Jayaram's BLOGS
Sir, Are you a Motivational Speaker?
Published: May 25th, 2019 11:32 pmInteresting
conversation I had with a potential client who called me out of the blue.
Here’s how it went…
Good
evening sir, my name is Ai (named masked). I work for ….Training outfit in
Mumbai. Sir are you a Motivational speaker?
Me: Ai, where did you
get my reference from?
Ai: Sir from one of
your blog-sites and also from someone who knows you and gave reference. My boss
asked me to call you up if you are a Motivational speaker. Sir are you a motivational
speaker?
Me: I am a speaker but
don’t know if it is motivating to the audience…. That’s for them to decide,
isn’t it Ai?
Ai: Sir, but we want
to have a motivational speaker for 1 hour for a large group. We are a training
organization and we have been asked to organize this as part of their
engagement task for a reputed MNC company in Mumbai in June.
I fathomed the trends of
happenings in HR these days. The HR Executive has a task to tick one engagement
activity for June. He/She puts a Training Aggregator on the job; this outfit
scouts around from amongst several motivational speakers available, and
recommends to the company.
I
went on to explain to Ai the process I follow as a speaker. I use slides sporadically.
I do not use concepts or models. I love to involve the audience as I speak. I
speak on Leadership and Change and my examples are based on rustic Indian
mortals which includes a street Panwala, an Indian mother, a bus conductor, house
maid, palm of your hand etc.… each of whom have enough evidence of super human
Leadership but sadly rust in oblivion!
Ai: Sir can you speak
on Emotional Intelligence with relevance to IQ and the brain
theory…….bla…bla…..(went on). I sensed
she was sincerely rooting her client’s brief , meticulously, as noted down by
her.
Me: Are you seeking a
Trainer or a motivational speaker?
Ai: Sir, Motivational
Speaker. But the theme is what I said
Me: Ai, I don’t speak
on this topic. Perhaps what you are seeking is not a motivational speaker but
an expert in areas relating to REBT and other related areas of psychology.
Ai: Sir we have a fixed
fee that we pay for this.
Me: Ai, but I don’t
charge for such programmes
Ai: Oh… Ok..
Sir…hmm..yes sir
(Was that a sigh of relief or
a shock? Couldn’t comprehend !!!)
I
recognized Ai was duty-bound. There was a mandate to be completed for a client.
The client had given Ai a Theme and set her on the job. Ai’s boss put her on
the ‘speaker hunting mission’. The monthly tick on task completion for June was
important for both, Ai and client.
I explained
to her the difference between a Motivational Speaker who is invited to talk and
a subject expert who is called with specific objective of giving knowledge. Motivational
speakers generally take liberty in speaking on themes, experiences, success
stories, examples of their choice which can boost people’s morale’. A subject
expert on the other hand, is a masterpractioner, shares his experience,
knowledge, themes, models, concepts, case studies, and examples, to a specific
group of impacted people for whom it matters and not en-mass to all and sundry
in the organization. He may or may not be motivating or inspiring but he may
have greater knowledge to share with specific objective than a conventional
‘Motivational Speaker’.
Ai Got it, this time
!!! And I lost the race for Speaking!
Sad,
even Motivating people has become a monthly ticking ritual.
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