What Does It Take to be a 5-Star Speaker?

The goal of every presentation is to enlighten an audience in one way or another so they:

Feel like their time was well spent.
Walk away with more information, insight, and/or understanding into a topic they’re interested in.
Have a reason to remember you, and even mention your name when your topic comes up in conversations.

5-Star speakers know that the best way to achieve their own speaking goals is to make sure the people sitting in their audiences achieve their goals too. Here are 5 must-do’s for ensuring that you’re delivering the top-quality talk they’re expecting.

Know Your Audience! There’s nothing worse than having a 5-star talk and having it fall flat because you’re not speaking to the right audience. The problem is that sometimes we can be so optimistic during our first conversation with a planner, we forget the importance of making sure their audience and our talk are a good match.

Find out why a planner thinks you’re a good match for their audience. Try to clarify how much the audience already does or doesn’t know about your topic, and what they might want to learn more about. If possible, speak with someone who regularly attends meetings this planner organizes. This way you’ll be less likely to find yourself talking over or under your audiences’ heads.

Keep Up to Date: Have you noticed how quickly things change these days? 5-Star speakers stay up to date with both industry trends and new ideas emerging within their topic and field of expertise. They follow relevant/emerging news and pay attention to what their fellow experts are sharing on LinkedIn and social media. They read their blogs and watch their YouTube videos too… not to copy though. This is simply about making sure your talk includes up to date cutting-edge information too.

Engage With Them:  While you’re following 5-star speakers within your topic, take the time to consider how they’re engaging with their audiences, both on and off the stage. For example, if you’re on a 5-star speaker’s email list, how are they engaging with you?

Sometimes it’s easier to make decisions about how to deliver your own content by paying attention to how others are delivering their content. Again, this isn’t about copying. It’s just a great way to get acquainted with a variety of engagement strategies.

Go for Flow right from the start. Make sure your introduction provides a proper foreshadowing of what’s ahead. That way your audience will know you’re ready to start delivering what they came to hear—as promised. Take the time to make sure your talking points flow and transition one to the next without any awkward pauses… especially with the last transition from your conclusion to letting the audience know how to reach you for more information.

Pay Attention to Your Audience. You know that feeling when you’ve engaged and connected with your audience and everything just feels right? The question is, how do you tangibly measure the success of your talks? Is it by how long your Q&A session lasts? Is it the number of people who wait to speak with you after the stage? Maybe it’s the number of people who seek you out after the event via email, texting, social media, etc. Whatever measurements you decide on, make sure to use them. Otherwise, you won’t know if your audience shared that “this was so great!” feeling too!

After all that, I can guess what you might be thinking right about now. “But how does this apply to me? I’m not a 5-star speaker yet!”

No problem. Remember… everyone starts somewhere. Just think of these 5 must-do’s as strategies for earning your 5-star speaker creds faster.

‘Til we speak again….
~Beth