I use this reference often, because it’s easy to use when I have questions about grammar, usage, or formats. I also like it because I can find answers in it quickly, more quickly than in the Chicago Manual of Style, for example.

Suppose I’m not sure about using a colon in a sentence, and want to check. I open the front cover of the Gregg Reference Manual and there’s a one page list of topics. No need to work through a table of contents or index. I find the topic in just seconds.

I see the colon is covered in paragraphs 187 to 189 (in my Canadian version at least). The use of paragraph numbers, rather than page numbers, also speeds up my search, since I don’t need to try to find the first paragraph on a page — I simply go straight to paragraph 187.

Note, too, that paragraph numbers are listed on the top of each page, with the first full paragraph listed at the top of the left-hand page, and the last entry at the top of the right-hand page.

I find the entries have a good balance between conciseness and thoroughness. On the other hand, if you like detailed explanations or good coverage of exceptions, you might find Gregg on the light side.

All things considered, I like the Gregg Reference Manual, because I can find answers easily and quickly, reducing the odds my train of thought will derail while checking references.

It’s widely available, at both conventional and online book stores.

Robert F. Abbott offers three free chapters from his book, A Manager’s Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results at http://www.managersguide.com/free-sample.html He also offers free subscriptions to Abbott’s Communication Letter, a free newsletter that helps you enhance your career through improved business communication, at http://www.abbottletter.com

You can turn your inherent stage fright into a feeling of balance and equilibrium that will allow you to speak in public and feel comfortable while doing it. Very few people manage to control their emotions to a high level and it takes them years of practice to do so. You don’t have to approach this issue from a radical point of view. Instead of suppressing your emotions you can try to use them in your advantage, to make them work for you instead of against you.

The most important thing, when you have a public speech, is to let your audience see the real you, not an image you are trying to project. Don’t try to go in front of them with a “fake” personality – they will sense it and react negatively. Don’t try to be more than you are as playing this role will be difficult and you will almost certainly overlook some details. People are a lot more willing to accept someone who is a bit insecure or clumsy rather than accepting a person who is obviously putting on a mask and trying to cover his real personality. Being you is easy – you are doing that every day!

Try to stop and think about your difficulties of speaking to a large audience. Examine them with curiosity, try to see your reactions in context. Don’t judge your reactions – observe them. You may find it hard to play the role of a detached observer, especially when it comes to your own person, but this is one of the best ways of discovering exactly where things start to go wrong.

Warm up your mind before a presentation, but don’t neglect your body. Every muscle of your body should be relaxed, your leg muscles should be up to the challenge of you standing up for a longer period of time. Even the slightest physical inconvenience will affect your communication, so try to step on stage with a perfect mental and physical condition.

Don’t forget to breathe. Rhythmical breaths bring a feeling of order and balance – exactly what you need before and while you hold your speech. Try to breathe deeply for about ten minutes, as this will bring precious oxygen to your brain, allowing it to function at maximum capacity.

Make contact with your audience. Try to see the scene as a place for dialogue, instead of monologue. Try to make eye contact with some audience members and adopt a relaxed posture. Smiling sincerely will always increase the chances of a good presentation. Remember that all those people in front of you are not there to judge you. They are there to receive the information you have so focus on the purpose of your speech rather than the public’s attitude towards you.

Turn your fear into a feeling of acceptance. Your fears come from the fact that you are worried that the audience will pass negative judgment on yourself or your presentation. Ignore this thought end step on stage with the belief that you are there to share information or experience and that you will be met with acceptance and interest. The more engaging the presentation, the better.

Communicate with audience members and try to do this on a one on one level. By talking to a certain individual you personalize your performance, you make it become part of who you are. Keeping eye contact with your audience may be difficult and disturbing, but you should try to do it every now and then. Make a statement and then pause and glance at the public. Remember that non verbal communication claims a vital role in your presentation and the way it is perceived by others.

“Learn How To Command More Respect, Boost Your Self Confidence And Get Easily Whatever You Want!” – Sign up for the “Self Improvement Secrets” newsletter and receive powerful 44 page guide “How To EXPLODE Your Charisma Quotient” (worth $27) for FREE! – Click here now: http://www.self-improvement-secrets.com

Are you an online article range and find yourself running out of things to discuss in your articles or write on? Well take this article for instance, it is a worthy subject right? But not necessarily something I might write about.

