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.

Can a Speaker Sue me even though they didn't perform? And what can I do about it?

The short answer is Yes, a speaker could sue you and win especially if you haven't kept a good enough account of what you needed them to do, even if they performed badly, you could lose.

Obviously the usual reason a speaker would take an Event Organiser to court would be for non payment of their invoice.

For an Event Organiser not to pay is often because they were either relying on ticket sales to raise the funds or they have a policy to pay after the event and decided the speaker’s performance wasn't as expected so withheld payment. 

But, even if the speaker did a bad performance or even failed to turn up because you changed the date and they couldn’t make the new date, and if you didn't check the Terms and Conditions you signed, you could still be liable and still have to pay.

Not fair is it!

Most organisations sign the Terms and Conditions of the speakers who are savvy enough to provide them, many without checking them carefully first.  In addition, many other speakers are reliant on just sending an invoice and a few email exchanges to be sufficient enough which means that while you don’t have to deal with paperwork and it seems a quick way to engage the speaker you want, you are in fact leaving your organisation wide open to paying for a bad performance.

While the industry is and works on word of mouth for hiring and finding speakers, there is still a high need for them so without protecting yourself and putting in place a proper system to limit your liability you could be hugely out of pocket as not only would you be paying the speaker, but the court cost, the time and energy involved and the hidden cost of audience dis-engagement from the event and if you are really unlucky, any potential media fallout too.

To avoid this when you book a speaker, make sure you:

1) Check their Terms and Conditions carefully to find out what happens if something does go wrong so you can fully understand what you would be expected to pay.  And if you don't like any of their Terms, ask for changes and agree to the new terms before you sign.

2) Understand and agree exactly what they will do for you for their fee before the day in writing.  Be reasonable as to what can be measured and what can't. Performance is considered objective unless it is clear they failed to meet requirements.  Remember: what I think is good might not be what you think is good, however them saying they are an expert on a subject and then clearly demonstrating their knowledge to be less than that of the audience is measurable!

3) If they want full payment upfront and you are not happy or able to commit, find a third party format to hold the payment for you: iwantaspeaker, paypal, a client bank account, solicitor, speaker bureau as examples, or come to a payment arrangement where you are happy to take the risk and lose the sum without it being detrimental to your budget.  

4) If the speaker doesn't have any Terms and Conditions, doesn't have any standard contracts and only relies on the ‘sending you an invoice and a few emails’ method, make sure you have in writing exactly what they will do to compensate you should they fail to deliver in all eventualities.  Or insist they use your process which de-risks you and standardises them.  If they fail to get through or won’t go through your process, don’t hire them.

Only by safe guarding yourself against all speakers you work with being a possible failure, will you be able to protect yourself from the actual one speaker who will take you to court and win even though they didn't perform well enough and didn't deserve their fee!

It's why we built iwantaspeaker.com

How can you stop worrying about a speaker not showing up?

So you’ve put your life on hold for the last 6 weeks while you’ve been busy finalising the event details: going to the venue, checking and rechecking the room layout, ensuring all AV equipment is at hand and working and updating your list of back up AV suppliers, make final decisions and agree sign offs, check the speakers have sent their material in and it’s on appropriate slides…  oh wait… hang on…   You …are…. Kidding!!!

The speaker isn’t coming?  What do you mean they are not coming?

Rather unprofessional of them isn’t it!

For the last umpteen months, you’ve been plastering their name all across your event, raising their profile, marketing their topic and advertising their name to their ideal audience only to have all this hard work and effort undone.  Let alone the cost and time and effort of yourself and your team you’ve put in and the stress it’s going to cause to get a replacement and somehow get literature together and inform the audience ahead of the event because there will be someone who was coming specifically to hear that speaker and if you keep quiet and decide to only let everyone know on the day that the speaker isn’t going to be there, you just know you’ll get complaints…..

Sounds familiar?

You are not alone.  Considering how many events are ran each year and how many speakers there are out there, this does happen.  Sometimes during the beginning of planning before too much time and cost has been sank into promoting them attending your event, while on other occasions, you only hear from them on the day that they can’t make it.

It’s times like this you wish you had a crystal ball or possibly heard from others that the speaker was likely to do this so you could have planned in advance or not even bothered with them in the first place.

There should be at least somewhere a professional standard for speakers and then know if they are willing to stand by it or not.

So we looked around because we too have experienced this and we thought it was about time someone found a way to figure out how you could predict if you are going to be given the run around or have a professional service from the speakers…   we discovered not all the speaker bureaus and agents were honest about who they exactly manage and not all the speakers showed all their testimonials on their website. 

We realised there isn’t even a quantified standard for being a speaker or even booking them!

So… we built one: iwantaspeaker.com

iwantaspeaker.com is the only online Speaker Management software tool that gives you early indications about a speaker’s level of professionalism. 

It is a process that only those speakers who have a minimum standard of experience or expertise in their subject would be able to get through as well as giving you a perfect process for contracting them. 

And we paid you how much?

