stephen Mansfield's book on one of history's greatest motivators, Winston Churchill, with the "Never, never, never, never give up!" quotation still ringing in my ears. That's great for defending your homeland and all, but as it turns out, not so great for recreational softball. I hit the ball into the outfield, and, rounding first, I saw that I had a chance to stretch a single into a double. As I slid into second, my first thought was "Safe!" My second thought was "#&#^@$#*@*(!!!!." The second baseman had missed the relay throw from the outfield and it hit me at high speed directly on the corner of my jaw. After two doctors visits and multiple x-rays, I found I had two fractures and had to get my jaw wired together yesterday.

It has been suggested that I try to use this wired-shut jaw thing to gain sympathy from clients. But if you think about it, I only have to deal with this dilemma for three weeks, whereas the Dallas Maverick fans in our office, Shawn and David, have to deal with their problems for an entire off-season. So far, I think the sympathy ploy is working for them.

DAVID (sobbing): I really thought Dirk and the Mavs had it this year. (sniffle) I really did.

CLIENT: Oh, you poor boy. Let me book a speaker from you. And I'll FedEx over some hot cocoa, too.

I think the biggest thing I'll miss for these three weeks will be my favorite game with my 10 month old daughter. I'll go to the other side of the living room, lie on the floor, and play dead. She'll crawl across the floor as fast as she can and then pounce on my head with a belly flop. Hopefully she won't have grown out of that by the time she's 11 months old.

One big plus is that with an all liquid diet, I'll probably lose some weight. I'm saying the over-under is 7 pounds, but my wife is thinking 17. 17 pounds in 21 days? She also thinks I'll get my 6-pack back, which has not been seen since the Cincinnati Reds last made the playoffs. The 6-pack still exists, mind you, its just been cleverly hidden behind a thick layer of Chick-fil-a waffle fries, sweet tea, and Sonic breakfast burritos.

I'll be back in tomorrow, but if you call me between now and July 17, forgive me for mumbling!

The Spelling Bee Story

6/16/06 SCRIPPS HAS NOTHING ON ME

I am amazed that the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee was recently televised on live, national, prime-time television, and that more than 10 people tuned in to watch. So, I figure that if that event is interesting enough to keep ABC from airing the pilot episode of “Lost” for the 43rd time, the story of my own spelling bee experience could warrant a blog.

Back in the mists of time, I was a 4th grader at Kokomo Christian School without too much interest in the academic side of things. Now don’t get me wrong, I did love learning things. Its just that I wasn’t that competitive with grades and such. In Christian schools, you basically have three kinds of kids- ‘normal’, which I felt myself to be; ‘trouble makers’, whose parents sent them there trying to reform them; and finally, ‘highly serious achievers’, kids whose grades were the end-all be-all of their existence. I say ‘kids’ in an attempt to be general, but they were in fact all girls. Not a single self respecting guy would be caught dead trying to be smart. As you can imagine, we all thought one of those girls would be the designated representative for our school at the Indiana State Spelling Bee.

To choose the winner, our teacher devised a two part test. First, there was the written test. Any of several hundred possible words would be read by the teacher from the front of the class, and the students would write them down. Anyone who got 80% and were in the top six would qualify for the second round. I remember I was sixth, with a 79.6%, which rounded up to 80, thereby just qualifying me to make it into the second round. The scores from the first, or written round, would be averaged with the second, oral round.

My competition in said round was very stiff. Among the five girls- and I’ll change their names so you can’t look them up in a phone book and then go taunt them, but so they can still recognize themselves should they by some amazing chance now be a corporate speaker or meeting planner- were some of the toughest spellers the greater Howard County area has ever produced. There was Kristin Schmydt, who worked so diligently and seriously she may have only spoken out loud maybe three times in the six years I knew her. Also among those wishing to take the crown was Stephanie Hule, who was nice and all, but seriously, who needs to wear their Brownie outfit like three times a week? And finally, the prohibitive favorite, Michelle Wilton. She prided herself on her tightly braided blonde hair in addition to her grades, and I remember her crying once when she only got 19 out of 20 on one of our regular weekly spelling tests.

