Jonathan Low discusses Having a Global Mindset with Charlotte Kemp

Welcome to the Associations Edition, our conversation with association leaders and executives around the world. My name is Charlotte Kemp. I am a Futures Alchemist but also the Associations Futurist, and I love to speak to association leaders who have had really interesting journeys and see what we can learn from them. My guest today is my good friend Jonathan Lau from Malaysia. Jonathan is a certified speaking professional, a certified virtual presenter, he is a leadership expert, and he has a whole range of other qualifications around his personal work, which I will make sure to have in the show notes. But we're going to be talking to Jonathan today about his whole journey with the various associations that he has been president of. So Jonathan, welcome to the conversation.

Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you for having me as part of the podcast and to add value to whatever you're doing.

Thank you so much. So Jonathan, we're going to be talking about MAPS, GSF and VSAI. And let's just unpack some of those acronyms because it does sound like an acronym salad here. So MAPS is the Malaysian Association of Professional Speakers, then the Global Speakers Federation, and now you are president of the Virtual Speakers Association International. You have a career path that I would like to follow because I just think all the work that you're doing, it's really very, very exciting. So why don't you tell us, first of all, just a little bit about your own business? And, you know, because you're a speaker, and you're an expert in your field. So tell us about that. And then you can just tell us how you got into this journey. And I'm just going to let you express that because I'm sure it's going to be an interesting story.

Sure. Well, I come from the hospitality industry. You know, back in my corporate days, I spent 20+ years working in different hotels. With international brands. And after a 20-year journey, predominantly in sales and marketing and revenue management, 16 years ago I decided to embark on the professional training and also speaking journey. So very much started as a trainer and as a coach initially, but what attracted me at that time was there was this Executive leader in the Malaysian Association of Professional Speaker, and that pretty intrigued me because I am one of the his respondent in his you know email communication. And having received that, you know I was intrigued. So what is the difference between a trainer and a speaker? And are they actually professional speakers? You know in whatever we do. So attended one of the meeting which we in Malaysia we call it MAPS Malaysian Association of Professional Speaker. And I was pretty intrigued, right? It's a whole different world and a whole different competency. I still remember the early days, one of our common mutual friends, Scott Friedman, he comes to Asia very frequently, and he was one of the speakers in one of our meetings. And that really attracted me into, wow, there's a whole possibility. So besides a trainer, one of my goals is also to travel around the world and just to learn of the new culture. And I thought perhaps speaking will help me through that journey. So that was how I got started. And I told Rajan Devadasan, who was one of the EXCO members— I'm sure you must have met Rajan too during your trip in Malaysia— and he said, yeah, you know, it would be great to have you. And because of my background in the hotel days, they say, why don't you help out in MAPS convention, right? So it was a yearly convention which the leaders do. And I said, okay, yeah, let me support because that's my area that I'm pretty comfortable in. And I'll be happy to support whatever organization, whatever things you need from the event side of it. So that was how I started in MAPS.

Very cool. Like you mentioned, I, my husband and I did come and speak at your MAPS event. I think it was about 3 years ago now. That's right. Chapter meeting towards the end of the year. And it was wonderful just meeting everyone there and all the friendships that are still going on now because, you know, we can connect online even though I haven't been back to KL. I'd love to come back. Jonathan, I love what you're saying. I think a lot of speakers, professional speakers find that they develop their speaking careers kind of like a second career or a career after they've had their first career because, you know, we need something that we're sharing. We're not just getting up and, you know, doing a whole lot of motivational talk or You know, finding all of those motivational self-help books and just trying to regurgitate that. You know, a truly professional, professional speaker is someone who has their own content and experience and they're bringing that insight and wisdom to a client. So I love how you explained that, you know, you developed that and then you could use those skills in the first association that you were part of, which was MAPS.

Hmm.

Do you see that with other colleagues?

