190. Speaking Fees: What Your Speaking Rate is for Different Engagements and Factors to Consider

“If you want to get your ideas to market, you have to be a speaker.” - Grant Cardone

What should you charge for your speaking fee? How much can you charge to speak if you’re starting out?

Let’s dive into these questions about how to determine your speaker fees, especially when asked "How much do you charge?" 

Honestly, there isn’t a simple answer and there are many factors go into the answer you should consider.

Your speaker fee depends on each unique situation, your reason and goals for public speaking. 

Here's what you'll learn:

• Key factors that determine how much you should charge, including your role, goals, and your current or desired future relationship with the person booking you

• Increase your perceived value by using a speaker agreement even if you're speaking for no fee

• Strategies beyond a speaker fee to get value from speaking, like lead generation and sales

• Easily address speaking opportunities like a profession no matter your experience level

Think strategically and professionally, and you’ll determine the right fee for you while also getting additional value from each speaking opportunities. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Learn more about IN Demand Signature Speech TODAY!

• Grab the FREE resource Directory of Places to Speak

• Grab the FREE resource Take the Stage

• Follow me on Instagram: @laurieann.murabito

• For more about me and what I do, check out my website.

• If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching programs.

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Transcript:

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

Here's a question I get all the time. How much should I charge for a 60 minute presentation or even a 30 minute presentation? And as a matter of fact, I was in a Facebook group, and somebody asked, how much would you charge for a 90 minute presentation to 20 people? And I'm asking you that question. How much would you charge for 90 minutes to 20 people? I'm gonna dive really deep into this particular question, so let's get on to the show. This question gets I get asked all the time. And you may not like this answer, but this is the honest to god true answer. It depends. It depends. And I will tell you that this Facebook group and this particular post, there were a lot of comments and a lot of people were saying, it depends.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

It Depends. It depends. But, also, there were a lot of people saying all you people saying it depends. Could you just give an honest answer or don't share your thoughts at all? But the truth is, it depends. And one of the answers that I gave is that It depends is the right answer because there's a lot of missing information, a lot of missing information that It's hard for me to give you an answer to that. So let's just start off with how to answer this question. I'm gonna give you stuff to think about. It's a different answer if you're a professional speaker versus you are a coach, a service professional, a consultant, etcetera.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

You know? And there are different reasons why you're speaking. If you're a professional speaker, you know, like, you being on stage, Your time is money. You being on stage is how you earn an income. Sure. There's some stuff that happens in the back end, but But we're not gonna dive into that right now. So if you're a professional speaker, you have your national, International and maybe even virtual rates. So it's an easy question whether you're speaking for 30 minutes, half hour, A keynote? A closing keynote? Even a breakout session? Maybe even a workshop, a Full day, a half day. You've already got you already know what you're going to charge.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

It's not like there's a going rate for 90 minutes? What is your rate? So less than a professional speaker, they've already got all these numbers. And as professional speakers, and that's the world that I came from before I came into the online world to teach coaches and consultants How to write and deliver amazing presentations? I had a fee, and I also had ways when somebody didn't have the budget for my fees? But that's another that's a completely other topic. And if you wanna learn a little bit more about that, Go listen to the behind the scenes that came out sometime around December of 2023, depending on when you're listening to this. It's a behind the scenes with a very large insurance company, and I'd literally walked you step by step through the entire process, The months that I worked with them, from beginning to end. And I talk more about the budget in that particular episode. So let's say you're not a professional speaker. You are a coach, a consultant, a freelancer, service provider. You know, you've got an expertise that somebody wants to they wanna know more of.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

They wanna bring you in and talk to this audience. Big, small, medium. How many people are there doesn't matter. What does matter is, why are you speaking? And that is, like, one of the first questions you should be answering. Why are you speaking? What is it you hope to get? Like, what's your goal for speaking to this particular audience? What do you wanna get out of this? And I also I and this is something that I teach all of my private clients and also my students inside in demand signature speech? And it's an exercise. It's like, before you even start writing your presentation, I will hold my hands together and say, let's pretend that there's a gift in your hands. What is the gift that you wanna give your audience when you are done speaking? When the applause has ended, What is that gift? These are the goals that we need to start with when crafting a presentation. So there's lots of reasons why you might be speaking.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

You might be like, this is great visibility. You've heard me say over and over again. Sometimes I feel like a broken record, and that's good. But speaking's the fastest way to grow your business. Speaking is the fastest way to grow your email list. Speaking is the fastest way to call in the right people. So when you're speaking, you know, again, why are you speaking, you know, at this particular time? So when you're speaking, you have to decide What are your goals? So that's why answering this question is not so cut and dry. Maybe you're just getting started.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

