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

Why Real Time Video Interviews work for The Entertainers

"A picture is worth a thousand words" refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single still image. Video makes it possible to absorb large amounts of data quickly, it offers massive value given that people in the Events industry and for that matter any industry are time poor.

Without going into how our minds receive information, it is obvious to most that we are not all speed readers, suffer info-glut, are bombarded with strings of information daily, reports, contracts, letters and so forth, invade our lives daily. Collectively, is it possible that we read more now than we ever have? Email, Facebook, Blogs, Ebook's , articles demand our attention if we are to survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Let's face it, there is a lot being written that just goes "via the cape",! Not because it is badly written, not because it offers no value, we are just too damn busy to invest the time to read everything that comes across our desks.

Speaker BIO's are a prime example. While a full page of facts and figures about where the Speaker is from, where he/she lives with his/her spouse and children, where he/she grew up, the odd funny line thrown in and other superfluous information may feel appropriate, it does little for some time poor soul looking for key facts.

Personally I feel that printed BIOs and pictures do not enhance any Speakers fortune. If ever a poor representation of talent was exhibited, it is an email with a bio and pic attached. 

Ask yourself, how on earth can anyone make an informed decision about something as complex as a Speakers capabilities reading a BIO. Very poorly would be my answer and due to the talent we have in Australia,  this outdated method of pitching is successful, may I say, thanks to the Speaker and not to lazy Bureau who used such an antiquated pitch.

That old worn out boot pops up again, "It's just the way we do things around hear".

The Real Time Video Series The Entertainers are creating is in it's embryonic stages. We are making lots of mistakes, we are working with inferior equipment, I am not the worlds greatest interviewer, we do not have a production team with lights camera action, no studio, no clap board.

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come is an apt quote by Victor Hugo to describe the way forward for this format. While our interviewing capabilities are currently raw and basic and our production values are simplistic, our message is hitting it's mark. The interviews are time consuming but well worth the effort.

The feedback we have received has been more than encouraging from prospective and current clients and also from Speakers themselves. The information that we can extrude in a short period of time while offering refreshing and entertaining content is massive value. It gives our clients an accurate insight into the Speakers capabilities, personality and attitude. It enables people to make a much more informed decision, while giving the Speaker an opportunity to advertise their true capabilities and strengths.

We will continue to grow our video database improving on production values to create a rich and valuable repository of Speaker interviews.

While there are other aspects to the advantages I could talk about such as Speaker showreels, flashy commercials, SEO and other aspects of Speaker marketing, my belief is that there is nothing that compares to a naked video interview to get to the heart of any Speaker apart from meeting them in person.

Are Speakers a commodity?

Albert Einstein said "The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly." By way of example, when Galileo insisted that the sun, not the planet Earth, was the center of the universe, he was met with "violent opposition," despite his offering advanced "scientific proof" of his findings. 

I do not propose to compare myself in any way shape or form to both of the gentlemen discussed above. However my experience in the entertainment world, running my own production company, working with speakers bureaus, entertainment agencies, working for an exceptional motivational speaker and my research, has allowed me to form opinions and commentary on what I feel works, what is old hat, what is just plain silly and all the bits and pieces in between. Particularly when it comes to current practices regarding booking and working with keynote speakers.

Everyone has moments when something that is said in a given situation that you know is just not right. Mine is this tardy line "it's just the way we do things round here". This rings out in my ears, akin to a hangover from the good old days when a gallon of petrol cost more than a gallon of water. Times, they are a changing! Even if there is a better way of doing "it", any sense of reasonable alternative is cancelled out so we can get on with things as per normal and make hefty margins even if we do treat this noble art and those who practice such, akin to what we pull out of the ground at a mine.

While I am certain this lack of thought process is rife in most business practice, I would like to open discussion on how we engage with Speakers and the intrinsic value they bring to events and conferences. 

The sad truth is that Speakers are not treated with the respect they deserve in our industry. They are paid well for a reason although that is another story. There is seemingly an urgency for bureaus and agencies to get every Speaker possible onto the books, prop up the SEO, let the other Bureau's "read em and weep", get all the good ones as exclusives, ........ ad nauseam. Due to current attitudes and practices, underneath the veneer of social events and industry meetings, bookings and testimonials, very little real respect for the rich pool of Australian Speakers is evident from those who book them.  After all, without the Speakers, who allow us to profit from their efforts, there would be no bureau or agency.

A typical request from a client, be it a PCO or direct corporate client may state that they have a $4000 budget, they want a Speaker to deliver x,y,z., the budget is tight and they cannot spend another cent. At the same event with 1000 people in attendance, they will pay $30 per head for attendee's for coffee and nibbles (30k). While the later is customary, most necessary and an essential element of any event worth attending, apart from gaining an extra kilo, the value that it delivers is forgotten almost instantaneously. I do enjoy some of the delicious treats served up, however there seems to be no logical correlation between the cost and value each deliver.

A well placed professional speaker should deliver value long after the event has been bumped out, months, perhaps years. Could it be that old habits and current practices are a result of little or no education in this area? After all the Speaker is seldom booked by the person who is responsible for the outcomes of the engagement, the booking is made not by the buyer but by someone who has one thing in mind "budget"!

There are many reasons for this which may include client confidentiality, fear of loosing a client to the opposition, work overload for the person to which the objectives originated, lack of trust in an ultra competitive industry and many more

But hey........"It's just the way we do things". Speakers are not commodities and trying to put a fixed price on what they deliver is pure folly and a little lazy until process consultation has taken place. Not two weeks before the conference! Three months before the conference. Call on the speakers expertise to assist you in creating absolute value and ROI which is noticeable, real and authentic.