“We can’t pay for speakers, we have to cut costs!” said the conference organiser when asked if the day’s presenters were being paid for their time.
Most of the event’s sessions featured speakers who were at best going through the motions. Thankfully no-one on stage had a book, training course or a box set of DVDs to sell.
The sad thing was the event itself was a great idea and the organisers have a genuine belief and passion for what they are doing, but I’m not sure that came across to the day’s participants.
What this showed is how important quality raw materials are to a product or service and if you skimp on materials, you end up with an inferior product. in the case of conferences and conventions it’s the speakers who are the materials.
This is as just as true in any business and if you’re in a market where there are lots of inferior products, and there is no shortage of third rate conferences out there, then you just commoditise your product.
Every day we see this in the technology industries – cheap, me too products and services that have no differentiation from the competition except on price.
So it’s worthwhile thinking about the raw materials in your business. Are you providing your customers with a quality product? Or is your only selling proposition cheap, cheap, cheap?
Hi Paul,
In my experience working with and for organizations who run conferences, it is often the case that the actual speaker is treated like a lesser priority. The higher priorities for this room-filling being the exotic venue, the socialising between ‘sessions’, the lunch/dinner menus and the ‘day-off’ activities. All this fueled by the tax deductible incentive for running such ‘educational’ programmes.
Best, Robin