Hotel Reservations
by Mike Rounds

No, of course I don’t mind sleeping in the parking lot.

I can’t remember the number of times I’ve arrived at the front desk of a hotel to be greeted with: Mike Who? This happens because I don’t confirm the reservations.

Go ahead; tell me it’s the client’s responsibility to do it for you because they said they wanted to be in control of all the expenses.

Guess what? Your reservations are a high priority with you but way down the list with them.

I realize that as speakers, we are concerned about speaking and not with logistics but let’s get real gang — the ultimate responsibility for everything concerning our presentation is up to us.

I’ve had canceled flights, delayed flights, no rental car reservations, no rental cars left, programs where I had no video projector, no overhead projector, no microphone, no sleeping and even, no meeting room (they gave our meeting room to a "regular" client). Actually, I was lucky that I even had me sometimes.

I even did a three-program booking where the last date was in Chicago. As I checked into the hotel and looked at the marquee, I realized that the date for my presentation had been switched. I had planned on Saturday with a flight to another booking on Sunday and the client had me speaking on Sunday with a flight out on Monday.

It’s amazing how accommodating people will be when you ask for help. We were actually able (without much trouble, I’ll add), to switch the dates so I spoke on Saturday afternoon.

It turned out that more people attended than they would have on Sunday because some of the attendees had to go home. I even got rave reviews both for the material plus my concern for everybody in wanting to make sure that all my clients got to hear my presentation.

Let’s get real. This isn’t a rocket science, folks, but it is logistics and Murphy’s Law does apply.

Whenever you can, make sure that you check to ensure that everything you need is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. If it’s not, take the initiative and make it happen yourself.

Otherwise, you might just end up sleeping in the parking lot.