If you find yourself with that famous; writer’s block why not write an article about writing and what works for you. Someone sitting down with me for coffee today; well we got to talking about writing so I mentioned I had written a few articles online.

Then unfortunately she asked me how many so I told her; 5900. “Oh my God” they said how do you write so much and what do you write about? I told her, well mostly ideas I have although pretty much anything and well actually I write about everything you see. “Such as?” she again asked?

Well I told her that for instance this conversation of ours I might writer about or perhaps an article on; How to Increase Your Topic Range for online articles. After all it is not easy for a writer to go off into the unknown and write about that which they do not know. But what is often interesting is that most writers know more than they realize. For instance they are generally very good writers.

So I believe if a writer is looking into expanding or increasing their article topic range, well why not write four or five articles on writing to get in some additional practice? Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Writing can be a joy-filled creative process to some and a drudgery-filled chore to others. According to Roger C. Parker, “Writing is more a process of identification and organization than the relatively mechanical process of selecting words and placing them in sentences an paragraphs.”

My goal is to get you to see writing your book quickly is simply a matter of harvesting your information and recognizing that you probably already possess the majority of the information needed to complete your book.

The real test is simply to organize what you know into a database of usable ideas. The beginning steps outlined below will help you identify and organize the information you need (and already have) into chunks of information to write your book. By analyzing your experiences and life observations into building block ideas and using a table to organize them, you will be ready to write sooner.

Follow these simple steps, identify and organize your ideas; then easily write and complete your book. To get started do this:

1. Realize You Know More Than You Think.

You have gained a certain level of success in your field, career or even hobby. You may be an active consultant, business owner, speaker, or writer. In your field you have been constantly learning and observing. On your path to success through failures, successes and opportunities to learn, you have been accumulating the information you need to complete your book.

You have experienced and observed what works and does not work. You have developed over time an understanding of what order things should happen and how it appears out of order when it doesn’t happen in that order. Through the process of continually doing what you do, you have gained a wealth of knowledge and information.

The challenge is that your knowledge is unorganized. Once you create a structure for organizing your ideas, your ability to create your book and/or books will quickly take shape.

2. Divide and conquer – begin to break your knowledge into chunks of information

The beginning point is to begin separate your files, speeches, articles into general topics. For example, I have bodies of information for my inspirational writing and a whole other body or topic for business writing.

And of course there’s another topic for the how-tos of writing in my files. When I first started, I went through and separated these chunks of information into different folders and eventually as my chunks of information grew I had to house them in separate file units.

After creating topical groups, break your knowledge for your book into individual ideas or chunks of information so you can inventory what you already know on the subject.
You’ll notice as you organize and inventory the ideas you already possess; it will uncover some areas that your knowledge is bit weak. Once you identify the weak areas in your knowledge, it becomes easy to locate the information needed to fill in the gap or strengthen the weak area.

3. Create framework for organizing your ideas

For a short book, simply create a list of every idea related to your book’s topic. Once you start your list and create a structure you’ll be surprised at how quickly your book takes shape. Now take your list and number them in order of importance. After your ideas have been prioritized, you can easily spot patterns of what will lead to writing a book on what you are most passionate about.

4. Pursue your most passionate idea

For now, put aside your list of topics. Take a break and relax. Successful books are based on one central idea. The author concentrates on one main theme to drive their book to success. Textbooks can get away with a list of all kinds of facts. But non-fiction books, especially how-to books are based on one main idea.

The central idea provides the focus needed to make your writing compelling. For your book, you need a viewpoint, a position, and a conclusion that you develop fact by fact or step by step as you write your book.

Readers look for an easy read. They look for a book that will help them solve their problem step by step. They need interpretation, perspective and sequence.
The easiest way to come up with a main idea for your book is to follow your passion. To choose a subject that you will be still be passionate about in a year or so, ask yourself these questions:

What ideas am I really passionate about, What ideas do I consistently discuss no matter where I am? What ideas do I really want to share with the world? Where do I see others making the same mistakes I did? How can I help people with my knowledge? What key ideas helped me succeed or caused me to fail? What main idea can make a difference in the lives of others?

The main idea for your book may come to you when you least expect it. So over the next few days begin to mull it over in your mind. Spend some quiet time, if only for a few minutes during the day to think about your deep passion, your mission, the idea that really moves you. This is important because if you pinpoint your passion well, the easier it will be to write a book that expresses what you want to express.