Yeah, because I guess in, you know, I live in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, so a lot of my work initially was centered around Southeast Asia. So within Southeast Asia, training was a bigger, you know, opportunity in terms of business-wise. So speaking was relatively new, platform speaking, doing keynotes. I think it was more the North American way of doing it and maybe the European market. But, you know, joining MAPS, you know, gave me that exposure onto what is really platform speaking. So my journey in MAPS started in 2006. I served as an organizing chairperson, you know, supporting them in the convention. And one of the things, because of my hospitality background, one of the things that I always like to say, how can I be of service? So I always come from a platform of service. I may not know a lot about organizing association, nonprofit organization at the time. And many times it's really volunteering your time.

Yes.

And again, it's really about juggling your business because you have a business to take care of, and it's also about juggling your additional time to support the association. But I guess my years of being in a hotel line helped propel me of this passion of learning more. Just having that desire to learn more about speaking also gave me the opportunity to be of service. So I serve in different capacities. When I first started, I never saw myself as a president. It was just, all right, just put me into one area. If I can be of service, I will be happy doing that. But as you know, when you begin to serve, opportunity will come to you. If you would ask me then, I would probably say no. But now that I have gone through that journey, I would say, wow, you know, it's great to be elected, selected by your team members. I appreciate the recognition, I appreciate the support that they've given. And that helps groom yourself individually because I believe, you know, whatever we do outside is also what resonates with the market that we serve. If we are a person who talks about leadership, what a greater platform, right, to support and to lead an association. Because that will give you greater credibility and make you more authentic. And not only are you speaking from your experience, from— because of my past years in hotel line, 20+ years, I'm now able to also speak from a platform that you don't get paid. Yeah, you do the things that you do, right? And there's a whole different scope of leadership because, you know, you know, when you're at work because of virtue of your title or your position people will have to do what you request them to do. But in an association, they have got choices, and sometimes they may be motivated or they may not be so motivated, or they may have different motivation. So it was a great learning journey. So I eventually did become the president of the Malaysia Association of Professional Speakers. So that journey took me from 2006 to about a year to Was close to 210, right? It was close to 210. So it was a 5-year journey in MAPS. You know, when you serve, you go in as a treasurer or secretary, you go to a different position, you get voted as vice president, president-elect, and then you become immediate past president. So again, the whole scope. So that was the history of me being in MAPS. So great exposure and Singapore being one of the closer ones, we have the APSS, the Asia Professional Speakers Singapore. So we did a lot of collaboration at the time during my leadership term in MAPS. So we collaborated a lot with them. I also attended a lot of their conventions and we began to network and build greater synergy because of our proximity between Malaysia and Singapore also. So after I finished my term, I put up my hand and I said, hey, is there an opportunity? Because since we all belong to the Global Speakers Federation, I was also very intrigued with the work that is done there. So after I finished my term as president, I put up my hand and I still remember having a conversation with Janelle Barlow at that time. I believe she was either the president or president-elect. And I said, Janelle, you know, hey, you know, I know you from our work in the business world. But could you tell me more about how I can best be of service at the Global Speakers Federation? And that was how my leadership journey started there. Again, just offering your time, offering your service. If there is one advice I can give is always be ready to serve because when opportunity comes, just put up your hand and when the timing is right, you will have the chance to be So that was how it started. Eventually, I became the president in the year 2015 to 2016. President, the first Malaysian, the first Asian president at the Global Speakers Federation. So it was a huge responsibility for sure, but it's a nice opportunity to, you know, to lead at that capacity.

Yeah, beautiful. Jonathan, just before we get into unpacking what GSF is and the role that it plays, You've been saying something very interesting. A lot of our, a lot of the associations that I work with are run by volunteers.

Yeah.

So some of the bigger associations will have a paid staff and the volunteers just take up those roles of, you know, being president or deputy president, but the other work is done by other people. But in our smaller associations, we step up and we do the work. We're the secretary, the treasurer, etc., and we do all those roles. And from your experience, what value has— have you received from serving in that volunteer capacity, that volunteer leadership capacity? What value has there been back on your own professional development and on your business? So, you know, we are doing things out of the goodness of our heart, but there has to be something that comes back to us and some kind of congruency between that role and our actual, you know, day job.

