What is the Difference Between a Motivational Speaker and a Keynote?

Events season has officially begun, and along with the excitement of planning these team experiences comes a lot of confusion. Here at Alison Edgar HQ, we want to colour in the grey areas for you and make planning your next event a breeze.

When you're planning an event, we know that it can be hard to know which type of speaker is best for your audience. You might be wondering if you need a motivational speaker or keynote speaker.

There are a few things that make up the difference between these two types of public speakers:

A motivational speaker will invigorate you and your team:

A motivational speaker will inspire you and your team to be the best, to get rid of limiting beliefs, to set higher goals and show them how to reach them. A motivational speaker will help you and your team understand your own strengths and weaknesses.

They invigorate the audience with an upbeat delivery style that motivates everyone in attendance. A motivational speaker focuses on getting an audience excited and motivated to take specific actions, providing implementable takeaways that are relevant to the audience.

Motivational speakers invigorate the audience with an upbeat, interactive delivery style, and share many implementable tips that the audience can use straight away!

The keynote speaker will deliver the very heart of your event.

A keynote speaker will deliver a message that drives the heart of your event and focuses on reinforcing your event takeaways. The keynote speaker will be the one who gets your audience thinking about the topic in a new way and inspires them to action, rather than motivating them.

Keynote speakers inspire the audience with a calm, thought provoking delivery style. Often keynote speakers are well recognised individuals, such as celebrities or athletes. They will inspire the audience with a strong story, but it will be down to the delegates to draw their own conclusions and take action if they understand the meaning behind the message. 

Both types of speakers will motivate your audience through their speeches.

Both types of speakers will motivate your audience through their speeches. The main difference is that motivational speakers provide actionable takeaways for their audience, whereas keynote speakers leave their audience with food for thought. Either can work for your event, it just depends on how clear you would like the takeaways to be for the audience. 

Conclusion

We hope this blog post has helped you understand the difference between a motivational speaker and keynote speaker. If you are running an event and looking for an extra helping hand, check out our blog post on ‘What makes a Good Team Event or Conference’.

Alternatively, if you are running an event and looking for a speaker to motivate, inspire an invigorate your audience, get in touch today.