The odds were not in favor of the young Brian, especially since it wasn’t just who would win the oral competition, it was the average of the two scores. I’d have to do so well, and they so poorly, that it would outweigh the 100’s the girls had gotten on the written test.

(EDITORS NOTE: Wouldn’t you have to be a pretty sad person if one of your Glory Days was a 4th grade spelling bee?)

(AUTHORS NOTE: Just be quiet. You try coming up with a new blog idea every week.)

And so the oral quiz began. The six of us were sitting in chairs at the front, with the teacher standing to the side, reading off the word for us to spell. The first words were always really easy ones, all answered correctly, but then something strange began to happen. The trouble-makers started taunting the contestants. The teacher quieted them down, but it opened the door on my first break. One of the girls actually missed a question. Then the rest of the boys (only boys made up the trouble makers) realized that I was the only boy up there, and began to cheer whenever it came around to me. Well, encouragement is something they, well, encourage in a Christian school, so the teacher couldn’t very well stop them. Suddenly the ‘highly serious achievers’ realized no one was cheering for them (after all, all the highly serious achievers were up front competing), and began to wilt under the pressure. They started to miss words rigt and lefft. Our classmates started to really get into it, inching their chairs forward, laughing, cheering, clapping. So far I'd only missed one word. The teacher paused to tally up the scores before starting the final round. The suspense in the room was palpable. Without revealing the scores, she started giving each of us our final word to spell. One by one, the girls misspelled their last words. It was ladies first, so the very last word to be attempted was by me. The teacher paused, then said, “I’ve tallied up the scores, and if Brian gets this, he wins.” She might have been subtly trying to unnerve me, because like any good teacher, I’m sure she wanted someone who actually cared about spelling and studied to represent the school at state. She would not be so lucky. She read the last word, which was a relatively little known book of the Bible at the end of the Old Testament, pronounced “NAY-hoom”. “N…” I started. A hush fell over my classmates. “A…H…U…” The crowd (or soon to be mob) was silent. “…M.” Everyone looked expectantly at the teacher, but I already knew what she was about to say. “That’s correct," she said. It was all over.

All the boys rushed up and there was general pandemonium (P-A-N-D-E-M-O-N-I-U-M, pandemonium). I was surrounded, so I couldn’t see if Michelle was crying or if Stephanie was fidgeting in her Brownie outfit, but I’m sure Kristin was being very quiet. All I knew was that I had just won what was likely the most dramatic comeback in KCS spelling bee history.

The trip to Indianapolis for the State Championship was rather anti-climactic. I was surrounded by 95% girls, of whom 100% wore plaid or floral print dresses. I was one of the few people who weren’t carrying around their own well-worn dictionary. The preliminary rounds were conducted in cramped classrooms, where mini-spelling bees were conducted, and you were moved into ever-larger and larger classrooms. It was single elimination, so the furthest I got was a closet. The word I missed? “Tomb.” How lame is that? We left for the long drive home well before it ever got to the auditorium for the finals. I was happy to have at least gotten out of a day of school.

This experience gave me confidence, and my above-mediocre ability to spell has served me well in my current position, as there are a lot of speakers with tough names- Peter Ricchuiti, Tony Alessandra, Vince Papale, Mike Eruzione, etc. I guess it was good for sumthing!

MR. LORD GOES TO WASHINGTON

6/1/06 MR. LORD GOES TO WASHINGTON

There are some perks of working at this job. A guy in our office, Frank, occasionally helps out with White House events, and I was able to use his extra seat at a Kenny Chesney concert for the President in the East Room of the White House. The concert was great, and I think you can even see a photo of it and me on the White House website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060516-11.html). Prior to the concert, Frank and I found ourselves in line to shake hands with the President.

There's a time to give a sales pitch, and there's a time not to give a sales pitch. Being in a receiving line with President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Howard, and the First Ladies of the United States and Australia is a time not to be a sales guy. My plan was to simply say "Its a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Prime Minister. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President," and move on.

