Speaker Factor: Competition Session for Speakers
– Insights from the PSASA Johannesburg Chapter Meeting Feb 20th 2025
Saul Rosenberg (Marketing and Comms)
The Joburg chapter Meeting took place on Thursday 20th February at the PSASA new venue at The Wanderers Golf Club. The evening saw 10 speaking contestants strut their stuff in the first round of the PSASA Speaker Factor, Speaker Competition. Lots of energy and enthusiasm characterised presentations that were assessed by a panel of judges. 2 Semi-finalists were selected to go through to the next round
Speaker Factor
Competition Session for Speakers
The Speaker Factor is the annual PSASA speech competition for Associate Members who wish to showcase their talent and sharpen their speaking skills.
Each year in January through March, PSASA Chapters host regional competitions to determine the candidates who will represent their Chapter at the semi-final and final during the Annual Convention in April, where the Grand Champion is crowned.
This Champion gains an automatic speaking slot and is invited to deliver a full keynote at the next annual convention.
The presentations were dynamic and engaging and showcased 10 people with the enthusiasm to captivate an audience for an average of 5 minutes each.
The Speakers were not allowed to any slides or visual aids, including special outfits, objects, or virtual backgrounds.
The Regional winners have to deliver the same speech in the Semi-final and Final as they gave in the Chapter competition.
Each candidate had an engaging 5 minutes to captivate the audience and impress the panel of esteemed Judges including Jacques De Villiers, Tiffany Markman, and Lorraine Jenks.
The judges looked for overall quality of the presentation, judging the entrants on four main criteria:
- Stagecraft / Screencraft (20%) – how well the speaker uses the platform and stage or screen area
- Script (20%) – how well the talk was scripted, constructed, and worded
- Delivery (20%) – how well the speaker delivered the talk, including vocal performance and body language and audience interaction
- Bookability (40%) – is the speaker likely to be booked, is their talk likely to be paid for based on their topic, call to action and relevance to the proposed audience? The ‘bookability’ of a speech is defined as being something their intended market would pay for, not as a preference of the Judge.
Two semi-finalists emerged from the evening’s line-up of very enthusiastic and engaging presentations
Jamie Gantt and Khotso Pekane
So What does make a winning speech… and a winning speaker?
The PSASA’s annual Speaker Factor Competition was an engaging opportunity to find out.
