Hiring A Business Motivational Speaker - Recommendations

If you're looking to hire a business motivational speaker, here are some of the important questions you should be asking yourself. And be sure to answer them before spending countless hours wandering around speaker websites or contacting speakers bureaus. (FYI: If you should choose to go the bureau route, you still need to have crystal clear answers to these crucial questions.)

Expect a business motivational speaker to ask questions like the ones in this article. In fact if he/she doesn't, you may want to look elsewhere. In a similar way, if a speaker just keeps talking about how funny he is, definitely look elsewhere!

Frankly if you just want someone who's funny - call a local comedy club. Explain that you need a clean corporate comedian and ask for a recommendation. This simple tactic will save you a ton of money.

Conversely, if you want humor and ideas, don't fall into the trap of booking both a comedian and a business inspirational speaker. Over the years, I've saved my clients a fortune by pointing out that the right professional motivational speaker can be as funny as a comedian and give them cutting-edge ideas for overcoming their challenges and supercharging their results.

The right general session speaker can foster a more open attitude towards the remainder of your conference. That said, an exceptional business motivational speaker is a rare breed, combining a sense of humor with well thought out and powerful ideas. And all wrapped up with a compassion that keeps the focus squarely on the needs of your attendees.

So here's the first question: What, precisely, do you expect of your business motivational speaker? Do you want to create a fresh sense of camaraderie among your colleagues, diffuse some emotional tension in your organization or do your attendees need cutting edge strategies to overcome industry wide challenges? Do you have specific "take home" agenda items and, if so, what are they?

Once you've established what you need from your prospective motivational speaker, you also need to be clear about exactly what your speaker needs from you. You need absolute clarity around the objectives for your meeting. To the point where you can communicate those objectives in a systematic way. For example, do you want your keynote speaker to create an atmosphere of celebration or address the difficulties your organization is facing during challenging times? Or, do you need a little of both?

Expect your speaker to ask questions like: What are your organizations high-priority challenges? What solutions have been tried so far? How successful have they been? Your answers help the speaker paint a vivid picture of your organization and how (s)he might fit into your organization and move your people towards a predetermined goal.

One final (and important) point: Don't immediately discount a potential business motivational speaker who doesn't have a background in your industry. Sometimes what audiences need more than anything else is a different point of view. A well thought out, often counter-intuitive, perspective.