When motivational speaker Mark Sanborn spoke to employees at CUNA Mutual Group last year, his message made such an impact that employees were still discussing it eight months later.
Sanborn's sales and customer service speech is built around "The Fred Factor," which is also the name of his book. The message is based on Sanborn's mail carrier, Fred Shea, who inspired Sanborn with great service and passion for his job.
The presentation was so well-received that the company created Fred Awards to honor employees who displayed the kind of exemplary customer service Sanborn saw in Shea, said Jim Buchheim, CUNA's vice president for corporate communications.
"That's the kind of impact a motivational speaker can have," Buchheim said. "If I stood up in front of a group, it wouldn't mean anything. But a tremendous story like that can really resonate."
That's part of the reason why CUNA has booked motivational speakers virtually every year for at least the past 15 years for leadership and sales events, Buchheim said.
Although motivational speakers are sometimes viewed as clich?d, several local companies still use speakers to boost employee morale at large annual meetings or conferences.
Other companies focus instead on leadership and skill training, looking for a message tailored to their company that offers specific tools their employees can use in their jobs.
High-energy talks
TDS Telecom often uses motivational speakers to open or close their annual sales and leadership conferences, said Lynette Resch, the company's meeting planner.
The rest of the conference is usually filled with industry speakers, so a high-energy presentation on a much more general topic can help break up the day or be a morale booster, Resch said.
One popular presentation was from a group of fighter pilots who spoke about working together as a team and handling change on the spot. The message was certainly valuable, Resch said, but the experience of seeing the pilots walk out in uniform set to music, was part of what made it memorable.
"A lot of times motivational speakers have the same message," Resch said. "But it's how they present it that makes people appreciate it and walk away with something they can use."
Although employees might not take as much away in the long term from motivational speakers' presentations than they do from training sessions or from industry speakers, Resch said executives don't necessary expect them to.
"We use them as a morale booster, to get the energy back up and to motivate them," Resch said. "We know it doesn't last."
But though employees might not always retain a motivational speaker's message in the long term, hiring motivational speakers has other perks. Using one to close a conference helps it end on a high note and makes employees remember the whole conference positively, Resch said. Hiring a motivational speaker can also show the company appreciates employees and wants to help them develop professionally or in their personal life, she added.
At CUNA, finding a speaker who can tailor a message to the company's values and focus on a specific, tangible message helps the company avoid leaving employees with words that fade quickly.
"We tend to identify a topic first that fits with what we're trying to accomplish or achieve, then identify a speaker who can give a really powerful, captivating message about that," Buchheim said. "Otherwise you might have a really feel-good event for an hour, and then it just doesn't have much impact after that."
Sheila Berrey, public relations manager for Swiss Colony, said the company uses motivational speakers on a limited basis and plans to possibly increase their use in the future. Now they use them to speak to booster groups - employees who volunteer to organize activities to increase morale throughout the company. They've also occasionally used speakers for larger groups of employees.
But Berrey said the company hasn't used them more at this point because in order to spend the money and get so many employees together, the message and the speaker need to be particularly pertinent to the company.
"Everyone likes to feel pumped up, but the analogy I use is this: If I go to a tour of homes and they're all so beautiful and I come back to my own and it doesn't look so great, then what? It's better to have a message tailored to your own business," she said.
Talk content important
For locally based motivational speakers Robert Ian and Bill Geist, there's no shortage of speaking engagements, especially because both travel extensively. But both speakers see the market for strictly motivational or entertaining speakers declining, while the market for expert speakers or motivational speakers with strong content is increasing.
Ian started doing magic and hypnotism shows 20 years ago purely as entertainment. Over the years, he began to add more content to his message, speaking about conquering change. Magic lent itself well to his message about expanding the power of one's mind, he said.
"The magic boggles peoples' minds and then I tell them at the end of the program that the secret is not magic, but preparation, which is a great metaphor for change," he said.
Ian said the evolution of his presentations to include more content is a combination of both his growth as an individual - at 42 he can offer more wisdom than he could 20 years ago - and the desires of his clients.
In the 1990s, the dot-com boom meant a lot of companies could afford motivational speakers and the demand for them caused people to rush into the business who weren't as qualified, Ian said. It was those years, with many speakers who were motivational, but had no content, that created clich?s of motivational speakers, he said.
Now, in tighter times financially, Ian said he sees companies wanting the most out of their time and the speakers they hire.
"Companies want a solid message, and they also want to have fun," Ian said.
Ian primarily speaks at events and conferences, often as a keynote speaker, where this is especially true, he said.
Geist, who runs a marketing consulting business and gives motivational talks based on marketing, said he sees the days of the "classic" motivational speaker waning.
"There was a time for that, 10, 15, 20 years ago," Geist said. "For some, the urging on and 'I can do this' has gotten to be clich?. I think ideas, concepts and content tend to motivate people more now."
Instead of purely motivational speakers, Geist said companies are turning more and more to industry experts who are accomplished in their field and have a good story to tell.
Employees list needs
Other companies, like MG&E, use purely motivational speakers rarely, focusing on training sessions for both soft skills like leadership development and dealing with change as well as software and computer training.
At the end of each year, Jim Lenzer, MG&E's director of employment and training, surveys employees about what kinds of topics they'd like to learn about in the following year. Then Lenzer puts together a calendar of about 15 programs, ranging from managing change to business e-mail etiquette to presentation skills to software training.
They often bring in the speakers from organizations such as the Center for Organization Effectiveness and Howik and Associates.
Lenzer said the company has had good results with this system.
"One, we're responding to a need," he said. "We feel that by doing the survey, it's driven by employee needs and requests. Two, we feel that if they walk away with an enhanced knowledge of the industry or have picked up a skill, then they feel they've had a good session that they can apply back on the job."
MG&E has booked motivational speakers in the past, but unless the message fits with the core values of the company and there is a way to link back to what employees should do differently on the job, Lenzer said it's not worth the cost.
"They might have a wonderful message, but employees leave with a question," he said. "We like to have a specific goal more than just morale boosting driving this."
Diane Hamilton, of the Center for Organization Effectiveness, said she's noticed a shift from companies looking for motivational speakers to more specific training, such as the leadership building and strategy execution her consulting company offers.
"Anecdotal I think I would say I've seen that," she said. "Talking to our clients, everyone is talking about how to measure this, what's the measure to change the behavior. That's hard to get with a motivational speaker." As far as training and development go, that field will only continue to increase, Hamilton said.
"The crunch for talent is present now and I think is going to be ever increasing as we look down the road," she said. "There's a push to grow talent from within and develop leaders from within. It becomes really important not just now but to take the organization into the future."
"For some, the urging on and 'I can do this' has gotten to be clich?. I think ideas, concepts and content tend to motivate people more now."
- Bill Geist, motivational speaker (STEVE APPS)
"The magic boggles peoples' minds and then I tell them at the end of the program that the secret is not magic, but preparation, which is a great metaphor for change."
- Robert Ian, motivational speaker (CRAIG SCHREINER)
