How to Evaluate a Motivational Speaker

I am a keynote motivational speaker at 30 to 40 conferences per year. Audiences average about 200 people each conference;  every delegate who sees me speak is asked or invited to evaluate my motivational speech.

Do the math! That means, that over 13 years, I have seen a lot of evaluations, some of them quite useful. Many of them give me (and I think the meeting planner) the same information.

Meeting planners rely on speaker evaluations to improve the quality of programming for each successive event. A typical motivational keynote speaker evaluation rates a speaker from 1-5 (bad to excellent) on how well the motivational speech is presented and received.

Conference Evaluation Questions for the Motivational Keynote Speaker:

• Did the presentation meet the speakers outlined learning objectives?

• On a scale of 1-5 -What value did you receive from this program?

• What was the best, most useable idea?

• What do you like best about the program?

• What changes would you recommend?

Some of the most valuable feedback I have received comes from questions like....

• What would you tell others about this program?

• What program would you like to see next time?

• How well did the motivational speaker know the audience?

• Is there a section of the program you wish the speaker spent more time on? Less time?

Over time, speaker evaluations can help meeting planners understand what delegates want and allow keynote speakers to improve their programs. I am a  humorous speaker for an HR conference every year, so Iwill be delivering a different program each time. The speaker evaluation is a critical way to see how I can improve my motivational speeches from year to year for this repeat HR audience.

A sample of our motivational speech evaluation is above.