One of the essential of a successful event is to have an impactful guest speaker. They can really feel out the room, improvise if necessary and capture the audience’s attention. Regardless of what type of the event is, choosing someone who can contribute to it is a must.
Seminars, workshops, food and beverages can be great, but if your keynote speaker is off, then the entire event is ruined. Here are 7 tips to ensure you choose the best speaker for your event.
What are the objectives of the event?
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Once you know the objectives clearly, you will be able to determine who gets to speak at your event. For example, a business speaker such as Bruce Whitfield may be perfect if you want to discuss businesses, changing climate and how you could use everything that’s been going on to improve your company and take it to the next level.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a motivation speaker, you should be looking for names such as Nick Vujicic or Tony Robbins. Of course, these speakers are the most famous ones in the world and locking them down may be too expensive. However, you need to find a speaker that will help you achieve the goal of the conference.
Ask Them What They Can Do
If they are holding the most important speech during the event, see if there’s something else that they can do. Perhaps linger around and talk to top management on more concrete steps, or simply stay around and meet the people at least for an hour or two.
Make Sure Speakers are Comfortable
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You want to make sure that the speakers are given certain freedom and that they are comfortable on the stage. These people know what they are doing and they know how to address the audience effectively. If you introduce to much rules and chain them down, you might not get the effect you desire.
Ask your Employees Who they’d like you to invite
Also, it is essential to know who your employees would like to hear from. Select a few different names and create a poll to see who gets the most votes. Perhaps that’s the person you’d like to invite. If the audience isn’t interested, no matter how good the speaker is, the event could be a failure.
Invite More Speakers
If your budget allows it, you can invite more people. You aren’t limited to just one expert speaker and if you can get more of them on stage, the better. Furthermore, you want to call a couple of speakers first to see what they charge and compare the prices before you book them.
Make calls on time
If you’re trying to find someone last-minute, you will not succeed. Most of the speakers are busy with work or they are touring the country, so you can easily miss them. Make sure you plan everything on time.
Consider the requests speakers have
Source:inc.com
Although you want to give speakers the freedom on the stage, they might have too much requests off the stage. If they want some kind of special treatment, you may want to consider people who are more down-to-earth.
