​​The 6 Secrets to Writing a Proposal That Gets Chosen (Straight from an Event Organizer!)

450 speaker submissions… two weeks… two team members helping… and you need to narrow the stack down to around 75 hired speakers…

Sounds like a reality show, but PHEW… that task is no joke!

But for event organizers like Ann Handley of MarketingProfs, this is something she deals with on a regular basis.

Today, we’re going to dive into exactly what Ann looks for in her speaker submissions to decide if someone is a good fit for her (very prestigious) stage.

If you’ll recall from yesterday, the entire first round of cuts is made while looking at submissions blind – with no names or companies listed.  This means Ann and her team have to rely on one very important element that many speakers tend to overlook… the session description!

And just like the rest of your performance on stage, a great session description starts with a really clear point of view…

Can They Spot Your Voice a Mile Away? They Should.

During our chat last week, Ann shared more of the reasoning behind her blind review process…  

“Part of the reason we review them blind is because I have so many relationships with people in the industry. I love so many people in this industry, and I respect what they do. That’s why we review them blind in part because I will just say yes to everybody, and the next thing you know, we have a five day program with 200 speakers."

During the review process, some speakers say certain things or write in a certain way to make it obvious who they are, especially in response to the application's question if they represent an “underrepresented” community.

“A funny one this year was, Joe Pulizzi had said that he is a middle-aged balding Sicilian. And he said, ‘I didn't notice that you had any people like that on the program last year,’ which is true. He wasn't there last year, but he'll be there this year.”

Then, on a more serious note, other speakers stand out for their very clear point of view. For instance, Ann knows that speaker Chris Penn speaks about AI in a very specific way.  So, when she reads a description from Chris, she thinks, “That’s Chris Penn!” even if she doesn’t see his name attached to it.

If several session descriptions make it past round one, but they all cover a very similar topic, the prior relationship with that speaker comes into play.

“Sometimes a prior relationship helps only because we know what they’re like to work with – especially if they’ve spoken for us before.  Any event organizer has their favorites – the people who submit their session slides on time, the people who show up, the people who promote the event for you… all of that stuff counts.”

I love that Ann shared this because it backs up an idea Andrew and I have been sharing for a while now…

 Ann doesn’t necessarily make hiring decisions just based on that, but in her words...

“It doesn’t hurt!”

The Most Overlooked (and Costly) Part of Your Submission

Hopefully, by now, you’re starting to see how vitally important the session description is in the whole hiring process.  It is your first opportunity to make a great impression with the event organizer – showing them that your ideas are worth sharing on their stage.

“I think some speakers undervalue the importance of the session description.  I think people treat it almost as a product description or something.  ‘Here’s what I’m going to cover.’  

But really, it’s your first opportunity to get your audience excited.  You want to sell the organizers before you convince the audience members to come to your session.  So make me excited about being there right out of the gate.”

And This Starts with the Title of Your Session.  

“A lot of speakers have a proprietary framework and that’s fantastic.  You can bring that to the audience and it can be very valuable.  But when you lead with that in the headline, it sets up some unnecessary friction because the audience doesn’t know what that is.”

For instance, if you have a framework called the “Customer Consideration Approach to Marketing”, don’t use that as the title of your speech.  Sure, that’s going to be a big part of your content, but for an audience member to see that title, it feels almost like a sales pitch.

She also values when speakers take the time to make their speech and session description relevant to her particular audience. 

“The customizing doesn't have to be a crazy amount of customization. Andrew talks about donut holes, and I have a very similar philosophy about it where you just need to leave some pockets in your session description where you can affiliate with the problems of a specific audience.

And an easy way to do that is to just use the right pronouns, use words instead of “you.” You feel like you're lecturing, you say you, but if you say we, it's like we're all in this together. We're going to discover this together.

And that makes me excited to go to your talk and to find out. It's really an opportunity to set out some breadcrumbs and to set it up as a journey of discovery.”

Want to Nail Your Pitch? Steal This Session Description Formula

Our conversation didn’t end there, but this feels like a good time to introduce two fantastic pieces of writing Ann has already released into the world.