Readers enjoy and appreciate passion. Choose a topic you are excited by and let your enthusiasm and excitement spread faster than the common cold. Your readers will connect to you and be excited by it. They will reward you by reading your book from cover to cover and then tell all their friends about your wonderful, insightful book. Remember, the more passionate you are about your topic the faster you will be able to write, complete and publish your book.

© Earma Brown, 11 year author and business owner
helps small business owners and writers who want to write their best book now! Author of ‘Write Your Best Book Now’, she mentors other writers and business professionals through her monthly ezine ‘iScribe’ Subscribe now at
iscribe@writetowin.org for FREE mini-course ‘Jumpstart Writing Your Best Book’ or visit WritetoWin.org

How many of you have made your mind up about a speaker’s message without concerning yourself about the words, purely by observation and your intuition. And this is going on right now somewhere in the world. A business speaker has a good message but it’s being clouded by the way its presented. The purpose of this article is to remind you, no, convince you of some key steps to take to ensure your body doesn’t cloud the message next time you get up a speak.

The Head

As adults, we still have childish habits and one of them is to focus on the face of someone who is speaking to you. So get those expressions working for you and really exaggerate the meaning. Smile, frown, look angry, shocked, amazed – but please always be congruent with your message.

Eye Contact

Next we have eye contact. This is probably the one skill, when mastered, that does the most to engage the audience and build trust and rapport with the audience. The rule is to hardly ever let go. Imagine you’re playing tennis or squash. You never let your eye off the ball otherwise you’ll miss a shot. Like wise, keep your eye contact on the audience at all times.

Careful with the lighthouse technique as well – this is where speakers sweep the audience in a repetitive swishing motion that does more to put people to sleep than engage.

Instead have a conversation with your audience with your eyes. Randomly contact with each audience member and give them 2 to 3 seconds of eye contact and move onto the next person. Maintain this random movement. Find those in the audience who like just a little more eye contact and be aware of those who want slightly less.
When faced with a large audience – I mean more than 25 or so people, adopt a similar habit but don’t give each person eye contact. That’ll take ages. Instead clump people into small groups and give these clumps the same eye contact as if they were one person. I tell you, that because of the distance between you and a large audience, this gives people the impression that you are looking at them.

Feet

Now let’s go to the other extreme of your body. Your feet and legs. Now what do you do with these limbs. Not a lot really unless you are moving around your stage, that’s movement with a purpose, not aimless wandering that only distracts the audience.

Try to stand with both feet firmly on the ground pretty much the same distance apart as your shoulders. Keep them balanced so your body is not leaning to one side. Don’t look like a cat walk model or if you’re supping a pint at the bar of your local. Stand straight and look professional not a slouch.

Nerves…that’s a word than conjures up fear and dread every time people stand up and speak in public. And sure enough you’ll have nerves. Professionals call it adrenaline and you need that to do a really good job. If you don’t have nerves or adrenaline, you might as well not bother because you can’t be bothered. Sop welcome nerves, call them adrenaline and make them work for you. Nerves will show in the periphery of your body. The ends such as feet, hands, head. Keeping your feet still transfers this energy to the top part of your body where it should go.

Now I didn’t say you should stay rigid to the spot; that would be terrible for 20 minutes. Instead focus your attention on preventing aimless movement, pacing up and down, shifting from side to side. Keep well balanced and professional.

The Body

Next we have the trunk. Not much you can do with the trunk apart from keeping it straight. Not like the sergeant Major on the parade ground but not slouched either. Relaxed and comfortable. The worse sin is to block the invisible mid line that runs from between your 2 feet and your head. Block it and you place a barrier with your audience. Just don’t block it – that’s the rule.

Hands and Arms

How many people I’ve spoken with who don’t know what to do with these very useful limbs. Shame really so they copy people on the TV especially weather girls. They grasp them together. I’ve never understood this although I was guilty myself. It made me feel better and comfortable so much that as soon as I stood up to talk, my two hands came together. And when I got really nervous I used to rub them together too. Someone told me I looked like a market trader making lots of money. That sure went down well with my audiences.

So what do you do with them? Behind your backs but that just reminds me of Prince Charles. In your pockets I hear you say. No, you’re hiding something, keeping back from the audience and besides, you’re missing out on a great weapon. No the answer is to use them to back up your message by gesturing.

