Professional Speakers Summit – Simply legit!

Delightful experience is what makes a difference to the audience. Professional Speakers Summit 2020 or PSS2020 offered not just experience sharing of global Professional Speakers but also provided lot of learning on how we can upskill our professional speaking abilities to a global audience. I am sharing my takeaways not just as a founding Board Director of the Professional Speakers Association of India (PSAI) but as a participant who found a lot of value in the two day event held on Feb 1st & 2nd at Hotel Radisson Blu in Delhi. 

While there are many who offer to speak free of charge, Professional Speaking is a fast growing business in India. If I were to state the one key learning, was to reflect on “How can Professional Speakers add value to the client?” 

The global speakers spoke on a wide variety of topics in the area of Professional Speaking. I am listing the top 3 takeaways from some of the speakers. 

➢ Tim Wade from Singapore, who has inbuilt humour, spoke on how we can grow our speaking business by focussing on potential growth areas. Takeaways:- 

• Demonstrating thought leadership in your area of expertise 
• Finding your Ikigai 
• Gamifying your business 

➢ Philippe Boulanger from France enlightened us on business development. The takeaways from his session:- 

• Identify your uniqueness 
• Leverage your contacts 
• Experiment fast and learn from failures. 

➢ Cathy Johnson an American living in Singapore spoke about “Speaking in the new world”. What we walked away with at the end of her session were:- 

• Prepare a human speech 
• Speak slowly 
• Practice and get feedback for improvement 

➢ Gautam Ganglani who runs Right Selection which hires speakers advised on the following to be an international keynote speaker:- 

• To have a speaker video show reel 
• Build relationships 
• To position yourself as a key resource of influence in your niche. 

➢ Pravin Shekar, the outlier marketer from India, shared his thoughts on how to book more speaking gigs. Points for action:- 

• Learn to say NO more often 
• You create your own micro market 
• Form your wolf pack and create your own stage 

➢ Fredrik Haren who is a veteran in this industry and having spoken in many countries is of Swedish origin, living in Singapore. Takeaways:- 

• Be the message where people would want to follow you 
• Create a brand for yourself (like Michael Jackson or Gandhiji in your domain) 
• Be on top of the mind of the event organisers 

➢ Sonja Piontek from Germany spoke on the importance of branding for Professional Speakers. The key learnings being:- 

• Deliver great customer service 
• Stand out in the crowd 
• Focus on your strengths 

➢ Moustafa Hamwi’s topic was “Dominate your market niche”. A Syrian living in Dubai started with his life changing experience of vipasana meditation, tricked us and shared the following learnings:- 

• Aspire to inspire before you expire 
• Quality of work * Credible exposure = Recognition 
• Branding changes everything 

➢ Avi Arya an Indian living in Canada shared on the micro video mastery. He shared his life experiences which eventually led him to where he is now. What we learnt from his session:- 

• Introduce yourself with your story 
• The importance of having a hero introduction 
• Building your business around your passion 

There were 2 panel discussions too. Amith Prabhu moderated how speaker bureaus and event organisers select speakers. What emerged was:- 

• Content and style of the speaker along with the ability to connect with audience 
• Measuring the speaker quality index (years of experience as a speaker, quality of videos, talk content etc.) 
• Relevance of the talk to the objective of the conference and relating the talk for the audience. 

The other panel discussion was on the importance of Professional Speakers Associations, moderated by Kiruba Shankar. The points that came about were:- 

• How speaker associations help you in becoming a better speaker 
• Networking and learning from fellow speakers 
• Developing your community 

If you are a speaker or an aspiring speaker join your nearest PSAI’s chapter today, to benefit from the world of speaking. 

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Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh

Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh is a Business Coach for high performance & high profits. She works with leaders, teams & entrepreneurs to enable, empower & elevate businesses. She’s a Chartered Accountant with 25 years of experience, including senior leadership positions with multinationals. Sangeeta is a Professional Speaker & a Credentialed Coach from International Coach Federation (PCC), Author of bestseller “What The Finance”, “The Power of High Performance Coaching”, “A Glance at the Unknown” & “Get High”.