How Experienced Speakers “Customize” Their Speeches

Constant speech customization usually backfires. Learn why in this week's HEROIC | Insights article.

Perhaps you’ve been in a sticky situation like this before: You’re on a client theme call with an event organizer. You’ve done your research and know who their audience is, which speakers they’ve hired in the past, and what their goals are for the event.?

But before you can suggest your speech (the one you know would work just splendidly for their event), they say:?

“We think you’d be a great fit for this event, but what we?really?need is a speech about how AI is affecting our industry. Would you be able to speak about that?”?

Fire alarms start going off in your head.?

AI? I speak about diversity and inclusion! My speech has nothing to do with AI. But boy do I need this gig… And it’s still two months away, I could customize my speech and turn it into an AI speech. But I’ve never spoken about AI before. Uh-oh!

Before you know it, “Of course!” comes tumbling out of your mouth, you seal the deal, and you start working on customizing your speech for the event.

The Customization Trap

It’s not uncommon for speakers to take on any topic a meeting planner asks for and customize their speech over and over again.?

They try to change their presentation for varied audiences, because every audience is different, every venue is unique, and every event planner has specific requests (or so it seems).?

After all, you can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach when every audience has unique needs and specific situations.?

Or can you??

You want your speech to connect with your audience and be personalized for them. Adding local references, current events, and personalized stories—or even customizing your content on the fly—makes your audience feel seen and heard.?

Or does it??

Crafting a personalized message each time can seem like a great solution to a recurring problem speakers face. However, it can actually cost you gigs and prevent you from giving event organizers the one thing they desire most—reliable delivery.?

So many speakers fall into this customization trap as they plan their speeches. Some even get stuck customizing their speech for each new gig—for years! All the while, their speaking career plateaus, their calendar starts to dry up, and they wonder where they went wrong.?

This is why it usually doesn’t work.?

While it seems logical to think customizing your speech would provide a better experience for your audience (and give your event planners exactly what they want), most of the time the opposite happens.?

There are three main reasons why customization doesn’t work as well as many speakers hope.?

First, it gives you an excuse to wing it.?

Creating a new personalized speech for every new gig makes it very difficult to deliver a reliable and effective speech that works every time. When you customize, your audience gets your “first try” of an untested speech you made just for them, rather than a proven speech that works no matter what.

Developing, crafting, and rehearsing a best-in-class keynote speech requires a lot of hard work—but it’s much more efficient and effective than winging a customized speech for every new gig you earn.?

Second, it undermines the value of your work.?

When negotiating with event planners, you might think offering a customized speech shows you deeply understand your client’s needs. However, this sales technique often backfires.?

Why? Because it implies your speech won’t benefit their audience?unless?you customize it to do so.?

On the other hand, if you craft a transformational speech that always works, you can feel confident that your work is valuable and will benefit every audience you encounter.?

Third, it can destroy the trust you’ve built with event organizers.??

Most of the gigs you get come because an event organizer has seen you speak before (or someone they trust has). They liked what they saw, and a little spark of trust ignited in them. As you continue to do what you say you’ll do in the days leading up to the event, trust grows.

But what happens to that trust on the day of the gig when you give a customized speech that’s completely different from the speech they loved??

Event organizers want safety first. They want a speech that works. They don’t want to wonder what speech they’ll get from you the day of the event.

Don't?customize your speech just to get the gig.

Do?refer another speaker if you feel your speech isn’t a great fit for their audience.

Reliability upstages customization. Every time.

You want to make your speech relevant and personalized for each new audience. But if you can’t deliver?a reliable speech?each time, you can’t transform your audience or get stageside leads to fuel your speaking business.?

You see, audiences and event planners can tell very quickly the difference between a speaker who has prepared a well-built performance and one who is winging it.?

One knows exactly what to say next. The other runs out of things to say before time runs out.

One is prepared and knows exactly when the audience will laugh, think, wonder, and applaud. The other stumbles through the slides at the virtual event.?

One transforms how their audience feels, thinks, and acts—and earns stageside leads after every performance. The other gets feedback like “I liked John. He’s a great guy.”

You see,?reliable delivery is one of the keys to crafting and performing a referable speech.?

It’s much less likely someone will refer you to a friend or colleague if they’re unsure you can deliver the same message, the same way, a second time. Even if you’re able to deliver roughly the same information, you might not necessarily be able to deliver the same experience.?

But when you build and rehearse a well-crafted message, not only does it get better and better every time, it also earns you stageside leads and more gigs.?

Now, I’m not saying you should never change anything in your speech. You’ll make small changes every time you perform it—that’s part of iterating and constantly improving your speech.?

However, you’ll likely run into trouble if you drastically customize your entire speech for each new presentation. What you can do instead is?tailor specific sections of your speech.?

You see, when you tailor something, you only tweak small things while maintaining the overall look, feel, and quality of the piece. On the other hand, when you customize something, you make it exclusively for a specific audience, changing its totality.?

The Donut Method

The key to tailoring your speech is to make sure that you tweak just enough of the content to make it relevant, but not so much that it compromises your performance. Michael Port and Andrew Davis call this “The Goldilocks Principle” in their book,?The Referable Speaker .

For example, you could keep your opener, closer, and signature bit always the same, and just change certain examples, stories, or case studies depending on your audience. The structure will stay the same, but the specifics will differ.??

One technique you can use to tailor your speech is the Donut Method. The donut is the setup and the payoff, which stays the same every time. The inside—the donut hole—is what changes. The donut hole is full of the industry-specific examples you use and the new content that’s unique for your audience.

The Donut Method allows the transitions and flow of your speech to stay the same— preserving the overall feel and structure of your performance—while at the same time allowing you to swap out different examples that support the point.?

You can even have multiple donuts in your speech. That gives you specific areas of your speech that you can easily tailor while still reliably delivering a powerful performance.?

Don't?customize your entire speech.

Do?use the donut method to tailor specific sections of your speech.

Craft one reliable speech

There’s one big difference between amateur speakers and professional speakers: Only the professionals do the deep work and put in the time to rehearse and continuously improve?one?reliable speech. They put all their eggs in one basket (or, all their donuts in one box).?

And it pays off.?

These speakers provide unbeatable value to their audiences and solidify a trusting relationship with event planners. That means they earn more referrals, book more gigs, and share their message with more people.?

And you can too. Avoid the customization trap and focus on crafting one reliable speech. Use the Donut Method to tailor specific content for your audience, while keeping the essence, feel, and structure of your speech the same.?

Not only will this save you time, you’ll also realize that your speech gets better and better with every performance. That’s the power of iteration. And that’s the secret to reliable delivery.

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