Twenty Leading Questions before you Book a Speaker By Orvel Ray Wilson and Cathleen Fillmore - to download this article, click here
Much of the success of your sales meeting or conference depends on the credibility and effectiveness of the speaker you've hired. Yet how do you discern who's right for this audience? They all claim to be….
Here are the questions you need to ask the speaker before you make the decision to book.
1. Content
How will this event change people's behavior?
A professional speaker should engage, educate, motivate, and entertain, and in that priority. Unless this event changes your people's behavior in some measurable way, you're wasting their time and your money. New skills, new information, and new insights produce new customers, new sales, and increased profits for your business.
We find that buyers today want more than just being puffed up for a few minutes. They want to be inspired enough to rush out of that meeting ready to take action and change the way they currently do things. That's lasting inspiration along with practical strategies. Why settle for less?
2. Authority
Who published your book?
Better to take advice from a published expert, who has invested the time and effort to thoroughly research the field and write a book, or two, or three. Read the book before you sign the speaker. And beware of vanity press imprints. If a major New York house published the speaker's books, you know they're the real deal. Ask for autographed copies for the event and also for a bulk price deal for employees or audience members.
3. Originality
Is your material original?
Beginners often pirate other speakers' examples and content, sometimes even telling a story as if it had actually happened to them. Not very smart, since it completely undermines the speaker's credibility with the people who've already heard the story from another speaker.
I recently heard a meeting planner complain, “If I hear one more cliché I will scream.” If you've heard it before, so have your people.
Speakers need to refresh even original material frequently. With people traveling so much, it's perfectly possible that the same person is in a completely different audience in a different part of the country and who wants to hear the same old tired stuff.
4. Delivery
How good are you at holding an audience's attention?
Are you looking for a topical expert (who may put your people to sleep) or a stand-up comic (whose act could play a nightclub)? Look for a pro that can engage and entertain, delivering powerful content with passion and pizzazz. After all, you want your people to remember the point , not just the punch line.
5. Customization
Will you customize your speech to meet our audience needs?
If a speaker is going to presume to tell you how to run your business better, they better understand your business. Select a speaker who will take a personal interest in your industry, your company, and your people.
Will they visit your office, review your collateral material, shop your competition, read your annual report, do an extensive online search on your company or spend a day riding with your salespeople? Will they fly in early to attend the whole meeting so they can work some of the events right into their speech?
An outsider's insight may prove priceless. A real pro is a quick study, and will customize until it sounds like they're from home office.
6. Professionalism
A speaker who specializes in sales, marketing or health care should belong to organizations in their field or you have every right to question their credibility.
7. Credentials
What are your credentials as a professional speaker?
There are two certifications conferred by the National Speakers Association: the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) and the Council of Peers Award of Excellence (CPAE). The CPAE is an honorary designation, a lifetime achievement award, while the CSP requires a minimum of 250 presentations over a five-year period, for at least 100 different clients, at a substantial minimum fee, and must be renewed every five years. The CSP is your assurance of the highest standards of professionalism and excellence. An elite group of veterans hold both.
8. Education
What's your educational background?
Actually the platform is a great leveler. You might find that a high school drop out is a much more riveting speaker than someone with post doctoral degrees.
But ask anyway, it's one more piece of valuable information that will help you make the final decision of who to hire.
9. Technical Mastery
What kind of technical equipment will you need?
The days when a speaker could stand behind a podium and just read from notes are long gone. Top pros supercharge their speeches with multiple multi-media: computer animation, upbeat music, sound effects and video. And they bring their own computers, projectors and microphones. After all, when you take your car to a mechanic, don't you expect them to use their own tools?
10. Will you need any assistance with your equipment?
See above. Think this question is too obvious to ask? Think again! I had a speaker arrive late at an event and then fiddle with setting up his computer for another fifteen minutes. Fortunately he was a brilliant speaker but still…….
11. Professionalism
How well is the speaker's material designed?
If it's hot off the desk top, in most cases, it does not reflect well on the speaker's level of professionalism . Are the speaker's business cards consistent with their branding? Professionally designed? Compelling message? No? Then you might want to look elsewhere no matter how good they tell you they are.
12. Access
Does a live person answer the phone when you call? Successful speakers travel constantly, but are always accessible through their staff. They use cell phones, voice-mail and e-mail to keep in touch. The real pros check both at least twice a day, and respond promptly, personally. Meetings these days often have a shorter lead time which means that any speaker in touch with today's marketplace should know that accessibility is critical.
13. Video or DVD
Do you have a video?
They did include a video didn't they? The pros all have at least one; or two, or more. Ask for the what-you-see-is-what-you-get version, shot live, unedited (except perhaps for opening trailers). And while the WYSIWYG version may be technically flawed, anyone can look good in front of a studio full of friends and family.
14. Are you represented by any speaker's bureaus?
15. Audition
Are they coming to your area? The pros get around, and will gladly arrange for you to sit in. If that's not an option, interview them by phone. Think of it as a live one-on-one audition. Ask them to advise you on a particular business challenge or issue, then ask yourself, “Does this sound like the kind of advice we want our people to hear?”
16. References
You should never have to ask for them. A professional will automatically include them in the press kit, along with a client list and multiple testimonials. Read the letters. Look at the dates; are they current? Then call at least two.
17. Deliverables
What will your people take away to help them recall and implement what they've heard? A textbook, a workbook, a cassette or two, an action list, a checklist, a laminated wallet card? Can they download the handouts and PowerPoint for reference? Ask. These minor extras add major impact and multiply the take-home value of the message.
18. Fees
What's your fee for a keynote or a seminar?
Worry less about what the speaker will charge; worry more about what your people will get. Does the fee include pre-event consultation, research, customization, travel time, travel expenses, handouts, workbooks, AV equipment, pens, markers or other supplies? Will the speaker write an article for your magazine, or help with marketing and event planning? A bad program is no bargain. If you're investing half a million dollars to host a conference, you can't afford a dud.
19. Extras
Does your fee include travel? Do you charge tax?
Canadians may charge GST – a 6% add-on to the fee. Ask first. You can sometimes negotiate this. If travel is extra, ask how much They anticipate in travel costs and when they'll be billing. You don't want an unpleasant surprise later.
20. Wrap-up
Does your fee include a pre-program questionnaire? Do you do a follow-up later?
A professional speaker will ask you to fill out a pre-program questionnaire so he or she understands the audience demographics, the conference theme, their place in the program and what the overall objectives are. A follow-up is critical in order to assess whether those objectives have been met.
Twenty questions is a lot to ask. But each one is essential so make sure you cover all your bases before booking your speaker. For more articles, click here
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