As Frank and I get closer, I see Prime Minister Howard standing there and chatting, holding a tea cup, saucer and spoon, taking a sip from time to time. He's not quite a tall fellow, possibly 5'7 or 5'8, with a ring of white hair, and glasses, looking every bit like your old favorite univerisity professor. He looks at me, and since I'm a good 20 years younger than the average guest (50s-60s), assumes I must be a White House staffer.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Prime Minister," I say, and start to shuffle the next two feet over toward Bush.

"Yes," he replies, and surprises me by asking over his tea cup, eyebrows raised, "So, in what part of the White House do you work?"

"Uh, actually, sir, I work for a company called Premiere Speakers Bureau. We book business speakers and leaders for corporate events." I felt that was very to-the-point and not at all ‘salesy’.

President Bush gets a grin on his face and says loudly "That means he's trolling for people like you!" while shaking my hand.

Frank is standing behind me and trying not to laugh at my having just been made fun of by the President. What was even funnier to me is that at that moment, President Bush's body language was exactly like my dad's after he thinks he's said something particularly funny- big grin with lips pressed together, eyes sort of half closed, kind of nodding as he silently chuckled to himself. It made me feel a bit at home in the White House that the Harvard-Yale educated, most powerful man in the world was acting just like my Indiana farmer/truck driver dad. Had he added on a good "I reckon", I would have instinctively asked to borrow the car for a date Friday night.

But the dessert and concert were great, and a good time was had by all.

COWBOYS VS. THE POWER OF THE SUN

6/8/06 COWBOYS VS. THE POWER OF THE SUN

Tonight begins the battle for supremacy in the NBA, between the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat. I think we can look at this scientifically, and come up with some answers as to who I should pick to win. First, how many clients will I offend by picking the Mavericks, and how many will I offend by picking the Heat? I can easily say that we have more events that take place in Florida, with Orlando, Miami, Naples, etc, being some of the biggest event destinations in the world. However, there are at ton big companies located in Texas, so we can't upset them, either. Also, we have speakers on both sides. Former Maverick Walter Bond (http://www.premierespeakers.com/walter_bond), and Heat Coach and President, Pat Riley (http://www.premierespeakers.com/pat_riley) are both in the Premiere fold. I've been booking Riley since I first got here, but with Riley's in-season commitments cutting into his speaking time, I now book Bond more. We must be careful about who we favor.

Actually, who cares about ruffling feathers, I'm going with Miami in six. Take that, Shawn Hanks and David Loy, your beloved Mavs are going down! Cuban did graduate from my mom's alma-mater, Indiana University, I've always liked Avery Johnson, and a guy on my softball team looks like a 5'10 Nowitzki. But the Heat are going to take it to them. I'll even give you the order of who will win what games- Heat, Mavs, Heat, Heat, Mavs last gasp win in game 5, then Heat close it out in Dallas, 95-86. Peyton shuts down Jason Terry a good part of the time, D-Wade will get his, and the suspension of Mav's back-up center DJ Mbenga will show up huge, as Diop and Dampier repeatedly get into foul trouble guarding Shaq. Finals MVP? That's a tough one, but I'll say Shaq. It'll be close between him and D-Wade, but since voters will feel that Shaq doesn't have as many shots left at this, they go with him. Lets get ready to celebrate on the 20th! To read a much funnier Finals pick, read my all-time favorite sports writer Bill Simmons at (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060608)

Email your picks to me at brian@premierespeakers.com

OLYMPIC TRAINING

5/8/06 OLYMPIC TRAINING

As I've mentioned before, when I took this job at Premiere, I wanted to approach as a way to get my unofficial Ph D. in Knowing Stuff.

I realized I had this opportunity to learn from some of the greatest thought leaders, writers, authors, motivators, and athletes in the world, and I wanted to take full advantage of it.

One such opportunity has been getting to know 2 time Olympian and world record holding downhill skier Cary Mullen. Being a young guy (37?) who is great at accomplishing goals despite being an underdog, the majority of his speeches are to companies who want to get their bright, young sales people and leaders to the next level. I figured maybe I fit into that category, so why not take advantage of some time with Cary? It turned out to be a great experience for me. I was able to go through with Cary step-by-step process of setting goals, the mental focus needed, why it worked for his team, and how I could apply it. So now if I get a bit off kilter in my goals, I can remember my "Big Worthy Target", and get focused again.

