Choosing a Guest Speaker
Post from the Jamaica Observer
We have all been there – you and I. Every strand of hair in place, dressed to the nines and new shoes squeezing like the dickens but we have nevertheless rolled up to the function. We are here to give our full support and to hear the pearls of wisdom drop like gentle rain on us by the guest speaker. But oh, what a disappointment it was for us.
We expected to be inspired, to be enthralled, to laugh, maybe to roll in the aisle – but instead we find ourselves crying all the way home. And this is especially so if we had paid more than recession prices to attend the event. On reflection we think that perhaps Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy (in combination) or Elmo might have kept the listeners more awake and entertained than the sad sack who wreaked havoc on the audience’s consciousness for a full ninety minutes. Good Grief. It is definitely time for the speaker to call it quits when the low hum you hear is not the build-up of thunderous applause but the not-too-gentle snores of those persons in the front row.
The choice of a guest speaker is one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of any event planner. An occasion’s success or failure hinges on this seemingly minor detail. I am writing as one who has often been on the receiving end of having to listen to really badly selected speakers as well as someone who has had to make suggestions about persons who could possibly be chosen as a speaker for an event for which working people will fork over their hard-earned cash.
Don’t get me wrong. The case of an inappropriate guest speaker is, more often than not, not the fault of the speaker himself. Surface investigation will often reveal a lack of professional advice in choosing a speaker or that the speaker was selected by someone who s/he was interested in hearing said speaker for purely personal reasons which had nothing to do with the audience nor the event itself. The other harried members of that planning team (busy with their tasks) just let it ride without too many questions.
A good place to start in choosing a really good speaker is via experience. It is usually not a good idea to take any reference from ‘Frighten Friday Flo’ who thinks everyone in a suit with the gumption to step to a podium is a good speaker. It may make better sense to have actually heard the person speak at an event yourself. After listening to more than a few dozen speakers over the years you will find that you will have developed a well-attuned ear for who is good and who is not. You get to see for yourself who is at ease in front of an audience and who is not, despite the wealth of knowledge s/he may possess. Because, let us face it there are some persons who are the fount of all knowledge in their chosen field but they just are not comfortable imparting that knowledge in front of a large roomful of strangers.
More than all, in choosing a speaker it is important to ensure that the presenter and the presentation ‘fit’ the audience and the occasion. A speaker who is serving up meat to a vegetarian audience will not go down well and may very well cause a stampede out the doors. If the audience consists of policy-makers, CEOs and decision-makers it might not be such a wonderful idea to invite a little-known operations executive who might not be able to add much to the audience’s storehouse of knowledge.
There are several types of speakers and each has a different purpose. For example, the celebrity speaker is well known and his presence will definitely attract a large audience if that is the main goal of your event. Here’s the thing about some celebrities: they might be good at whatever it is that made them famous but they might not be good speakers. Hence it is a good idea to have ‘experienced’ them first or get a really good reference from someone else who has heard them speak.
Choosing a speaker to impart educational information, to instruct or to teach might be a trifle troublesome. This type of speaker has to have a sense of humour, many relevant stories, and must be able to interact easily with the audience. Lectures can be dull and boring. The best teachers are the ones who do not overwhelm you with too much information, they keep you awake and interested and wanting to learn more. Not everyone has that gift even if they have twenty degrees in the subject areas and the full knowledge at their fingertips. If they do not have the right words on their lips – no one will be the wiser. I have found that even while we openly say we want to learn, audiences more than all, want to be entertained – all the time.
Motivational speakers are supposed to, at the end of their presentation, make us feel good about ourselves and spur us to change things in our lives. They should, at the end of the event, make us feel inspired. You do not want a motivational speaker who makes your listeners depressed by keeping it ‘too real’.
Persons whom we invite to entertain us should not suddenly launch into a twenty-minute dramatic monologue about how they got into the music biz and what a cutthroat world it has been. If the audience has been prepped for musical entertainment – this is all we require – thank you very much. And unless it is a Passa Passa session, it is not a good idea to ‘dedicate’ songs to that special ’someone’ in the audience. The rest of us will feel left out.
Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson MBA, ABC, is a Business Communications Consultant with RO Communications Jamaica, specialising in business communication, employee communications and financial publications. Contact: yvonne@rocommunications.com; Website: www.rocommunications.com and post your comments.
Susan’s note: The worst nightmare for a speaker or meeting planner is putting your audience to sleep.
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