How to be a Fully Prepared Conference Moderator

As a conference moderator, you take the stage at industry conferences to lead a meaningful conversation about a vision for the future. In the weeks before your conference panel, what is the best way to optimize your preparation time?

In this article, I'll share the best practices I've used to prepare moderators for their journey to the stage. Moderators who have integrated these skills have led impactful panel conversations at major industry conferences including Transform, VIVE, DisruptHR and the Plug and Play Summits.

In the time leading up to your conference panel, I'll cover the most important outcomes to focus on, the milestones to achieve, and best practices to integrate.

Milestone 1 - Craft Your Introduction

The Conference's Vision for the Future

As a moderator, you have been selected to forward the conversation surrounding the conference's vision for the future. This vision contains various pictures from a future when we've solved the problems of today.

Of the many pictures of a possible future, select one that will serve as the north star for your panel conversation. Develop rich and specific details that resonate with your panel and with the audience. Who is in the picture, and how are they thriving? What are the positive emotions they are experiencing?

The Foundation of Trust

When introducing yourself, answer these 3 questions to create a foundation of trust:

• Where are you going?
• What is important to you?
• How can I count on you?

As a moderator, the audience has an expectation that the panel conversation will move them one step closer to a future they desire. Your audience gives your their attention when your VISION aligns with the conference's vision.

A vision is powerful when it represents the elevation or restoration of core values in the world. Share with the audience the VALUES that you stand for. These values will help to shape the conversation you will lead.

What is the BOLD PROMISE (VOWS) you are making to your audience? What knowledge, skills or perspectives will they acquire? What positive emotions will they experience from the conversation?

Milestone 2 - Know Your Audience

Illustrate Relatability and Demonstrate Empathy

Before diving into your content, it is important to communicate trust. Dedicate time to learn about your audience. Illustrate relatability by sharing how well you know the future they envision, the values they hold dear, and the challenges they face.

It is critically important to demonstrate empathy as well. Identify the difficult emotions they experience while navigating their challenges. Highlight the positive emotions that will be present once their vision for the future has been achieved.

Milestone 3 - Know Your Panelists

Pre-Conference Research and Conversations

Before the conference, invest time in researching each of your panelists. Review their LinkedIn profile, review articles or books they've written, watch videos of their past presentations or interviews.

Schedule time for the entire panel to meet one another. Facilitate a conversation around the vision, values and vows of each panelist. Find common ground, discover relevant stories, identify potential content.

Ideally, schedule 1-1 conversations with each of your panelists. Learn about the elements beyond their LinkedIn profile. These details contribute to the depth of your relationship, and to the quality of the conversations you can have on stage.

Introduce Panelist as a Friend

The most ineffective introductions are when moderators read the biography of a stranger. It breaks trust with the audience because the moderator has not invested time to prepare with their panel. The quality of the moderator/panelist connection will define the quality of their conversation.

Instead, introduce your panelist the way you would introduce a friend. Share details about each panelist that create meaningful connections with your audience. What IMPACT have they made in the industry or in their organization? What SUPERPOWER do they bring to the stage or to the challenges we face. Finally, what is a bold promise (VOW) can they make to the audience?

Milestone 4 - Elevate Audience Comprehension

Curate Panelist Content

Resist the temptation to maximize the amount of content that is shared from the stage. Less is more. Instead, focus on maximizing the audience's comprehension of a small well-curated set of topics or ideas.

From your panel's collective set of knowledge, skills and experiences, you have a wealth of content to choose from. Here are three ways to effectively curate content and elevate comprehension:

• Essential. Does the content forward the conversation around the conference's theme and values? Does it contribute towards the conference's vision of the future? Keep the essentials. Delete everything else.
• Calibrated. Customize essential content to align with your audience's level of expertise and with their values. Stay within the time slot allocated for your panel conversation. Honor the time agreement with your audience by finishing on time or early.
• Trusted. The conference producers and the audience trust you to actively guide a meaningful and valuable conversation. During your panelist rehearsal sessions, encourage creativity to test out different ideas and conversations. Provide trusted feedback to each panelist. Select the best pieces of content from your rehearsals to integrate into your on-stage conversation.