Don't forget that you as an event planner can take advantage of this kind of thing as well. I know there's a good chance that you're going to have to run around getting last minute hotel rooms while your speaker is going on, but try to catch as much as you can. We can all get better!

To learn more about Cary and watch his video, click here: http://www.premierespeakers.com/cary_mullen

HOW SALES SKILLS GOT ME A WIFE

4/27/06 HOW SALES SKILLS GOT ME A WIFE

Well, sales skills didn't exactly get me a wife, but it certainly helped. In my first job out of college, the vice president would let me sit in and listen to his sales calls, and occasionally give me little nuggets of wisdom. I'm sure he'd listened to some of my calls, and would adjust his suggestions accordingly. One of my downfalls was my dislike of silence. I'd ask a client a question, and if there was any silence whatsoever, I would jump in with a potential answer. "Do you know when you'd like to have your event?" Half-second pause with no answer. "Because the early spring is a great time for a kick-off event." And I would roll into all these options without even knowing what a client actually wanted. They could have wanted a fall rock concert on the moon, for all I knew, and I would be sitting there plugging away with Yanni tribute act or something. So I'm sitting there in the VP's office, and he tells me, "I ask a question, and then I," here he folded his hands, leaned back in his chair, paused a few seconds, and said, "wait." Over the weeks and months I agonizingly made my way past my fear of a few moments of silence, and it certainly helped in my ability to listen to clients.

A couple years later I was out on a date with a gorgeous girl, and as we were riding in the car, I asked her a question. I mentally thought back to what my old boss had told me, and forced myself to wait for an answer, instead of filling in the silence. And here I learned a very valuable thing about the woman who would become my wife: She actually thinks before she speaks! Incredible! Not like me, whose natural tendency is to speak before, during, and after thinking. This little habit allowed me to get to know her so much better than I would have, and now we're living happily ever after (at least that's what I hear).

BITING BAD HABITS

4/20/06 BITING BAD HABITS

Can you remember when you picked up a bad habit? I can't tell you when I started slouching at my computer or leaving my socks out, but I can tell you exactly when I started another bad habit. It was a dark and stormy night...(thank you Snoopy)...and my friend Jacob Lyle and I were as bored as we could be at the Maplecrest Middle School Science Fair. My project, entitled "Why Is The Grass Green?" (my conclusion? 'Because its prettier that way.'), had shockingly not garnered the top prize. I'm sure Jacob had tried some tired-out volcano or something. Anyway, as the awards weren't coming our way, we decided to resort to the time honored tradition that comes so naturally to gifted orators- heckling. But as there were so many grown-ups around, we were forced to quietly resort to heckling each other. This began with insulting the other's goofy looks, escalating to pointing out each other's mother's stupitity, and culminating in the most vicious thing one Indiana boy can use to insult the other- his basketball abilities. Jacob, completely stumped by my rapier wit, seemed dumbfounded. But then, with one last effort at a comeback, Jacob bit off his finger nail and spit it at me. Now, according to adolescent English common law, if someone spits at you, you're allowed to hit him in the face. But what do you do if someone just spits a finger nail at you? All I could figure out how to do was to spit a finger nail back. And thus my nail biting habit began.

I was encouraged to write this blog by fellow agent David Loy, but I can't really figure out a good 'now the moral of the story is...' line to end with. Don't retaliate? Come up with a better science project? Don't hang out with Jacob Lyle? (He's now a consultant. I wonder if he spits his nails at his clients when they frustrate him.) Or, just don't listen to David Loy. If any one reading this comes up with a good idea, please email it to me at brian@premierespeakers.com. Thanks!

THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE, UH, SPEAKER

4/12/06 THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE, UH, SPEAKER

"When is the best time to book a speaker? How far out should we lock them in?" Those are good, legitimate questions I'm asked all the time, so I'll try to answer them. As soon as you have a date and speaker you like, book them. Granted, the busiest speakers are probably only booked 15 times a month, leaving 15 open dates, but I still wouldn't suggest waiting too long to pick your date. "What are the busiest times of the year?" In the corporate world, its September and October. Every September, we set our record for most events taking place in a month, and then it gets broken in October because October doesn't have Labor Day. Corporations have a tendency to try to cram all their year-end events between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, whereas they'll spread out their kick-off events between January and May. June to mid-August, and December, are the slowest months because so many people go on vacation. Right now, its probably easier to find availability for speakers in June than September. But, we're always happy to check for you.

END OF A HOOSIER ERA

4/4/06 END OF A HOOSIER ERA

My home state of Indiana is only known for so many things. Corn. Basketball. The Indy 500. Corn. We produced James Dean- pretty cool. We also produced Michael Jackson- not so cool, but in the 60's we traded him to California for some oranges and a player to be named later, so I think that worked out for us. And up until recently we had one other thing that helped define us. Along with our compatriot Arizona, we could stand up and laugh the hearty laugh of those who are chronologically self-righteous, and shout at the other states, "We do not fear the rising of the sun, or the going down of the same! We do not choose to walk out of our offices in October into the pitch black night at 4:45PM! We do not all feel the need to skip church on that one Sunday in April because we 'accidently' forgot to 'spring' our clocks forward! No, we will not change our clocks, and we are proud!" But alas, this past Sunday, for the first time in my life, Indiana chose to join the wandering heard of states who blend into the anonymous bi-annual metamorphosis, leaving Arizona to hold aloft the torch alone. I guess we'll have to make due with corn.

HELLO FROM FRANCE!

3/27/06 HELLO FROM FRANCE!

I'd like to thank the three to four people who read this blog on a consistent basis for letting me take my vacation last week. My wife and I, along with our 6 month old baby girl Brooklyn and my mom (fulfilling her lifelong dream) spent four days in Paris, and three in Aix-en-Provence (Aix is pronounced 'X'). Paris was certainly amazing. As many times as you can see the Eiffel Tower on TV, you're never prepared for the sheer size of it. The Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, the Louvre were all as good as advertised. Through some connections, I was even able to have dinner with half a dozen Parisians, who were very nice and spoke slow enough that I could get the gist of what they were saying (thank goodness for all those French CDs I listened to!). One tip for the Paris traveler- don't throw away your subway ticket if you're still in the subway system! We'd seen people throwing away their tickets as they passed through the initial gates, and just assumed we should do the same. However, just before the exit gates in front of the Eiffel Tower, we were stopped in what my mom called "The Paris Shakedown". A line of security officers barred the exit, and asked for ticket stubs from everyone. Luckily, my mother and I still had ours, but my wife did not. "$35 Euros". What? "No speak English". I asked in French if we could just turn around and go back. "Non." We surmised this might just be a way of gaining extra revenue from tourists, being that no Parisians would actually be coming to the Eiffel Tower on a Sunday afternoon. We were forced to pay, but aside from this $50 train ticket, everyone we met in Paris was very helpful and polite, from the hotel staff to waiters to people we met on the street.

Aix-en-Provence, just three hours away via the superfast (186mph) TGV train, has a completely different feel than fast paced Paris. There are little winding Medieval streets lined with glamorous jewelry stores, fish sellers, clothing shops and bakeries, that just go on for blocks and blocks. Again, its something more that you feel than you can see in books or online. Also, people are very friendly, but in a different way than in Paris. They're much more chummy and laid back, and smiles are more plentiful. If you buy a decent amount of flowers, they'll give an extra half dozen for free. At our hotel, they came around every afternoon and gave us a bunch Aix's famous almond candy. My wife had a nice way of putting it. "Paris is amazing, with all the history and beauty. But you could live in Aix-en-Provence for a while."

THE DRILL SERGEANT ANGEL

3/8/06 THE DRILL SERGEANT ANGEL

Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, is a master at using stories from his life to bring home points. You can even sign up for his free-by-email leaderhsip series (just email me, and I'll get you set up.) One his stories reminded me of a lesson I'd learned at my first job out of college. I'd been there for a few months, and was adjusting to the frenetic pace and high pressure of the corporate environment. I was in a new city, a new state, and only had a couple friends. A couple weeks before Thanksgiving, I was driving to church when an 80 year old man veered into my lane for a head-on collision, totaling my car, and breaking my knee-cap. This added injury to insult, as I'd just spent the entirety of my meager savings buying a new transmission for my car. Because of my knee-cap, I couldn't drive a car, and my family couldn't make the 6 or 7 hour drive from Indiana to pick me up because of work commitments.

