by Shadia Cook A Quest for Quality
Pierre Bisaillon CEO of ProjectSpeaker, Inc.
A
rmed with his personal experience as a meeting planner and speaker, Pierre Bisail- lon CEO of ProjectSpeaker, Inc. decided to take on the challenge to reduce and eliminate some of the stress planners experienced. He began speaking with planners,
asking questions about what their biggest pain points were and 100% of them said the hardest and most time consuming task was finding a great speaker for their events, not to mention it gave them the most stress.
Meeting planners are always managing dozens of details, from audiovisual equipment to making sure the temperature in the room is perfect, but one of the most difficult that plan- ners cite is the ability to find the perfect speaker. Logistically, finding locations and service partners are also much less stressful than finding a
speaker. For example, once you choose a hotel, you have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get in terms of guestrooms, meeting space, catering, etc. With a speaker, you don’t have that same luxury and even after seeing a video or reading a few testimonials, the stress remains. Horror stories include speakers showing up intoxicated, using inappropriate language or generally being a bust. Meanwhile the planner sinks into the corner under the glare of their CEO. With ProjectSpeaker, Inc. Bisaillon has created a platform to save planners time, resources and some of their stress and worry. Headquartered in Canada, their current user base to date is approximately 75% US-based. It is an online source for planners to find the perfect speaker. They can log on to the website to create their events, shortlists and search the database for speakers. There is also a place for planners to share experiences with one another and communicate back and forth. The idea is to establish speaker reviews that are similar to product reviews available online for products.
Planners can feel confident that they will get value, reduce their
worry and not have to go to the ends of the earth to try to make sure that this is going to add value to their conference since their colleagues have shared experiences. “The speaking industry hasn’t changed in 80 years, speakers come from all walks of life, corporate, life experiences, and while most are great at sharing messages, they are less skilled in marketing them- selves, hence, speaker bureaus were established. There are almost 400
26 MIDWEST IDWEST MEETINGS EETINGS SPRING PRING 2013
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