MAKING CONFERENCES SIZZLE IN THE OUTBACK Interview by Sue Van Der Hout
In an effort to restructure her life, spend more time with her kids and hit Australia’s gorgeous beaches running, Debbie Carr, left her day job and created a speaker/entertainer’s bureau in Australia. A speaker’s bureau was never on the agenda, but finally the drive to live her best life unleashed her power.
How did you get to where you are today?
Passion, tenacity, patience, determination, drive, courage mixed with some stupidity! I never ever stopped believing in myself even though I came close to declaring bankruptcy. My advice to anyone who wants to start their own business is to at least have some money in the bank to fall back on and do your research! Without a doubt I believe it was my passion and vision that kept me going.
What is the story of your journey?
My life changed dramatically when in 1998 my beautiful brother took his own life. The change that impacted on me was phenomenal and my perfect life turned to chaos. Soon after his death I was diagnosed with Crohn´s Disease, then my marriage failed and I had to go back to full time work. I would get up at 4.30 a.m. and travel to the city, get back at 6.00 p.m. to collect my girls from after school care, cook dinner and do it all over again. I was travelling at least two hours each way (door to door).
Early in 2004 I met a professional speaker, called The Corporate Ninja. He introduced me to the speaking world and took me to Fiji to as a guest of one of his clients. It was whilst we were lazing on the beach I said to him "so this is work for you?" and he said, "yes". I asked him how do I get a piece of this pie and he answered "become a speaker or start a bureau". I replied that I would do that and when we got home I started the ball rolling straight away, despite the fact I had no formal education, no marketing or sales experience, no website design experience and no capital!
My enthusiasm, passion and love for what I do has kept me focused and determined to keep going throughout the very hard times of establishing my new business. I am sure many would had given up within the first six months, and I am quite sure if I had known what I was really in for, I would have not continued. And yet, despite advice from my dad and some friends, I was determined to lift my business off the ground and live the life of my dreams.
I spent most of the first year building the foundations of Coyote, which meant I met every speaker I represented if at all possible. I built my own website, even though I had never done this before, and I started a monthly e-zine, which people liked. The mailing list quickly grew and still does. Early on, I found a great presence on the Internet, but I didn’t have many clients. Still, undeterred, I continued with my passion and love for my work.
Many of the speakers I represent personally mentored me and gave me their books and educational training CDs. This was an amazing education and I quickly learnt to be a savvy marketer. My only "weakness" was my ability in sales, so I put a lot of energy and focus on that, and in the second year of the business I become a great salesperson, as well.
Another obstacle was the start-up capital I needed to put into the business, which anyone who has ever been self-employed or owned their own company will certainly understand! I put what I could into the business, but mostly I lived off credit, until even that reached its limit. Then things started to pick up and I was at least able to live off my earnings.
If you had asked me 2 years ago would I like to be a professional speaker, the thought alone would have made me break out in a sweat. Now I am speaking on suicide to bring awareness to this very serious and sad problem of our society.
How do you define success? How do you know when you´re there?
Success to me is very simple. If you are happy and doing what you love - you are successful. It´s not all about wealth, although of course that helps. I think if you can wake up in the morning and think ‘great another day to experience something new’ then you are successful. I feel my most successful when I am running down on the beach just before dawn, I stop and watch the sunrise and I feel such gratitude and love to be able to do this simple thing every morning.
In this issue we feature some amazing women in the U.S. who collectively operate a speaker’s bureau. They find that male corporate audiences tend to hire male speakers, and pay them more. What´s holding companies back from choosing women to speak on the big stuff - leadership, innovation, the bottom line. Your experience?
I have to be honest I do have a lot more male speakers on my books than females, I do not know why. I do tend to book more males than females and I am consciously aware of this and trying to change it. I do not know what holds companies back on choosing women, I believe Australia´s corporate culture is very much in favour of promoting women.
I have some fabulous female speakers that I represent and some of them are very successful.
Don´t know if you´re married or have kids, but many women struggle with that issue and how it defines them.
I have two girls who are in their teens. I think they have missed out on a lot of time with their mum because of my long hours. I have to make it up to them now and I have made it a rule that I finish work at 5.00 pm to spend time with the girls and then if I have to do more work I will do it a bit later in the night.
