5 COMMON MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE WHEN HIRING A 'KEYNOTE' SPEAKER AND HOW Volume 1 | Page 6

M IS TA KE # 4
THE AUDIENCE ARE
NOT ON BOARD
x x x
One thing that I think trips up a lot of people organising
these events is forgetting to match your speaker with
your audience. Your message and their story might be a
great match, but if the audience can’t relate to them they
might as well not be there.
Demographics clearly play a huge role. There is no point
for example using an idol from one generation to convey
a message to another. It sounds obvious, but the amount
of people I have spoken to who’ve been at events where
the organisers have clearly chosen their ‘hero’ to speak
without taking into consideration that not everyone will
have the same connection.
A number of my clients have asked the audience to put
forward suggestions on who they would like as the keynote
speaker and one went as far as to post videos of potential
speakers on the company’s intranet so the audience could
choose. Certainly if the audience feel part of the decision
making process they are far more likely to listen to, and
take on board, what the speaker has to say.