Thursday, June 23, 2011

50 Great Reasons to Book Patrick Dixon as Keynote Speaker

50 Great Reasons to invite Patrick Dixon as keynote speaker to your corporate event

The biggest single reason that corporations book Patrick Dixon as a keynote speaker is to ensure an important event gets off to a really great start, with world-class content and delivery, which people remember for a long time.

Organising a corporate event can be an exciting but stressful process. Careers are often made or broken in the process.  And every year, people expect your event to be even better than last time.
Events are a great opportunity to share vision, shape strategy, drive growth, deliver change, transform thinking and motivate teams.

The stakes are very high to get it right

The greatest cost is usually the time of those who attend.

The greatest risk is a programme that fails to fire up participants.  Too many internal speakers or external speakers who are average performers.

Listening to a really great speaker is like watching a solo performance by a virtuoso musician, or by one of the world’s most talented stage actors.  You can hear a pin drop, with total intense attention.  Time stands still.  You will talk about this moment for years to come.  You need to be right there, to breathe the same air – the audience experience cannot be captured fully on camera.

And if the content is powerful, your future will be changed.

All great speakers touch mind and emotion.  Very few people know how to involve a large audience in a personal way.  Working an audience is an art rather than a science. Great ideas, insights or data slides are not enough.  It’s all about how the story is told.  Pure magic at best – embarrassing nightmare at worst.

50 reasons that event organisers invite Patrick Dixon

  • Great experience last time – or recommended strongly by friend who heard him speak, has read his books or seen web videos - 4 million views, 13 million visitors + 41,000 on Twitter.
  • High-impact, high energy, relevant keynotes with practical insights
  • One of world’s best and most experienced communicators – professional
  • Superb at firing up very large audiences - 4,000 or more - so each person feels involved
  • Entertaining, provocative, memorable, inspiring
  • Visually engaging and unusual presentations - in addition to great content
  • Highly interactive – audience feels totally involved from the start
  • Fast moving - in flow of ideas, and across stage / into the auditorium
  • Fresh insights on future, strategy, leadership, growth opportunities
  • Passionate about making a difference - "life is too short to waste on meetings that don't matter"
  • Broad horizon from experience of many corporations, industries, nations
  • Outside perspective reduces risk of institutional blindness
  • Warm, personal style which engages, energises and motivates
  • As a physician by first training, he brings a human touch - audiences feel he cares
  • Superb stagecraft – more a theatre performance, than a formal lecture
  • Delighted audiences - high ratings in feedback – time after time
  • Totally committed to success of your entire event, not just his session
  • Customised keynote presentations – as you want, content shaped by you
  • Takes time to research your organisation, industry and audience
  • Element of consultancy in events for your own people
  • Delighted to join conference calls with CEO / organisers / other speakers
  • Keynote will fit precisely into your event theme / programme
  • Sets up your entire event, as a perfect keynote opener, bridge to what follows
  • Outstanding at drawing whole event to a close, inspirational, taking audience into their future
  • Takes time to really understand what you are trying to achieve
  • Flexible – adapts easily to unforeseen programme changes. eg Fills in when another speaker fails to turn up. Adjusts session length at very short notice
  • Adapts material rapidly to respond to previous sessions / speakers
  • You know what kind of keynote you are getting – 100s of videos online
  • Delegates benefit before and after event from huge web resources
  • Personal e-contact is encouraged - using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, e-mail, SMS
  • Huge range of multinational clients and types of events spoken at
  • Relates well to mixed audiences, multi-language, multi-culture
  • Superb facilitator of entire days with boards / senior teams
  • Aims to help you take good care of VIPs at client events
  • Works hard – before, during and after the keynote
  • Delighted to attend dinners the night before
  • Usually stays until delegates have had opportunity to meet him if they wish
  • Always willing to talk to journalists / media to help promote event
  • Always happy for you to make a video – if he also gets a copy
  • Always happy to sign books for participants
  • World-class moderator, chair, panel leader
  • Superb host of other speakers / panellists if chairing
  • Full use of your technical capacity eg big stage, multi-screen, mega-screen
  • Able to work in 3D if you have the technology
  • Easy and fun to work with – you feel you found a friend
  • Delighted for you to talk to other clients about their experience
  • Low maintenance – usually books own flights, ground transport
  • Money back guarantee if keynote fails to deliver – never happened yet
  • Once booked, you can concentrate on other things with confidence
  • Will help you sleep at night – organising events is stressful, make it less so