Are you working on an upcoming event or conference?

Do you need a professional who can keep your audience engaged?

Here are 8 unique ways on how to find a good professional keynote speaker for your next event who will inspire your audience with a powerful message.

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Introduction

If you are trying to hire a good keynote speaker for your upcoming conference, seminar, or event, then chances are you are a bit overwhelmed with all of the options and probably don’t know where to start.

So to help you in this process, we are going to cover some basic questions you should answer before you begin your search:

A. What is your budget?

Make sure you have determined this as the costs and fees associated with these professionals can range from $1000 to $100,000.

B. What is your theme?

Identifying the theme of your function will drastically narrow down your search because once you have specified what the overarching theme is, then you can focus your efforts on finding someone who matches this. For example, is your event focused on business, marketing, innovation, or inspirational?

C. What is the date?

When it comes to finding an event speaker, you really have two options in determining your date.

Either…

Pick a date and then find someone who is available

Pick a speaker and then build your event around when they are available

D. What is the objective of your event?

Having a clear goal on what you want your event to accomplish is critical to ensuring that you select the right presenter.

Only once you have these questions answered, then you can use these 7 methods of finding a guest keynote speaker.

1. Speakerpedia

This website is basically the Encyclopedia of public speakers. From celebrities, authors, business leaders, tech gurus, and subject-matter experts, they are doing their best to try and organize and aggregate the worlds top speakers.

What’s good about this site is that you can easily browse profiles based upon their genre such as economics, education, business, tech, celebrity, etc.

While you can try and contact them on the site, beware that some of the profiles are not professionally managed by those speakers so the message may never reach them. It would be best if you tried to contact them directly through their own website.

Search Speakerpedia

2. National Speakers Association

Founded in 1973, the NSA is a professional organization for professional speakers that provides industry leadership and networking opportunities.

It was originally designed as a resource for orators to help them hone and develop their craft similar to Toastmasters but they now have a way for you to search their database.

While its search engine is not the greatest, it can be a good starting point for you to find people based upon genre or availability and then you’d be best suited to dig deeper on their own website.

Search NSA

3. Speakers Bureaus

If you are interested in working with a mid to top level event speaker, then you might be best suited to work with one of the speakers bureaus.

These are the agencies that manage their bookings and can help you in the search process.

One of the benefits of working with these bureaus is that they have a great deal of experience in coordinating conferences and events so they can help guide you through the process.

Bare in mind that many of the speakers do not have exclusivity with certain agencies so feel free to do some digging and find one that you get along with the best.

4. Speaker Match

Speaker Match is a website that tries to help you find the best keynote speaker for your needs.

All you need to do is input some information on what you are looking for and they will send you some matches based upon your criteria.

Think of it like a concierge service where you just tell them what you want and they send you some suggestions.

Of course, the downside to this method is that you will be limited to who is in their database and what their recommendation engine provides you.

So if you are wanting someone more specific, it may not be the best route.

Search SpeakerMatch

5. Search YouTube

Do you want someone who is a thought leader in business or tech?

Or do you want a speaker who has been on the stage at TED?

Then search YouTube.

All you need to do is commit to spending a couple of hours browsing videos on certain topics that you want to focus on at your event and then watch some of the videos to see who you like.

And of course, browse the TED videos.

6. Ask your colleagues

Chances are you have people in your network that have attended a plethora of conferences and seminars who have had to sit through many lectures and discussions.

Try contacting some of them and ask them for some recommendations on who they enjoyed listening to or found valuable.

7. LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be another powerful search engine that can help you find an event speaker.

8. Twitter

In this day and age it is common for authority figures to have a following online, with which they share valuable content regularly. You can use that to your advantage by looking for them on Twitter.

The best thing to do (similar to YouTube) is to search by using the keyword of the topic you are interested in (example: leadership development strategies), pulling some names from the results, and then searching them in Google so you can learn more about them.

Conclusion

Finding a great keynote speaker for your event can be a challenging task. Keep in mind that it’s important for you to be flexible. Certain kinds of events will call for certain kinds of presenters.

Take into consideration the venue, the program, the goals and your prospect audience. Make sure you also give the tools mentioned here a try and see how they work for you.

If you are able to make the right choice, your event will be remembered fondly by your attendees. Not only that, but you will also be prepared to make your subsequent events even more successful and effective.