How to Research Audience Problems: Finding Your Speaking Topic

Knowing how to research audience problems is an incredibly important skill in becoming a consistently well-paid public speaker. As a public speaker, your success hinges on one fundamental truth: you need to be known for solving a specific problem that your primary audience needs solved. Not a problem you think they should have, or just a topic that sounds intellectually interesting, but the problem that event planners, conference organizers, corporate training directors, and association leaders are actively seeking speakers to address.

Getting booked and paid to speak consistently isn’t just about being the most eloquent or charismatic speaker on the market. It’s about laser-focusing your expertise on addressing a genuine need that is deeply felt by the people you want to speak to. Speakers who command the highest speaking fees are the ones who have moved beyond generic motivational speaking to become the go-to expert on urgent pain points that event planners recognize as critical for their specific audiences.

But here’s where many speakers go wrong: they assume they know what their audience’s biggest problems are, or think event planners will book them based on inspirational topics rather than specific solutions. They build their entire speaking platform around what they think matters, only to find event planners passing them over for speakers who can clearly articulate how they’ll solve specific challenges their attendees face.

That’s why researching your target audience’s biggest problems is so incredibly important. When you stop guessing and start researching the problem your audience actually has, you can position yourself as the speaker who solves that problem, driving event bookings and establishing yourself as the expert in your niche.

But how do you find out what your audience is struggling with so you can solve it for them? In this article, we’ll explore proven methods of identifying these problems so you can become a more successful and transformative public speaker.

Step 1: Start with Who, Then Move to What

It might seem obvious, but the most foundational step to identifying audience pain points is identifying your audience. Some speakers believe that they should first choose their topic and let their optimal audience come to them. However, this means you might end up with no audience at all. To be an effective and sought-after public speaker, you should solve a problem a real group of people are facing. To discover that problem, you need to identify the group of people.

The best way to start choosing an audience is by choosing from the main industries that use public speakers:

1. Corporations
2. Associations
3. Faith-Based Organizations
4. Nonprofits
5. Government and Military
6. Colleges and Universities
7. Education (K-12)

Usually you’ll need to narrow down even further, but choosing an industry is where you’ll want to start. Ask yourself if you have any connections or experience in one of these industries that might give you a head start.

Once you have a general idea of who you want to speak to, you need to fundamentally understand the type of person in question. Ask yourself what stage of life they’re in, what identities are key to the way they understand themselves. Above all though, ask yourself what problems they might struggle with.

Step 2: Understand Your Audience

Once you have a general idea of who you want to speak to, you need to fundamentally understand the type of person in question. Try to put yourself fully in their shoes. Ask yourself what stage of life they’re in, what identities are key to the way they understand themselves. Above all though, ask yourself what they’re struggling with. What problem do they have, that if solved, would make their lives dramatically happier and more productive?

But to really understand how you can solve pain points for your audience, it is necessary to do more than just mentally understand them. Research and listening are absolutely essential in this process.

Step 3: Audience Research

The most powerful research happens when you go straight to the source and listen to industry insiders talk about their biggest challenges in their own words. This direct feedback gives you not just the problems themselves, but the specific language, emotions, and context that surround them.

The key to direct audience intelligence is to resist the urge to immediately offer solutions or steer conversations toward your areas of expertise. Your job in this phase is to listen, document, and understand the problems exactly as your audience experiences them.

But how do exactly do you do this? Here are some of the best audience research tools and audience research techniques you can use to do thorough audience research:

Interview Event Planners

One of the best places to find out more about audience pain points is by asking event planners. If you’ve previously worked with a conference organizer, event planner, training director or someone in a similar role in your target industry, ask them if they’d be willing to spend half an hour talking with you about their industry. Ask specific questions like “What are the biggest challenges your attendees are facing that you need speakers to address?” Pay attention to what they describe and the language they use to do it. Speaker bureau representatives can also be an invaluable source of information.

Don’t know any event planners? That doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t utilize this way of gaining insight. You may be surprised at how willing industry insiders are to connect with new people and share their experiences and broader industry trends – especially if you make it clear that it isn’t a sales pitch. LinkedIn is a great platform for meeting people in your field, but simply dropping them an email works too. Just make sure to be respectful of their time and understanding if they don’t have room on their schedule.

Social Media Deep Dives

Your audience is almost certainly already talking about their problems online, often in surprisingly candid detail – this makes for a great audience research method. Search relevant hashtags, and join Facebook groups, LinkedIn communities, and subreddits where your target audience gathers. Look for posts that generate engagement, especially those that are extremely relatable to others in the industry. Note specific phrases and language patterns that people use to describe their challenges.

Find popular content creators, bloggers, podcasters, or thought leaders who serve your target audience. Read through the comments on their most engaging posts, especially those that pose questions to the audience. Comments often reveal the gap between what the content creator thinks matters and what the audience actually struggles with. Look for patterns in the questions people ask and the frustrations they express.

Event Networking

Networking is obviously a huge part of conducting audience research, and it can be immensely beneficial to attend workshops, keynotes, focus groups and other events within your niche to gain a deep understanding of problems your target audience struggles with.

Take note of which problems generate the most discussion and engagement from people in your chosen industry. Note which topics cause attendees to lean forward, take notes, or approach speakers afterward. Pay special attention to the questions asked during Q&A sessions as these often reveal gaps between what speakers presented and what attendees actually want to know.

Step 4: Choose Your Problem

After conducting thorough market research using the methods outlined above, you’ll likely have uncovered multiple problems that your target audience faces. The challenge now is selecting the right problem to build your speaking platform and marketing strategy around. This decision will have a major impact on your speaking career, so it’s crucial to make it carefully. At the same time though, it is possible to pivot down the road if something just isn’t working, so don’t get analysis paralysis.