We should gesture with audiences. Large dramatic gestures to help the audience understand what you’re saying. Broad gestures that welcome every person into your speech, building rapport. Think of your speech content and let your hands do the talking. Watch deaf people doing their sign language – it really is a very clever way of losing your gesture buttons.

And when not gesturing, or talking, maybe standing still to take questions from your audience, assume the assertive stance. Standing straight with your arms and hands down your sides in a relaxed assertive and confident manner.

Body Movement

Finally, body movement. Movement can be an enormously effective way of engaging the audience into your message. Clean your stage – remove obstacles, tape wires to the floor, so you don’t trip over them, place the screen to the side.

Once you have a clear space do move around with a purpose. I’ve used past, present and future by gradually moving along an imaginary line. The audience can see the time moving along as well as hear. I’ve used one side of the stage being advantages of an idea I’m promoting and the other side, the disadvantages. I’ve placed flipcharts at both sides of the room to mirror these place anchors.

Move forward towards your audience when you want to make a really big point. Move backwards when you want them to reflect on something. Move to your left or right to change the subject or pace of your delivery.
Do move around your stage but with a distinct purpose.

The next time you’re observing and listening to a speaker, try and cut out the sound and focus entirely on the visual aspects. Try and interpret what he or she is saying just by the body language alone. You may not be right in your assumption of the meaning, but its the impression that everyone else is probably getting too. And first impressions last for ages.

Paul is an international speaker, trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specialises in rapport selling and rapport sales management and can ignite his audiences large or small. Rapport selling gets more results.
Get your Ebook Presentation Excellence at http://www.archertraining.co.uk and sign up to our regular EZine of sales and management tips.

Articles - the newest and hottest way to get links to your web site, build your profile and encourage people to your web site – but they only work if they get read, passed around or published. So do you want to encourage people to do this?

Well you’ve decided to write your article, you’ve got your subject now you want to get going…BUT… you want it to be read don’t you, maybe put into an ezine or onto a web set? Yes thought you did. After all why waste all that brain power for nothing?

Well articles should be read, but sadly many are not. Let’s examine 7 things you can do to give your article the best possible chance of life?

1)Write about something that you know about and write it with a different slant. You see so many articles all saying the same thing that you wonder why people bother. If you really know your subject, then try a slightly different aspect to it – use a bit of humor, ask a burning question and answer it. – See our header. This not only makes it easier to write the article but also makes it more interesting to read.

2)Write a catchy headline. When your article is listed on an article directory it is listed by the headline with a short introduction underneath. Your headline should grab the attention of the person browsing for articles. Some people use searches on the sites and others use software to extract groups of articles. (This is the secret of many of the AdSense web sites with hundreds of pages that are being sold.) It therefore stands to reason that your headline should contain some key words as well. Overall your heading should be attention grabbing, concise, answer your readers questions and intriguing. All that in less than ten words? It’s an art.

3)Summarize in your introduction. You’ve got your attention – now you need to entice them to read and hopefully publish your article. Your introduction should also be key word rich – this helps with it being rated high in search engines, but also encourages people to actually click on the link to read it.

4)Make it easy to read. Use short paragraphs with bullet points and sub headings. Keep away from jargon and cultural slang. The internet is international with American English and UK English being the prime languages – but not everyone is strong in these languages. So write to people who learnt English at school. Make the article easy on the eye and easy on the brain and people won’t lose interest.

5)Keep it interesting. Answer the questions you posed in your heading and summary. Give your article a start, middle and conclusion. Keep to the point and don’t meander from one subject to another. Use examples and short stories to explain more complex ideas.

6)Write with authority. Make your reader believe that you know what you are talking about. We do because we have published a considerable number or articles, reports, ebooks and books. We like to think that it comes over with our writing style and content.

7)Don’t make it a sales letter. Articles are to inform and encourage people to click on your link in the resource box. Many article directories won’t publish your articles, people get turned off because they are looking for information and ezines and web sites won’t publish some one else’s adverts – so don’t do it. Learn how to write informative articles – if you make it interesting and informative then people will come to your web site to get more!

Lastly - remember to put your business and web site details in your resource box.

© Copyright 2006 Biz Guru LLC

Lee Lister, writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites including her own sites http://www.BizGuru.us and http://www.clikks.com for all our informational products.

With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses.

