1. Name of CEO/President/highest ranking person in attendance:
2. Roughly, how would you characterize the audience?
a) age range
b) male/female ratio:
c) educational background
d) size of audience
3. Will there be people in the audience who do not fall into the above description? Please explain?
4. What is the attire?
Formal, Business suits, Casual?
5. What are the names of the speakers you used in this role in the last few years?
6. What is the name and title of the person introducing me?
7. What are the responsibilities of the people in the audience?
8. What are the specific objectives for this session?
9. What three things should I know about your audience before addressing them?
a)
b)
c)
10. Is there a theme you would like woven into the presentation?
11. What is the name of someone attending who is exceptional in this line of work? Example: “Beth Taylor is first in sales for the third time; Owen Pleasants started the firm in the forties, has the chowder in the lunch room named for him and still comes in on Mondays to make sure they're making it right....”
12. If you found yourself standing at the door at the end of my presentation, what would you like to hear audience members saying as they left, how would you like them to feel?
Company information
13. What industry is your company in?
Who is your main competitor?
What sets your company apart from the others?
What's your company's website address?
14. What are three challenges that your fellow employees/ members of your organization face? Please be specific: downsizing, doing less with more, “this new software we're learning makes our heads hurt”, “we just moved our office and I want my old parking space back...”
a)
b)
c)
15. What changes, potentially stressful situations – new boss, new expectations, new forms to fill out - are your people dealing with?
16. Company’s ‘humor culture’: How did most people come to do this for a living, what motivates them, what makes them happiest about working here; if work has been challenging lately - layoffs, a salary freeze – what keeps the team together? Does humor play a big part? Give an example if possible.
“But seriously, folks...”
Good-natured ribbing can make a fun event even more memorable. Fill Brett in on what’s going on in your industry, one of your workmates down the hall, and he’ll be ready if the appropriate situation arises.
17. What's the buzz around the cooler? How's the corporate makeover going?
Are there people in the audience we can tease in a light, fun way? These need to be people everyone knows and likes, and who are in the audience. I’ll tease someone about something he or she has a choice over: a favorite food; attire...
18. What are the names of three people whom others typically describe by saying he or she “loves to laugh?”
a)
b)
c)
19. What is the one thing that the top person in your group says that if I were to say would get a laugh?
20. What is the ‘local color’ of the city where you work: world’s largest sassafras tree? Someone saw a spaceship once?
21. What are the sensitive topics I should avoid?
“But Brett, that’s twenty one questions!?”
Remember who you're dealing with: Genius with a ‘J’.
Program site information:
Hotel
name
address
phone
Meeting location, if different
name
address
phone
The airport I would most likely fly in and out of:
Estimated time between airport and event site:
Directions to the event:
Meeting time: Begin End
My program time: Begin End
When will the room be open for a sound check, etc?
Beginning time End time
What happens in the room when Brett is finished?
Anything else I should know?
