A sobering experience... an article about a meeting gone wrong...
by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

I am a professional speaker. I am adamant about what it takes for me to be successful. I do not accept speaking engagements that I cannot guarantee I can do well. And I do not bomb. Obviously, there are times in my career that I do better than others, but I. . .DO. . .NOT. . .BOMB!

With that preamble, let me tell you about a disastrous learning experience. It was 1988. I was hired to speak for a vegetable company. It turned out to be a rotten experience. The company was a subsidiary of a major packaging company, for whom I had successfully spoken. The vegetable company wanted to put on a good after-dinner show because the "Big Pineapples" from headquarters were going to be there.

You know how it is when the boss is coming to dinner and you try too hard to make a good impression? You prepare a ten-course meal with four desserts. And after-dinner mint...juleps. And the boss falls asleep...under the table...face down.

Well, the vegetable company tried too hard, planned too many activities. On the program, I was the equivalent of the fifth dessert, when what they really needed was Speedy Alka Seltzer! By the time it was my turn to speak I felt like a half-baked Alaska.

I had met the meeting planner and sales manager from the vegetable company a week before the event. Although I am funny, I do not consider myself an after-dinner humorist. I asked them, "Are you sure there's not going to be heavy drinking? Maybe what you want is an entertaining program rather than a motivational talk." No, they assured me that these were hard-working, sober people who would be up at 5:30 the next morning making phone calls. She promised me I would be on at 8 p.m. and off at 8:45, get on the bus and be back at the hotel at 9:30 p.m. Fair enough.

On the day of the event I drove to Monterey. I was waiting in line for the bus for the 45-minute ride to the event site... a WINERY! That's when it first occurred to me that there might be a problem. After all, wineries do not make money catering gourmet dinners. Their cash flows when the WINE flows.

When we arrived at the winery, the group went on a tour while I checked out the place I would be speaking. That was the next hint of trouble. Wineries are not built for acoustics. The walls are big wine barrels. Voices echo off them, carom off the ceiling, and flutter to the floor...DEAD. And to top it off, they had brought in a sound system by Mattel.

People came back from the winery tour and proceeded to have a wine tasting, a cocktail party, and wonderful hors d'oeuvres. Then they sat down for aperitifs, dinner, champagne...and drinks.

As I wandered around mingling, which is my style before a talk, I noticed that the vegetable men were transforming before my eyes into stewed tomatoes. And their wives into wilted lettuce. I've seen fresher looking things growing in my refrigerator.

At 10 minutes of 10 p.m., I sat down at a table with the president of the company and the meeting planner who had hired me. The "head lettuce" said (a bit slurred), "Patricia, I don't think we need a speaker." I said, "Sir, I absolutely agree with you. Why don't you have me stay over and tomorrow afternoon I'll give a speech at the beginning of your sales meeting?" He thought that was the most wonderful idea he'd ever heard. I, of course, said, "I am the hired help, and have to do as I am told," and I looked at the meeting planner. She said, "No, our schedule is busy tomorrow. They'll be okay. Go on tonight." (This is where an extension cord might have really come in handy!)

I went to the sales manager, who had been in on the planning meeting the week before. I said, "Look, your president does not think this is an appropriate time." It was obvious by then that the vegetable crowd was pickled, potted, three beets to the wind, and in serious danger of tossing their...salads. He said. "No, they'll be fine." I said, "Look, I'm going to have to cut out all this content you carefully wanted me to put in. I am going to have to just be funny and cut it really short." "Okay," he said, "do the best you can."

I did the best I could under the circumstances. In other words . . . I lived. I was done in 15 minutes. Some of the crowd missed me completely. Others saw two of me. It evened out.

To top it off, I had to travel back to Monterey on the bus for 45 minutes with these same drunks passing around a jug of wine and singing "99 bottles of beer on the wall." I was convinced I was on the "bus to hell."

I got back to the hotel. I went to my room. I poured ten quarters in the Magic Fingers...but I could not be soothed. I went to sleep and had a nightmare that I was married to the Jolly Green Giant.

I woke up in the morning with a hangover, and I hadn't had anything to drink! I was hung over from anger. Anger at the company for misrepresenting the facts and putting me through that experience, and anger at myself for not realizing earlier that there would be problems in the set-up besides the normal late night problems.

My friend Jim Tunney lives in Carmel, and he met me, as planned, downstairs for breakfast. He is a well-known motivational speaker and a referee in the National Football League. As I described my awful experience to him, I noticed some of the folks from the night before breakfasting. I had no impulse to mingle.

Jim put my experience into perspective. He told me that as a head referee he had often been booed by 90,000 people. I said, "Yes, but you only get booed because the call goes against the home team, not because you mess up." He said, "Yes, but occasionally I do mess up in front of 90,000 people." I said, "Yes, but how can anybody be sure? Football plays are so bang-bang." He said, "Slow-motion instant replay on the 50-foot video screen on the stadium scoreboard." I said, "Oh, I feel better already."

He said, "Besides, Patricia, you and I both speak grandly and eloquently about how there is no such thing as a failure: that we can take any experience, no matter how dismal, and learn from it, be strengthened by it, use it to our advantage. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if some day you tell that awful story and make it funny." I said, "Ha! That'll be the day."

Well, today's the day! And the story rightfully ends with a special to Jim Tunney, wherever you are: "Touchdown!"

(1,272 Words)

Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE is a San Francisco-based executive speech coach, sales trainer, and award-winning professional keynote speaker. She is the author of Get What You Want!, Make It, SoYou Don't Have to Fake It!, and Past-President of the National Speakers Association. She can be reached at: PFripp@Fripp.com, 1-800 634-3035, http://www.fripp.com