Sam McCool

The Entertainers comments:

Sam McCool is not only a pleasure to spend time with he is intelligent, creative and very funny. Our recommendation is that Sam would be great to work with, especially if there were any tailoring requests from a client. The camera and the audience have an instant attraction to Sam, he is tall and his sharp and distinct features are definitely an attractive feature of this enigmatic Comedian.

Sam is also an accomplished MC who works to instructions well, with either a more conservative approach where he forgoes the jokes or incorporates humour and gags into the proceedings...it is up to you.  

http://theentertainers.com.au/sam-mccool/

Based:  Sydney NSW

Tags: Corporate comedian, MC, comic hoax, impersonator, humorist, keynote speaker, product launches, awards nights, seminars, accents

Fee Range: $3000 to $5,000

Sam McCool – Comedian and Professional MC, is indeed a very funny man that The Entertainers are always happy to work with.

Ever wondered what you’d get if you crossed Italians with Indians; Scots with Samoans; or Jamaicans with New York Jews? 

Sam McCool is a unique commodity in the Australian comedy scene.

A global comic, having traveled to 50 countries, speaking several languages, and performing characters from Invercargill to Inverness.

He brings the best of these experiences to life each time he’s takes the stage.

He’s a conceptual comic with a cross-cultural edge, with accents and voices that leave audiences both amused and amazed!

  No heckle too great, no audience too audacious, and no stone left unturned to squeeze the comic marrow from each morsel of material at his disposal.

Fresh, harmless and hilarious comedy is his forte, as you take a cross-cultural comic adventure without leaving your comfort zone.

Over 10 years of stand up comedy, improvisation, writing, and MC/event hosting show through any time you savour a sample of McCool Comedy.

Having cameoed recently on Channel 10′s Can of Worms, guest written for ABC’s Glasshouse, performed at the Edinburgh and Melbourne International Comedy Festivals, starred as an Italian youth in Australian feature filmDags, played ‘Crocodile Man’ on an Indonesian Soap Opera, an Indian IT guru for Bovis Lend Lease and a lisping Aussie marine biologist, Dr Skippy Scuba, for Disneyland Paris, it’s safe to say there are few more versatile comics around than Sam McCool… watch, learn and laugh along!

Rodney Marks - Hoax Act

Rodney Marks - Hoax Act

The Entertainers comments:

Rodney Marks is a warm and intelligent gentleman who is the absolute professional in the work he does as a Comedian for corporates clients Internationally. Perhaps the first thing I noticed was the natural charm and wit which oozes from Rodney's being, he is great to be around and it is no wonder he has a career which spans over 2500 performances around the world. Detail is one of hallmarks and advantages that Rodney brings to the table when he works with a client on an event, he searches for every piece of information that he can get his hands on to manufacture the perfect presentation.

Rodney is the real deal, when you do book him the pleasure will be all yours! 

Based:  Sydney NSW

Tags: Corporate comedian, comic hoax, impersonator, humorist, political satirist, comedian, keynote speaker, product launches, awards nights, seminars 

Fee Range: $5000 to $10,000

Rodney Marks is Australia’s (mis)leading corporate comedian. His corporate comedy satirises management language, and is usually in the form of fraudulent keynote speeches at business events:

• seminars
• meetings
• conferences
• awards nights
• cocktail parties
• product launches
• other special events, and
• roasts – for the retiring Managing Director, for example.

Rodney is an impersonator, a humorist and a political satirist. He combines these styles as a corporate entertainer within the genre of the comic hoax.

In 2007, Rodney was honoured by the University of NSW with the title visiting professor-at-large. He has since been performing his own style of comedy for students on a part-time basis. Also, in March of this same year Rodney became the president of the National Speakers Association of Australia which he still holds today.

As a corporate impostor, Rodney Marks has performed his Hoaxes and Jokeses® for many business, government and non-profit groups over the past two decades. He is based in Sydney and is happy to travel – even to Melbourne – to fool people into having a good time. Rodney has presented his tailored corporate entertainment all over Australia, and has had more than 30 international tours.

Anthony Bonnici - Move Mountains

The Entertainers Real Time Interview Series

The Entertainers comments:
Anthony Bonnici is a very alert, clear and detailed individual. His attitude and friendly disposition give him a distinct advantage in his line of work as Sales expert. His reputation as some one who gets results is quite apparent when you experience his dynamic and energetic personality in the interview below. He comes with a high recommendation.

Based:  Melbourne Victoria 

Tags: Sales | Creative Thinking | Motivation | Personal Development | Business

Fee Range: $5000 to $10,000

BIO
Anthony Bonnici started Move Mountains in January 2005. Anthony has 13 years experience in pharmaceutical sales and marketing and is an accomplished presenter, facilitator & NLP Master Practitioner. Having taken the stage in various capacities for over 25 years, Anthony brings a wealth of dynamic presentation & performance experience to every Move Mountains program.