Great, great question, Charlotte. Well, I guess for me personally is living an authentic life. I use that opportunity because I do a lot of work helping sales leaders in customer service experience and also leadership performance. So I use that opportunity as a leadership opportunity for me to lead the team also, and how to really effectively influence and inspire the team as a volunteer because it's a different skill set. So I find that has really helped me also in driving the business. But the greatest thing is also the visibility because you get to also network and you have greater visibility among different associations. And because the Global Speakers Federation is really the umbrella for all the different member associations globally, of which MAPS is part of them, This also gave me leadership exposure and working with other leaders from different countries. Within the speaking world, people choose speakers, I guess a lot is based on referral and recommendation. If you are given the exposure and the opportunity to even speak at their convention, that will raise your profile and visibility among them. If you are really good at whatever you do, And if we want to have a speaker in your area of expertise, they would have seen you, they would know who they're recommending, and the transfer of trust will be much easier because they have seen you in action. So in that way, it has helped me in a couple of folds, right? Besides just helping me to gain access to some of the new markets that I wanted to go to. I love traveling, so this has helped me. Actually, over the last— wow, over the last 15 years, it has brought me to countries that I never thought I would be having the opportunity to speak in. Countries like Mexico, countries like Maldives. Who wouldn't like to speak in Maldives and enjoy a little bit of time in Maldives? And the United States, in one of the conventions in the city of Houston. So that kind of opportunity, if you were to ask me 15 years ago, I thought maybe Southeast Asia is my market, but now I've learned to broaden and gave myself permission to even go further.

Beautiful. Yeah, the whole world is your market now. Absolutely. So Jonathan, the Global Speakers Federation, you were president there, and I think it was during your term of president that I was serving as secretary. Absolutely. Yeah, and for me, that was such a huge wake-up call. I'll hear your journey in a moment. But let me tell you one of the best things that I discovered from that. Within my involvement in the Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa, I got very involved, and there were various leadership responsibilities that I had. And I remember getting quite worked up about things that weren't working well in our association, or it wasn't going well enough, or this had— this was a critical area, and this was a crisis. And And I got quite concerned about these things. And then I started working with the Global Speakers Federation. And all of a sudden, it was like my kind of the mountaintop that I was speaking on was much higher than my local one here in South Africa. And it gave me so much better perspective on the whole landscape of the speaking world and the challenges that the GSF was facing. As well as all the member bodies of GSF, which meant when I came back home to PSA SA and we had to do something, I was a lot calmer because I could see things in perspective to things that were happening globally. And I could see—

Yeah.

That other associations were dealing with the same sorts of challenges as us, and there were different ways of dealing with them or different ways of approaching a particular problem. And, and for me, that was one of the most powerful and prevailing values of seeking leadership in something that is higher than the work that you're doing, because it gives you so much better insight. And that's why I love this whole kind of landscape of the speaking world, is that we can have these other opportunities and learn from each other and share. So that, I mean, that is why I really value GSF. But tell me your experience and what you've learned from that journey.

During my time in GSF, it was a very interesting journey too, in the sense that when we are at our own association, we're serving individual members, fellow speakers, but at GSF level, it's about serving the member association. So the service is more on the association itself because we don't go direct to individual members. It's a different skill set, but one of the greatest values that I've found in that capacity is really helping associations because within the members association, there are some that are pretty mature, very experienced, like NSA, like CAPS in Canada, like in Australia. So they are more experienced, like in UK, the PSA. What we can learn from them is the resources that they have available. And for newer associations, this is really good. You don't have to reinvent invent the wheel too much because sometimes, like you say, it can be pretty much overwhelming because we have not done association leadership before. But hey, other people have done it. So just a quick call, just a quick message, just a quick Zoom discussion, and pretty much you can get most of the answers to you. And that is how that journey after GSF, after I finished the presidency, And now most recently, that was where some of the past presidents from GSF even came together and said, how can we best serve the individual market and new associations? And that was how the Virtual Speaker Association International came about. It is an opportunity for us to pass on our knowledge based on what we have gone through to support even new associations. Because, you know, in dealing with new associations like the PSA in Israel, like in Spain, like Afghanistan right now, these similarities are pretty much the same. You know, they go through, you know, questions about how to set up, how do they do a nonprofit, you know, the things that many associations have gone through. And this is where, you know, part of our role at VSAI is to really help support new associations. The rest are growing membership and just giving value, coming up with programs that is relevant for members, because especially during this time when people will be asking questions, what is it in for me? What is the value? And that is always the question that members are always asking, and that's where leaders are always thinking of ways to attract members. And when they're there, what can you do to retain them, right? How can you keep them? How can you grow membership? And those are the things that we exchange ideas on how best to serve. And there are some pretty interesting things that has been happening in terms of how we can even broaden the membership benefits to even, like, for example, how can we collaborate with your association in Southern Africa? How can we collaborate with some of the European associations. Again, you know, it's just coming together, having discussion, and finding ways to add value. Because end of the day, you know, it's about reaching the members and what makes sense to them.

