After you’ve finally found the after dinner speakerr for the important event you’re planning you might be forgiven for believing that the hard work is done. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. Even after booking the after dinner speaker it’ll be down to you to get prepared by briefing the after dinner speaker in plenty of time.
It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that the fact you’ve hired a professional after dinner speaker should guarantee you the perfect speech with no hassle. If you are looking to save yourself the tedium of listening to a boring presentation that has been made in every venue before then you have to brief your speaker on a few simple details to allow him or her to tailor their speech.
One of the simplest things that you must remember is the most often forgotten: to give the speaker enough information about the audience. He or she needs to know the age and gender of the audience and the reason they are in a room together in the first place. Do they all work for you? Are they all members of the same club or association? All of this information is golden and will affect the choice of speech. You should also make sure the after dinner speaker is aware of the audience’s expectations. Audiences might be expecting a motivational, humorous or advisory speech and the speaker must plan ahead for that.
It is to be hoped you watched the speaker in action before hiring him or her. You should therefore feel confident that they won’t be littering their speech with clich?s which will bore your audience Don’t feel guilty mentioning this to the speaker though. You know your audience and if you think they will love or hate certain jokes then make the speaker aware in plenty of time.
The way the after dinner speaker captured the audience’s attention should have been something you noticed when reviewing the speaker before hiring him or her. This is obviously important in any speech but if you believe that your audience will be especially restless then tell your speaker so he or she can include interesting information in the introduction to capture the attention of the audience.