This week I got a phone call from a meeting planner who I have worked with in the past who was on the hunt to hire a motivational speaker.
Last year, she had hired a very well known experienced motivational speaker who delivered his motivational speech in a very lackluster, routine way. His tone, mannerisms and overall disposition indicated that he didn't want to be there.
The audience was restless and irritated because his attitude really showed. His feedback and evaluation were mediocre at best. The motivational speaker charged over $10,000 and the audience was more put off than inspired.
I asked her what the evaluations said and what might have gone wrong. The audience feedback showed and her overall interpretation confirmed that he had delivered this same motivational speech so many times that he was now bored of the material.
The content and delivery came off as lackluster at best because the speech was nothing new or exciting for the motivational speaker. He mentioned several times in his speech that this is not new information.
As a motivational speaker, it is really easy to get into a rut and deliver the same motivational speech over and over again.
New, unique material takes a lot of time to research, develop, incorporate and memorize. It is also a bit riskier than your same old content because it hasn't been tested with a live audience.
Developing new material is time consuming and challenging especially when it is so easy as a motivational speaker to get caught up in the day to day tasks like travel, administration, billing, booking travel and more.
Yet fresh material catered to the audience is the difference between a good motivational speech and a great one.
I suggested to the meeting planner that some of the questions she could ask before hiring a motivational speaker to determine if they ever develop fresh material:
- Will the speaker cater the message and material to the audience? How? How much time will they spend preparing?
-What percentage of the motivational speech will be catered or unique to your audience?
- How much unique speaking material does the motivational speaker have? (90 minutes, a day, a weeks worth?) This will help determine how much product development they do.
- Do they have a regular blog or do they continually develop new products? This will show market engagement, research and development.
