7 Tips for Hiring a Youth Speaker

As a youth speaker who has been walking the hallways of America's high schools for the past 20 years I can tell you that I have seen a lot of youth speakers come and go. It is a very challenging and rewarding profession. At the end of this post I am going to give you my short list of who I think you should hire to work with your students based upon the region in which they live. But before I do that I want to give you some tips that will support you in finding a speaker for your event.

Here are some things I would consider before hiring someone to speak at your school, to do a leadership retreat, or to be a part of any leadership initiative in your school. Keep in mind I am giving you the inside scoop, and some of the information that I give may not be popular with other speakers but it will assist you in finding the best speaker for your event.

1. Look for referrals from friends about people they have heard at conferences and from other speakers. This is the best way to find a successful speaker. If you have had good luck with a previous speaker ask them for a referral for your next program. Most speakers have a short list of people they have referred and they understand your needs. They want you to use them as a resource so they will refer you someone who will do a great job. Ask around your network for speakers that your co-workers have heard at other conferences. From your research create a list of 3-4 speakers.
2. Google. Facebook. Twitter.  Google the speaker, to find out where they have been and what other people have said about them. Go to their web page and learn about them. Add them as a friend on Facebook look at their posts. (Keep in mind that not all speakers FB and Twitter about every location. I quit doing that a few years ago because I didn't want all people to know when I am home and when I am gone.) But what you can see is what other people have said about their programs after leaving their event.  When you are researching a speaker look for direct unsolicited testimonials from previous clients on facebook. Students who add speakers and then comment on their page are usually unsolicited and gives you some insight as to what kind of a job they did when they spoke at their school. If they didn't like the speaker they wouldn't go through the trouble of adding them as a friend and then posting on their wall.
3. Find a local speaker who is also nationally recognized. Local speakers have a vested interest in your community, and by developing an ongoing relationship with them they will begin to understand the traditions of your school as well as understanding what you are looking for when speaking with your students. Yes, it is true that the majority of my clients are outside of my state but I also appreciate being able to stay home, and will offer a reduced rate because I don't have to get on a plane to speak at an event. (you will also save in travel costs) If you can't find a local speaker who is nationally recognized then find someone who comes to your area often. Since they come there a lot they will also feel a vested interest in your community.
4. Make sure the speaker fits. While a speaker may do a good job in a keynote presentation they may not have the skills to do a full day event. In order to do a full day event the presenter must have a core of material that they present on a consistent basis that they can adapt to fit the needs of your organization.
5. Once you have identified the speaker, contact them and let them know the needs of your event. What is your outcome, what are the specific challenges in your school, and then ask them what are the specific topics and activities that they will do to help your students learn the objectives.
6. Movement, humor and activities. Make sure that your speaker has the ability to incorporate movement, humor and activities into their program. It is easy to have a great message, but it is more challenging to have a message with which students can connect.
7. Experience speaks volumes! If a speaker has been full time in the business for 5 years or more then chances are they can reach students. This business weeds out the bad ones very quickly.

Here is my short list by region these are speakers that I recommend. All of them are nationally known but I have categorized by region so you can develop a relationship with someone who is close to you.

Hawaii:

Delorese Gregoire: http://www.winnerscamp.com/ She is my long term mentor in the speaking business and is recognized in Hawaii for her work with teens. She facilitates a week long leadership program on Oahu called: Winners Camp - The Hawaii Leadership Academy. Delorese has her own leadership training site located on Kamehameha Ridge that over looks Sandys Beach/Hawaii Kai on one side and Makapu'u and Waimanalo on the other side. It is a beautiful facility and is a great site for hosting one-day leadership retreats as well.

Western States:

 Phil Boyte: http://www.philboyte.com/ he is one of the best in the business. Phil has been speaking to students since the early 80's and is my mentor in the business. If you want a home run with your audiences of any type he will deliver! He loves kids, is activity driven and speaks to the hearts of students. He can keynote, do workshops, all school assemblies and is great with students, teachers and adults. Phil travels from Northern California.

Keith Hawkins: http://www.keithhawkins.com/ Keith has been passionate about making a difference for a long time. I have followed him on numerous occasions and his clients rave about the kind of job he does. Keith travels from Northern California.

Jill Esplin: http://www.jillesplin.com/ Jill is a relative newcomer to the business but has proven herself very quickly as a dynamic speaker, who knows her audience and delivers great content.

Norm Hull: http://www.normhull.com/ Norm has been speaking to high school students since the 80's as well. He has a proven track record in working with student leadership programs and delivers a great message.

