RANT: If you think you need an agent you probably don't!
This article is for people
who contact me telling me they need an agent to get them
paying speaking engagement bookings.
Every day an expert, author or speaker contacts me claiming
they need
an agent to get them paid speaking
engagements. I try to explain that's not what they need,
but few listen. They want what they want even if what they
want is ineffective. I have written and posted articles
with point-by-point explanations of why what they are
asking for is ineffective and just not very smart.
And to be truthful, it's really insulting to be told every
day, "I'll pay you a commission of whatever money I make,"
when they aren't charging for their speaking. Have they not
done the math? Do they think I haven't? (In case you
haven't: a percentage of nothing is ..... nothing.) So I
recognize they aren't interested in the fact that I'd
receive no compensation. Why would I want to work for
anyone who doesn't value me or my expertise?
Think
of it as asking for a bank loan. It's harder to get a loan
when you need one. When you don't need a loan the bank is
calling you to offer you money. As a consultant, I didn't
have to seek paid speaking, paid writing or national TV
appearances; they came to me. But authors, speakers and
consultants contact me, expecting me to go out and find
work for them.
What they (you?) really need is a
reputation and high profile that
speaks for them. They need to have established a
celebrity-level "fan base" so that they become a "household
word" and assignments come to them effortlessly, without
having to knock on doors or have someone else knock on
doors for them.
For many years I provided monthly promotion and marketing
support to clients who were specialists, consultants,
speakers and how-to authors. The problem was these
specialists weren't delivering the goods as well as they
could be, nor were they high-profile
experts, and
thus weren't achieving the success they expected. David
Ogilvy, the founding partner of Ogilvy Mather Advertising
Agency, used to say: "The quickest way to kill a mediocre
product is to promote it."
It made little sense to promote others who weren't
following my model for consultants. Teaching others how to
achieve the national success I had achieved as a business
wardrobe consultant (and later as a relationship
consultant) was how I began my consulting-to-consultants
practice in the late 70s.
So..... I have completely dropped my speaker agency and
speaker directory. (Why assist people who I believe are not
yet delivering their best?) And I have decided to go back
to Square One.... teaching consultants to be superior
consultants. Once you become a consultant known for your
excellence, you will not need to hire anyone to procure
paid assignments and engagements for you. They will come to
you without effort. I will first teach and mentor you to be
a fabulous and wise consultant, then I will teach you how I
promoted myself and got paid to do it.
Why pay others to promote you when you can
be
paid
to do it
yourself?
And one day you may need an agent... not to
generate assignments and contracts
for you, but to
decline the hundreds of
"opportunities" that require too much of your time and
energy with little or no profit, payback, or psychic
reward. You see, this is the real role of an agent: to act
in your best interests by doing the reverse of your
original expectation: choosing which to accept of the
overwhelming number of engagements, that come to you
unsolicited, and which to reject.
Doesn't this sound more like what you really deserve?
Then it's time to commit to your development as a
consultant, so you can enjoy results that far outweigh your
original investment. I offered three mentoring
programs (no longer
posted) for consultants; but I
took them down because speakers weren't willing to pay for
them despite offering only 10 places. I read the writing on
the wall and have stopped trying to help people who didn't
want my assistance.
Andrea Reynolds