Cancelling my first booking of the year

It wasn't exactly the best Festive Season I've ever had - I spent nearly a week in bed with the flu! I'd had the persistent cough I've been mentioning since early December but by Christmas, it was even worse and I eventually developed a temperature of 103. Then I passed it on to my partner Val who doesn't normally catch these things. It was the New Year before we eventually opened our Christmas gifts!

My first booking of 2008 was for 3 January but there was no way I was going to be up to it so I had to cancel but I was at least pleased to be able to recommend a replacement, a new-ish speaker who had a coaching session with me last year. He is a wood carver who has some stunning examples of his work as visual aids and, as the talk was for a gardening club, he was perhaps rather more relevant to that audience than I would have been anyway.

Public Speaking Tip #108: I have mentioned before about networking with other speakers so you can recommend each other, cover cancellations, etc. It's even better if you know so many that you can recommend one whose subject matter will be of specific interest to a particular organisation.

He phoned me a few days later to say that it had gone well so it seemed to work out OK for all concerned.