Very good. I love the answer. So, Jonathan, that was a fantastic journey through those 3 associations. And I'm a member of the Virtual Speakers Association, just not putting my hand up for any kind of leadership role at the moment. But I love those sessions, being on a meeting like that and seeing speaking colleagues come together from around the world on a regular basis. And there's kind of like, you know, public shoutouts in the chat box on Zoom and little private conversations going on. And because of COVID because we've all been stuck at home and we've turned to the virtual world and the online connection so much, it means that we're now starting to visit each other in different associations as well. So the Spanish Association and ourselves, we're in very much the same time zone. And so we're sharing a lot of resources and having a lot of fun there. And then, you know, you go to PSA India and all of a sudden you're seeing some of your Spanish friends and some of your Malaysian friends in India, and it's really fantastic. So I'm thoroughly enjoying the collaboration that is happening and the networking between the various bodies as well. I think it's such a powerful thing to encourage us during a time that could be quite tough for a lot of people who have their own business and are struggling to either get started or to reimagine how they're going to deliver value now that things have changed away from physical meetings. Jonathan, I think one of my last questions would just be, you know, we're in different parts of the world, we're experiencing COVID kind of lockdowns or movement control orders at different times. From your experience, traveling around the world, just tell us what you think about the kind of meetings industry in Southeast Asia. You said, you know, in the beginning it was very much training and fewer kind of keynotes or conventional conventions. But, you know, what does that market look like in that part of the world? Is it changing? You know, I know we got COVID at the moment, but what can we be expecting in the next couple of years?

From what I've seen before COVID hit us globally was that a lot of meeting planners, a lot of organizations do love to come to Asia Pacific. So they may not be people from your country, but they would choose to come to Asia Pacific as the venue for the Asia Pacific or even the global conferences. So it has been growing. It has been, whether it's in China, India, or different parts of Asia Pacific, but it has suddenly been growing. And I think getting yourself prepared now, like what I've said, with the non-existence of global travel as of now, it's good to position yourself even virtually right now.

Yes.

Just like a good concert. Why do people still go to concerts? They want to have that experience, they want to be there. But if you start building your presence now, when people are able to travel or when they're able to invite you to their convention, this is where they want to experience you in person. So don't wait for that to happen to position yourself. But I think the work starts right now for you to be effective, to be branding yourself, have the visibility, to be giving value. Build relationships and then use the time now to build great relationships, be it in your association or even within the community that you work in, in the sectors that you work in. Because in the long run, when things pick up sooner with the vaccination that is happening, hopefully sooner than later, opportunity is going to be there. I just saw one of our global speaker friends, Frederick Herron, He just spoke in Changi and he's really Googling flight times. So that's a good sign of requests that is coming in. So things will be coming back in for sure, and that is what I really missed over the last 14 months, having not had the experience to travel. If you get a chance, attend as many conventions as you can because besides learning from all the great speakers, Most of the greatest insights and ideas are sometimes discovered along what we call the corridor chats.

Yes, absolutely.

When you stop people along the corridor, hey, you know, let's catch up for a quick drink, you know, you grab a drink and sometimes great ideas, that one idea along the corridor could probably propel your business tenfold, right? You know, besides, I mean, if you get additional ideas from the various great sessions, Those are bonuses. So if you get an opportunity, that's part of leadership too.

