Our world is filled with persons who designate themselves as ‘professional’ speakers. Anyone can get business cards and a website made these days, and that’s not a bad thing necessarily. I am a big believer in having healthy ambition and using our minds and intelligence to create success by adding value to the lives of others. I also believe that everyone has the right and the opportunity to learn, and to grow. I believe those things strongly. I don’t encourage people who have dreams to give up. I encourage people who have dreams to keep pressing and keep developing. Heck, that’s my own story.

With all of that said, It is vital that those who plan corporate events and meetings are able to sift through the noise and the chatter of speakers. Meeting and event planners are constantly being bombarded with promotional material coming from ‘professional’ speakers.  Though we live in a world, where ‘definitions,’ are constantly in flux, I would like to assert that being deemed ‘professional,’ is as much up to the customer of anyone claiming to be ‘professional,’ to define, as it is for a set of objective qualifiers to define. If that’s fair enough, then I invite you to continue reading. Speakers bureaus and agencies are an incredible resource for meeting and event planners to utilize, primarily because there is no charge to get our expertise in professional speakers and consultants. Our fee comes directly from the speaker’s fee that a meeting or event planner ends up booking. We also aren’t beholden to any specific speaker. We provide a vetted list of speaker resource options for the meeting or event planner until they are completely satisfied and able to select one. The speaker resource options that we provide to a meeting or event planner are totally dependent upon the specific and detailed needs of the event. So many factors go into speaker selection, and there are so many moving parts to be concerned about when it comes to the planning of a meeting or event.

I’d like to make my meeting and event planner friends, aware of two very specific professional speaking designations that some speakers are able to obtain due only to their platform skills, proven professionalism, and expertise within the context and industry of ‘professional speaking.’ These two designations were created by:

The National Speakers Association (NSA), which is the professional association that we encourage anyone interested in becoming a professional speaker to join. Is it necessary in every case to become a member? No; we can never limit or place in a box some people’s learning capability because some people are able to self-teach. A speaker that is a fantastic example of this is Les Brown.

There are always exceptions to the rule, however many fantastic and skilled professional speakers come out of NSA. To learn more about the National Speakers Association, you can visit their website here: https://www.nsaspeaker.org. Although there are certainly always exceptions to the rule, joining NSA provides speakers with a wealth of knowledge and education. NSA has also identified and defined some standards that are encapsulated by two different awards:

Designation 1: The ‘CSP’ (Certified Speaking Professional)

Designation 2: The ‘CPAE’ Hall of Fame award. (Council of Peers Award for Excellence.)

Many of the speakers that we have elected to invite to be represented by our agency, have one or even BOTH of these prestigious designations.

To inquire about booking a professional speaker who has also obtained their ‘CSP,’ or their ‘CPAE,’ and what exactly those designations mean, feel free to call me at (410) 299-9948 or you may email me at: candacec@theintelligentsia.co