Move Mountains has worked with over 18,000 people in 5 continents in 8 years of operation, and continues to wow audiences across the globe. Here is a snapshot of the companies Move Mountains has worked with recently

Jason Jelicich – Motivational Keynote Speaker

Jason Jelicich Motivational keynote speaker, Jason is the CEO and founder and of an organisation devoted to creating more connected people and healthier working cultures. For the past 20 years, Jason has been teaching, training and guiding others from all walks of life. He has developed literally hundreds of educational programs for employees and their leadership teams, as well as working with troubled teenagers on the side. But on a business trip to Miami, Jason’s life was turned upside down when he received the news that his son had been diagnosed with cancer. His perspective on life and work shifted irrevocably, and as a result, a new paradigm for dealing with the world emerged. He now shares his inspiring message on how to stay in the ‘Present’ during challenging times – without having to meditate on a mountaintop somewhere! His book, is The Present – A Handbook for the Everyday Guru.

THE PRESENT KEYNOTE

Stress related presenteeism and absenteeism are costing the Australian economy $14.81 billion a year!. Many organisational Psychologists and GP’s are now turning towards the new science – but ancient practice – of Mindfulness to find answers. Being connected to the Present moment is the key to Mindfulness. Individuals who are connected to the present tend to be more action-orientated, display clearer thinking, better able to problem-solve and consequently are more effective. Teams who are connected to the present tend to work more collaboratively, are more motivated and productive, and are likely to achieve better results. In The Present Keynote your participants are involved in a participatory theatre-like experience offering practical strategies and insights as to how they may continuously better manage their cerebral energy, and thereby help them to keep a clear and agile mind, which inevitability leads to better business decisions.

TAKE-OUTS INCLUDE:

Ways to gain more mental clarity in 5 minutes or less Enhance your ‘gut-feel’ leading to better decisions Become more action-orientated and take control of your immediate domain Read people and situations with more accuracy and empathy How to step out of comfort zones and take on new challenges.

Jason is interviewed about what he offers the corporate market

Email interest in Jason Jelicich as a Speaker for your next event

Peter Baines - Real Time with The Entertainers

The Entertainers with Peter Baines interviewed by Terry Burgan  

Welcome to Real Time, today I am speaking with Peter Baines.

Peter can we start by asking you give us a  brief description of who you are and what you do?

Sure Terry, I spent 22 years with New South Wales Police and in that time I was in the forensic services group, I did a science degree and a law degree.

I was deployed into Bali after the 2002 bombings and Thailand after the tsunami, my roll there was the identification of the people who died. I was leading Australian and International teams in both responses and from that I started sharing stories of what we had done, the challenges we had face and why the Australians ended up as Leaders  when there was 36 other countries present. 

Then I worked for Interpol in Lyon in France, on a counterterrorism project for 12 months following that i was seconded on to work with the United Nations in the Office of Drug and Crime around capacity building and leadership. Then I worked in Saudi Arabia after some floods, the government asked me to go over and have a look at their response and then recently worked in Japan after the earthquake and the tsunami there. That is the kind of professional work I was doing around the crisis and disaster response and leading the large teams in to those events.

What services do you offer in terms of keynotes and workshops and maybe go little bit into some of the other services that you are offering in Asia.

Yes sure, so the stories I started sharing were around leadership and one of my Keynote's is "Leadership Matters" in that I focus on leadership which is basically true leadership is defined by their actions and reactions so what people do to put them into leadership positions as opposed to just an organisational chart that says people leaders. This is very clear from what I saw occurring in these disaster areas both in Thailand and Bali and in Japan. 

A real key to that was the presence of leaders, being seen and being present with your team, it conveys a number of things, that you care and that you understand. With those experiences that I had overseas I am now able to share those stories with different organisations who are looking at Leadership. It doesn't have to be that the Leadership Matters" keynote is for an organisation which is struggling, the key messages are universal and apply to all organisation no matter where they are at.

It's about having a real clarity purpose around why you do what you do as an organisation and as an individual and it makes a decision making so much easier if you are clear around that. 

You alluded obviously to the work I do now, a lot of my time is spent that running an organisation called Hands Across The Water which is a charity that I set up after the Boxing Day tsunami. I met some kids who are living in a tent and had all lost their parents,  I couldn't change what had happened but I thought I could change what happened next for them.

So I set up the the charity with the aim of building a home fast forward on since that time and we have raised AU$7 million dollars, we have never spend sent a cent of the donors money on administrational fundraising and we are now running seven projects across Thailand. We run a  HIV orphanage, we are now working in the Hill Tribes of North Thailand theres a lot of work thats been going on around there.

When I looked at why we were successful there, what became clear to me was the value of experience and Terry that's the second and latest Keynote that I have developed which is around  "Experiences Matter"  I looked at why Hands Across The Water has grown and that what made us successful and very clearly for us it's about providing experiences, if we provide experiences we get engagement, if we get engagement then we get commitment and then it's about results. 

