The Truth About Session Ratings

I still remember one little comment I received on a speaker evaluation.

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“All show… no go.” 

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That one negative comment seemed to be permanently lodged in my brain—like an annoying popcorn kernel after movie night. 

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Although it was a completely useless comment (without more details or specific information, I can’t really know what he was intending to say), I couldn’t forget it. 

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Even now—more than 10 years later—those four words will still sneak back up to the forefront of my mind. Sometimes as I’m crafting a new bit for my speech, I worry it’s too over the top. That stranger’s voice echoes in my mind, and I can’t help but ask myself, “What if I am all show and no go?” 

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To be frank, it hurt my confidence. And I’ve had to learn to block this idea and the negative thinking that stemmed from it. 

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All because of four little words written on a speaker evaluation sheet. 

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The Psychology of Session Ratings 

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You probably remember a negative comment or two from your own session ratings. I wouldn’t be surprised if you too can recall word for word a particularly hurtful comment. 

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Psychologically, this happens a lot. Even when the majority of the feedback you receive is positive, the negative comments are the ones your mind latches onto. Why? Because negative feedback triggers critical thinking. 

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Subconsciously, you categorize it as a threat—which means it reaches the deepest primal area of your brain and awakens your “fight or flight” response. 

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But before you decide to completely renovate your speech because of a specific comment from an audience member, consider these three truths about speaker ratings and session evaluations. 

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#1 The percentage of participants who fill out surveys is (very) small. 

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Almost always, the comments you receive only represent a small fraction of your entire audience.

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Not too long ago, I spoke at an event with around 3,000 attendees and received 365 evaluations. That’s only about 10 percent of the audience who bothered to fill out the info. 

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And that’s actually pretty common. For conferences and corporate events, a good post-event survey response rate is generally between 10 and 20 percent, depending on the size of the event. 

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Most people are tired after a long conference day or simply don’t think filling out a survey is worth their time. That’s why so many events and conferences incentivize event-goers; if there’s a gift card on the line, more people will participate. 

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So, when you receive feedback (whether positive or negative) from the session ratings, take it with a grain of salt. It’s likely not truly representative of what the audience thinks. 

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#2 There are three types of feedback (and only two are useful).  

The real value in speaker evaluations comes from the comments people write in. And those usually come in three forms: the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

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The good are the kind comments you receive. These usually make up the majority of the comments you get. They’re the “Amazing,” “Loved it,” “Best of the day,” and “Entertaining, helpful, and insightful” feedback we speakers love to read. 

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And who wouldn’t? These compliments boost your confidence and give you a sense you’re delivering a good speech. 

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The bad are the constructive comments. These usually only make up less than two percent of the total comments. Although you might perceive them as negative at first, these comments can provide constructive feedback. 

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For example, I got a comment that said: “Too many ‘corporate’ examples cited… Give us more down-to-earth doables & possibilities.” 

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While these types of comments could still sting a little bit, this type of feedback could be helpful. If you notice similar comments over a few different events, you might want to analyze what’s going on and tweak your speech. 

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The good comments and the bad comments are both useful when analyzing what works and what might need adjustments in your speech. 

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Then comes the ugly. This last type of feedback is useless—these comments are not kind and certainly not constructive either. They don’t provide useful information and it’s best to ignore them and try to forget about them. (Yep, that “all show… no go” comment falls into this third category.)