Fall 2007
Dear Good Thinking Company: 
It is an absolute pleasure to write to you concerning our speaking engagement with Deanna Latson! Deanna brought her presentation, “Eat Right, Feel Good, Look Great!” to our campus on the evening of September 13, 2007.
What you must first know is that speakers and lecturers have a strong history of being incredibly unsuccessful on our campus over the past few years. We suffer from extremely low attendance (usually 40 students or less) and next to zero “buzz” is created on campus about speakers and lecturers. Needless to say, speakers are not a “hot topic” here.
The first thing that makes “the Deanna Latson experience” outstanding is the work that happens before she even arrives on site. Her staff is one of the friendliest and to-the-point agencies we have ever worked with. Never once did we feel were going to have to fight for a fair fee, contracts, or call-backs concerning questions we had. Secondly, Deanna’s promotional materials are outstanding! What we expected were a few flyers. What we received was a full media/press kit complete with pre-written press releases, sample ads from other colleges, full color posters, as well as ideas and tips on how to effectively market Deanna’s presentation. Finally, Deanna volunteered to call our Athletics and Health Education departments to personally invite coaches, professors and athletes to the presentation! Let me be honest and say, I’ve never witnessed a performer/speaker of any type go to such lengths to help ensure that our event was a total success!
Deanna is also a pleasure to work with once she arrives on site. Kind, friendly, and professional are just three of the characteristics that made my student staff and those in attendance know up front that we were going to have a terrific show. Deanna also takes it up one more notch by making her presentation active! This is not the typical “boring lecture” that our students dread by any means! Deanna integrates media, personal stories, relevant and trustworthy data, and handouts to make sure the event is 100% informative and 100% entertaining. She also brings handouts and examples of the foods that she speaks about, once again giving the audience first-hand knowledge and interaction with the subject matter. She often uses these “freebies” to get the audience involved in asking and answering questions as well as sharing their own thoughts about the material.
Deanna’s presentation is perfect for all audiences. I’ll admit we were concerned that we’d have a very low attendance, and furthermore, that those who showed up would be mostly older women looking for a quick “self-help” booster…what my students referred to as “the Oprah crowd”. What we actually witnessed was students, staff, and
community members of all ages, sexes and backgrounds showing up! Most importantly, our younger students were there in force and even more exciting was that many male students attended including our male athletes, who we were convinced considered themselves “too cool” for a presentation about “being healthy”. They adored her and had probably more questions that the women during her extensive Q&A (Another outstanding indicator of the success of our event, she stayed a full hour after the presentation to field the many individual questions that our audience members had!). Many performers and speakers show up, do the job, grab the check, and leave. But, Deanna puts in the extra effort…not just because she’s great at what she does, but because she has a true heart for those she serves—our audience. That’s what makes Deanna the top in her field.
“Eat Right, Feel Good, Look Great!” with Deanna Latson was the biggest surprise of our year! Not only did we have close to 300 in attendance (when expecting 50 at most!), but never before have we received so many personal “thank you’s”, notes, emails, and comments about hosting a speaker. In addition, the “buzz” about Deanna’s lecture is still resonating on our campus well beyond a month after the show! We’re pleased to say that our “another boring speaker/lecturer” this semester was one of our hottest and most successful events! We’re certainly going to be contacting Deanna and her terrific staff about future presentations on our campus! Thanks for the absolutely fantastic show!
Warm Regards,
Duane Brown
Director of Student Activities
Colorado State University-Pueblo
duane.brown@colostate-pueblo.edu