There may not be a magical formula for being able to give your stakeholders or executive team members and your audience the winning speaker with an expert topic who will be the perfect match, but as you read on you’ll see that there are specific key steps you can take which will benefit you, the event planner - and will assist you to find and hire an event speaker with an expert topic that gets your audience activated and participating. After all, isn’t that the goal you want to achieve?
Success Steps to Hire an Event Speaker
What’s at the heart of being able to find and hire an event speaker? At the heart of any occasion or event is what the audience will walk away with. What they glean from the message or expert topic shared by the speaker, what they learn, the insights they can apply and use in their own lives, that’s what the event planner must achieve. Just like the story itself, acting and actors along with direction are vital ingredients in making or breaking a film. It is the same with an event speaker’s content, it is able to make or break the event you are responsible for planning. So we’ve compiled a list of success steps, albeit brief, that will aid you in learning the right methods for how you can hire an event speaker to make your event memorable.
- First you must meet with your executive committee or stakeholders and get a clear signal from them about their event goals, their ideas, and concerns. In a nutshell, you need to find out exactly what they want to achieve and how important the speaker is to the success of the event.
- Research any past occasions or speaking events that your organization hosted, look into them to find out which speakers worked well and which ones didn’t. Glean and learn everything you can from past events and maximize that information to help you today.
- If you need some help from professionals, don’t be shy about calling in reinforcements. There are many professional speaker’s bureaus or speaker’s consultancy organizations that can assist you with finding the top professional speakers of today, and let you know who is available and the latest trends, etc. If you prefer to hire a celebrity for your occasion, you’ll need the help of professionals who can manage or book them and negotiate the contract well ahead of time. If having a celebrity is not necessary, then you can get direction on where you can look, such as a professional organization that specializes in your area.
- When browsing through various speakers bureaus, you will want to watch videos of speakers so you can see how they perform in action. Does their expert topic and content suit what you’re looking for? What about their personality and approach? Remember, you know your audience, and you have to find a match that will spark their interest and create a dialogue between the speaker and audience.
- Also, you’ll want to consider any additional interactive extras when you hire an event speaker. What about the possibility of having workshops, a reception or different panels? Does the speaker you’re considering include those extras in their fees? Remember, you probably have a budget you’re working with, so you want to get the most out of the money you invest.
Lay the foundation for your success by organizing your team and by having your executive team’s goals clear and in writing. You also need to know your budget limitations, as this will be a major factor in the speaker you hire.
If possible, you will want to communicate directly with the speaker you’re interested in hiring. If not, at least go over all details with their representative or agent. They will need to clearly understand the goals and objectives your stakeholders want to achieve, and they’ll need to understand what they are expected to contribute. You want to develop a rapport with your speaker so that you both have a good line of communication, and so the speaker understands any specific message you and your executive team want communicated to the audience.
Of course, as in all professional endeavors: for the best results, always treat your speaker well, with kindness and respect.
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