How Should I Set My Speaking Fees? (part one)

This is one topic you usually don’t hear people talking about – and yet it is one of the most important questions a professional speaker faces. For the new speaker, fee setting is mystifying and frightening…and for the experienced speaker, fee setting can drive you into a professional rut by keeping you from getting the gigs you want – or by putting you in front of audiences that don’t work for you.

As a speaker, your fee means something, but it does not mean what you think it does. Simply put, your fee represents what your client thinks your speaking will be worth BEFORE you give the speech. This value must always be evaluated from the perspective of the client. A speech can deliver value in several ways:

1. Draw value – you may, by your reputation or topic description, draw attendees to an event.
2. Entertainment value – you may amuse the audience
3. Information value – you may give the audience information they do not have
4. Process value – you may, in your speech, draw the audience through an experience than informs them or changes their thinking

The first value – draw value – is clearly worth something BEFORE the event. If you have this, your client may view your value as equivalent to buying a certain amount of, say, advertising, and you can think of your value this way.

The remaining sources of value are often part of the client’s product – that is, the event is often sold as a source of these values. The extent to which you deliver these values is the extent to which your client’s “product” gains quality from the raw material you bring to it. These values affect three things which are important to most clients:

1. quality experience for attendees
2. event reputation
3. repeat business/attendance at future events

Clearly, this assessment of value is most valid for public events, trade shows and conventions. In this type of event, the client will value all three “content” values highly, since the future commercial success of the client’s enterprise rests – at least in part – on delivering all three values to the audience.

In corporate meetings, the value of your speech may well be assessed by the way the audience applies your effect to the organization. You might be hired, for example, to assure that attendees who are franchisees understand how to use social media to promote their local business, or to teach employees how to be more productive on the road.

In my next post, I’ll discuss how to assess the value you create in each of the four core areas, and how to use that assessment to help set your fees.