How much should I pay a Speaker?

If you ask a speaker, some will answer this with a retort of; 'what ever they can get away with charging you'.

If you ask a bureau this question, they'll answer with whatever your budget can afford to pay, and some consultants within the bureaus will even try and push you towards a basic entry level of being £5,000 - £10,000 citing that this is the figure you need to start thinking - when really all it means is that's where they themselves want to earn commission so have to start with this budget size (read more about this in my coming Myth Buster about Bureaus which is coming soon)!

If you ask the person who's holding onto the purse strings of the budget for your event, their answer would be as little as you can possibly spend!

The truth is somewhere in between £0 and in excess of £100,000.

However, if you take a few factors into consideration, you can start to work out if you are being over charged or if you have a bargain.

When negotiating, bear in mind the following:  

• Who the person is
• Are they known to your audience already  
• How relevant they are to your audience
• How relevant their topic is to the audience

For example, there is only one Madonna but a high number of impersonators ranging from those that look like her to those that can sing like her to those who can sing and look like her.  But, there is still only 1 Madonna.  Therefore, everyone else must be cheaper. 

Then consider your audience: if your audience does not know what Madonna looks like but have heard her songs and interested in hearing her songs, then an impersonator who can sing like her but might not look like her  would be more fitting over the impersonator who looks like her but can't sing.  And if the audience is not interested in the person - just the music and the vocal style, then paying for the real deal would not necessarily give you any better results.

However, if your audience are Madonna fans and know her well with some attending hoping to talk to her personally afterwards, then using an impersonator to save budget would cost you not only your audience but also future business and reputation because for most organisations, keeping the audience happy is key to future business.

And so it is the same with the business world.  Those business speakers who speak from experience of being there, done it themselves, leading from the front or have in depth knowledge or created new insights from specialist research are worth more than the person who quit their job on Friday, had an epiphany on Saturday, decided to become a speaker on the Sunday and now wants to be in front of your audience on Monday!

And these guys are out there.

And they think they are worth the same fees....

So to answer how much should you pay for a speaker, check out their competition and do a comparison for someone who has a similar background, similar content and similar profile suited to your audience.  And make sure you know exactly what you want from your budget, how much you are willing to pay and never give away how much your actual budget is without doing your homework first.  

Bureau websites have fee groups for a reason so check them out and decide if you like the type of profiles you see within those groups. Remember, Bureaus are not really able to negotiate best deals for you beyond these fee group figures, but they'll try and beat the speaker down and drop some of their commission rate too if you push hard enough for a specific name or you might just find they'll start offering you names from a different lower fee group.  (read more about this in my coming Myth Buster about Bureaus).

Dealing with speakers directly will give you the best value for your money, but dealing direct also leaves you vulnerable to those speakers who will try and take advantage of you too by accept your budget knowing they are usually a lot lower fee normally.  When you deal direct, you are at the mercy of the speaker being honest and openly saying their normal rate - so watch out.  Do do your homework first.

Or to get the best of both worlds, ie the support like a bureau but able to negotiate directly, use a site like iwantaspeaker.com where you can do your homework comparing profiles, get an idea of the fee groups and then use the site to communicate directly with the speakers.  This way you'll get the best for your budget, the support behind you and a speaker who won't let you down but will leave you feeling like you've just got a bargain.

It's why iwantaspeaker.com was built.

by Cindy-Michelle Waterfield

Get smart, save money, be properly informed, use iwantaspeaker.com as your process to de-risk booking and working with speakers.

Blimey. That was Quick! or Why Award Nights are over in a flash!

You've been busy organising for almost a year and waiting for this night to arrive: "The Awards Ceremony" and judging by the way the Host you've hired has just rattled through the categories, it could be the last one your organising too!

And the worse part is, it won't be your fault.  

You've created an atmosphere which is electric, and filled the venue with expectant finalists and party people, all eagerly anticipating to know who's won which category.  The venue staff alongside the catering staff work to perfect clockwork timing and then the Host appears on stage ready to start the Awards Ceremony....

The Host begins their usual warm up routine, only, they don't really stop for the audience to laugh or slow the pace of their delivery either.  Soon, the atmosphere changes from relaxed laughter to short giggles as the audience tries to keep up.

At first, we brush it off without really giving it a second thought....

But as the Host carries on at the fast pace, repeatedly telling us they have to do it rapidly because, 'There's so much to cram in to tonight's schedule!!!'  the giggles get less and less....

