A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How Speakers Actually Get Picked

Event organizers are super busy people…

Don’t believe me?  Just ask Ann Handley.  

Besides working as a keynote speaker, Ann also plays a key role in planning events for her company, MarketingProfs.

That’s why Andrew and I were thrilled when Ann agreed to sit down at the end of a very busy week of travel to chat about what it’s like to choose speakers… from the event organizer’s perspective.

In this week’s articles, we'll explore the actual step-by-step process Ann’s team uses to narrow down an eye-popping 450 applications to just a few hired speakers.  We’ll also share her insights on what speakers can do to make themselves stand out (in a good way). 

Chatting on a beautiful spring day from her very own tiny home writing retreat in Boston… get ready to hear from our good friend, speaker, and event organizer… Ann Handley!

One Big Stage. Hundreds of Pitches.

The event that takes up most of Ann’s energy every year is the annual MarketingProfsB2B Forum held in Boston, MA.  It’s a well established event with a 17-year history, and they are expecting 1,000 attendees in 2025.

Like many event organizers hosting similar events, Ann’s team was absolutely bombarded this year with nearly 450 speaker submissions.

“It’s a challenge.  The submissions are on a rolling submission basis in the sense that MarketingProfs holds events all year round.  This is our one big in-person event, but throughout the year, we have a number of virtual programs, seminars, and workshops.” 

This means there is only one place to submit a speaking proposal if you want to be on the MarketingProfs big in-person stage.

“This is daunting for two reasons.  First, the sheer volume.  Second, because the event covers a breadth of topics.  You want to make sure that you have the right mix of sessions as well as the right mix of people.” 

The MarketingProfs conference is not very focused in exactly what it offers.  It’s not an SEO conference.  It’s not a content conference.  It’s not a B2B conference. 

Instead, it’s ALL of those things.

Designing a Program That Draws a Crowd

When it comes to planning the agenda, Ann and her team try to think very broadly.  

“How do we make sure that every single person who comes to this event is going to feel that there’s something here for them… and they’re going to want to come because there are some things that will be familiar to them, but also some things that might challenge them and expand their opportunities in marketing a little bit?”

Those are the questions that are always in the back of Ann’s mind when she approaches this task.  She wants a potential attendee to visit the program page and think,“Wow, this is an event I want to go to because of the breadth and depth of the topics covered.”

The process of building the agenda actually begins well before an event – starting with feedback from the previous event’s audience and other smaller virtual audiences throughout the year.

“We’re always surveying our audience. What do they want to learn about?  What do they want to hear about?  We base the program in part off of those topics.”

For example, Ann knows that her audience definitely wants to learn about creating great content, incorporating AI into their businesses, and how to increase ROI.  She will make sure they have a lot of robust sessions around those topics.

Then, they’ll sprinkle in just a few sessions on less-popular topics like account-based marketing.  It’s not that those topics are less important.  They are just not quite top-of-mind for her audience.

Sifting Through the Speaker Tsunami

Once they have a general sense of what topics should be covered, it’s time for Ann and her team to dig into the impossibly tall stack of submissions from speakers who want to be on her stage.

Now, just imagine for a second… you are in Ann’s shoes. You have 450 submissions, and you need to choose just a handful of speakers who will be a good fit for your audience.  

Seriously… where do you even start? I just sprouted new gray hairs just thinking about it.

That’s why I asked Ann about her exact process for whittling down this avalanche of applications down to something that is somewhat manageable.  It starts with something you might not expect… blind submissions.

“People have to submit their name, title, and company along with their submissions.  But we strip all those out and the first look is just on the merit of the proposal itself.”

Luckily, Ann only surrounds herself with really awesome people.  (I know this from my own interactions with her talented team.) Her helpers do all the heavy lifting to start.

“We have a team of two super talented people.  They’ve been here for a number of years, and they go through everything with a fine tooth comb and get it into a manageable shape.  You can imagine what that looks like.  It’s pretty ugly.”

Those 450 submissions are all over the place.  Some are awesome… and some are probably closer to awful (my words, not Ann’s).  But the team helps to wrangle them all into a single document with names masked.  

Then, Ann steps in…

(And this actually surprised me.)

… to read Every. Single. One. 

Seriously, folks.  Let’s all give her a standing ovation.  I hope she eats lots of popcorn during the reading process.  It must take forever!

During Ann’s personal review session, she looks for certain submissions that have been flagged by her team as especially strong.  Others are terrible fits… not because they are bad, but rather because they are too generic for her audience.

“We get a lot of speakers who are probably submitting the same talk to a bunch of other different events and not necessarily customizing it for us.  That’s pretty obvious right away when you look at those.  It’s not a good fit because it’s not customized per se, but because it’s a little bit too generic.”