Why is a Speaker Intro so Important?
When you’ve invested time and precious event dollars on a professional speaker, making the most of this investment makes sense, right? Here’s one simple way that you may not have considered.
To set your speaker up for success the moment they take the stage, the speaker intro is pivotal!
An effective speaker intro should:
- Be short. 🙂
- Grab attention and re-focus it on the presenter ready to engage your franchise audience.
- Provide credibility for the speaker—so they do not need to spend valuable presentation time doing this themselves. (This can easily appear arrogant and off-putting. 🙂 )
- Initiate and open the connection between your audience and the speaker.
- Let your audience know a bit about why the speaker was chosen for them. (See more on this below.)
A powerful way to introduce your speaker to your audience is to start with just a few words (before the speaker’s actual introduction) on why this particular speaker was carefully chosen to be here today. This will help set up the speaker’s qualifications and credibility and emphasize the care that was taken to find the perfect person to address your group. Let your audience know how much you care about them and the effort that went into bringing them an experience that will help them grow both personally and professionally!
Example:
After reviewing countless speaker options to come and share their stories with you today, the convention committee finally settled on (Name of Speaker Here) and I can’t tell you how excited we are to have (Speaker First Name Here). (Speaker First Name) was hands down a perfect choice for us because of his unparalleled franchise experience, global recognition as a customer service expert, and his personal success in running award winning franchise units himself.”
Taking this step brings a new level of authenticity to the typical, predictable speaker intro!
More soon…
Katrina
P.S. We’ve created an Effective Speaker Intro tip sheet which contains this information—so it’s handy if needed. 🙂
Franchise Speakers
Excellent advice. And I might add, the best way to get a good introduction is to write it yourself and send it in advance. It’s always great when the person introducing me has practiced the introduction and made it special.