Brad Barton: http://www.bradbarton.com/ Brad is a corporate speaker, magician who does some youth events. I know that he is a big fan of staying near his home in Utah so if you are near him you should give him a call about working with your students.

Upper Midwest: If you are located in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Iowa and you need a local speaker the two best speakers nationally recognized speakers in your area are:

Craig Hillier: http://www.craighillier.com/ Craig is one of the best workshop and all school assembly presenters I have had the pleasure of meeting. His content is amazing and his humor is always fresh, on target and on purpose. Craig is amazing when it comes to sports related leadership programs. Anything that deals with teams, team captains and creating a quality experience for an athlete Craig is in my opinion the best in the nation. That being said he can hold his own with any speaker in the country when it comes to general leadership.

Patty Hendrickson: http://www.pattyhendrickson.com/ Patty specializes in leadership development for student organizations. She has a proven track record in working with Career and Technical Student Organizations such as FFA, FCCLA, Skills USA, DECA, FBLA and HOSA. She delivers an amazing keynote and her workshops are quality content and relatable to students.

Mid-States: Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska,

This is my area: http://www.billcordes.com/ my specialty is leadership experiences and all school assemblies. I have twenty years of experience and I will make sure I hit the target when it comes to meeting your objectives. Staying local is a priority for me, I am a big fan of return events to school districts getting to know the kids and developing a long-term working relationship so that I can fit your needs. I work with teachers, high school, college students and businesses.

Grant Baldwin: http://www.grantbaldwin.com/ Grant has taken the speaking world by storm because of his humor and great content. Another relative new comer to be business but all you have to do is google him and see that he has certainly paid his dues in the business. He does keynote programs and workshops.

Rhett Laubach: http://www.yournextspeaker.com/ Rhett has been around the youth speaking market for nearly as long as me and is ten years younger than me. He is a great author and student of leadership. His speaking style is off the charts fun and energetic and his content is equally as valuable.

Kelly Barnes http://www.yournextspeaker.com/ Kelly has been speaking professionally for over 5 years and is known for his great stories, great content and humor. He does all school assemblies, leadership programs and workshops.

Brad Montgomery: http://www.bradmontgomery.com/ Brad is mostly a corporate speaker who is a "Funny Motivational Speaker" who uses humor to teach great life lessons and leadership insights. His schedule is very busy but if you are in the Colorado and surrounding areas you should give him a shot, he might work with you and you will get a great local speaker who has a lot of national identity.

Northeast Region:

Ed Gerety: http://www.edgerety.com/ Ed and I started speaking at around the same time and he has a lot of experience in keynotes, student assemblies and does some workshops. He has a great message, with humor and great stories.

Southeast Region:

Harriet Turk: http://www.harrietturk.com/ Harriet is also a seasoned professional in the speaking business. Workshops, keynotes, all school assemblies she is one of the best when it comes to working with youth audiences. Her unique blend of southern humor, stories and living life to your fullest messages are a sure hit with any audience.

Patrick Grady http://www.patricktgrady.com/ Another southerner, with national appeal. Patrick has an in-depth knowledge of youth organizations, is knock down funny and gives solid content that students can relate to and identify with. I have recommended Patrick on numerous occasions and I have always got rave reviews about his programs.

Cost of Doing a Class Development Leadership Retreat.

A class development leadership retreat is an annual event in which you work to create class identity and develop leadership traditions within your school. I believe it to be a valuable part of the high school experience. Because students who have no ownership to their class will not have any allegiance to their school. One reason an administrator may not do it is because they feel it is too costly during these times of financial uncertainty. So what does it cost to put on a retreat? I have done leadership retreats for classes as large as 400 and as few as 20. Lets base our numbers on a retreat for 80 students for a time frame of 5 hours going from 9am to 2pm. If you pay full price for everything you are looking at around $3500. If you get some donations from local businesses, have the students pay for their meals, snacks and drinks, promote an annual fundraiser to defer the cost, you can easily break even on this event. Here are some suggestions:

1. Send home a permission slip and envelop with your freshman or sophomores telling them your students are attending the annual "class development retreat". Tell them the outcomes of the retreat. "We are doing this to develop leadership, set class goals, and to support your students in having a quality high school experience by ending bullying behaviors and developing class traditions. The suggested donation for this event is $10 to cover snacks, drinks and lunch. If you don't donate your child will still be able to attend." They send back the permission slip in the envelop and most parents will send the $10.


2. Ask local businesses to sponsor the event. You might even be able to get a pizza place to donate the pizzas for the day. If you get can get 4-$250 donations you cut the cost dramatically. If you have a vendor like Coke or Pepsi that has machines in your school ask them to sponsor the drinks for the day, or ask for monetary donation from them. See if you can get some of the clubs or organizations in your school to set aside some dollars to fund the event. Often times organizations like FFA, FCCLA, HOSA, DECA or Skills USA would be happy to kick in a few hundred dollars to help sponsor leadership development training.