Finalize Your Questions

What are the top questions from your audience? Prior to the conference, reach out to prospective attendees and learn what questions they may have. Study the conference program, and check to see whether any questions are contained in the session description.

What are the top questions from your panel? During your pre-conference meetings with your panelists, find out a key question they want to be asked. Help shape their question in a way that serves the audience, the topic, and the themes of the conference.

Milestone 5 - Facilitate Audience Engagement

After finalizing your questions and panelist rehearsals, you can focus on three specific message delivery skills. These skills come from our MasterClass, where we teach leaders to master 7 voices for their presentations. Here is how to leverage 3 voices to facilitate audience engagement:

• Storyteller Voice: Use this voice to extract relevant STORIES from your panel. During your panelist rehearsal sessions, become familiar with their stories. During the panel conversation, use a tone of curiosity when asking your panelists to share a relevant success story. Stories have the power to help the audience convert theoretical advice to practical application.
• Teacher Voice: Use this voice to summarize the TAKEAWAYS from each panelist. During the panel conversation, actively listen for the top nugget of wisdom from each of your panelists. Summarize each of these nuggets, and connect them to the topic of the panel or to the theme of the conference.
• Trusted Advisor Voice: As you introduce your audience to new content, perspectives and choices, speak with the voice of a trusted advisor. Acknowledge the contributions of each panelist. When there are conflicting choices, opinions or methodologies, trust in your audience to learn content that helps them make the best choice.

Milestone 6: Communicate Passion

Great presenters make it obvious that they love their topic. They use their passion to activate their audience. When they step on stage, you see their faces light up. You hear the nuances in their voice. You feel the energy expressed in their body language.

In this section, we focus on how to use 3 leadership voices to connect with the hearts and minds in your audience:

• Leader Voice: A Call to THINK. Use this voice to share a vision for the future, one that is crystal clear in your mind. Leaders communicate passion by speaking with clarity and confidence.
• Visionary Voice: A Call to FEEL. Use this voice to spark audience emotions and belief around a possible future. Visionaries communicate passion by speaking with an expansive and encouraging tone.
• Changemaker Voice: A Call to ACT. Use this voice to invite your audience to take action and contribute to the vision. Changemakers communicate passion by speaking with an aspirational and heart-centered tone.

The Main Event - Amplify the Conference Impact

Celebrate your Journey

Congratulations for completing the moderator preparation milestones! Consider yourself amongst the top moderators in your industry. Audience's honor and respect moderators who bring their focus, dedication and commitment to the stage.

By arriving fully prepared, you fulfill your bold promise to your audience. As a world-class moderator, you choreograph a meaningful conversation to positively impact the audience, the panel, and the industry.

Celebrate the Outcomes

• Communicate Trust: As a moderator, you have a framework to powerfully open your panel and communicate trust with the audience. Introduce yourself with three foundational elements of trust: your vision for the future, the values you stand for and your bold promise (vows) to your audience.
• Create Connection: You have six message delivery skills to connect with the hearts and minds in your audience. Connect to your audience by illustrating relatability and demonstrating empathy. Connect to your content by curating expertise and communicating passion. Connect your audience to your content by elevating comprehension and facilitating engagement.
• Build Relationships: By creating an outstanding panel conversation, you've generated the potential for future relationships, collaborations and partnerships. Thank the audience for their time and attention. Invite them to integrate the nuggets of wisdom from the panelists. Most importantly, invite your audience to continue the conversation with the panelists during and after the conference.

Expand the Capacity of your Heroic Voice

To accelerate your mission and magnify your impact, consider joining our Presentation ROI MasterClass. This program prepares you for your most important presentations and conversations. Compose 7 leadership presentations, elevate 6 essential message delivery skills, record your signature presentation.

Schedule an appointment with one of our executive communications coaches, and learn how the MasterClass will prepare you to generate money, support and reputation from all of your leadership presentations.