And just before it truly becomes annoyingly noticeable, the impeccable timing of the Host sees them bring the audience altogether by grabbing everyone's attention as they start reading out, "And moving on to tonight's Awards and The First of the Categories is...."

But instead of slowing to allow the winners to have their photo taken and have time to get back to their seats, the next lot are up on the stage, photo'ed and ushered off!

What was supposed to be the time to take in the proceedings and time to allow the winners to celebrate and the finalists to congratulate or commiserate now becomes a big blur  and towards the end of the categories, no-one's really listening to the Host accept the last few categories because everyone else is occupied with talking and selfies....

Mayhem? High energy? You decide, but one thing is for sure - you've just lost next years attendees as those at the end won't appreciate not having their 5 minutes of fame.

You've lost the atmosphere of the room as the audience was given no time to savour their moments which means the second the last award is given and the Host leaves the stage, they too won't be that far behind.  Evening over!  Empty room.  No after party business - which is the hidden bonus of these things.  Which means next year you will find this particular audience not really bothered about entering again because it all became, well, a bit of an anti climax.

This Awards Night has just been hit by the Secret Assassin - someone somewhere treated your event or more to the point, your budget as a target and they were not going to let you out of their sight. And because of this, you will have to work harder at getting the attendees to come back next year.

So who was the Secret Assassin in this case?

At one particular Award Evening I was attending, I watched the above scenario and noted the audience's reaction.

To find the Secret Assassin, I asked the questions to find out why the disparity between the Host and the organisers perception?

From the Host's view point they gave good value as they managed to squeeze the proceedings down by 30 mins which meant they could be on time for their own travel arrangements and felt they were giving the audience more time to dance afterwards as that would be far more entertaining than listening to someone droning on!

However, the organiser didn't think they got the value as they had thought there would be time for photos and selfies with the Host, especially as they ended ahead of time and it was only as the Host was running off the stage they found out about 'the diary' issue.....

The organisation behind the awards booked the Host through a speaker bureau, who then went to another bureau who then went to the management agency of the Host.  Between these two bureaus, they had added an additional £10,000 (approximately) between them.  The management agency already has a fee arrangement with the Host so the Host knows exactly how much they've gone out for and how much their agency will be keeping and how much will be in their pocket at the end.   In addition, the Host's agency had made it clear  to the bureau that the diary was already booked for another gig the following day of the Awards night  so the  end organiser would have to appreciate that the Host would have to leave as soon as possible and not spend the customary time with the end organiser and the audience. No one passed this message on to the end organiser and no one could tell me where this part of the communication got lost while only the inflated costs was successfully communicated.

To make things worse, the Host management agency and the end paying organiser didn't know the difference in the two charge fees, nor that there were two bureaus involved either which meant that the Host thought they were providing a value of £x + a small % commission for the bureau and that leaving the moment they left the stage was OK, while the other was expecting £x+£10,000 + some mingle time for their value.

I lost a few friends in bureaus that day as I told the management agency how the two bureaus had brought their Host's performance into question as the end organiser and the audience felt nothing but 'rush rush rush'. Had the end client known the Host had another engagement and needed to leave straight after, they would have thought twice about using them or made appropriate adjustments.

This is not an isolated case either.

It's why we built iwantaspeaker.com because the process would have only allowed the management agency to have registered the Host's profile and not either of the bureaus which means if the Organiser had asked the first bureau to register the profile of the Host in the first place, they would have been alerted to the fact that they are not really managing that Host.  In addition, because only the management agency can register, vital decision making communication would not have been lost and the costs would have been kept down too.

So if you want to make sure your bureau is truly working directly with the speaker, the Host or the expert - ask them to register that person's profile and use the iwantaspeaker process to then hire and book them because if they can't get a profile registered or they want you to then go direct with them once they've registered the profile, they could have something they don't want you to know about lurking in the background about how they truly work and where your funds truly go and they've just realised the iwantaspeaker process will uncover this.

I'd love to hear from you if you've had a similar problem with Secret Assassins.   Lets share knowledge and let others know that this does happen and that they are not alone.

by Cindy-Michelle Waterfield




Get smart, save money, be properly informed, use iwantaspeaker.com as your process to de-risk booking and working with speakers.

The rise of the Pitch-fests!

Even event organisers go to other events and if you are like me when it comes to choosing which events to go to and which ones to give a wide berth, it all starts with a quick look at the programme:
What's the date?
Where is it?
What's the over all theme?
What's the topic?
What's the speakers' title....

