If you are a meeting planner and are thinking about hiring a speaker for your next meeting or event, consider bringing a humorous speaker to lend humor and inspiration to the attendee’s experience and your event. If you have been to a meeting where the speaker is presenting a dry or technical topic, you have probably asked yourself why there wasn’t any humor. And here is where a humorous speaker can help!

Humorous speakers can bring humorous stories, anecdotes and liven-up the over-all mode of the meeting to ensure that the attendees are engaged. Most of the best humorous speakers are members of the National Speakers Association (NSA) or the International Federation For Professional Speakers (IFFPS). Both of these organizations have stringent membership requirements and professional development programs to ensure that the humorous speaker is professional and competent.

Every humorous speaker brings their own personality, personal stories and style to the humorous speaking platform. Most humorous speaker will have their videos posted either on their web site or on the Internet for you to view. Viewing humorous speakers’ videos used to be a tedious process, but the Internet has changed all that. In addition, every humorous speaker that you are considering should have a pre-program questionnaire. This document helps the Meeting Planner and the Humorous Speaker customize the event, program and humorous speaker’s content to the specific needs of the client.

It would also be useful when interviewing humorous speakers that you schedule several conference or video calls to speak with the humorous speaker and view their communication styles. Are they articulate, humorous and professional? A few minutes spent on the telephone or on a video conference can be very telling about the humorous speaker.

Another good way to validate the credibility and effectiveness of the humorous speaker is to ask for references. All professional humorous speakers should have an ample supply of testimonial letters and contact that are usually supplied to the humorous speaker on the clients stationary. You should make it a point to ask for 3-5 client references from the humorous speaker and call them personally. Some of the questions you should ask are:

Was the humorous speaker professional and courteous to the meeting planner and conference attendees?

Was the humorous speaker easy to work with or were they demanding and unrealistic in their fee structure and other requests such as travel and accommodations?

Did the humorous speaker do adequate preparation for their program with enough customization to reflect your organization’s culture and values?


If you follow these simple yet effective suggestions when hiring a humorous speaker you will be saving yourself time, energy and money.

Thank you for allowing me to share with you my
thoughts on inspirational and motivational speaking.
Cordially Yours, Doug Dvorak
847.359.6969 –doug@dougdvorak.com