3. Work with a local presenter or speaker. In my next blog post I will talk about working with a local presenter, and who you should hire to maximize this initiative. Just make sure they are a quality presenter because not hiring a professional who does not have the skills to engage an audience will defeat your initiative.


4. Make it an annual event and at the end of day 1-year 1 ask the speaker to ask the class. "Was today a valuable experience for you?" If the speaker did a great job most will say, "Yes". Have them ask, "Do you think next years class should have this experience as well?" "Would you like to sponsor next years training for next years class? This could be a gift that you could give to them, and each class can continue to pay it forward for the next class." Their first initiative would be a fundraiser they could do for paying for the training for next years class. Let them decide what to do, and remember regardless of what they raise it will help defer the cost of the training for next year. By the way, leadership initiatives like this support students in using the skills they learned at the training and it becomes a reminder of what they learned at the event.

When you do the four above things it will help you defer the cost of the event, but back to my original question. "What is the cost of doing a class development leadership retreat?" The real cost of doing a leadership retreat comes when we fail to do anything to develop the leaders in our school. By choosing to do nothing to develop leaders you are likely to leave leadership up to chance. Some years you will have leadership and some years you will have a void. If you don't develop leaders early you will pay the price in discipline referrals, vandalism, drama, dealing with student drop-out (if you keep one student in school you have paid for the price of the retreat), and much more. The real key is to make sure you have a system in place for developing leadership in your school. By developing student leaders when they first enter your school you develop a tradition. By doing it every year as a class development project you will get the opportunity to relay the traditions and expectations of how people will treat each other in your school so they can maximize their high school experience. All this being said, I can tell you that having a quality person who leads this retreat is paramount in your success! I will cover that in my next blog post!

Leadership Must Be Intentional

That's my son on his cousins horse out in the Panhandle of Oklahoma. He talks about that horse, he wants me to get him a horse, he dreams about owning a horse and he hopes that I will get him a horse. Call me a dream stealer, but the likely-hood of me getting him a horse anytime soon is just about zero. It is just not practical for us and where we live for my son to have a horse. However, if hoping, dreaming, talking, wishing were enough we would all have all the stuff we want in the world. You and I know that it doesn't work that way. That being said, why do we hope, wish and talk about developing leaders in our schools without doing anything about it. Telling students..."you need to be a leader" will not make them a leader, yet I think that becomes the extent of the leadership training we give students in our schools, organizations and sports programs around the country. I am guilty! With my 6th grade sons basketball team I have been guilty of pulling him a side in key situations and telling him. "Everyone is going to respond to you the way you are responding...you need to step up and be a leader!" Think about it how many times have we expected, hoped, talked about and wished the leadership fairy would just show up and our schools would have leaders! Leadership development is a process, it is intentional and as we develop we need to continue to develop our leaders. It can be challenging! I think the moment school starts we expect the upper classmen to just show up as leaders to always do the right thing, to make good decisions, but we need to keep in mind that we need to have a process for developing young leaders because leaders need to be trained! HOW DO WE DO IT?

1. Take a look at what you did last year to develop school leadership. What did you do that intentionally developed leadership in your school? Ask yourself how effective was what I did?


2. Look at the number of leadership programs that are available to our athletes, organizational leaders, and community development programs. Ask yourself...Am I utilizing all of these initiatives.


3. Talk to other teachers, coaches, advisors and administrators about specific steps they have taken to develop leadership within their students and then ask them how effective was it and can we duplicate this in our school in other areas.


4. Host a leadership retreat that has specific objectives about what we want to accomplish. It is always a good idea to hire a professional leadership trainer that makes sure the message is engaging and informing.


5. What are the key character messages your leaders should be living? Then ask your students to discover strategies for teaching these lessons to younger students. It is amazing how much easier it is to make these messages a part of ourselves when we are teaching the lessons.


6. Break it down. Develop leaders by class. For instance, have a strategy for teaching different elements of leadership to different classes. Freshman have different needs than Seniors. Start looking at what types of leadership behaviors it would be good for the Freshman to get and the Seniors to model.


7. Have a strategy for rewarding leadership in your school. Reward respect, positive behaviors, sportsmanship, assisting others, volunteerism etc..


8. Record what works and then delegate those initiatives to others so you can continue to work on new leadership initiatives.

Remember, leadership is not a right of passage we don't just suddenly learn to lead. Leadership happens because we are intentional about teaching leadership in our communities.