You’ve hired a motivational speaker for your event and it’s a name everyone recognises.  You chose this speaker because they said they could impart invaluable knowledge and a winning method to your audience. 

You also chose this speaker because you didn’t have to try and ‘sell’ them to your colleagues as they’d heard their name too.

You’ve done your background checks and they seem to have been booked many times before without issues.

Come the big day and the company’s management team are in the auditorium, all primed and ready to hear the famed speaker.  Mics have been arranged around the room to help create an ‘interactive’ feel to the session.  The speaker is on for a period and then opens the floor up to the room to ask questions about the information they’ve just presented. 

You’re pleased as punch when one of the managers asks for the mic. And then they ask a question: ‘We’ve paid you how much for this rubbish?’

Feeling a tad embarrassed, you politely grab the mic and go to the next enthusiastically hand waving in the air.  It’s one of the other managers from another department; ‘And we’ve booked you to do this for 3 of our others areas too?  Why?’

At this precise moment in time, you’ll probably find yourself going through all the process of how you went about finding, selecting and negotiating a speaker the moment you realise the audience has started to heckle the speaker.  You will now be trying to work out what went wrong in the process and at what point you might have missed something because you just know questions will be asked about who wasted the company budget on this!

The sad truth is, you probably haven’t done anything wrong.  Even if you have a strong process, you still have to rely on a speaker understanding their own strength and level of content needed for the audience in front on them and then to say openly if they can or cannot meet your audience requirements.

And because there isn’t a standard process for working with speakers, you have no way to validate the level of audience and content they gave for the previous engagements they’ve received testimonials for.  In fact, each speaker, bureau and organiser has their own way of working, their own process and their own standards – all which increases the chances of someone getting through your process who shouldn’t be getting through being able to be standing on your stage, disappointing your audience and letting you down.

To avoid being put in this position, check:

1. Have they presented to your level of audience before and if yes could they provide you with a Review
2. Are they willing to have a conference call with key people of the audience beforehand to give a presentation outline
3. If they are insisting on being paid upfront, will their Terms & Conditions refund 100% immediately should the audience deem them unsuitable.
4. If it involves more than one area, would they be happy to treat each area as an independent booking.
5. Would they be happy for you to publish a Review of their presentation on Social Media afterwards.

If a speaker is in any doubt about their own abilities and delivery, you will find they would prefer to find a method to steer you towards their process of working which is in their favour only.  If they are confident in their own value of delivery they will be happy to work with you and your process and flexibly enough to accommodate your process.

iwantaspeaker.com is based on the same process as used by the professional bureaus to engage their speakers on behalf of their clients.  This process is open to anyone who books and works with speakers, providing them a professional standard when working with  speakers.  

The iwantaspeaker.com process ensures the speakers will have the experience needed for the audience as it quickly highlights those that do not have the experience required or are unwilling to be Reviewed afterwards.  Giving a perfect process for contracting and working together. 

‘It’s the Celebrity speaker here, can you get me some of the White stuff?’

What would you do? 

I’m not going to beat around the bush.  Without you even realising it, your event organiser has probably just saved your company from an embarrassing, bad press, client losing situation and you probably won’t even know. 

Many organisers are faced with situations that can either bring the company or themselves into bad press.  But more worryingly is the lack of support or understanding they get from their own company and the business world at large and instead of sharing information, they are left to deal with this as best they can and hope it ‘doesn’t come out on their watch’. 

Don’t believe me?  Imagine: You have just spent the best part of a year, organising and overseeing the task of arranging your company’s largest annual event.  All Key personnel have arrived. All helpers and crew are ready to sprint into action. All equipment, AV and everything else is set up for the event to begin in the morning.  The Celebrity has arrived, spoken to the CEO, joined the team for evening dinner and now retired to their room to get ready to do the keynote in the morning.  With the last checks done, it’s now your turn to turn in, leaving some of the team members at the hotel bar enjoying the last of the night before the big day tomorrow.  And then you get a call.  It’s from the Celebrity.  Last minute changes to the speech? An issue that’s arisen and they’ve got to go? Just wanting to thank you and find out if there is anything else they could do for you?  No.  It’s them asking you to get them some drugs!  And I don’t mean the over the counter type either.

Your heart races.  What to do? Who to call? It’s the middle of the night….!

What would you do?

We all know what should happen.  But the truth is scarier – the organiser is left to deal with it and often won’t mention it to anyone apart from a select few they trust.

By this, I mean they deal with it as in they either do or don’t find the drugs – I’ve heard of organisers doing both and sadly for the same reason – because they felt it was their job that’s on the line and the event outcome being ruined. 

And they had to make this tough decision on their own, with seconds or only a few minutes to think. 

Media is littered with Celebrities having indiscretions, but hardly at a conference or at a named business event.  Have you ever stopped to ask why this is?  With over 1.29 million events running each year in the UK alone, the only drugs that hit the media headlines are those mentioned in Pharma events or a Celebrity indiscretion going to, leaving a party or in a hotel!  

