Most speaker bookings stall in the same place: the brief. The organiser sends a date, a topic and a budget. The speaker (or their agent) sends back four pages of questions. Two weeks evaporate.
A good brief is one page. If it's longer than that, you haven't decided yet — and you're outsourcing the decision to the speaker.
What a speaker actually needs
There are only six things. In this order.
1. Date, venue, time on stage. Not "afternoon of the 14th". A real slot. "14 March, Park Plaza Westminster, 40-minute keynote at 09:30, followed by 10 minutes Q&A moderated by our CEO."
2. Who's in the room.Job titles, not "marketing leaders". "180 in-house CMOs and VPs of marketing from FTSE 250 and equivalents. Roughly 60% UK, 40% Europe."* If half the room is junior, say so.
3. What you want the audience to walk away thinking. This helps you secure the right speaker to deliver those messages, feeling and impact you were after.
4. Format constraints. Lectern or roaming? Slides allowed? Are you filming? Will it be released publicly? Is there a hard cut to the next session?
5. No-go topics. This could be competitors in the room. A current lawsuit. A sponsor who'd take offence. Be specific. "Please don't reference [Brand X] — they're a sponsor and last year's speaker drew blood."
6. Tone. Funny but not crude. Provocative but not political. Or: keep it warm, it's an awards night, not a wake.
What to leave out
Skip the agenda for the whole day. Skip the venue's history. Skip the deck of past speakers. None of it changes what they'll say on stage.
The 30-second test
Read your brief out loud. If you can't say it in 30 seconds, it's probably too long. If a friend who doesn't work in your industry can't tell you what the speaker is meant to do on stage, it's too vague.
What you'll get back
A speaker who's been properly briefed, and feels they are a good fit, will reply with a short outline — three or four bullet points of what they'd cover That's the right shape. If they send a generic showreel and ask you to "tell them more", that's a flag (see *Red flags when booking a speaker*).
Pass the brief on
When you confirm the booking, send the same one-pager to the AV team, the MC and whoever's introducing the speaker. The speaker should never be the only person in the building who knows what they're meant to do.
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