What to Expect When You Book Therese Marzouk

Reaching out to Therese Marzouk about a keynote starts a conversation, not a sales process. The first call is about your event — who is in the room, what they are navigating, and what you want to be different after everyone goes home. There is no pitch deck, and contacting her commits you to nothing at all.

You can't tell from a reel.

Booking a speaker for a topic that touches on change, uncertainty, or a difficult season is hard to do from a highlight video and a list of bullet points.

Those things are useful. You want to know somebody can hold a room. You want to understand their topic. You want to see that other organizations have trusted them on a stage. All fair.

But there's another question that matters just as much, and no reel answers it: is this the right conversation for this particular room?

A keynote isn't something you drop into an agenda. The same talk lands very differently depending on who is sitting there, what they've been through, what's happening inside the organization, and what you're actually hoping will be different afterward.

No offense to transformation.

So when someone reaches out to me about speaking, my first goal isn't to convince them to book me. It's to understand what they're trying to accomplish.

I want to know about the event. Who's going to be there, and why? Is this a conference people chose to attend, or an organizational event where everyone was expected to show up? Those are different rooms. What's happening in the organization right now — a major change, a lot of uncertainty, people running on empty? Or is this an audience doing reasonably well, where you want to help them think differently about change before the next disruption arrives?

Then I want to know what you want the keynote to do. Not the theme of the conference. What do you want people thinking about differently afterward? What do you want them talking about at lunch? What do you hope they remember a week later?

Those answers tell me far more than our theme this year is transformation. And no offense to transformation. It's just doing a lot of heavy lifting on conference banners.

A conversation is not a commitment.

One thing event planners sometimes worry about is that the moment they make contact, they've entered a sales process.

I don't want it to feel that way. You're not committing to anything by talking to me, and I'm not going to send a giant pitch deck and then chase you around the internet. I want to know whether I can actually serve your audience. You should be working out whether I'm the person you'd trust to do that. It goes both ways.

Reaching out means we're exploring whether there's a fit. That's it.

Who is your Claire?

Claire is my imaginary person. She represents the one in the room who isn't going to love me automatically just because somebody handed me a microphone. She's tired. She's skeptical. She may not want to be at the event at all. She has heard motivational speakers before, and she has a real life waiting for her when she leaves.

I care about Claire, and I want you to tell me about her. Who is your Claire? What is she carrying into that room? What is she tired of hearing? What would make her check out mentally five minutes in? And most importantly — what is the thing she needs to hear that she doesn't yet know she needs to hear?

That's the information that helps me prepare. Because I'm not trying to get Claire to walk out saying Therese was amazing. I want her to walk out thinking about something in her own life differently. Maybe she spots a place where she's been waiting to feel ready. Maybe she recognizes the Good Trap. Maybe she realizes she's been telling herself she has no choice, when what she really has are choices she doesn't much like.

I'M MORE INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS
AFTER THE APPLAUSE THAN IN THE APPLAUSE.

I've turned down a talk I was qualified to give.

I was invited to speak about internships as a work-based learning strategy for secondary and post-secondary students. That's squarely my wheelhouse — I spent more than twenty years in career education and workforce development, and I'm a strong advocate for high-quality work-based learning.

But as we talked through the event, I realized the organization's messaging was directed entirely at male students. I clarified that when I speak about these opportunities, I talk about all students. I was told they'd prefer I didn't.

The decision was easy after that. I declined, because being qualified to give a talk doesn't make it the right talk to give.

I am probably not your speaker.

If an organization wants someone to come in and tell employees that the fix for a difficult workplace is a better attitude, I'm probably not your speaker. If something genuinely hard is happening and the expectation is that I put a cheerful bow on it, I'm definitely not your speaker.

I'm not going to tell people everything happens for a reason. I'm not going to tell them to be grateful for the worst thing that ever happened to them. I'm not going to pretend every obstacle clears if you think about it positively enough. That isn't what I believe.

My talk is built on a different idea. Sometimes things don't go the way you wanted. Sometimes something happens you would never have chosen. The question isn't whether we can pretend it was good. The question is what agency you still have from here.

Something can be meaningful without being miserable.

Which doesn't make the talk heavy. It isn't. I use humor. I tell stories. I want people to enjoy themselves.

I'm just not going to insult an audience by pretending hard things aren't hard. People can tell the difference.

Booking a speaker is a transaction.

Creating an experience that actually moves people is a collaboration. That's the work I'm interested in.

I've spent more than twenty years working with people across education, workforce development, government, and community organizations. I know what it means to listen before deciding what somebody needs, and I bring that to speaking. I'm not showing up with a microphone. I'm showing up as a partner in whatever you're trying to do in that room.

So if you're considering me, the next step is simple. Tell me about your event. Tell me who's going to be in the room. Tell me what you're hoping happens because you brought all those people together. Then we'll talk — no pressure, no assumption you've decided anything.

You don't have to know whether I'm the right speaker before you reach out. That's what the conversation is for.