Interview - Johnny Quinn

Johnny Quinn is a US Olympian in the sport of bobsled who competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. He is a speaker for businesses and organizations of all sizes and has spoken on some of the biggest stages such as Toyota, Chick-fil-A, Cisco, Wells Fargo, and many more. He is also an author of PUSH: Breaking Through Barriers that helps equip people to embrace change, accept risks and learn to push through barriers, to live a life on purpose.

I have been following Johnny for a while now. He sends out excellent emails and posts that often have great reflections on events he has done. In this interview, Johnny shares his wisdom and some tips to help make your events better.

Johnny recently worked on a 4-hour webinar and he did it in a really creative way. He looked at it as an incredible opportunity to unpack concepts and tools that speakers are typically unable to discuss during an hour of keynote presentation. To capture his audience’s attention and keep the engagement for 4 hours, he approached it with three key things:

1. A beautifully designed PowerPoint presentation.

2. Periodic video supplements.

3. Audience participation and Q & A throughout the event.

Feedback and testimonials are important for speakers to identify the strong and weak points in their presentations. What Johnny loves about the digital age is it allows him to get immediate feedback from the attendees. This is important so he knows what to adjust in his presentation to make it work for everybody.

“I start with the end in mind.”

When Johnny played professional football, he wanted to become a US Olympian so he took action and eventually became one. As a professional keynote speaker, he takes the same mindset before any speaking engagement. Johnny starts with the end testimonial in mind that he wants to receive from the audience. He does this by deep diving with the event planner, understanding keywords and themes, and making sure his content is spot on for what people are facing currently and moving forward. “When you get the feedback that you are expecting after your presentation, that’s when you know you’re on the right track.”

One of Johnny’s powerful tools in his presentations is his engaging PowerPoint. Designing is not his strength so he outsources his slide deck to a top-notch designer. His presentation is image-heavy with beautifully designed and curated decks that capture attention. If you’re not an expert at something, Johnny suggests finding one to help elevate what you currently have. 

People would ask, how does having a professional athlete help draw people to attend a business event? What is the connection between sports and business? Johnny Quinn realizes that across the board and all industries, whether you’re a sports fan or not, people are currently navigating through the same landscape where worry, stress, and anxiety are at an all-time high. People with different backgrounds, different personalities, and different belief systems are all coming together with a common goal, and that is to move forward. As a US Olympian, Johnny can unite this vision by sharing the tools and frameworks he has learned at the elite level that transition into the marketplace.

According to Johnny, one thing that could help event planners make better events is pairing a keynote presentation with a breakout session. It gives an opportunity to go deeper with the leadership team about the topics presented during the keynote. It is also one great way to evaluate speakers because a great speaker is not only good at presenting, but he must also be able to adjust and deliver a breakout session.

To find out if a speaker is good, an event planner who’s going through ample speaker profiles, resumes, and websites should look at the client list first. This way, event planners would know the caliber of speakers they are dealing with and will be able to whittle down to top-notch quality speakers. Johnny shares that clients like Toyota, Chick-fil-A, and Wells Fargo don’t just put speakers on stage, they do an in-depth evaluation of the potential speakers before they give the green light.

Customizing a keynote speech for a client is required especially if one is going to make a career in the speaking world. One of the things Johnny does as a speaker is to deep dive with every client prior to getting on stage. He uses a pre-event questionnaire and discusses some matters like front-burning topics, cultural issues, expectations, and outcomes. It allows the event planner to participate in the content creation and gives them comfort in knowing exactly what they’re going to get from the speaker.

As a final remark, Johnny shares a piece of advice that event planners should know. Speakers  spend a lot of money on demo videos that they use for marketing and to get booked for speaking engagements. Event planners should request a 2-4 minute unedited and current clip of the actual keynote speech so they can actually see the speaker walking on stage, hear their sentence structure, and see how they pivot. It will help event planners evaluate a good speaker before they decide to bring him on stage.

I hope you got a lot of helpful tips and suggestions from our interview with Johnny Quinn. Johnny offers keynote speeches in person or virtual, handcrafted to perfectly align with your event’s theme and audience. If you want to talk to Johnny about your next event, visit his website at www.JohnnyQuinnUSA.com.