As a meeting and event professional, I’m often asked for tips on how to choose a good speaker. I’ve hired more than 2,500 speakers in the past 10 years from 

• Marquee Names such as
  Geena Davis, Mick Fleetwood, Magic Johnson, Deborah Norville, Cal Ripkin Jr., Martin Sheen, Ben Stein and Lily Tomlin to name a few
• Well-Known Authors and Respected Experts including
  Erin Gruwell, Marsha Petrie Sue, Don Peppers and Tim Sanders
• Phenomenal Professional Speakers such as
  Susan Carnahan, Amanda Gore, Jeffrey Hansler, Scott Klososky, Alison Levine, Kelly McDonald and Jim Jacobus
• Up and Coming Professional and Various Industry Speakers.

I’ve seen thousands of speaker marketing videos, read even more speaker one-sheets and visited a lot of speaker websites, too many to count. I can watch two minutes of a speaker video and tell you if the speaker will fit for my audiences.

Top Two Criteria For Choosing A Good Speaker

During those 10 years, two criteria have risen to the top of my “must have” list for a good speaker: Delivery and Content. When considering hiring a professional speaker, I can judge these two qualities within the first two minutes of their presentation or their marketing video. Delivery style is at the top of my list followed by the content of the presentation.

Delivery
Good presenters have an excellent delivery style that engages their audience. They’ve mastered the art of reading their audience, using good adult learning styles and appear as if presenting is as natural as talking one-on-one. They focus on the attendee and have learned to “Be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage.”They have great eye contact with their audience, move around the stage or room, use inflection with their voices, integrate visuals from well-designed PowerPoints to video seamlessly and engage in audience participation. The truly polished professionals have also mastered the art of monitoring text messages and tweets during their presentations without skipping a beat.

Content
The content and meat of a speakers presentation is important and must be the right fit for my audiences. The speakers often have a blend of education, motivation and entertainment or edutainment, as I like to call it. Their content contains three-five main points of relevant, current and timely information. The content is something that the attendee can remember and apply in their personal or professional lives quickly. While content is important, I believe that delivery is the most important skill the presenter must master first.

The Three Types Of Presentations

 
1. Professional speakers with great content and terrible delivery fail, always. They lose their audience quickly. We’ve all seen professors or authors with fantastic content deliver painful presentations.
2. Professional speakers with bad content and good delivery usually succeed. The audience gets caught up in the stories and presenter’s style and doesn’t realize that the content is fluff until the end. We’ve all seen this type of presentation where we are motivated and encouraged and then walk out of the room and realize that we were just fed cotton-candy fluff of no relevance. But it was fun while it lasted.
3. Professional speakers with well-tuned delivery and timely content have the winning combo and will help your audience reach presentation zen. Your audience will leave the room talking about these speakers, asking for more and feel as if they been motivated, entertained and informed. When delivery and content align, you reach the sweet spot of presentation nirvana.

Word of Caution: Speakers Chosen By Committee

It’s my experience that speakers chosen by committee usually fail because the committee has used consensus-based decision-making and stooped to the lowest common denominator. Most of the time committee members are thinking only about what they like and not considering a speaker that will connect with the majority of the audience. If you’re stuck with speaker selection by committee, it’s your job as the meeting and event planner to educate that committe on good pedagogy, devliery styles and content. Don’t give up and eventually your committee will begin to embrace these concepts.

As a meeting and event planner, selecting the right speakers for your event is one of the most important things you can do. Take it seriously, as he or she can make or break your event. The right speakers can set the tone for your entire event and will have your audience talking about your event for many months after it end.

Coming: How To Quickly Qualify A Speaker And Ensure That They Have Good Content And Good Delivery