They can make or break your event!
Meeting planners ask all the time: “How do I know if a speaker is really good?”
It’s a fair question. Speaker reels are polished. Testimonials are curated. Websites look impressive.
But here’s the truth: you can’t judge a speaker by their marketing. You judge them by what happens in the room…and what happens after they leave it.
Indulge me while I tell you about something that happened to me when I keynoted a recent conference. Not to put myself on a pedestal, but because it illustrates exactly what you should be looking for when you hire a speaker.
The Room Shifted
I was the keynote speaker at DynamicsCon, the annual conference for Microsoft Dynamics 365 users. Seven hundred high-achieving technical experts who came for substance, not motivation.
During my talk, I could feel the room shift. It went from what started as polite attention and then morphed to something more alive than that.
People leaned in. They laughed. They pondered. They nodded. Many got quiet in that way that tells you something landed differently than they expected.
When I was finished, many came to chat about what they heard. I heard stories of self-doubt and fear, and bold commitments to move past it and step up. One woman embraced me with tears. Not because I tried to make anyone emotional, but because something I said was true for her, and she recognized it.
That’s the first sign of a great speaker: the audience stops being an audience and becomes participants.
They Remembered the Content
In my keynote, I teach a concept called Your DOT™.
The idea is simple and grounded: your accomplishments are something you’ve DONE, you can OWN them, and they are TRUE. Impostor syndrome works by making high achievers doubt the validity of their own success. Your DOT is the antidote. It’s a concrete, evidence-based, impossible-to-argue-with reality. It hits hard.
The catch phrase I use is: “I’m proud of my dot.”
After the keynote, people weren’t just saying “great talk.” They were quoting the concept back to me. By name. With the language and gestures I used on stage.
That’s the second sign of a great speaker: they give the audience something to carry out of the room.
A talk that feels good in the moment but evaporates by Tuesday is entertainment. A talk that gives people a concept, a phrase, a framework they can use — that’s value.
They Took Action Nobody Asked Them To
But THIS is the part that still moves me when I think about it.
Two attendees, completely on their own, with zero prompting, immediately created little circle stickers with “This is my DOT” printed on them. And they walked the conference floor handing them out to other attendees.
No one asked them to do this. I didn’t know it was happening. They weren’t conference staff.
They just believed in the idea enough to spread it.
That is the third and most important sign of a great speaker: the audience becomes ambassadors.
When that happens, the speaker’s message doesn’t end when they walk off stage. It travels with the people who heard it. It shows up in hallway conversations, in Slack channels, in the way someone handles a meeting the following Monday.
That’s the result you’re paying for.
What This Means for You as a Planner
If you’re hiring a speaker for your next event, here are the questions worth asking:
- Does this speaker teach something, or just inspire?
Inspiration fades. A practical concept, a memorable framework, a phrase people can use, something that stays. Look for speakers who give the audience a tool, not just a feeling.
- Can they bond the audience together?
Something shifted at DynamicsCon that I can only describe as galvanization. Seven hundred people who arrived as individuals left as a collective. The shared language, the shared moment, the shared idea…it bonded them. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when a speaker gives an audience something worth holding together.
- What happens after the talk?
Ask for specifics. Not just “the audience loved it,” but what did they do? Did they quote it? Apply it? Share it? The best speakers create a ripple. Find out if this one does.
- Is their message something your audience will remember in six months?
The sticker story happened because the concept was sticky — clear, simple, and immediately personal. If you can’t explain what a speaker teaches in one sentence, the audience probably can’t either. I’ve often said “If it takes a speech to summarize a speech, it wasn’t a good speech.”
- Do they customize, or copy-paste?
A speaker who delivers the same talk to every audience is a recording, not a performer. Find out how they prepare, what questions they ask about your audience, and how they adapt.
The Bottom Line
The best conference moments aren’t the ones where the audience claps politely and heads to the buffet.
They’re the ones where two people find some stickers and start a spontaneous movement because the idea was that good.
That’s what you’re hiring for.
If you’re curious about what that looks like in a live setting (including the DOT exercise that started the whole sticker situation) I’d love to talk.
Watch my demo video → https://vimeo.com/801696873
Or drop me a note to explore bringing this to your event.