Perhaps you’ve been in a sticky situation like this before: You’re on a client theme call with an event organizer. You’ve done your research and know who their audience is, which speakers they’ve hired in the past, and what their goals are for the event.
But before you can suggest your speech (the one you know would work just splendidly for their event), they say:
“We think you’d be a great fit for this event, but what we really need is a speech about how AI is affecting our industry. Would you be able to speak about that?”
Fire alarms start going off in your head.
AI? I speak about diversity and inclusion! My speech has nothing to do with AI. But boy do I need this gig… And it’s still two months away, I could customize my speech and turn it into an AI speech. But I’ve never spoken about AI before. Uh-oh!
Before you know it, “Of course!” comes tumbling out of your mouth, you seal the deal, and you start working on customizing your speech for the event.
The Customization Trap
It’s not uncommon for speakers to take on any topic a meeting planner asks for and customize their speech over and over again.
They try to change their presentation for varied audiences, because every audience is different, every venue is unique, and every event planner has specific requests (or so it seems).
After all, you can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach when every audience has unique needs and specific situations.
Or can you?
You want your speech to connect with your audience and be personalized for them. Adding local references, current events, and personalized stories—or even customizing your content on the fly—makes your audience feel seen and heard.
Or does it?
Crafting a personalized message each time can seem like a great solution to a recurring problem speakers face. However, it can actually cost you gigs and prevent you from giving event organizers the one thing they desire most—reliable delivery.
So many speakers fall into this customization trap as they plan their speeches. Some even get stuck customizing their speech for each new gig—for years! All the while, their speaking career plateaus, their calendar starts to dry up, and they wonder where they went wrong.
This is why it usually doesn’t work.
While it seems logical to think customizing your speech would provide a better experience for your audience (and give your event planners exactly what they want), most of the time the opposite happens.
There are three main reasons why customization doesn’t work as well as many speakers hope.
First, it gives you an excuse to wing it.
Creating a new personalized speech for every new gig makes it very difficult to deliver a reliable and effective speech that works every time. When you customize, your audience gets your “first try” of an untested speech you made just for them, rather than a proven speech that works no matter what.
Developing, crafting, and rehearsing a best-in-class keynote speech requires a lot of hard work—but it’s much more efficient and effective than winging a customized speech for every new gig you earn.
Second, it undermines the value of your work.
When negotiating with event planners, you might think offering a customized speech shows you deeply understand your client’s needs. However, this sales technique often backfires.
Why? Because it implies your speech won’t benefit their audience unless you customize it to do so.
On the other hand, if you craft a transformational speech that always works, you can feel confident that your work is valuable and will benefit every audience you encounter.
Third, it can destroy the trust you’ve built with event organizers.
Most of the gigs you get come because an event organizer has seen you speak before (or someone they trust has). They liked what they saw, and a little spark of trust ignited in them. As you continue to do what you say you’ll do in the days leading up to the event, trust grows.
But what happens to that trust on the day of the gig when you give a customized speech that’s completely different from the speech they loved?
Event organizers want safety first. They want a speech that works. They don’t want to wonder what speech they’ll get from you the day of the event.
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