 Hey meeting planners, last week I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down virtually with Jennifer Spear of Clean Slate Strategies. So today's video is my conversation with her and I'm asking Jennifer some great questions about pivoting from live to virtual. And more importantly, what are some of the considerations that you as planners should keep in mind when contracting and pricing for speakers in a virtual environment? Thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate you bringing your time and your talents to the vlog today. I have a lot of clients asking me about how to deal with their speaker contracts now that their programs are shifting and in some cases cancelling all together. So to start, I'd love to hear from you about what just the general consensus is with the speaker community around this time and any optimistic things you've heard or even pessimistic things you've heard from the community. Hey Leanne, thanks for having me. I think on the whole speakers tend to be an optimistic bunch. I mean it's kind of an occupational hazard. We spend our time helping people see the positive sides of things. We want to help them be motivated and inspired to take action. And I mean for myself I speak on change and really big change and wanting to see the opportunities in it. So I think in general we're optimistic but we're also very realistic. And so we understand the challenges and what's happening and we're trying for the most part to really partner with our clients to try and help them, you know, whichever way this goes. And of course being respectful to all the different rules as you go across the country, every province is a little bit different and so wanting to be able to respect those. But I can tell you, when this opens up, we will be the first ones back to the party. We miss being with people. It's definitely what we enjoy doing is being able to connect with people and wanting to be there live. I am so encouraged to hear that, Jennifer, because I think planners are quite concerned about how this is all going to look like in the future. So to hear that you guys are ready and willing to meet again is so exciting. And I know that I'm looking forward to the day where I can meet with you but also meet with other speaker professionals as well. Jennifer, can you tell me what some speakers are doing and how they change their delivery as planners are pivoting to virtual meetings. Sure, I mean there are some speakers who have been speaking virtually for years so it's very comfortable. They have a lot of experience in it. And so for them it would just be very natural. If we're seeing live events going virtual and wanting to then take the content, the delivery, the message and pivoting it to a virtual format, I think there's a lot of things that we have to take into consideration there. And so what I would recommend for any planner or organizer is to have the conversation with your speaker. Let them know what their overall goals and objectives are because it's not really let's take a live event and put it online. Let's put on the best virtual event. And so I think by partnering with your speakers, they'll be able to help deliver that content in a way that's going to engage your audience and deliver on your objectives. Thank you for bringing that up. It's going back to CMP 101 and getting back to the goals and objectives and you're right planners still need to revisit those as being the driving force behind any meeting regardless of the format so thank you for sharing that. The other thing I think about that is, so it's not just that we're changing the format from from live to virtual. What's happening to our attendees and our participants in their organizations and in their lives has completely changed right it's changed for all of us. And so the goals and objectives may need to change to be able to address the current needs of the audience. So I anyone who says that they're going to take a three day live conference and just take it and put it online. I would question that you want to make sure that you're delivering the best that the audience needs in the best and most engaging way that you can. Oh, that's such a good point. Thank you. Jennifer, I know some of our planner clients are going to engage with speakers for their virtual events. What questions should they be asking speakers as opposed to when they interviewed them for live events. So it's interesting. So I would definitely want to know their experience and comfort level with doing virtual how they convey the content and how they engage the audience because it is different so it's not just about taking whatever you were going to do live like your your full hour keynote and just delivering it from your living room. So I'd want to understand how comfortable they are with the, you know, the online environment and how they'll engage the audience. I think that would be really important. And I would suggest or recommend that that planners that you partner with your speakers, because they might have a lot of great ideas. For there's some planners if you work with inside an organization you might be planning one or two events in a year, whereas a speaker might be speaking at 3050 100 different events. And as we're seeing everything go to virtual again as a planner you might have one or two events that are doing that whereas the speaker might be working with dozens of events. And so we might have some good suggestions and ideas on how you can improve your engagement or different techniques and uses that you can do to engage your participants and make sure that you're delivering the what they need at this moment. That is such a great point and I'm hopeful this will shift a planner's frame of mind when collaborating more with their speakers versus just treating them as a separate entity and part of the program and seeing it more of a partnership. So I love that advice. Thank you and I'm excited to see our clients start using that as well. So Jennifer this final question is a sensitive one, but it's something that my clients are starting to ask us about and that's about pricing. How are speakers adjusting their pricing moving to a virtual format versus live. Yeah, it's it's one of those challenging questions. Certainly, we're feeling a little bit of the dance around it in terms of how do we talk to it, but I think really what I would suggest is think about why you hired the speaker in the first place. How does it to provide value. Do they, excuse me, do they have some specialized knowledge intellectual property some unique way of delivering. And if so, then the value is still there regardless of whether it's live or virtual. So I'd be looking at the value first. I think you could save on travel. And for a lot of speakers they might even have their sleep in my own bed rate right where anytime they don't have to get on a plane, there might be a lower rate anyways for delivering that. But I would also ask for you to think about what's going on now so if we're taking a speaker who's used to speaking live and now they're going to be delivering online. Well, they're going to have to really adjust their message really adjust the content make sure that they're able to to pivot their message to meet the goals and objectives of your audience. Now, so they might have been working under different goals and objectives prior so they might have to change their entire speech in terms of to be relevant. They're going to have to engage in new ways different ways, plus they have to become their own AV tech. So they have to make sure that their equipment works they have to make sure that they've got good lighting and sound and they have to set that up all themselves. They have to make sure that the the children and the dogs are put outside and all of these other new concerns that they have that they might not have had before. So they're actually having to do a lot more work and the differences is just the travel piece. So I would I would consider that as you're going through thinking about the amount of work and the effort for speakers. Now having said that we want to speak at your events. I'm telling you this I know that we do and we want to partner with you on this. So we want the for you to understand and respect what it is that we have to do in order to be able to do that. But we also understand that things are changing. And if this was a sudden, as it was for most of us, a sudden change that we're having to go from live to virtual recognizing that you've got different costs and expenses associated with this and so we're going to want to try and help you out with this. But we also know you're saving on the food and beverage and the hotel and everything else. So I think again if you partner, you'll find that you can get a lot more value out of your speaker because they can help you in other ways. Help you with the actual design of the event, how to engage maybe you could take your keynoter who could also moderate a panel or or do something else for you to add even more value. So I wouldn't just look at it as a straight oh you're not here in person you've got to cut your rate. Just think about the value that they bring and what that means to your attendees. What I love about the virtual world now is let's not just take a live event and put it virtual let's create the most amazing virtual event ever right like that's what we should be doing. Oh, that is so good. You said so many things that completely aligned with what a good meeting planners looking for. Obviously we've talked about the goals and objectives but using words like partnership and event design and open for business. I mean that is so such great information and I'm really excited to get this in the hands of event planners so that they can start working with you guys again and creating successful programs. Thank you so much for all of your time today Jennifer and I cannot wait to see you soon. Oh thanks Leanne and I cannot wait to see you in person. Bye Jen.