What do you get for your money when you hire Maria Todd to speak at your event?

When you hire Maria, you are not just hiring someone who will show up at your event and talk. There are between 50 and 100 hours of behind-the-scenes work that can go into a 1-hour speaking engagement. Here is what that looks like:

Pre-planning

This means phone calls, e-mails, and communications and sometimes even interviews with you and your team. Even though Maria will request that she has one primary contact to work with, Maria will likely ask to speak to a few other people in the organization to ask them a few questions. This helps Maria gather information about what matters to you and your group, from a variety of perspectives. In turn, this helps her customize her program for your group.

You are not paying for a “canned” talk. You get a customized presentation that is laser-focussed on you and your audience.

Preparation

It can take anywhere between 20 and 30 hours to customize and prepare for an event. This may or may not include slides and multimedia, as well as customizing the talk itself.

Maria will research specific aspects of your group in order to help her customize her speech. It is not unusual for her to spent 3-6 hours researching your organization or association.

What this means for you is a highly focused, tailor-made presentation that draws on both her solid content, experience and research on your specific group.

Sometimes event planners ask “Could we pay less for a talk that is not customized?” The short answer is “Not usually.” Personal attention and talks that are shaped and crafted for a specific audience count as one of the major ways that professional speakers deliver value to their clients.

There are some speakers you can never hire again because once you have heard their material, you’re done. It’s the same thing over and over again. There are some speakers who earn their living doing talks like that. Maria is not one of them. Maria is often hired again by her clients because they know that they are getting fresh, new material every time.

Early arrival (when possible)

Experienced speakers will tell you that they like to arrive at the city where they are speaking at least one to two days before the event, whenever possible. That gives them time to find and check out the speaking venue, personally connect with the organizers and make any last-minute adaptations based on the physical space. If, for example, your presentation is about a local health tourism strategy, Maria may wish to arrive several days in advance in order to visit some health facilities, hotels, resorts, and speak with government officials in support of the strategy or project.

This all helps to ensure that the event you are planning runs smoothly. Maria includes this in her services whenever she can. If her travel schedule is tight, it is not always possible, but she does her best to ensure that she has a chance to meet with event planners before the actual event.

Getting to and from

While a speaker is travelling to and from your event, he is she isn’t working for anyone else. If it takes the better part of a day to get to your location and the better part of a day to get home, once you factor in the event itself you are looking at 3 days of time dedicated to your event.

Follow-up

After your event, Maria will follow up with you. She’ll want to talk with you about what worked, what you liked best and what your audience told you they got from the presentation.

If you were wondering why speakers charge what they do, hopefully this gives you some insight into a professional speaker like Maria goes about their work.

Book Dr. Maria for your next event by calling +1.303.823.4662.