So there I was, faced with spending the four day Thanksgiving weekend just sitting in my studio apartment- no car, no friends, no family, no money, and most importantly, no turkey- when my angel came in an unlikely form. Have you ever seen the Disney movie Monsters, Inc? Do you remember the nasally voiced, tough as nails, frightening head secretary? I'm sure she was based on our head assistant Barb, complete with reading glasses and chain. When you met her, you were automatically afraid of her just a little bit. She grilled me so hard, re-writing contracts, re-filing, retyping, reprinting everything. She was the drill sergeant for the Navy Seals of paperwork, and she worked me to death. I would have sworn she didn't like me much at all, and was secretly taking pleasure at my exhaustion. But one afternoon, the week before Thanksgiving, she came up to me and handed me a round-trip plane ticket to Indianapolis. "Here. I've already paid for it, so you can't say no." It was so shocked, I think I just mumbled, "Thank you", and stared at the ticket. I later found out that she liked me, and was working me hard so I wouldn't get fired for messing something up. I'm not naturally an organized, detail-oriented person, but Barb trained me so well that I ended up training others. We became good friends, and I always respected her. It helps to think that when you're talking to people who may appear to be surly to realize that under that tough exterior, there could lie a heart of gold.

Knordstrum Knowledge

2/27/06 Knordstrum Knowledge

A cool thing about this job is that you get to learn so much. I'm a big reader, so I've been able to learn quite a bit from all the books our speakers have written. When I first started at Premiere, I was given a copy of "The Nordstrum Way" by Robert Spector. (http://www.premierespeakers.com/robert_spector) In reading it, I learned about not just existing in your job, but really enjoying the process of customer service and accepting the challenge of trying to make your client's thrilled with their experience. The next month after reading the book, my sales doubled. Part of that was just a new guy learning more about his company, his clients, and his speakers, but a big part was also learning the craft of serving my clients. The thing is that if you actually taking what you learn and put it into practice- whether its from speakers and writers, or your mentor down the hall- you will get better at what you do.

Video Games Improve Reading Skills

2/15/06 Video Games Improve Reading Skills

Incentive trips have been and continue to be one of the best motivators for employee and sales performance, with speakers being a big part of that. Being able to not only hear but meet people like hall of fame coaches Don Shula or Pat Riley, explorer Robert Ballard, or Neil Armstrong, can create an air of excitement, as well as deliver a lasting impression on attendees.

Personally, I learned about the power of incentives at a pretty young age. Deep down inside my grandma 's soul, there burned a hope that each Ivy League school would have at least one of her grandchildren grace its halls. Therefore, if she saw any little tendency in a grandchild that showed promise, she would pounce. Around third grade or so, she saw that I liked reading sports and comic books, and made me a deal. For every Newberry Award-winning book or classic I read, she would give me $2. Little did she know that deep down inside Brian, there smouldered a hope that he would one day own an Atari. I put my math skills to work as well, figuring that a $50 Atari would require 25 books, and soon I had finished Bridge to Terabithia, The Westing Game, and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, among others. I was nearing 25 books, but I soon realized that my love and subsequent purchase of jawbreakers, caramel cowtails, and Sprees was becoming my downfall. Willy Wonka, you are my nemesis! As third grade became fourth, I ventured into Stevenson, Lewis, and Dickens. A great American tradition, the massive accumulation of Tops, Fleer, and now Donruss baseball cards, threatened to derail my quest for the ever elusive Atari. I put myself on a schedule. In order to read the required 100 pages a day of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, I was forced to sneak the novels into Mrs. Langreck's class and covertly read during school, with the books open and partially hidden under my desk. Eventually, my attention turned to girls, and I got a Nintendo for Christmas, which by that time had become the gaming system of choice over Atari. But her efforts were not in vain. In high school, although I didn't quite achieve the SAT scores of my cousin Miles (who, out of a possible 1600, scored 2,780,407.3), my academic prowess was good enough to get me into and through DePauw. Looking back, I can not only thank my love of playing Galaga, Centipede, and Pitfall for my breadth and depth of literary education, but also the vision and love of my grandma, who gave me the gift of reading (but, alas, never the gift of an Atari...oh, well.)

