The decisions to make before you invite a single event speaker

Business TipsEntrepreneurshipEventsSpeakers
Written By Arielle Jones

The smoothest speaker experiences are usually set up before the invitation ever goes out. Not after they say yes. Before.

Most of what goes sideways with speakers doesn't start with travel hiccups or a missing headshot or some last-minute change the week of. It starts much earlier. It starts the moment a host sends an invitation before getting clear on what they're actually asking for, and what they're actually trying to create.

If you've been thinking of your speakers as part of the experience you're designing rather than slots to fill, the natural next question is how to choose well. Because it's easy to get excited about a speaker. It's easy to admire someone's work from a distance and think, oh, they'd be amazing. And they might be. But before you send a single invitation, there are a few decisions worth making first, and those decisions quietly shape everything that comes after them.

The speaker invitation that gets an easy yes

Prefer to watch? The full breakdown is in the video below. Otherwise, let’s dive in.

Get clear on what you want before you look at who

Most people start with the speaker. I think that's backwards. The first question isn't "who should I invite?" The first question is "what do I want this person to do for my guests?" The outcome should be driving the choice, not the other way around.

Say you're hosting a retreat for women moving through a big transition, in life or in business. You might want them to leave feeling more confident, more grounded, more willing to trust their own judgment again. That's a completely different outcome than an event built around scaling a company, growing revenue, or building out a team. And because the outcome is different, the speaker should be different too.

One person serves the experience you're creating. One doesn't. Neither of them is wrong. They're just not interchangeable. And that's the thing. We tend to treat speakers like they're interchangeable as long as they're good. They're not.

So before you look at any names, get honest about a few things. What role does this speaker play in the day? Why are they here, specifically? What do I want people walking away with after hearing them?

Once you're clear on that, something nice happens. The list of who could possibly fill that role gets a lot shorter and a lot clearer. You're not staring at every impressive person you can think of. You're looking for a specific kind of person to do a specific job.

Know which way you're working

That clarity leads straight into a question most hosts never actually stop to answer out loud. Are you building the event around the speaker, or finding a speaker for the event? Both of those work. You just want to know which one you're doing.

Sometimes there's a speaker you've had your eye on for years. You hear them once and think, if I could get them, I'd build a whole event around that idea. That's a completely valid way to do it. The speaker is the spark, and everything grows out from there.

Other times the vision comes first. You already know the theme. You know exactly who's in the room. You know the experience you're after. Now you're looking for the person who serves it best. That's just as valid.

Where it gets messy is when those two approaches quietly blur together without anyone noticing. A host falls for a speaker, brings them in early, and then spends the next few months trying to bend the rest of the event around someone who doesn't quite fit the room. Or it goes the other way. A host knows exactly what their audience needs, has it dialed in, and then a bigger name becomes available and they abandon the plan to chase the name.

Neither of those is automatically a mistake. But they create very different events, and you want to be choosing on purpose, not drifting from one into the other halfway through.

So be honest with yourself up front. Am I choosing the experience first, or the speaker first? Whichever it is, that answer should shape every decision that comes after it.

Do your homework before you reach out

Once you know what role the speaker plays and which direction you're working from, there's one more thing to do before the invitation goes out. A little homework.

One of the easiest mistakes to make is assuming a speaker who looks great on paper will automatically be great for your event. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they really aren't. And it's worth knowing the difference before you're committed.

When you're sizing up a speaker, don't stop at their website. Don't just read the polished bio. Watch clips of them speaking. Look at how the audience reacts. Notice how people engage with them. And talk to someone who's worked with them.

That last one is the most valuable thing you can do, and the most overlooked. Because what a speaker is like on stage is only part of the picture. What they're like to actually coordinate with is the other part, and it matters just as much when you're the one holding the event together.

Some speakers are a genuine pleasure to work with. They're responsive, they send what you need, they make your job easier. Others create far more work than you'd ever guess from watching them shine for forty-five minutes on a stage. That's information you want before you're locked in, not after.

This isn't about being skeptical or treating people like a risk. It's about being informed. The goal was never just finding someone who can speak. The goal is finding someone who can serve your audience and be a real fit for the experience you're building, on stage and behind the scenes.

Get clear on the ask and the offer

There's one more thing that shapes every speaker decision, whether we want it to or not. Budget. And underneath budget, two questions you want answered before you ever reach out. What are you asking of this person? And what are you offering in return? Getting clear on those two things up front prevents a surprising amount of friction down the line.

Put yourself in the speaker's seat for a second. Imagine getting an invitation that just says, "we'd love to have you speak at our event." That's lovely. It also leaves almost everything unanswered. How long is the session? What's the format? Is there a planning call? Am I traveling? What are the dates? What's expected before the event?

Now compare that to an invitation that says: "We'd love for you to give a 45-minute keynote on this topic, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. We'll do one planning call beforehand. Travel is covered. Here's the full event overview." That's so much easier to say yes to. The speaker can make a real decision because they're seeing the actual opportunity, not a vague sketch of one. And honestly, it tells them something about you, too. It says the person running this event has their act together.

This is also where budget really comes into play, because budget decides what's realistically on the table before you get attached to any one person. Some speakers come with extras built in. Travel preferences. Hotel expectations. Green room needs. Appearance fees. Production requests. And sometimes it runs the other direction. In a lot of corporate settings, certain speakers can't accept payment at all, and a donation to a cause they care about is the more fitting way to say thank you.

The point isn't that every arrangement looks the same. They won't. The point is knowing what you're asking for and what you're able to offer before the conversation ever starts, so you're not scrambling to figure it out mid-negotiation.

What ties all of this together

The hosts who create great speaker experiences usually aren't guessing their way through it. They're making the decisions before the invitation ever gets sent. What experience they're creating. What role each speaker plays. Whether the fit is right. What they're asking for. What they're offering in return.

That kind of clarity makes for better invitations, better speaker relationships, and a better event all the way around.

If you're putting an event together right now and you'd like a quick read on where your setup is solid and where it might want a little more attention, I put together a free assessment called the Event Pulse Check. It takes about five minutes and gives you a personalized result right away, so you can catch the soft spots while there's still plenty of time to do something about them. You can take it here.

Finding great speakers can feel like the hard part, right up until they say yes. Make these decisions first, and the yes becomes the easy part too.

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Arielle Jones
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