TJ Walker explains how to introduce a keynote speaker: ask if they have preferred copy, keep it brief and proportional to their time, highlight relevant credentials and why they matter for the topic, and avoid upstaging them with long anecdotes or humor that serves you instead of them.
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What is the best way to introduce another speaker?
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Ted, one of our regular viewers on YouTube, writes in with the following if your job at a conference is to introduce a keynote or important speaker, should you recap the person's career? Talk about the issue for which they are known, Give your own observations, be funny, worry about outshining them, or just be brief. I'm going to go into explicit detail on all of these questions and give you some tips that I hope will help you prepare the next time you have to introduce someone, whether it's a conference, Monday morning staff meeting, or any other time in just a moment.
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TED Let me start off the exact same way I would if this were a live in person training. I always believe in starting off on the positive of what you should do rather than giving you a whole list of don'ts. I just find it's a better way of learning and goes down easier and is easier for people to follow a positive role model. Here is what I believe you should focus on when you're introducing someone at a conference, business meeting, award ceremony, anything. What you need to do is whet the audience's appetite so that you have them leaning forward thinking, oh wow, now I really want to hear what this person has to say. Now if the person is wildly famous, that's a little bit different, but the goal is the same, to let people know why am I here listening to this person and why are they going to help me? What is specifically relevant to me today given what they're going to talk about and why we're all here? You need to answer that question in the mind of an audience member whether they're asking it overtly or not, and you need to make them want to hear the speaker. That's what I think the goal should be anytime you're introducing someone. Now let's dissect some of your particular questions. Should you recap the person's career? It depends. If you are speaking to a group of entrepreneurs and there's a thousand young people who are in the beginning of their careers and most of them are poor and the speaker is a billionaire, and if you want to remind people that this person came here in the country with $50 in their pocket not speaking English, that might be a nice reminder. But you might also be stepping on the message the person wants to address in the speech. One of the things I would advise you to do is ask the person you're introducing if they have an introduction they want you to use. Most professional speakers will say, yes, I've written it just for this audience. Here it is. I know some professional speakers who actually tell their introducer, read it word for word. Don't deviate. The late Dan Poynter, the guru of self publishing, did that, and it worked for him. And I introduced him that way from time to time when he was speaking at events that I was moderating. So that's one way you can guarantee a good introduction. If you're the one being introduced, write it out word for word. I try to do that, but I will confess, sometimes I let it slip. And I don't always give an introduction to someone who's introducing me, although I should, and so should you. So that's the first step. Ask the person you're introducing, do they have a specific way they want you to introduce them? Now, sometimes that isn't helpful because they say, oh, yeah, my website is my bio, and it would take you 10 minutes to read it. And it goes through what they majored in in college and obscure academic papers where they've been published. And you do not want to write that. When you're talking about someone's career, I believe you want to give the briefest amount of information to make the audience know why exactly this person was invited to speak to them, why this person has the credentials. I don't mean that in an academic sense or even in an official regulatory sense, but why do they have the credentials to be speaking to the audience today? You want to cover just the most important highlights of their career. Another thing that's incredibly important when you are introducing someone is a sense of proportionality. If someone is speaking only for five minutes, you don't want to spend five minutes introducing them. That's 100% of the time that they're speaking. If someone is speaking for 90 minutes, then you can go a little longer. Now, I wouldn't go beyond a couple of minutes in the introduction, but if someone is speaking 60, 70, 80 minutes, I don't think you have to focus on, oh, I got to get off the stage in 20 seconds. No one wants to hear me. You've got a little time. So think about it in terms of proportionality of how much time they're speaking and how much time you spend introducing them again. Your first goal, really your only goal is to make that audience really want to hear this speaker and know why this speaker is so relevant to them. Now, let's dive into some of your other questions. Should you talk about the issue for which they are known? You could certainly do that briefly as you are building the case as to why this person is so credentialed, important and relevant to talk about this topic. But again, be brief. Give your own observations. Certainly, if you have some personal relationship with the speaker and you can share a brief anecdote that makes the point of why they're so passionate about their subject matter, that's fine. But it's a delicate area if you get up and start giving your own observations. Why I remember the first time I met so and so and it struck me as the time people think that you're going on and using this time to pontificate, to soak up the spotlight for yourself, it's going to reflect negatively on you. I'm not saying you can't show some personality or put in some observation or even tell a brief story about the person who's speaking. But in that case, you do need to make it brief and whatever story you give needs to be 100% relevant. It can't just be. Well, I remember the time that we went out late on the town and it was a wild night and ha ha, you don't want to make it just sound like, well, aren't I important because I spend time and socialize with this important person. That is not going to look good. It's not going to make you seem important. It's going to make you seem self indulgent and just egotistical. So I wouldn't do that. The next question Be funny. Well, all things being equal, if you can be funny and get a joke, audiences like that, everybody likes a good laugh, everyone likes a chuckle. But this is not your time to audition for the open mic night at the Comedy Cellar. The humor needs to be 100% relevant and authentic to the person and the occasion. And, and it shouldn't sound like it's just a canned joke, but by all means, if you can be funny and not sound like you're trying to do joke after joke and that you're trying to get laughs, sure, by all means, should you worry about outshining the speaker? Well, if you followed my dictates of make the speaker seem good relevant, whet the audience's appetite, you shouldn't have to worry about it. This only happens when you're egotistically going on and on and on trying to say everything you know about the subject and perhaps going too long. Your final question, Ted, is should you just be brief? You should be brief relative to how long the speaker has. But again, if speaker is going for 60 minutes, there's nothing wrong with you talking for two minutes. Your goal, I believe, is never to be brief. Your goal is to accomplish your objective of whetting people's appetite, making them want to hear the speaker and know why. This speaker has a message that's credible. That's what your goal is. I'd much rather you talk for 90 seconds, giving a great introduction, than to be brief and talk for 20 seconds and sit down and the speaker has to sort of start cold. And some people still aren't quite sure why they're there. So no, the goal is not to be brief. The goal is to whet people's appetite, make them want to hear from the speaker and know why this speaker is uniquely relevant and uniquely qualified to talk about this subject. Do that and you'll give a great introduction, whether it is a conference, a convention in front of 10,000 people, or a dinner party and there's only four other people at the table. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for spending time with me. Thanks, Ted, for your question. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.
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