The following tips came from Wendy Stoneberger, IOM, Vice President of Programs & Events for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

With the speaker’s permission, add 10 minutes or so for Q&A to your agenda immediately following the keynote remarks. Station a couple of standing microphones in the audience and perhaps plant a question or two with selected attendees to help get it started. Attendees enjoy the opportunity to bring the subject matter back home to what’s in it for them.

Be sure to build into your speaker budget more than just the contracted fee. Specifically consider costs for travel (and what class of service), hotel, meals, ground transportation, welcome gift, guests of the speaker and special audio visual requirements.

Assign a speaker liaison to be at the speaker’s side from the moment of arrival at the event through departure. The meeting planner in charge will be tending to multiple last minutes items and should not count on their own time to serve in this capacity. This liaison should have the speaker’s photo and cell phone number, as well as their complete itinerary and hotel details. Also include the complete event agenda and meeting planner’s cell phone number.

Schedule a conference call with the speaker about one week prior to the event. If a certain theme is expected in their remarks, go through those bullet points together and flesh out your expectations and audience needs as much as possible. Be sure to also review the agenda and their itinerary from top to bottom to help expose any potential details that have not been covered.

If a strict timeframe must be adhered to, it can help smooth awkward moments for both the speaker and meeting planner to develop a signal beforehand to indicate “five minutes until close.” Try something like holding up a piece of bright colored paper at the back of the room.

As an additional way to thank event sponsors or honor special VIPs, ask your speaker if they would agree to appear perhaps 15 minutes before the event in a private room to hold a meet-and-greet. No formal agenda or remarks are necessary, but it can help make certain that those individuals who made your event possible get a moment to shake the speaker’s hand and be personally introduced. A list of those sponsors or other VIPs can be very helpful to your speaker.