Why the Most Popular Speaker May Not Be The Best Fit
Have you considered hosting your own event this year or next? Maybe you want to cultivate an incredible conference, intimate retreat, a one day workshop, or even an online summit. Regardless of the format, you are probably so excited about all the bells, whistles, and pretty touches you've been dreaming up.
Helloooo, beautiful conference details, delicious meals, and mind-blowing swag bags.
Maybe your virtual summit already has a marketing plan in place and you know exactly how you're going to launch this sucker. But there's one thing that's holding you back from pushing play, hitting publish, or sending that email out.
You're not sure how to get the best-fit speakers for your event.
In our creative industry, it's easy to get caught up in friendships, working relationships, or popularity contests. But today, I want us to get re-centered on what really matters: serving from the stage, adding value to our attendees and making your event an experience the attendees want to come back to time and time again.
So if you're looking to host your own event or online summit, I want to give you three things to consider before you select speakers for your next event.
The first thing we need to consider is your vision for the event. What is the structure of this going to look like? How many speakers are you going to need? Will this be a large conference or an intimate retreat? Why are you creating this? What has gone into it? What is the heart behind it and what does that vision look like? This answers will help you understand which speakers fit into that brand and who is going to be an extension of it from the stage.
The second thing we need to consider is your audience. Who will be attending this event? Are they business owners? Beyond that, are these individuals new business owners or are they experienced business owners? Are they product-based businesses or service-based businesses? Are they mothers, single parents, teachers, realtors? Where are they in their life? Why would they come to the event? What is it they're looking to achieve? What are some of those big pain points or problems they want to get resolved? What are the big goals and dreams that they want to achieve?
Identifying what your attendees are looking for helps us figure out the content we need to curate for them in order to make it an experience that is perfect for them.
We may be the ones putting in all the work to make the event incredible, but we're doing it to serve our attendees. We have to keep them at the forefront of what content is most important. Who is going to facilitate the content you're attendees are looking for? Not everyone is going to be the right fit.
The third thing we need to consider is our speakers. We don't just want to pick people we've seen on other lineups or who are friends of ours. We want to pick people that fit the brand of the event. We need to consider any characteristics, themes, or trends that are really important to our brand and to our audience. And maybe even the opposite of that. Are there things that are a "hard no?" or things we don't to be discussed at our event? Determining the good (and the bad) will help us filter out speakers.
How many speakers do you need for the event? What does your budget look like for speakers? Who is going to be the best representation of your brand and serve your attendees where you most need it?
Need help figuring out what speakers will be perfect for your event?
Use the free workbook below to go through the exact process I use with event planners to create incredible speaker line-ups for their events.
If you've gone through all these questions and you're thinking, "I'm pretty sure I know what I need, but I don't know where to find them" we want to help you! I understand that it is scary to make these decisions and you don't want to take a risk on a speaker you haven't heard yourself or you don't know personally.
To help take that weight off of your shoulders, we want to help you create a custom curated lineup for your event.
Just click the image below, fill out the form below, and we'll match you up with speakers we feel are the best fit for YOUR event!
