If you are organizing an event and looking to find a keynote speaker, then you might be wondering what traits you should look for before hiring them.
Each professional brings a different level of expertise and personality to their repertoire, but if you are looking to choose someone who can deliver at a high level, then you want to choose someone with specific abilities.
Here are 11 qualities and characteristics that every successful keynote speaker should have so that they can deliver a good speech at any event:
1. Driven By Their Mission
Every good speaker has a mission or purpose as to why they do what they do.
To lead an audience and keep them engaged means that the speaker must be passionate about what he or she is saying.
When working with a professional, its good to find someone who has dedicated their life to this mission because then you know you are dealing with someone who is committed and authentic to their message.
2. A Good Storyteller
If you want to captivate your audience and keep them on the edge of their seat, then you need to find a speaker who is a great storyteller and is inspirational in some way.
This person should have a plethora of life experience that they can draw from and have the ability to synthesize the information that keeps the crowd on its toes.
Having a good story teller on your stage will ensure that your event is memorable.
3. Credible & Trustworthy
Your audience is going to be giving you not only their time, but an open ear. This means that whomever you put in front of them on stage should be someone that is trusted, believable, and convincing.
Credibility is something that is established with accomplishments, achievements, and integrity. Make sure that which ever professional you work with, they are someone whom your attendees can trust because they will associate your brand with this person.
4. Authentic & Genuine
A good event speaker is not only driven by their mission and trustworthy, but they should also be authentic.
Ask yourself this question:
- Why is this person speaking?
- Why do they want to work with us?
If it’s just for the paycheck, you might want to keep looking.
The goal here is to find someone who is genuine about why they are a speaker as well as being sincerely interested in partnering with you.
5. Articulate
A great speaker is someone who has the ability to take complex information and summarize it in a way where people can take action on the information in some way.
Depending on the type of event, if you plan on partnering with someone who is going to be tied into your business objective, then you will want someone who can take those key points and deliver them flawlessly.
6. Sense of Humor
Humor is another great quality a keynote speaker should have. By humor we don’t mean being a circus clown, but a person who is light-hearted and who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.
While the professional you work with can definitely be deep, intense, and serious about their subject matter, they should also have some sense of humor.
Depending on the material, presentations can sometimes be dry or long-winded and you want to make sure that the person who is engaging your audience has the ability to get them to crack a smile and laugh every so often so that it breaks up the monotony.
Self-deprecating humor is a good way to amuse the audience. All great speakers can get an audience to at least chuckle once or twice.
7. Confidence
Most people fear public speaking as it takes a great deal of courage to stand up in front of thousands of people and speak to them with poise.
More importantly, for a person to be considered a keynote speaker means that they must have a great deal of confidence to have gotten to a place where they would be considered for such a role.
Because your attendees will be focusing on them and since they are representing your organization, you want to make sure that they are someone who can command a stage with a great deal of confidence.
8. Creativity
A good quality of any speaker is their ability to take the information you want covered and to it in a way that will create intrigue with your audience.
They should have a unique perspective on the subject matter.
Unless your events topic is about something new and groundbreaking that has never been heard before, chances are you will be discussing something that has already been said.
The trick here is to do it in a way that makes it feel like its new information. A keynote speaker should be able to make the attendees look at a topic from a completely different angle, making them think about things they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Make sure you hire somebody who brings a novel approach to your main theme.
9. Being Relatable
If your keynote speaker is not able to connect with your audience on an individual level, your event won’t be as successful as it can be.
People like to feel that they are not alone – that somebody else has been through where they currently are and has overcome similar challenges. If your audience doesn’t connect with your speaker, the message won’t be effective.
Good orators relate to their audience through personal stories. They allow themselves to be vulnerable and share their feelings, doubts and obstacles with their audience in a very honest manner.
By doing so, they make their listeners feel like they are understood. Human beings are social creatures, and we like the idea that other people have gone through the same things we did.
For example, at his famous Stanford commencement speech, Steve Jobs shares his story of when he dropped out of college and how he felt back then – uncertain about the future. This is a feeling that resonated with his audience, made up mainly by young graduates who were not sure about how their future would turn out.
10. A Powerful Message
A great speaker should also have a powerful message to get across.
He or she should be able to inspire your audience to strive for greatness; to be the best version of themselves they can possibly be, or to look at something in a new way.
Ideally, your attendees should leave the conference with that main message deeply etched upon their memory and with a whole new perspective.
11. Being Likeable
Your audience is going to be listening to this individual for an hour or two which means that they must be likeable.
Not only because they should enjoy hearing them talk and feel instant rapport once they see them on stage, but because they are representing your company.
Remember that whomever you put on stage will be representing you and your brand.
See also: