Speakathons try to motivate audiences

The Roy Barnes-Nathan Deal gubernatorial race may dominate headlines, but it's not the only heavyweight showdown taking place here in November. Consider: The Match of the Motivational Speakers.

In this corner, it's Gen. Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Cosby and Lou Holtz.

In that corner, it's Sarah Palin, Laura Bush, Bill O'Reilly and Terry Bradshaw.

Which group more Atlantans will turn to for inspiration will be known Nov. 9, after the second of two competing all-day business seminars to be held downtown.

The events, Get Motivated! at the Georgia Dome onMonday and Seize the Day! at Philips Arena on Nov. 9, are expected by their promoters to attract tens of thousands of people, lured by the chance to hear a group of celebrities in person at prices advertised as low as $1.95 and by a marketing blitz  that rivals a major political campaign.

Arena-size motivational programs featuring stars of the entertainment, business, politics and sports worlds have been around for years and they've come to Atlanta regularly in the past. The new twist is the budding rivalry between Atlanta-based upstart Seize the Day Inc. to Get Motivated Seminars Inc. of Florida.

Both companies recently held shows in Columbus, Ohio -- it was the first ever for Seize the Day! -- and each says the other is following it around the country in attempt to thwart it.

Get Motivated co-founder and president Peter Lowe, who said his firm produces about 25 to 30 events a year in the U.S. that attract about 400,000 people annually, said it's a potentially lucrative but risky industry because of the high costs to mount each event.

There are the fees for celebrity speakers, estimated at from $25,000 to $100,000 each, the cost of advertising in newspapers, on billboards and radio, and the price of renting an arena or stadium.

"It's an incredibly hard business. The risks are high," said Lowe, who noted that competitors to his company have tried and failed before.

That didn't stop a group of investors from metro Atlanta from launching Seize the Day.

Spokesman Doug Williamson said, "We think there's a lot of room in the market. There's really one one company [Get Motivated] in the industry. We look forward to doing one event per month."

In Atlanta, the two events are essentially going head to head, just eight days apart.

Get Motivated's program features, besides Powell, Giuliani, Cosby and Holtz, Goldie Hawn, Steve Forbes, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former Microsoft president Rick Belluzzo and motivation guru Zig Ziglar.

Seize the Day's event features, besides Palin, Bush, Bradshaw and O'Reilly, former Braves pitcher John Smoltz, actor Ben Stein and motivational speaker Les Brown.

Each program also features speakers who promote items they offer for sale, such as business training programs.

Some media accounts in cities where business seminars have been held have noted complaints by attendees who cited high-pressure merchandise sales tactics.

Ted Canto, a loan consultant in Phoenix, attended an event there and said, "It's not high-pressure at all. It's take it or leave it. More than half the stadium pretty much walked out with nothing in their hand. There's nobody in your face. There are tables there and you can pull out your credit card or not."

Asked to explain why he and other people go to such events, Canto said, "It feeds on their aspirations. With tough economic times, we're all searching for the solution."

While ticket prices for the Atlanta events are advertised at just a few dollars per person and not much more for an entire office of people, seats closer to the stage cost far more. Williamson said it will cost up to $200 for someone to sit in the first few rows.

"Just think of it like [seating] at a concert," Williamson said.

The two Atlanta events are headlined by speakers considered to have politically or socially conservative views. But both Seize the Day and Get Motivated said that preaching isn't the intent.

Lowe said business programs tend to attract more political conservatives and that the chosen speakers are who the audience wants.

"I've always enjoyed a diversity of viewpoints, personally," he said. "But you have to have [speakers] who will hold an audience in terms of interest."

Williamson said Seize the Day is looking for speakers who can influence and inspire.

"We're not looking to make this a political event," he said.

The speakers' topics, as described in newspaper ads, don't appear overtly political. Cosby's subject is using humor to help career development. Powell is to talk about leadership. Palin's topic is "overcoming obstacles," and Bush's is "personal empowerment."

Other subjects  include perseverance (Giuliani), team building (Bradshaw), competitiveness (Holtz) and goal achievement (O'Reilly).

Lowe said attendance at his company's events this year has been about the same as in the recent past, but both companies said that the recession and general economic malaise nationally has increased the need for such events.

"People," Williamson said, "need [this] now more than ever before."

There are, he said, potential financial benefits to attending. A company could save money, he said, by sending a group of its sales people to a seminar instead of paying a consultant to do in-house motivational training.

While helping people do better in business by selling more might be the point of some of the speakers or their products, the mission of the event, Lowe said, is broader.