Calling All Event Planners: Here’s How You Find Great Speakers for Your Event

These people can be the difference between a successful or an underwhelming event, so you’ve got to make sure you’re booking the right person for the occasion.

With that in mind, here are some strategies that will help you secure the best possible speaker for your event.

Trawl Through Social Media

In today’s digital age, many of the key influencers in your industry will be active on social media and may have a considerable online following in their own right. You can watch videos of speakers in action, read their thought-leadership articles on LinkedIn, and see what they’re tweeting about to get a sense of their areas of expertise and how they engage with their audience.

Once you’ve identified a shortlist, you can then pay a visit to the planner page on their speaker websites to learn more about them and assess whether they are a good fit for your upcoming event.

Leverage Your Network

As an event planner, you’ll have likely built up hundreds of contacts over the years, both by attending other events and building your own audience for your own events.

Never be afraid to ask these people for recommendations and referrals if you are struggling to find a suitable speaker. They may well have seen a speaker at an industry conference or a small networking event that they instantly thought would be a good fit for your organization but haven’t yet had an opportunity to tell you about them.

Better still, if this recommendation comes from someone you trust and know well, you have that extra layer of reassurance that the speaker is every bit as good as your colleague says they are.

Survey Your Audience

Part of ensuring your event is a runaway success is delivering them a speaker that provides them with what they want to see and hear. By surveying those set to attend, you can ascertain what they want to get out of your event, the topics they want to be covered, and you can even ask if there is anyone they would specifically like to see.

By booking a speaker that everyone wants to see, you can drive up interest, ticket sales, and memberships. If you manage to secure a name that everybody in your audience is familiar with, they will become a selling point of your event in their own right.

Join Your Local Chamber of Commerce

An excellent local organization to tap up for potential speakers is your local Chamber of Commerce. They focus on bringing local businesses together and often have speakers booked for events that take place as frequently as every couple of weeks.

You could choose to join your local Chamber and attend these speeches yourself to assess and evaluate speaking talent on topics within your field, or you could ask for a list of previous speakers and their topics to conduct some further research.

Reach Out to a Professional Speakers Organization

Another way to source excellent speakers for your next event is to reach out to organizations and businesses specializing in training professional speakers and connecting you with speakers that best match your industry and event type.

At Charli Jane Speakers, we’ve been matching top-tier speakers with event planners for over two decades. We boast a stable of hundreds of professionally trained speakers spanning almost every industry ready to dazzle and impress your audience.

All you need to do is inquire about a particular topic, name, or industry, and we will instantly present you with a list of seasoned speakers that we have personally mentored and coached. You can also review their previous portfolio of clients, watch them in action with their speaker videos, and check out their social media profiles to get a sense of their areas of expertise.

The best part? No finder’s fees! Our service is FREE for all meeting planners. All you need to do is browse our speakers directory by name, topic, or if you are in a hurry, compose a Call for Speakers.

So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you secure the best possible speaker for your next event!