You get what you pay for

I recently had a conversation with a client who was trying to secure a speaking engagement at an industry conference. Having tried and failed the previous year, this particular client wanted to know if there were any secrets to putting together a winning submission.

Before I address that, I think it’s worth pointing out that speaking engagements are a great way to flex your thought leadership muscle in a different way. If you have a technology guru who has some industry clout—or a well-known executive with great presentation skills—you should get him or her in front of as many people as possible. But, just know that it may end up costing you. (More about that later.)

Through the years—and from my experience at different companies—I’ve found that while there may not be a secret formula that guarantees success, there are certainly steps you can take to improve your chances.

Step 1: Consider the audience. Instead of putting together information that you want to impart, begin by understanding who will be at the conference and what they are interested in hearing. It’s the best place to start and there’s always a way to weave in your message.

Step 2: Incorporate the latest trends and be provocative.  The people reviewing submissions are looking for the most relevant topics—what’s hot in the industry right now.  Not only will they make good presentations, they will help sell the overall program.

Step 3: Team up with a customer. It’s always best to have a third party demonstrate the success of your solutions and be your advocate. If it’s a technical program, you can share the time by going into the technology, but have your customer lead with their challenges and how your company’s products and services helped overcome them.  

Step 4: Don’t skimp on the strategy. I think it’s crucial to craft your submission so it’s informative and compelling. If you’re serious about speaking opportunities, the worst thing you can do is rush writing the submission at the last minute. The strategy behind the presentation and the content itself is critical to its success.

Step 5: Most importantly, become a sponsor. Conferences will offer sponsorship opportunities that include speaking opportunities. And, as is the case with RSA Security, they offer very few, hard-to-get speaking slots for non sponsors. The reality is, oftentimes, becoming a sponsor may be the only way.

There are a lot of ways to demonstrate thought leadership. And, speaking engagements are a great way to augment white papers, blogs and articles.  The question is, how serious are you about getting your experts in front of a live audience?  If the answer is “very,” you may want to set aside some budget dollars for sponsorships—really the only sure-fire way to secure a slot.

Communication without barriers—or character limits

I was on a sales call recently where I walked a prospect through our business model.  Instead of one person acting as the interface to the client and entirely different set of folks behind a curtain actually delivering the creative based on a funneled (think translated/interpreted) understanding of client needs and requirements, our account managers are doers.  We write content, collaborate with our designers, and manage projects to completion.  We know this is unique and present it as a differentiator, but it’s nice to hear feedback that our approach resonates. 

This call was specifically about a design-only job of enormous strategic corporate importance, so the prospect really liked the notion that he would be kicking off the project via a telecon that included the people actively creating his identity and then regularly communicating with him throughout the process.

I can’t imagine working any other way, but I know that many other agencies do.  As I mentioned during our discussion, our model helps us help our clients because it allows us to infuse and ensure efficiencies and economies of scale.  And for our customers, we hope that means unprecedented turnaround times, top-rate quality, and unbeatable prices.

Companies are used to tolerating a traditional agency model, but they don’t have to. Think about how you engage with agencies. Do you feel your message is lost in translation from the interface to the doers? Do you feel like you spend too much time managing the project and the lion’s share of the work and wondering when the really thoughtful and meaningful creative output will come across your desktop for review?

The new big thing a few years ago was collaborative tools specifically for our industry.  Agencies were touting them as a value add and big clients were demanding them because they promised to provide unprecedented transparency and visibility.  But, you can’t, as they say, put lipstick on a pig.  No amount of automation can force your reviewers and stakeholders to keep to a timetable.  Plus, I find that the tools seem to encourage an approach to review that creates a Twitter-like top-of-mind and kneejerk response.  This, in turn, results in “online dialogue” in up to 140 characters or less .

I guess what I am trying to say is that process tools cannot improve a  flawed process.  And in some cases, automation will only further break what’s broken.  Agencies need to change their models—and that means eliminating the whisper-down-the-lane approach where only the account manager (who neither writes nor designs) ever speaks with a client.  More important, the creative team needs to function as a team—with all parts regularly communicating with one another as needed—and with no character limits.