Most speaker briefs are logistics documents. Date, venue, running order, length, AV requirements, a note about the dress code. All necessary, none of it about the talk.
The result is predictable. A capable speaker turns up, delivers a good version of their standard talk, the room enjoys it, and nothing changes on Monday. That is almost always a briefing failure rather than a speaker failure, and it is the cheapest thing on the whole event to fix.
Why the brief carries so much weight
A speaker can only tailor to what they know. Given a date and a topic, they will give you the topic. Given a real picture of the room, what those people are worried about, what has already been tried, and what the event is trying to achieve, they can aim at something specific.
This is not a soft point. Briefing is a skill in its own right, which is why it appears as a standalone module in Kevin Chesters’ training programme: how to write the brief that gets you what you want. Organisations that brief well get better work out of everyone they hire, not just speakers.
What a good speaker brief actually contains
The single outcome
One sentence: after this talk, the audience will ________. Not “be inspired”. Something you could check. If you cannot finish that sentence, the talk has no job, and the same test applies whether you are booking a keynote, a masterclass or a workshop, as covered in choosing the right format.
Who is actually in the room
Not the headcount. Seniority, function, how much they already agree with the premise, and whether attendance is voluntary. A room of volunteers and a room of people told to be there need different opening moves.
What they already believe
The most useful line in any brief is the one that says what the audience will be sceptical about. A speaker who knows the objection in advance can meet it directly instead of talking past it for forty minutes.
What has already been tried
If there was a change programme two years ago that did not work, say so. Nothing loses a room faster than a confident recommendation the audience already attempted and abandoned.
What is off limits
Live commercial sensitivities, a restructure that has not been announced, a competitor nobody names. Speakers would generally rather know the boundaries than guess at them.
What surrounds the talk
What comes immediately before and after, and what the CEO is saying in their session. A keynote that quietly contradicts the leadership message creates a problem rather than solving one.
The honest tone
Is this a celebration, a reset, or a difficult year being faced squarely? Getting this wrong is the single most common reason a technically good talk lands badly.
Three questions worth answering in writing
- What would make this a waste of money? The answer usually reveals the real objective faster than the objective itself.
- What do you want people saying in the corridor afterwards? That sentence is effectively the talk’s job description.
- What happens next? If the answer is nothing, the talk is entertainment, which is a legitimate choice but should be a deliberate one.
What to expect back
A brief is the start of a conversation, not a specification to be executed silently. A speaker worth booking will push back on it: question the outcome, tell you the audience will not accept the premise, or say plainly that what you have described is a workshop rather than a keynote.
That pushback is the value. It is also a reasonable way to assess someone before you commit, and it connects directly to what a business keynote speaker should deliver in the first place.
Length, and why shorter is usually better
Two sides is plenty. Long briefs tend to be long because they are hedging, and hedged briefs produce hedged talks. Be specific about the outcome, honest about the room, and clear about the constraints. Everything else can be a conversation.
A worked example, compressed
Weak: “45 minutes on creativity for our annual conference, around 300 people, upbeat tone.”
Strong: “45 minutes. 300 people, mostly mid-level marketing and commercial, attendance is expected rather than optional. They think creativity belongs to the agency and is not their job. We restructured last year and it was unpopular. We want them leaving believing creative thinking is part of their role and having one thing they could try in their next planning meeting. The CEO speaks before you about cost discipline, so please do not frame creativity as expensive.”
The second brief will get a materially better talk from the same speaker at the same fee. That is the whole argument.
The short version
Brief the outcome, the room, the scepticism, the history and the constraints. Keep it to two pages. Expect and welcome challenge on it. The brief costs an hour and changes what you get more than almost any other decision on the day.
If you are working on one now and want it stress-tested, or want to discuss a talk, get in touch. Kevin’s keynote topics cover storytelling, creativity, what businesses can learn from gangs, and how to create more time.