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Not too long ago, I walked into a room where some of the country’s top oncologists were preparing to launch a new cancer-fighting drug. The occasion was the group’s rehearsal before a big presentation to the Federal Drug Administration. Given that these men and women are some of the best and brightest in their field, I thought the rehearsal would be a breeze. So, I sat down, pen poised to make a few notes so I could help them fine-tune their presentations and be ready for the onslaught of media that was sure to follow.

What a letdown. Five articulate, highly educated, well-dressed presenters, armed with shiny animated slideshows, droned on and on and on and on. It didn’t matter what they were saying because the audience wouldn’t really hear any of it anyway. Around me, eyes closed, and others pretended to take notes while playing solitaire on their laptops. I wondered how in the world I could help these presenters. I also thought about tripling my consultation fee on the spot.

All presenters believe their words are important, and they are. But if you don’t give an audience a good reason to listen, they will quickly tune you out. In an age where sound bite is king, cutting through the clutter is more important now than ever.

Consider the following 7 points before stepping into the limelight:

The Take-Home

No matter how many years and dollars you’ve spent on research and development, no matter the technical complexity of your subject matter, when speaking to a group your entire presentation must boil down to one key point. If you had to sum up your talk in 10 seconds, what would you want your audience to know?

Ask Yourself the Right Questions

What you think a listener needs to know is not always what that listener wants to know. Put yourself in your listener’s seat and ask the following questions: So what? Who cares? What does this mean to the listener, reader or viewer and me? Until you frame your messages from your audience’s perspective, they won’t care. If they don’t care, you’ll never receive their full attention.

Talk in nuggets

Powerful communicators who can hold attention have something in common with each other. They’ve learned that speaking is for the ear, not for the eye. Instead of preparing a presentation as a research paper jammed with minutiae, condense complicated information into bite-sized nuggets and present only the information needed to move an audience toward the desired outcome.

Present, Don’t Read

Is your presentation written like a term paper? Is it written in sentences? Do you allow room for pauses so the listener can participate? People don’t converse in long-winded sentences. We speak in short phrases. So write in phrases or bullet points. You will then find yourself talking more and reading less. Also, take time to pause between key thoughts so your listeners can digest what you’re saying.

Paint the Picture

Explaining the features of your product may be important, but explanation without example has no meaning. People can’t remember all of the facts, but they do remember impressions. By comparing and contrasting, providing analogies and visual images, your presentation will come to life.

Slideshow or Presentation?

No one comes to a presentation to see a slideshow. They come to hear a knowledgeable person share ideas and talk. Visuals should reinforce what you’re saying, not serve as your script. Instead of preparing the slides first, prepare your remarks then create appropriate supporting visuals. Let your words drive the visuals instead of the other way around.

Nix the Jargon

Just because your audience is packed with colleagues or you’re providing information for an industry trade publication doesn’t mean you should talk jargon. Get rid of the buzzwords and throw away phrases. Rather, look for opportunities to put your words in context by humanizing your material and telling stories or anecdotes.

As I worked with the oncologist presenters and brought many of these points to their attention, they worried that simplifying the information would harm their credibility. Quite the opposite. By making an effort to connect with their audience rather than throw too much information at them, they created a focused, central theme with real-life examples that excited and inspired listeners. And in the end, the cancer drug they believed in made it to market and received a lot of good press!

Act like a sponge, and grasp all the knowledge you can from Karen Friedman, a leading communications coach in today’s business world. From her experiences as an award-winning television news anchor and reporter, she has helped thousands of spokespeople across the globe make the most of every interview, appearance and presentation. She has also authored five communication survival guides, which can be found at http://www.karenfriedman.com along with many popular audio programs. And don’t forget to sign up for a FREE newsletter at http://www.karenfriedman.com/forms/newsletter.htm
to receive a free bonus tip sheet today.

I know you wouldn’t make such a gross error, but it set my teeth on edge as I heard yet again a pundit from a major television network describe a place as “very, very unique.”

What is going on that we Americans feel compelled to modify and glorify every noun or verb, as though the words themselves were not sufficient to express a thought accurately? The English language is, after all, a rich, yeasty, varied language with more than enough words to convey even a complex idea. And as a living language it is in a constant state of growth and change.

