Weather Keeps You Away From Program
by Steve Stewart

Out of more than 2,000 paid presentations, there is only a handful of times I have failed to show up and all the last minute failures were wrenching events. Twice the problem was bad weather grounding me at a distant airport. And a third time, and airline went out of business leaving me without a flight time on another airline that would me to the next program.

Twice I have been stuck in airports socked in by fog and no planes permitted to leave. On one of those, it was clear the fog would not lift from Oregon in time to get me to Florida, so my booking agent and I got on the phone to find another speaker who would do a great job and who already lived in Florida. One was found, we explained everything to the client — who accepted the new speaker and everything worked out fine. I sent the whole speaking fee deposit to the speaker and he billed the client for the balance of the fee.

Once I was due to fly from South Carolina to California to speak in San Diego, only 100 miles from my home. No chance I can’t get just 100 miles away, right? Wrong. My airline (Frontier) went out of business and there was no longer a flight that could get me back from the east coast in time. But with two weeks warning, I found another speaker who lived in San Diego, acceptable to the client, and gave him the booking. But I also had to supplement his speaking fee out of my own pocket because of the difference in our fees. However, that felt like the right thing to do, so we did. No problems with the client and I worked for them again.