And that's when I either continue or stop reading.

If you are like me, you've probably noticed the increase in the amount of speakers who are there to do a pitch than provide information. And because of this noticeable increase, you start to take more notice of who the speakers are and their title and then work out, based on your past experience, if they are more likely to Pitch or Provide content.

Unfortunately, I find myself thinking that if there are more who will do a Pitch than provide content then the risk of going and getting no content is too great so it's a 'no go' event!

But why are the Pitch-fests on the increase?  And what's the big deal?

Several reasons and I predict it will be causing several major problems for the Conference Expo industry within 5 years time!

There has been a steady increase in the growing trend of the new style conference companies that are basically selling everything! By this I mean, they sell tickets to the audience, sponsorship and exhibitor packages, lists to the supplies, charging for speaking slots...

Yes - you read right.  Charging speakers to be there on their stage and present to their audience!

Sounds a great idea and you could be wondering why you hadn't thought of this for your own event instead of paying the speakers and going through all the usual in-house budget related arguments.

But  before you start down this road, here's the issues and the backlash for your event:

Speaking slots are prime estate at any event.

There are a number of different ways to fill this, so here are the current top 4 popular ways and respective outcomes:

1) You Pay a speaker
If you pay for a speaker's services, you expect them to deliver exactly what you want which is their services for your audience - be it entertainment, information or simply a personal appearance.  The audience will receive the speaker's service as they would have expected and the event is then seen as being an acceptable cost of their time and money invested to attend and so are more likely to come back next year.  I call this the 'Pitches not included' method because you know the audience won't be subjected to one as you've pre-instructed the speakers they can't do this and they suffer a consequence if they do.

2) You use an Unpaid speaker
If you are using speakers on a pro bono base, then you are more than likely to get a speaker who is wanting to use this opportunity to provide content to your audience because it's also their target market for their 'post speech' service. When audience and speaker are matched well, your audience will be happy and feel like they've received a value for their time invested and as for the speaker, they will probably be approached afterwards for further information if they've provided the right content for that audience.  I call this the 'Triple Win Pitch' as organiser, speaker and audience get something from it.

3) Paid for as part of the Sponsorship package
While this is a nice method of giving some value to the main sponsor so they feel that they have something for their money, it does leave the organiser at the complete mercy of the sponsor's speaker.  For the audience, they are already prepared that this particular slot will be angled, biased, pitched, selling, or a glorified advert from the sponsor.  This is what I call the 'Forgivable Pitch'.

It's the one time the audience will forgive the event if the sponsor's speaker does indeed accidentally turn it into a pitch while trying to give content.  The good news here is that most sponsors will try and give content as they are trying to raise their profile in a good way too so when they do provide content, the audience view this as a bonus.

4) Speaker pays you.
This is where you know you have a 'hot audience' and have a number of speakers wanting to talk to them, so you decide to let only those who can pay you for the privilege to buy the slot. Sounds a great money generating idea but while you will get money in from this, it's a very short sighted tactic because the dynamics of Speaker:Content:Audience=Value go out the window.  This is because the audience are often unaware that the speaker has paid to be there.  The speaker or the organisation who's paid for this slot however, will need to recoup their outlay so will use this opportunity as best as they can to create business for themselves.  This means that the audience will be subjected to a pitch more often than content and if they've paid to be there too, they really won't appreciate this and will consider this speaker and the event unfavourably, I call this 'Warfare Pitching', as no one is really the winner.  As an audience member looking at the original program details, I wouldn't have been able to second guess this pitch was coming and most likely would have expected it to have been providing content instead.  Therefore, I am less likely to trust the speaker or the event in the same way and next year I know I'd be thinking again about attending....

And yet, despite the increase of the Warfare Pitching due to the organisers going after short term gain rather than long term repeat footfall and growth, the event will see dwindling numbers leading to it's demise or be morphed into something else.  No matter which way it ends, it will give the misleading message that "Events are dead because no one goes" when the truth is - no one likes to waste their time and money which would be very obvious if only events could occur at the same time rate as a weekly shop, because then you could see this particular product line wouldn't survive the standard 3 month trial!

You've worked hard to find and work with the right speakers for your event.  You will be rewarded as successful Event Organisers are only as good as the audience they continue to keep happily returning each year.

Look after your audience, look after your speakers and they'll look after you.