For leaders theres a responsibility to build a legacy and the legacy might be in that the team that you formed a project you run or something on a grander scale to look at that on the legacy might be in T form the project you Rhinall or something on a grand scale. So I looked at that and again package that up into into a new keynote which are touches very nicely and has a real flow on from the initial keynote around Leadership Matters.

You have a range of services that you offer could you run us through them?

Again we looked at why were successful, what the lessons were.  There's a couple of different options and because I run the facilities over there we just custom the trips to whatever the clients needs are. I run a program called "Journey of Change"  where we take small groups away and spend  3 or 4 days with them in a real leaderships space and we visit different projects and spend time with the kids and seeing why we have bee successful.

Something else we have just done recently, I have just returned from Bangkok where I took 103 delegates into the slums of Thailand I gave a keynote in the morning and then we spent a day painting the kindergarten inside and out. Terry I have spoken at a lot of conferences, I have never had an experience as rich as that. One  of the delegates summed it up when he said there are 50 odd business owners here and not one of them has checked their phone once!

The talk about legacies is that you plant a tree and walk ing away knowing that you will never sit. They did this work completely selflessly  knowing that they will never go back there but the richness of the experience I have never had such genuine acknowledgement of the experience that lasted for as long as it had. 

So those are the offshore experiences, I also run half and full day programs I run a unique program called operation Delta and what we do is I do a keynote in the morning at the start of the session Then I break the group up in to teams, then I run a simulated disaster exercise so that basically they are tested on all the leadership lessons around decision-making, communication, team building and leadership, that I have discussed in the hour previous they get to roll it out and it's a simulated exercise they run of  iPads, news broadcasts come into to interrupt their thinking. it is a pretty cool experience to see how people respond. At the end we have a de-brief, look at the way it rolled out and revisit the leadership lessons again

Thanks for taking the taking the Time to talk with The Entertainers and being part of Real Time Peter Baines.

Thank you Terry

Billy Tucker Interview | Cudo

The Entertainers interviewed CUDO Founder Billy Tucker recently.

I asked Billy to give us a brief snapshot of who he is.

The Owner of data consultancy 57 Signals, Co-Founder of Beyond Cover and Founder of MD Yabbit.

Prior to founding Cudo, Billy worked for Microsoft where he helped launch the Xbox business in London, before leading the Bing Search business across Asia.

Billy operates on the cutting edge of marketing, with a vast knowledge of personalising and optimising the digital experience that clients have when they interact with your business on-line, maximising the likelihood of purchases.

Billy is passionate about new business models, recognising their benefit in the market place and having the ability to understand and execute that business successfully.

His consultancy service 57 Signals also has current contracts with QBE Insurance and American Express.

His keynote style is confident and assured, bringing to the platform information and statistics which are extremely relevant to companies wise enough to embrace current on-line trends in marketing position and profitability, using such mechanisms as crowd-sourcing and aggregated data.

Here are some notes from the interview:

"Why can't big companies innovate?" is one of Billy's keynote topics. Why in this age entrepreneurs can sneak in behind them with great innovations and steal market share. He believes that big business does have the ability to innovate, however it not natural to them or at the surface of their DNA. By helping large corporates recognise that they do have an inner entrepreneur is something Billy enjoys immensely.

This keynote is around why it is difficult and some great case studies on why so major companies are failing against craggy little startups. He likes to conduct brainstorming sessions with anything up to 200 to 300 people on ways to bring innovation to life inside their business.

Other sessions have been around the fascinating "big data", the easiest description of "big data" is aggregating data, some that is yours some thats not yours, some that you buy, some you find on Google, for example "have you Googled yourself?" There is information on each one of us which can be collated and used. Imagine doing that on mass

for all of the million customers you have and using that data to go personalise their internet experience when they touch your business, on-line or off. While it is a complex formula it holds a huge amount of value for big business today.

His keynote can also focus on "How do you personalise the experience for consumers to drive a better experience but a more profitable experience?"

A lot of the margin lives in getting loyalty from you customers, in the up sell and cross sell.

I asked Billy "What types of companies should be seeking you out?"

The keynotes that have been really successful are large organisations which have executive offsites of 100 to 200 who trying to rethink their strategy. I have also had great success at large marketing conferences.

I enjoy awakening people to the nuances of the internet. That means any size organisation will benefit from the information I have especially if they want to take advantage of current on-line trends in big data.

Billy is able in his Q & A session, to facilitate insights on how the business can innovate, the insights may not come from Billy however, he knows how to get the workshop exploring this territory which can be extremely valuable.

His interest are helping big business innovate, helping drive an improved and more profitable customer experience and generally help that entrepreneurial spirit emerge from big business.

For more information on securing Billy Tucker at your next event contact Terry Burgan by email on terry@theentertainers.com.au or call +6 1 2 8958 6482