The most successful speakers don’t try to solve every problem they’ve discovered. Instead, they become known as the definitive expert on one specific challenge. This focus allows them to command higher fees, attract the right event planners, and build a reputation as an expert and thought leader in their field.

When evaluating which problem to choose, consider these key factors:

Urgency and Impact

Not all problems are created equal. Some challenges might be interesting or intellectually stimulating, but they don’t keep your audience up at night. The problem you choose should be one that creates genuine urgency for your target audience. If solving this problem would dramatically improve their performance, reduce their stress, or help them avoid significant consequences, you’ve found a winner.

Market Demand

Look for evidence that event planners are actively seeking speakers to address this specific challenge. Are conferences dedicating keynotes to this topic? Are organizations hiring consultants to help with this issue? Are there job postings specifically focused on solving this problem? Market demand validates that the problem isn’t just theoretical – it’s something organizations are willing to spend money to address.

Your Qualifications

Ultimately, the topic you’ll be most successful speaking about is the one at the intersection of market demand and your personal qualifications. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a PhD in your field or have a laundry list of qualifications, but some kind of personal credibility goes a long way. Whether it’s something you overcame in your own life or career, or a unique perspective you can bring to the table, your qualifications to speak on something will be the deciding factor for many event planners.

Scalability

The K in our SPEAK Framework is “Know When to Scale,” and a big part of building a successful and sustainable speaking business is scalability. Consider whether the problem affects enough people to sustain a speaking career. A highly specific issue that only affects a small subset of your target audience might not generate regular speaking opportunities and may limit your ability to generate more revenue streams. Look for problems that are widespread enough to support regular bookings across multiple organizations and events.

Your Passion

While passion alone won’t sustain a speaking career, you’ll be more successful if you genuinely care about solving the problem you’ve chosen. You’ll be talking about this issue repeatedly, so make sure it’s something you find meaningful and engaging rather than just commercially viable.

Step 5: Position Yourself as the Solution

Once you’ve chosen the audience problem you’ll focus on, the next step is defining exactly how you’ll position yourself as the solution. This goes beyond just identifying the challenge – it involves crafting a clear, compelling message about your unique approach to solving it.

Your focus should be specific enough that event planners immediately understand what you offer, but broad enough to generate multiple speaking opportunities. The goal is to become known for solving one particular problem in a way that only you can.

Develop Your Signature Solution

Create a framework, methodology, or approach that becomes uniquely associated with you. This might be a step-by-step process you’ve developed, a set of principles you’ve identified, or a unique way of thinking about the problem. Your signature solution should be memorable, practical, and different from what other speakers offer.

Craft Your Expert Positioning Statement (EPS):

Develop a clear, one-sentence description of the problem you solve and for whom. This statement should be specific enough that the right event planners immediately recognize you as relevant to their needs, while being broad enough to apply to multiple situations within your target industry.

Your Expert Positioning Statement should follow this format: “I help [specific audience] overcome [specific challenge] so they can [specific desired outcome].” For instance: “I help restaurant managers reduce staff turnover so they can maintain consistent service quality during busy seasons.”

Build Supporting Evidence

Collect data, case studies, and testimonials that demonstrate your ability to solve the problem you’ve chosen. This evidence becomes the foundation for your speaker materials and helps event planners justify booking you. Document specific results you’ve achieved and people you’ve helped with your expertise.

Common Mistakes Speakers Make

Before we conclude, let’s go over some of the most common mistakes speakers make about audience problems that can lead to being booked less consistently or being passed over for other speakers.

1. The Expert’s Curse: Speakers are usually incredibly knowledgeable in their respective fields. This is a good thing and part of establishing your expertise! But a mistake many speakers make is to lose sight of what it is to be uninitiated or a beginner in the subject they speak about. Problems that were once daunting to them now seem basic or obvious. You might dismiss these “basic” issues as too simple to address, but they’re often exactly what your audience struggles with most.
2. Shiny Object Syndrome: Another pitfall that can come from being an expert is always gravitating toward the newest, most cutting-edge theories, frameworks or advice in your field. These ideas can feel more impressive to present, but often come at the expense of solving the most fundamental problems that your audience is still wrestling with.
3. Personal Projection Trap: Often, speakers gravitate toward solving a specific problem for an audience because they once had the same problem and overcame it. Once again, that is a good thing! But sometimes it leads to the assumption that your audience will experience the problem in the exact same way, or that they share the same situation down to minor details.
4. The Industry Echo Chamber: As with the previous examples, this trap stems from an over-emphasis on a good thing. In this case, being well-connected in your industry can lead to becoming less relatable. When you spend all your time talking to industry leaders, speakers and other experts, you can view things from an insider’s perspective and become disconnected from your audience’s perspective.

By being aware of these pitfalls, you can avoid them and more effectively focus on your audience’s needs and problems.

Conclusion

Identifying your audience’s real problems isn’t just a preliminary step in building a speaking career – it’s the foundation that determines whether you’ll struggle to get bookings or become a sought-after expert who commands premium fees.

This process can take time and require patience. It means resisting the temptation to try to be everything to everyone and instead committing to becoming exceptional at solving one specific challenge. It means listening more than you speak during your research phase and being willing to pivot if your initial assumptions prove incorrect. But in the end, it will be worth it.

When you get it right, everything else becomes easier. Event planners know exactly why they should book you. Your marketing materials write themselves because you have a clear, compelling message. Your presentations are more impactful because they address genuine needs rather than theoretical concepts.

Most importantly, your speaking becomes genuinely transformative for your audiences. When you solve real problems that people actually have, you create lasting value that extends far beyond the time you spend on stage. You become not just a speaker, but a catalyst for meaningful change in people’s lives.