The Challenge of Scheduling School Assemblies:
Alex is a VERY in-demand speaker. (Don’t tell him that, his head is already BIG enough.) 🙂 Because of his popularity, Alex’s corporate speaking engagement fee is $28,000 for a one-hour speech. Alex generously donates 100% of his speaking fees to support the charitable programs of the organization. Schools generally can’t afford this market rate, so we offer a significantly lower cost for assemblies. However, if we agree to a school speech at that extremely reduced rate and then 2 days later a corporate speech request comes along, we either have to cancel the school speech (not happening) OR lose $28,000 by saying “no” to the company. That revenue loss reduces support for grieving families and youth facing mental health adversities, and puts the stability of the organization at risk. 🙁
The Solution:
Alex is passionate about supporting youth to help change the trajectory of their lives through personal accountability and insists on speaking at schools. We have found a way to make that work. But at this time, we are ONLY booking schools that can meet ALL of the following requirements. We apologize and hope that future funding will allow us to consider schools that cannot accommodate these scenarios.
Requirement #1
A.) The school can accommodate a very short planning timeline. The school is able to sign an agreement for an event that will take place within 30 days.
OR
B.) The school can accommodate a flexible schedule, allowing us to pick from one of 5 dates in the future with just 30 days notice. Let’s say a school wanted to book a speaking engagement for 6 months from now (they just can’t do the short-planning option), we would offer 5 different dates in the future and sign an agreement that allows us to choose which one of those dates Alex speaks on, but the school only gets a 30 day notice on which date is ultimately selected. This gives the school certainty that Alex is coming on one of 5 days, and gives us the flexibility we need to say “yes” to competing corporate speeches that support our charitable programs without disappointing schools.
Example:
On January 1st, we sign an agreement. It states that Alex will speak on May 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5th of that same year. The school will be informed of which date is selected by April 1st, giving the school 30 days of planning time.
Requirement #2
A.) The school is within 100 miles of Lakewood, Ohio, or Walhonding, Ohio. Alex already travels up to 300 days a year. What we are asking him to do is unreasonable, but he refuses to stop. In order to speak to the maximum number of schools possible we have to optimize his travel time. Alex’s house is in Lakewood and our Camp (Alex’s second home) is in Walhonding.
OR
B.) Alex happens to already be visiting your area for another reason. We call this an “add-on” speech. If Alex is already speaking within 30 miles of your location, it might be possible for him to come visit. Please note his flight schedule is very tight since we keep him so busy. Email [email protected] to find out if Alex is scheduled to be in your area.
Requirement #3
The school has at least 1,700 students OR we are speaking to multiple schools that add up to 1,700 students in the same day. Multi-day visits may be possible if Alex’s schedule allows, but we are trying to reach 1,700 students on each day of speaking.
If your school can meet these 3 requirements, please fill out a speaking request at becauseisaidiwould.org/alexsheen and mention that you’ve read this page!