Origin Story: High Points, Low Points & a Mission
October 1997
Christa Starts Selling Speakers
See Boss Christa Haberstock transitions from her career as an Elementary Music teacher in Canada to a job at a speakers bureau in Texas. When she isn't hyperventilating into a paper bag, she looks like this. She eventually figures it out and becomes a top producer a bunch of times. Eight, to be exact.
July 2009
See Agency is Born
Speaker Consultation and Management sounds like a good next jump, so from her beloved summer house in Edmonton, Alberta, Christa calls up some speaker friends and asks them if it might be fun to work together. They say yes. More hyperventilating, but now as a first-time small business owner with better hair.
April 2012
IASB Convention Planning Chair
Christa agrees to chair the 2012 IASB Convention Committee. Just prior to the event, two of the booked speakers tragically pass away, but Kevin Nealon brings down the house at the Banquet, Christa gets an award from Gail Davis, and Don Epstein calls it the 'best convention ever' so it ends up going ok after all.
May 2015
See 8 Summit on the Vegas Strip
Eight See Agency speakers and entertainers come together for an invitation-only event at the LINQ, Las Vegas. It would seem that Christa feels more comfortable planning events now. A bunch of speakers and bureau attendees meet at the lobby bar afterwards. [fade to black]
April 2016 & 2017
See Agency on Inc 5000 List (twice)
Of 18M businesses in the US, Inc 5000 recognizes See Agency #1181 & #1036 on the list of America's fastest-growing private companies. Christa frames the awards and puts them away in a closet to 'keep her pride in check'. It doesn't work.
July 2019
Launch of Plan See
Christa puts her CMP Preferred Provider status to use with Plan See LIVE, an event for planners to preview fresh talent and "modernize a dehumanized and stale system of speaker selection". So basically a showcase with See Agency talent and a CE credit planner incentive. 2020 event is scheduled. It doesn't happen. Obv.
April 2022
Clear Eyes, Full Roster, Can't Lose
The industry-crushing pandemic loosens its grip. Our mission is clear & these 3 words remain. JUST: based on/behaving according to what is morally right and fair. GREAT: ability, quality, or eminence considerably above the normal or average. SPEAKERS: the merchants of better in a world that could use some improvement.
March 2023
The Birth of the Bookable Speaker
Christa found her inner mission-preneur to access what 26 years of booking speakers & 3 years of intense research taught her about a speaker being truly BOOKABLE. Bookable Speakers scratched a big old industry itch by getting Professional Speakers on more stages & revealing their barriers to bookings.
MORE TO SEE
