Top Business Motivational Speaker

Interview with Business Motivational Speaker Michael Wigge on How his Keynotes Connect to His Adventure Background

-Michael, you’ve faced these incredible adventure challenges, but how do they connect to your clients’ needs?

Wigge: Most corporations and associations that book me as a business motivational speaker seem to have five major needs they want fulfilled by a speaker

1. They want their staff to leave the keynote session refreshed and motivated to strive for certain company’s goals like better sales, advanced change management, or a stronger leadership
2. They want their staff to have a memorable experience, something they still talk about weeks later with an impressed attitude
3. They like all conferences participants to be highly entertained in between ‘learning sessions’
4. They want their staff or clients to learn simple strategies to develop on leadership, sales, self-motivation, or change management.
5. They want the crowd to get an out-of-the-box view on things through the incredible experiences of a business motivational speaker.

I do my very best to satisfy all five major needs of my clients.

-But how are you doing that? All five aspects at once seem to be a lot within a one-hour session for example?

Wigge: Well, professional keynote speaking is way more than just one hour on stage. Preparation, intense client contact, speaking, and post conference support show how much a motivational business speaker is doing to be on a top level in the United States.

Let’s start with the first aspect. My clients’ employees and managers usually leave my keynotes highly motivated because I connect to the crowd emotionally during the session by

1. Interactive elements like questions to audience members
2. Humor
3. Personal stories they can relate to

My change management presentation is based on my adventure story to travel around the world with no money. People find this very impressive, but the personal connection starts when I break down my change management experiences to a level everyone has experienced similar things, too. I talk about how I had a hard time to adopt change being on the road, how hard it was to constantly change plan, and how stressful it could be to get used to new people over and over again. When I tell these little things and show that I am not the born expert on change management, I usually see many people in the crowd agreeing to what I’m saying with a big smile. I got the connection by allowing myself to find change management as hard as they do.

Here comes in the second aspect ‘humor’. I often talk about myself pretty self-ironic, and I don’t take myself too serious. A typical start of my stress management keynote would be ‘Hey everyone, here you meet the no. 1 stress management patient (me).’ People start having a laugh, and they realize I don’t want to be the hero or the expert, rather than being the guy who had to learn stress management the hard way after having serious stress symptoms after a few of my projects. Basically, I often present myself as a character who had to learn over and over again. People find this pretty funny and good to learn from.

-‘The little self-ironic stories don’t seem to be the big memorable stories the audience is still talking about weeks after, right?

Wigge: Well, I still traveled the world for free, then bartered a bitten apple to a house in Hawaii, traveled Europe blindfolded and so on. The outcome of all successful adventure stories is so huge, that people often see them as unforgettable. On top of that, I published my books and TV shows worldwide, been with Karty Perry on the Tonight Show, and I presented my travel docu-series on PBS, ZDF, DW-TV and many networks more.

-How do you include simple strategies on corporate messages as a business motivational speaker?

Most of my programs contain six different aspects of a certain subject like ‘successful leadership’. I usually go through one of my travel challenges step by step, and connect to one leadership aspect after another one. At the End of each keynote, the audience gets a detailed handout that covers these six leadership aspects. All audience members have a chance for additional free e-mail communication with me to discuss what they’ve learned in the session and through the handout.

-Last but not least, which of your adventures count as the most out-of-the-box experience for you as a business motivational speaker?

Well, “How to Travel the World for Free” is big for many clients because they might have seen the TV show or my book presentation on the Tonight Show before. But “How to Barter for Paradise” seems to be the most impressive because not many people have managed yet to turn a small item like an apple into a real house in Hawaii by trading. This sounds so out-of-the-box that many of my keynotes dealing with this challenge get re-booked by clients just to hear this story one more time again. Actually all meeting participants get a free book of mine after a session to keep motivated long term with a high benefit for their company.

Thanks, Michael Wigge