This morning, my assistant Beth got the following email in her inbox from Ben Birdsong, the Station Manager. It was completely unsolicited, and 100% unexpected:  

“Harris was amazing! Not only did he adjust his program to meet our needs, he was so easy to work with as a performer.  If more artists were this easy to work with, we would do a lot more events.”

What??  I’ll come back to that in a moment…

Ben went on with an endorsement saying, “You can’t go wrong with inviting him to your station’s event. I highly recommend him to you as aboth a highly skilled and polished performer that will amazing your audience, but also a compelling speaker who will challenge them in their walk with God.”

I genuinely appreciate not only Ben’s willingness to partner with us, but also for his great testimonial.  We have tons of feedback like this on our website, from all kinds of people.  Author John Maxwell, to Mac Powell from Third Day, to North Point, Andy’s Stanley’s church in Atlanta, have all said stuff like this about what we do.  It’s humbling, and a huge honor.  But that isn’t the point of this post.

“If all artists were this easy to work with, we would do a lot more events.” That shocked me.  I mean, I know there are artists, even some who claim to follow Jesus, who are highly demanding and incredibly difficult to work with.  But are there really so many of you out there that there are great people, who already share your same vision, that won’t partner with you because you’re “too hard to work with?”

Clearly, the answer is yes.  So to all of you other performers out there, take note! Get over yourselves, and recognize who’s hiring who.  You aren’t showing up to be served, you’re showing up to serve.  And unless you’re writing checks and paying the people who book you, try to show some gratitude, and be flexible along the way.

Honestly, we go out of our way to be over-the-top easy to work with.  If there’s something I can provide and carry with us on the road, so that an event host doesn’t have to provide it for us, we do it.  If I can design my material so that it can be performed in a wider variety of environments, I do it.  Me, and everyone who works for me, makes every attempt to be as professional and service-oriented as possible.  It’s why we’re here…to serve.

Do we have contract riders and lists of requests?  Of course.  But each one is designed with the intention of being as simple as possible.  And it’s not about our comfort, but about what we could use in order to serve hosts better.  The bottom line is that their event’s success is the driving force behind everything we ask for.

If you aren’t attaching my God or his name to your stuff, then so be it.  Do whatever you want.  (Though I bet this concept would revolutionize your business regardless.)  But if you’re saying it’s about Jesus, that means it supposedly isn’t about you.  So please stop with the side-show.

This isn’t about you.  Or me.  And even if you’re making it that way, I hate to be the bearer of the news, but your approach isn’t working out too well.  It turns out, your attitudes and lack of flexibility are costing you and everyone else not only opportunities, but their platforms.  If you change, “they’ll do a lot more events,” and you might get to be a part of them.