RAIDERS OF THE LOST TORCH

1/31/06 RAIDERS OF THE LOST TORCH

Today was a good day because, I, Brian Lord, currently of Franklin, TN, formerly of Kokomo, IN, got to carry the Olympic torch. To what, you might ask, did I owe this honor, only days before the Winter Olympics? Was it because of my innate wit, intelligence, or obvious, incredibly humility? Was it because of the endearing look created by my slightly pudgy face that also looks like I never shave? Or was it because of my athletic ability, as evidenced by the time I was destroyed by a 68-year-old woman in a 5K 'fun' run. No, it was because multiple gold medal winning Olympian John Naber swung by the office today (he was speaking near Nashville) and let me hold it. John's done a great job for us, speaking to clients like Exxon, MetLife, and Masterfoods, all to great reviews, on how they can 'Awaken The Olympian Within'. (to learn more about John, go here: http://www.premierespeakers.com/john_naber) Before John left for his speech, I was able to get a 'fake' picture of him chasing me whilst I ran with the torch. What he doesn't know is that I was able to secretly take a leg off a small desk here and put it in his Olympic Torch carrying case before he left. So, if this afternoon you see a pudgy-faced, unshaven looking guy sprinting down I-65 carrying what looks to be a torch, being chased by a 6 foot 6 world champion swimmer, please make sure not to hit him. Thanks!

"World's Worst Waiter"

1/18/06

It's fun to go the events I book (I get to sit back and enjoy them while the event planner runs around), and yesterday all I had to do was walk across the street from our office to the Cool Springs Convention Center/Marriott to enjoy two of the best entertainers out there. The first was Don Pryor, "World's Worst Waiter". Unbeknownst to the audience, but knownst to us (thanks Mel Brooks), he is an actually a comedian. He goes around to tables, serving wine, "Do you want dark or clear?", talking on his cell phone, eating rolls, leaning across tables to shakily pour water all the way up to brim of the glass. The attention he gets as the dinner grows is like an incoming thunderstorm- just a subtle noise at first that grows into a cacophony of laughter by the end. The funniest part was watching people's reactions. At a table near us, a guy who looks just Dr. Mark from ER, would watch Don do something at his table, and when Don walked away, he'd sprint over to the surrounding tables to recount the tale. Another table had a group of women who turned beet red from laughter. Quite the sight to behold. And, of course, the woman who booked him got into the act by playing the hard nosed event planner telling him loudly to get his act together. But it all resolved itself in the end (see his video), and he received a rousing round of applause.

Blog 1

1/6/06

Today begins my quest to be voted best Premiere Blog of 2006. Yeah, I'm sure Jeremy, Shawn and the rest will try to pander to you with silly 'real' life stories with some sort of weak tie-in to business, but not me. I'm all about hard-hitting, useful information applicable to every day business. On that note, I'd like to discuss the worst date put downs I've ever had. I'm not taking about being put down to go out on a date (...although I had some good ones in college. One girl I'd asked to go out, even though I hadn't seen her for 6 months. She said she'd love to, she just had to OK it with her boyfriend first. Another girl I asked out, but she said she had to rearrange the furniture in her dorm room…even though it was Valentines Day.) I'm talking about what we agents go through all too often- being turned down for event dates by clients. Here are some of the best 'event' date turn-downs I've ever received:

- "It came down between a former US Vice-President and Vern Troyer (aka "Mini Me"), and we just couldn't decide."

- "We're going to do a laundry facilities tour instead."

- "We took the $10,000 we were going to spend on a speaker, and gave it to our attendees to go gambling."

Feel free to email me with the best turn-downs you've given, and they may end up in a future blog.