THE ECONOMY IS WEAK.

YOUR BUDGETS ARE BEING CHALLENGED?

HOW DO YOU ADD VALUE?

Simple…The Mark of a Leader.

In this economy, surely you are looking for great value.
And in the conference industry, there is no better value than The Mark of a Leader.

The Mark of a Leader is the incredible program that uses electrifying video and music, along with a live storyteller, to inspire, teach, challenge, and ignite an audience’s passion to make an even greater mark on your business or association.

This unique program showcases amazing stories of many of history’s greatest leaders and brands, revealing how their principles and secrets can be applied to today’s workforce. Our subjects range from Apple to Oprah, Roger Bannister to The Beatles, Anita Roddick to Starbucks, Sir Winston Churchill to JFK, Golf to Music, and dozens more. Some will make you laugh. Some will make you cry. All of them will make you think. All of them are unforgettable.

This is not another “Leadership Theory 101″.

This is not another traditional keynote.

This is something completely different and incredibly powerful.

That’s why our client list includes companies like ADP, Bank of America, Coke, Disney, Frito Lay, HP, Microsoft, Pepsi, Starbucks, Universal Studios, Xerox, and many more. Many of them have used us at multiple events including sales conferences, management meetings, dealer and franchise conferences, association and all-employee events, recognition programs, and more.

AND WHERE IS THE GREAT VALUE?

First, our program uses incredible video and music throughout to create an unforgettable experience. Audiences never forget our stories or their messages.

What a production company would charge hundreds of thousands of dollars to create as thematic videos or vignettes comes loaded on our laptop. Off the shelf.

Second, we encourage clients to intersperse our stories throughout their agenda - to open and close, before and after breaks, to start and end days, and so on. Our amazing stories will keep their audience riveted, and our storyteller will tie their presenters’ messages and our leadership principles together through the conference.

The result? Not just one great hour - an incredible event from beginning to end!

Third, as part of our program we will MC, facilitate, build workshops, or conduct on-stage interviews - all as part of our affordable per-day fee.

Fourth, of course we have an incredible 60 or 90 minute keynote presentation. We do keynotes all the time. Like all of our programs, it is completely unique and highly customized to each client’s audience and messages.

Fifth, all of this comes for one simple day rate, which is less than what clients pay for a typical thematic opening video. We will do whatever a client wants during the day or days - keynote, interstitials, interviews, workshops, MC - all for one flat rate. The incredible AV production comes at no extra cost!

Finally, because all the video and music runs off a laptop, we simply need projection and audio. We don’t require any special AV staging support above what they probably already have in place for their conference.

Does this sound revolutionary?

Does this sound like good value?

It is.

The Mark of a Leader was created by a team of veteran meeting producers who believe the conference industry desperately needs something different and affordable. So we built it.

They know that using powerful stories using video, music and live presentation is the best way to make a lasting impact on people.

Our storytellers are business experts who have run multi-million dollar businesses and worked with many of the best leaders of Fortune 500 companies for over 30 years.

Put it all together and you have an affordable way to make your next conference!

The Mark of a Leader

Speakers 2.0 - The Evolution of the Speaking Industry
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The business of speaking has evolved dramatically in the last five years - have you noticed?

It used to be event planners would spend quite a bit of time planning for next years annual conference. A committee would begin a slow, careful, and routine process of planning a program agenda, which would include finding a celebrity speaker or two to fill the agenda. Year in, year out, they’d carefully follow the same old process. Often, they’d end up with the same old conference.

Today, of course, faster is the new fast, and we’re witnessing a different role for both the speakers and the bureaus who represent them. Let’s call it “strategic knowledge delivery” - we’re helping organizations to get the right knowledge in the right place, at the right time, for the right purpose. Events have evolved from, well, events, to critical get-togethers that help a company, association or organization adapt to sudden new realities.

Today, a company might find itself in the midst of a rapid product launch - after all, product lifecycles are collapsing. (Just look at your iPod, and think of the rapid changes occurring in the consumer electronics industry!) There’s now a new requirement for fast knowledge - they need to pull together their sales force quickly, update them on the forthcoming marketing plans and sales strategy, and give them a strong motivational push out the door. They call a speakers bureau, and quickly line up a retail expert, an expert on selling strategies, and a top motivational speaker to boot.

Oh - and they need these people in two weeks!

That’s the new reality of the speaking business today. It has now evolved into a highly specialized industry, in which knowledge-brokers (formerly known as “speakers bureaus”) provide their highly specialized insight into who-knows-what, to provide their clients with the key knowledge-experts that they need. By doing so, they’re helping the client to quickly solve new business challenges, adapt to new markets, stay competitive, and deal with the reality of all the circumstances that come with our fast-paced world of today.

Every organization on the planet today is working hard to ensure that it can “keep-up.” I’ve certainly witnessed the trend first hand through the last five years, doing exactly this type of thing with some of the largest organizations in the world.

When you end up advising companies like Disney as to how to be creative, you get a different perspective of the world. Disney, for all of its vaunted reputation as a cauldron of creative genius, is like every other organization out there: it finds itself immersed in a whirlwind of rapid change, whether with its’ business model, product line, or rapidly changing consumer demand. (Anyone with pre-teen kids has seen the huge and sudden take-off of the hit High School Musical, or the explosive growth of the Hanna Montanna franchise, knows what I am talking about!)

Like any organization, Disney is constantly working to ensure that they can remain on top, by understanding the trends that will continue to impact them, and by ensuring they keep their creative spark fresh by seeking to learn what other innovative organizations are doing. For Disney, it’s almost as if they are beyond faster-is-the-new-fast :

they’re in an industry in which tomorrow is simply today’s urgent problem. And that’s why they call in outside experts — someone like me.

The changes in the speaking industry - and the role that bureaus and speakers play - mirror the changes occurring in the fast paced world of business today. It’s all about just-in-time knowledge delivery.

Understand that, and you’ll understand the context of the solutions that this industry and speakers bureaus can provide you.

Jim Carroll’s demo video