Yeah, no, that's such, such good advice. All right, Jonathan, my last question is this, coming back to associations specifically. You've held numbers of different positions, and a lot of them have been leadership roles. What would your encouragement be to someone who's considering getting involved in leadership and they're not sure, you know, Maybe they're kind of overwhelmed by how much there is to learn, or the job seems a bit daunting. How would you encourage them to explore something like this as a volunteer in an association?

One advice would be to come in with a platform of service, be willing to give more than to receive. And this is where I also coined the word in the work that I do with my commercial and corporate clients. I call it pay it forward. I call it serve it forward, inspired by the thing called pay it forward. I call it serve it forward. So what I always say is when you give up something and something doesn't come back to you, it is a gift, it is a bonus. So if you give up something to people, whether it is time, love, or resources, when you give something to people and they return reciprocal things to you, That is called a bonus.

Yes.

But when you begin to serve and you give some things and that thing doesn't come back to you yet, it is called your gift to that someone. It is the gift to your association. So think of how many gifts you can give. It could be a gift of time, it could be a gift of service, because once you give and serve without expecting things to come back, from my experience, things will come back big time, many folds, and sometimes very unexpectedly. So check your intention, the reason why you want to be involved in, because if not, if you do it for the sake of doing it, then sometimes you could be a little bit frustrated when you don't get the kind of returns that you want as quick as some people may want to expect. But if you give it with a heart of service from that platform, you know, you'll be amazed at what you'll be getting back in return. So that's, that's one advice that I can recommend.

Oh, that's lovely. I always say to people, one of our values within PSASA is co-create amazing. So we want to encourage our members to get together and do things. But I've kind of co-opted it to any association that I work with, especially volunteer bodies, is our volunteer associations literally only exist because individuals come together and they co-create that volunteer body. So MAPS or PSA SA or any of those, they exist because we've all come together and we're serving each other. So when we have individual members who, you know, get frustrated and they say this isn't happening or you haven't done that or this has been missing, we say, well, then it's your job, you know, come in and do that for us. We, you know, we can't have just a select few people do everything because then their own businesses suffer. And then we actually steal the opportunities for other people to get involved in those leadership roles. And the minute they do, there's so much exposure, so much learning, so much value they get, even before those bonuses you're talking about. And just, just doing the serving helps us to grow professionally, and to deliver better value to our actual paying clients, because we have this experience in a different part of our lives.

Absolutely.

Jonathan, now we've been talking about associations. If somebody wanted to get in touch with you for your actual, you know, professional value that you offer to them, do you want to explain to them what, how you serve your clients and how they can get hold of you? And we'll have some notes in the show notes, but I'd love you to explain what you do for your clients.

Sure. If there's opportunity I could help your teams or organization improve your sales performance, service experience, or leadership excellence, just reach out to me at LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanlow, as in L-O-W, or you can visit our website, www.globalsuccesslearning.net. So I'll be happy to work with you, and if you've got any question on association matters with regards to how best you can, but you already have amazing people like Charlotte within your association. But if I could be of any help, just reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm fairly active there and we can have a conversation. So the key thing is really to make it happen is don't think about it, act upon it.

Oh, good. Nice encouragement at the end. Jonathan, thank you very much. It's been a fantastic conversation with you and I'm encouraged as well. I've loved watching your career develop and see all the things that you're doing. And, and I thank you for your, your friendship and your support of me and encouragement through the years as well, which has been really fantastic. Thank you.

Most welcome. Most welcome. Do take care of yourself. Thanks for having me again on your podcast. I really value what you do and reach out anytime.

Thank you, Jonathan. So you can find Jonathan Lau on LinkedIn, as he said, and myself Charlotte Kemp. I'm on LinkedIn, or you can find me on charlottekemp.co.za. If you'd like to have a conversation with me about how we can help your association to position themselves for the future, to think strategically about what is coming down the line so that we can respond better than some of us have been able to respond to COVID, how we can develop strategy, how we can develop your leaders, or how we can help with membership, please be in touch with me, and I'll be very happy to have a conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been great to have this conversation with you as well. Tune in next week for another conversation with an exciting, interesting association executive from somewhere around the world.