Phase 3 · Preparing the Speaker and Program
What Keynote Customization Actually Means
A customized keynote usually adapts a speaker's existing work to your audience. The speaker might choose different stories, combine parts of established programs or apply a familiar framework to a challenge your organization faces. That does not automatically mean writing an entirely new speech. If you want a fundamentally different kind of presentation, you may need to book a different program.
What can change within a keynote?
A speaker with established programs on culture, sales and overcoming adversity might draw from more than one of them for your audience. Someone who speaks about AI could focus on its use by salespeople or talent-agent assistants instead of giving a broad presentation on the subject. In both cases, the speaker is working with material they already know and choosing what serves the people in the room.
The result will vary by speaker. An inspirational speaker may keep the personal story you hired them to tell and briefly connect it to your organization's challenges. A more analytical speaker may study the company as a case study or apply an existing framework to a problem your team is facing. Some engagements may go as far as a workshop. You should not expect every speaker to offer the same depth of customization.
David Kwong can go further by creating original puzzles or crosswords using an organization's language and event themes. That is a distinctive part of what he can do, not the standard meaning of a customized keynote.
When should you discuss the scope?
Tell the Mollie Plotkin Group early if substantial tailoring is important to your event. The broad direction should preferably be clear before the contracts for the speaker's appearance are signed, even if the details are worked out after the speaker has heard from your team.
An agreement might name two topics that the speaker will draw from, leaving the final mix for the pre-conference call. If the direction is intentionally open, the topic itself may be settled on that call. The Pre-Conference Speaker Call and Audience Brief explains the context leadership can give the speaker there.
You can ask for more customization afterward. We can take that request to the speaker and explain honestly what they are willing or able to do.
When is it a different program?
Changing an example or combining parts of existing topics is one thing. Asking a story-driven speaker for a substantially more analytical presentation, or an analytical speaker for a purely narrative one, can change the deliverable. An interactive performance may be a separate named program rather than a more customized version of the keynote.
David Kwong's AI keynote, for example, is different from his full interactive magic experience. Jon Dorenbos' inspirational keynote is different from a performance built around magic. Felipe Gomez and Doug Manuel offer programs with substantial musical elements; asking for substantially more music late in the process can change a program originally booked with little or none.
Speaker AV and Production Checklist covers the production handoff. Q&A, Photo Ops and Additional Appearance Requests covers services added around the main presentation.