To me, I think the answer is simple: instead of being allowed to name and shame, the celebrity will use their high status and, often being good manipulators, will use their social status and dominant personality to intimidate and belittle to get what they want.  A great article by Jenny McCartney on 5^th November 2012 published in The Telegraph highlights this and why people won’t say anything.

But then you have to ask, what would have happened if others had blown the whistle?  To answer this, you don’t have to look too far: in the case of Oisin Tymon and his Celeb run in with them asking for something that was impossible under the circumstances as highlighted in the wonderful article in The Telegraph, by Victoria Ward, 12^th March 2015,  the brand suffered and the Celeb was sacked because of it going so very public.  The public backlash didn’t focus on the behaviour of the Celeb, instead it focused on the messenger.  And no messenger wants to be put under that type of public pressure, especially when we have a bad habit of demonising those who do stand up and call these Celebrity’s behaviour into question.

Recently, I heard yet again of another organiser who received, ‘The Phone Call’.  For guidance, they naturally turned to the person who they booked the Celebrity through.  It was then they found out they were not the agent but a bureau, an intermediary. The intermediary didn’t know about there being ‘a problem’ beforehand either….

I’d like to tell you how it was resolved in this instance, but, seeing as the true agent didn’t tell the booker about the Celeb’s little habit, and the booker won’t ever divulge who it is and neither will the Organiser tell anyone else out of fear of backlash, I’m sorry to say the next Celeb that you book might be them as this collaborative silence allows this behaviour to go on.

And because this silence goes on, the next organiser who books might well be faced with the same phone call and are forced into a position to make that instant decision which could jeopardise your brand.  It only takes one person to successfully inform the public in a way they don’t get a backlash and like a house of cards, it’ll all come out. 

We are not that far away from that moment.

There has long been a need for openness and accountability when it comes to booking speakers and personalities for events and it’s why we put on our site. Iwantaspeaker.com, the opportunity for organisers to give Reviews about their experience after working with the speakers.  At first, we thought we did the wrong thing when a few speakers who tried to register with our site said they didn’t like the Review section, but, after a bit of research - it’s the being ‘Open and Accountable and a fear of Reviews’ that’s keeping them away and more importantly a fear of receiving Bad Reviews because usually it’s been justified!

 

Good. 

It means we are doing what we set out to do and those who do sign up to our site will not be one of those Celebrities who will be making ‘that phone call’, and putting your brand at risk.  What are you doing to make sure you are hiring Speakers that won’t behave badly and more importantly, have you an action plan and a support system in place for your event organiser should they be put in this position? At least those speakers who have signed up with us are happy to be Reviewed which means your organiser will not have to face one of those dreaded late night phone calls….

  

Cindy-Michelle Waterfield

iwantaspeaker.com

trust –convenience – peace of mind

How Do You Pick which Expo?

It’s Expo season and it’s in full swing.  But which one do you go to?

One of the top reasons is: To Gain Knowledge.  And one of the best ways is to listen to the speakers and the Keynotes as it’s a quick way of learning new information.

So, you do your homework and work out which of the Expos’ breakout sessions and keynotes you want to attend and could be of most value and then you consider that while you are there, you might as well check ahead to see what exhibitors are there and arrange a few meet-ups. 

Come the day and….

You get to the speaker session and….

The room is empty. 

The Speaker didn’t show.

Yes, it’s annoying.

If you had known they wouldn’t show, would you honestly have gone?  It’s only at this point you realise that you will at least be getting something from the day with the meet-ups and the exhibition.  But reality is, if you knew the speaker wasn’t going to be there, you probably wouldn’t be either.

Speakers impart knowledge. This is a great way to learn about what’s hot, what’s trending and what your company needs to have or do right now.

Of the Expos I attended last year, on average, 11% of sessions were cancelled because of no speaker on the day.  5% had alternative speakers from the name advertised simply because the Event Organiser found a replacement speaker at the last minute and in one case, they had a speaker do repeat performances just to ensure that the audience had someone!

Event Organisers work hard to ensure the right people are on the stage to impart this knowledge so you are drawn to the event in the first place.  So it doesn’t help them either when a Speaker decides not to show. Not professional of the speaker and it’s them that’s potentially just wasted your time.

The only speakers the Event Organisers can 99% guarantee of turning up are the Keynotes as usually these are booked via a speaker bureau and are charged big bucks for the privilege.

Now, while you and I know that these big name speakers are interesting as a draw to get us to possibly go, it’s usually the smaller, lesser known speakers in between that we go to hear as we know their content is sometimes more valuable, relevant and related to our own business. But it’s these that are the hit and miss.

Because of this, we decided it’s about time to set a Professional Standard for booking speakers and created a speaker management system that does this –iwantaspeaker.com.

Our online process reduces the risk when it comes to hiring speakers, which means Events ran by your Event Organiser will be less likely to have a “No Shows”. 

If you’ve attended an event with a ‘No Show’, tell the organiser about us as and be assured that if they use our system, they will have our 'Icon logo' on their event which means you can be sure the next time you attend their event, you will get to see the speaker you wanted and know that they will be of a Professional Standard.  No Logo? No gogo! 

That’s why we built   iwantaspeaker.com