How the talk gets built for your room.
The industry's number-one complaint in speaker evaluations is lack of personalisation, and the industry's own advice to planners is to ask how a speaker learns about the audience. Here is the answer, in full, before you ask.
- 01At enquiry
One question that decides everything
What must this room be ready to do that it is not ready to do today? Not the theme, not the title — the behaviour change. If you cannot answer it yet, that is fine; the first call is for working it out together.
- 026 weeks out
The discovery call
Forty-five minutes with you and, ideally, one person who will be in the audience. She asks what the room already believes, what it is tired of hearing, what the last speaker got wrong, who in the room has veto power, and what happens the week after your event.
- 034 weeks out
The tailoring brief comes back to you
A one-page written brief: the session arc for your room, which stories she will use and why, the two moments where the audience does something rather than listens, and what she needs from you — data, a room layout, a name to quote. You correct it. It is your event.
- 04Event week
Slides, sound check, and the room itself
Slides land five working days ahead. She arrives early enough to walk the room, meet your AV team, and hear the session before hers — because a keynote that ignores what was said an hour earlier reads as a recording.
- 05After
What you can forward upward
A short written recap: what was covered, the two or three things the room committed to, and the resources she promised from the stage. Your finance team will ask what the session produced. This is the answer, in writing, without you having to reconstruct it.
Source: Meeting Professionals International — How to Choose the Right Speaker for Your Event. Third-party guidance, reproduced for reference; it is not advice from this site. mpi.org