If you live in the States, there are some excellent live events coming this spring. There’s also an opportunity to win a free ticket, so read on:

Hook Presentation Conference

This conference has an impressive line up of keynote speakers: Gary Vaynerchuk, Scott Stratten and Michael Hyatt.

These are people who are highly successful entrepreneurs, speakers and authors. They’re not presentation trainers, coaches or authors or professional speakers (in the sense that that’s the only thing they do). But they’ll be speaking at the Hook Presentation Conference about their approach to speaking and presenting. I’m really excited to hear what they have to say. Here’s why:

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary is a wine entrepreneur. He’s a brilliant businessman but also an awesome social media communicator.

I was in the audience for Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote at SXSW last year. He blew me away. He talked for ten minutes and then started taking questions – this is in a room of several thousand people. He was straight in his answers, sometimes even blunt. But it never came across as rude or arrogant because it was clear that he was just telling us what he truly believed.  Just like everything else he does, he presents in his own inimitable way. You can check out more about my experience of Gary Vaynerchuck’s keynote. To hear him talk about his philosophy of communicating and connecting will be an invaluable experience.

Scott Stratten

I became aware of Scott Stratten through Jon Thomas’s blog. It was clear that he was not only a progressive thinking but an authentic and engaging speaker (do click to read Jon’s account of Scott’s talk). Then I saw this video of him speaking at TEDx Oakville:

Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt is CEO of Thomas Nelson publishers. He writes a personal and engaging blog which he updates five times a week. And he’s a prolific speaker – speaking at 3-4 events a month. And often he blogs about his speaking experiences in an honest and transparent way. I particularly enjoyed this post: The 10 Psychological Stages of Public Speaking.

Those are just the keynoters. Scott has assembled a range of other speakers – including me. Some of us are presentation specialists such as Travis Dahle, Jon Thomas, Michael Lowstetter, Nat Robinson, Geetesh Bajaj, and of course Scott Schwertly. The rest (CC Chapman, Dave Delaney, Garth Johnson) all seem fascinating people who’ll have great insights on presenting in the business context.

Registration for the Hook Presentation Conference is $595 but I’ve got a free ticket to give away.  To win the ticket let me know why you’d like to attend Hook in the comments or send me an email. I’ll choose the winner of the free ticket on 7th February.

Rick Altman’s One-day Workshops

Rick has been training people to produce better presentations for well over a decade and organises the Presentation Summit conference (this year September 18-21st in Austin, Texas).

This spring Rick is touring the country presenting  his one-day workshop. Check out whether he’s coming to a city near you. It will be a great opportunity to attend one of Rick’s workshop without having to travel too far.

I haven’t met Rick yet – but I attended his webinar in the Outstanding Presentations Workshop series and then skyped with him. I can guarantee that you will have good time, lots of laughs and learn heaps about presenting.