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Getting the Best Motivational Speaker for Your Event

Even though motivational and inspirational speakers are viewed as mostly the same or synonymous to each other, there’s a difference between getting an inspiring speaker to getting a speaker that motivates you.

The motivational speaker is the person who pushes people to actual action, while the inspirational speaker is just there to make you feel better about yourself if you’ve feeling uninspired or down. That’s how you find the best motivation speaker around.

When shopping for good talkers in your conference or convention, find the speaker that knows what he’s talking about, has a lot of experience in your industry or the topic of your meet-up, and can empower their audiences to see the world in a different or better light. That’s what you should be on the lookout for.

Things to Consider When Finding the Best Motivational Speaker

There are several things you should look for when getting your own motivational speaker, chief among them the ability to move people to do something about their lives. To wit:

• Find a Motivational Speaker That’s Related to Your Field: If it’s for a hacking conference, then get some hacking guru who knows how to connect to his audience to speak. If it’s about SEO, it’s the same thing. Of course, the more successful a motivational speaker, the more expensive his services will be, so you should know how to contact up-and-coming speakers who want are eager to get a pay cut just to spread their word. To be honest, when looking for good speakers that motivate your employees or guests or participants in your event, you should have the right contacts and know the right people. That’s your best bet in getting worthwhile related motivation speakers into your event that have words that could move an entire industry forward.

• Have Last-Minute Replacements Handy in Case of Unforeseen Circumstances: If your motivational speaker were to not make it to your conference, convention, or special event, then having a last-minute replacement is called for so that you won’t lose money from having to shut down the motivational speaker portion of your meet-up. Maybe it’s a second your third choice you have in your short-list. Perhaps it’s a member of your own company, like the president or a motivational speaker manager of sorts. Regardless, having a last-minute replacement at the very least ensures that your event is a bust and you’ll be able to make lemonade out of the lemons given to you by life, even though the replacement isn’t a primary motivational speaker choice of yours.

• Know Why You’re Inviting a Motivational Speaker to Your Event: The main benefits of motivational speakers are their ability to communicate inspiring and industry-changing ideas that assist your workers or the people within your industry to make a change. Businesses need these speakers the most, because motivation is exactly what drives them towards success. A lack of motivation, meanwhile, ultimately kills an industry because it’s not able to keep up with changing times or push its leaders and followers towards evolving. Organizations require motivated people in order to make projects happen and succeed, so the most gifted of motivational speakers is the secret towards this ultimate goal of total productivity through speakers and whatnot. With that said, motivational speaking is becoming a lost art in today’s TV-addled, Internet-obsessed youth.

• Measuring the Capabilities and Results of a Motivational Speaker: When searching for the best motivational speaker for your school to your Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, you should find one that motivates people to action. However, that’s hard to scale objectively, so you might need to get references. There are professional-level speakers who have websites that cite their results and have testimonials of satisfied listeners to their conferences. Get a sample of their work through YouTube or SoundCloud. You can also listen through the grapevine in order to hunt for good speakers with great feedback on them through word of mouth or even though online reviews, blogs, and forums. The business motivational speakers who motivate staff to work have more objective means of analysis in performance by the companies they’ve worked with.

• Search for Motivational Speakers That Can Improve Work Ethic and Morale: This is a specific subset of motivational speakers that should be easy enough to Google. It’s also easier to find a work-ethic-motivating speaker that’s within your budget range compared to, say, finding an industry guru to speak at a special event or in your conference room so that you can make sure you and your employees are all on the same page. In fact, it might be easier for you to get this motivational speaker since this is the most common type of speaker out there (because jobs involving motivating students and workers are always available all over the nation or the world). There are even motivational speaker organizations and providers that offer speakers who could do in-house training, tutorials, and briefings for your company at your request.
  

• Bringing in a Professional Motivational Speaker Package for Your Keynote: A keynote in public speaking terms is the the principal underlying theme of a larger idea. A good professional motivational speaker knows how to convey the keynote and main point of your speaking engagement in a few words and within the entirety of his whole speech. He knows how to put the idea in a nutshell then expand upon in such a way that the original idea is further highlighted or emphasized to the point that the listeners never forget the keynote that’s being talked about. With that said, professional speakers are going the extra mile nowadays, offering in-depth training sessions along with speaking sessions.

The Bottom Line

Like when purchasing products or services for your personal use, availing of a motivational speaker entails knowing what he’s capable of and whether or not his skills are in line with whatever outcome you want to happen after the speaking engagement is over.

When all is said and done, what do you want your employees or students or guests to get out of the motivational speaker?

What objectives do you want for your audience?

What do you want the listeners of the talk to do afterwards?

What are their takeaways from the talk supposed to be?

These questions and more should help you with your ultimate motivational speaker choice.