Internaut Day | How the Internet Helped Premiere Lead the Industry

On this day in 1991, the World Wide Web officially became accessible to the public. In July of 1997, the very first Premiere Speakers Bureau website was launched. 

Premiere Speakers Bureau, Home Page - July 8th, 1997

Premiere Speakers Bureau, Home Page - July 29th, 2016

We hit the ground running to raise the bar higher on an industry already teeming with stellar service and relationships. After nearly three decades, here are some important ways the world wide web has allowed us to continue momentum and accomplish many industry firsts: 

• In 2004, Premiere started using customized event proposals, rich with videos and content, customized to specific dates, which revolutionized the way we could help event planners quickly and easily make presentations to their teams:

• In 2008, Premiere was the first to use custom online contracts, which could be signed from smart phones, dramatically cutting down the response time needed to book an event from start to finish. 
• Premiere also transitioned from physical paper pamphlets and catalogs to our beautiful, easy-to-navigate digital catalog. This helped us to drastially cut down on paper waste, widen our audience to a global scale, and provide real-time rosters and information.  
• The current contract record is 5 minutes, from the initial call of a client asking about a speaker, to both the client and speaker signing the contract, set 5:07 PM to 5:12 PM on March 3, 2009.
• Premiere is recognized as an industry leader in using technology to serve clients, and has been asked to present multiple times to the National Speakers Association on how we use the internet.
• 9 years ago, the Wall Street Journal interviewed Brian Lord of Premiere Speakers Bureau on the ways their bureau creatively used links in the emails footer and blog posts to reach clients (then a rather unique strategy). We realized clients wanted to know more about us than just speaker details- which prompted our client, Ann Mangan, to ask the WSJ to reach out to us. You can access the full interview here. 

Looking back at our progress and growth over the last 25 years has us looking forward to the next 25 with even more excitement! The potential for the next phase of growth in streamlining our processes for maximum efficiency is larger than we can currently imagine. Premiere will maintain our commitment to grow in that space, always remembering the value of the personal relationships and the relationships that can and must be built over the phone. After all, that's how we got here in the first place.