Fine. But why must so much of the change be downright wrong? The use of “very (very, very, very!) unique” is a common example of wrongness–so common, in fact, that we rarely even hear the word without a modifier. Perhaps it demonstrates our feelings of being insufficient–of requiring something extra to feel as though we’re expressive English speakers. How distressing.

You see, the word “unique” means that whatever it is that is unique is unlike anything else in the universe. Therefore, it cannot be modified at all-not by any other word in English or any other language–not even French, although “tres unique” may sound quite sophisticated and upper class to some people. (That pesky TV again.)

If the mountain climate, for example, is unique it cannot be very unique, somewhat unique, extremely unique or anything-else unique. As long as there is no other climate in the world exactly like the climate on that mountain it is unique. Period.

It can be rather unusual, somewhat unusual or extremely unusual or anything-else unusual.

If, as a public speaker, you feel the need to emphasize the word unique, you can do it with the pacing of your sentence and with your breath. Simply make a teeny break before the word, and again after the word.

Let the timbre of your voice carry the strength of the word by thinking how special that word is. Sounds loopy, doesn’t it? The mind, however, is your primary guide for carrying your intention to the audience by means of the sound of your voice. Thinking is wunnerful! It works.

Carole McMichaels, Author of Fearless Public Speaking: How To Get Rid of Your Stage Fright and Prepare and Deliver a Winning Presentation.” A lifetime as a performing musician and composer, coupled with over 30 years as a therapist/coach and public speaker has given me a varied and comprehensive background for working effectively with clients on the technical, structural and emotional aspects of public speaking. And besides that, it’s fun.
http://www.getridofpublicspeakingfears.com

I’ve always wanted to write limericks. I think that they are concise and funny and they tell a story that is easily visualized.

Bennett Cerf got me hooked on limericks. He was a famous editor and publisher. Read his biography at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennett_Cerf.

Take the poem Jack and Jill which is not a limerick:

Jack and Jill went up a hill

And Jill came tumbling after.

This poem has visual content. If you can’t see Jack and Jill tumbling down the hill there must be something wrong with your mental visualization. You did see them tumbling, right?

In limerick form Jack and Jill might read like this:

There was a young fellow named Jack

For the shoes she obviously lacked.

I can’t write limericks but you get the idea.

My limericks always start:

There was a lady named Grace

She slipped and dirtied her lace.

I read the following at http://www.thealternativebookshop.com/poet0016.html: “Historically, limericks are notoriously bawdy. Bennett Cerf, then head of the publishing firm, Random House, was asked how they chose the winner of their limerick contest. He said it was simple; they threw out all that were indecent and the winner was the one that was left.”

Go to this link to review books on limericks: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&tag=ceramicbooks&camp=1789&
creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26index=books%26keyword=Bennett%20Cerf%20limericks

On a cold winter night you will find

And poetry’s one of a kind.”

Have fun writing your own limericks. If you learn the secret, send me a copy of your work. We’ll laugh together.

John T. Jones, Ph.D. (tjbooks@hotmail.com, a retired VP of R&D for Lenox China, is author of detective & western novels, nonfiction (business, scientific, engineering, humor), poetry, etc. Former editor of Ceramic Industry Magazine. He calls himself “Taylor Jones, the hack writer.”

More info: http://www.tjbooks.com

Business web site: http://www.dumbincome.com

There are many advantages to working with an experienced booking agent. First and foremost, working with a good agent can save you a lot of time and legwork. Most agents already have a cache of speakers they know and work with on a regular basis. They are familiar with these speakers expertise and how relevant their topics would be to your audience. If your agent has done their homework well they would have already viewed promotional videos and have a good idea of each speakers presentation style on the platform. They can also negotiate on your behalf and simplify the booking process.

Furthermore, a good agent is one who:

- will be available to answer your questions and gives you honest unbiased answers.

- is one who, when asked, can give you good solid advice that helps you in your planning process.

- will always act with your best interests in mind and want to make you look like a hero.

- will be able to offer valuable insight and fresh ideas that contribute to the success of your event.

- is one that always follows through. Responds to messages or emails and is an effective communicator.

- will contact you after your meeting or event to make sure that everything went as planned.

Develop a relationship with an agent you feel comfortable with and make them part of your event planning “team”. You will be glad that you did.

Written by Yvon Douran, President of Keynote Resource, your preferred bureau and partner for keynote speakers, motivational speakers and corporate entertainment at http://www.keynoteresource.com