We’re extremely fortunate in that we get about 500-600 speaker applications for just about 90 spots in the conference portion of the Podcast and New Media Expo. Our conference is unusual in that nearly all of the sessions are instructional workshops taught by a single person for one hour – something that takes a great deal more preparation than a panel spot (although it shouldn’t – panelists and moderators, especially, should be devoting nearly an equal amount of time to prepare if their panel is going to be worth anything of value to the attendees).

The payoff in having a single instructor is huge, however. If you frame your expectations well during the speaker application process your attendees will get tremendous value from the session. In almost all cases, attendees will learn more from a single instructor than 5 panelists and a moderator. If you are looking to get your tradeshow mentioned in a news article by way of having a speaker quoted, the panel is the way to go. But our job as conference organizers is not to get mentioned in the press – it is to give the attendees value for their conference fee. If you want to deliver that value – reject the VP of Marketing / Business Development for a speaking spot and accept the lower ranking person who is actually in the trenches every day DOING what they are teaching. They won’t deliver a sales pitch because they don’t have anything to sell. It’s your choice: give your attendees what they paid for and serve your customer or be mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. I will choose the former every single time.

Today I rejected three speaker applications for the 2007 Podcast and New Media Expo – all of whom were C-level executives at new media firms. The reason – they didn’t follow directions. Or rather, their PR firm didn’t follow directions when completing the speaker application. Instead of giving us a Session Description we can use in the Program, they instead said, “Joe can speak on a variety of topics – basically anything you need.” OK, aside from the fact that they of course CAN’T speak on absolutely anything I need, this approach doesn’t make sense for anyone. Nearly every speaker cancellation I’ve had in the past 8 years as a conference organizer has been a speaker submitted by a PR firm. I’ve had others that were pissed off because they really didn’t want to be at our show anyway, but their PR firm had gotten them the gig so they were there. That’s just great.

When the speaker doesn’t apply personally to speak, they have nothing invested. It’s easy to cancel three days before when they finally see it on their Outlook Calendar because they have no connection at all to the session or organizer. They could care less about the event, but they figure they’re paying the PR firm to get them gigs so they gotta be there. Is it any surprise the attendees get ZERO value from that speaker?

Now, to be fair, I’ve worked with some great PR reps who I could tell from the moment I spoke to them that they were on the ball and had kept the speaker well informed.

Note to PR firms: Guess what folks, it’s quickly obvious to us when we’re speaking to you:

1) If you haven’t even told your client you are pitching them as a speaker
2) You know nothing about the show other than the name and are simply throwing bait into the lake to see if anyone bites.

The time to talk to your client about our event is not AFTER you have pitched them but BEFORE. Why bother pitching them to us as a speaker if you don’t even know if they want to speak?

In today’s case, I just got off the phone with the public relations representative for the 3 rejections. He was miffed that I wouldn’t spend time on the phone with him telling him how his three speakers could help us. But isn’t that his job? That’s like me cold-calling an exhibitor and asking if they could tell me all about their company so that I can know whether or not they are a fit to buy a booth. It just doesn’t work that way.