I just wanna Talk to and be seen by a group of people whom I are my ideal clients. And you've heard me say before, And I'll just share this again in case this is, like, the 1st episode that you're ever listening to. But every time you Speak at an in person, a virtual, or even, like, somebody's private community, whether that's a mastermind, it's some sort of a membership, It could be a private Facebook group. Everybody who's in there has raised their hand to say, I'm interested in this topic. I'm interested in learning more about what you're gonna talk about. I'm even buying a ticket. I'm gonna spend time with you. I want to solve this problem because I have this problem in my life, in my business, and I want to solve it.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

So you might wanna just be doing this for visibility reasons. Maybe you need some pictures to show to show you speaking. You know? That's It's always that social proof. You could be speaking for testimonials, for some video. You might be speaking for clients. You know? That's one of my favorite. I wanna help more people, And I wanna call in the right people to work with me. There's always an exchange of value.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

You can get paid on the front end, but you can also get paid on the back end. And I think in getting paid on the back end It's actually more lucrative than getting paid on the front end. So in other words, you get to decide and remember, I never say you speak for free. You speak for no fee. And when you speak for no fee, you know, if you're one of my clients or one of my students, you're gonna have, like, a speaker agreement. And inside that speaker agreement, it actually states what your speaker fee is. And you use the speaker agreement Even for the events that you're not getting paid for. Why is that? Because all of a sudden, they're gonna see, oh, that's what their normal fee is, And we got them for what? It increases the value of what you're actually going to be speaking about.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

Suddenly, like, whoever's introducing you, or maybe there wasn't somebody who was introducing you, and suddenly now they actually are going to introduce you, They are going to make sure I mean, it just increases the value of what you're going to be sharing with the audience. So don't underestimate, you know, speaking for no fee and still using a speaker agreement because you're letting people know this is what my normal fee is. And, again, inside my speaker agreement, you know, there's always an exchange of value. If you type down below, there's actually I will share a link Or where you can actually get a copy of this. The other thing that I wanna share with you and I want you to think about, What's the relationship of the person who is asking you? Now why is this so important? Is it a stranger? Because they could just be fishing for information. Could be a meeting planner. Could be some other Secret disguised speaker just wondering how much would I charge? Maybe they're looking for the answer. Is this somebody that you know? Is this somebody who has seen you speak before? Who booked you to speak? Who hired you to speak? Was it is it somebody who was in the audience? Is it somebody who's on a committee for a conference? What is the relationship of the person who is asking you? Because that is also going to dictate a lot of information.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

In other words, I had a client who we had just started working together, And she actually got what like, this email that just they wanted to know what her hourly rate was. And I told him, just like, well, you don't have an hourly rate. I was like, you need more information. You need to get them on the phone. So she sent a very nice message back, you know, giving them her calendar link. No reply. So it might have been somebody this is my perspective. Might have been just somebody that was just fishing for information.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

And if somebody is just going for cost, then that means they're just looking for the cheapest speaker, Probably. I don't know that for a fact. But if that's what, like, the first thing that somebody is asking, How much do you charge for 90 minutes? And there's the whole 20 people? It almost sounds like well, there's only 20 people that are gonna be in the room. It's not like there's gonna 500. You know? It shouldn't make a difference to the number of people. If anything, a smaller group is actually gonna get more out of a presentation? Because you can actually really cater it to those 20 people versus if it's an audience of 50 or a100. Is there travel involved? Is it national? Is it international? Is it gonna be virtual? What time is it? I mean, there's so again, there's so many variables that we just don't know. So what I want you to actually do is to actually think about what is your speaker fee.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

What do you want to get paid when you speak? And being that sort of speaker who you might be thinking like, well, I'm a coach. I'm a consultant. You know, I want to speak for clients. So I'm gonna be a no fee speaker, and that can be that is a business model. You can decide if it's local, I don't charge. If it's I gotta travel, There is a fee. Maybe they just travel they pay your travel expenses and your hotel, etcetera. That's not unusual.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

I have gotten paid locally. Well, wait a minute. I'm I'm thinking of this one particular time that I wanna share with you. I didn't get my speaker fee. They did pay for or my hotel room because it was a 3 hour drive, And they did allow me to have a table for this conference, it was a one day conference, and sell my books. And I had reached out to them because my new book was coming out. So I was basically doing, like, a little book launch And going around to different places and talking about my book and selling my book from the stage. And that was in my agreement.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

Again, you can, like, Check down below in the show notes. There'll be a link so that you can actually find, a copy of my speaker agreement. I it's it's a very low cost, and it walks you through the 3 different areas of the agreement. And there's a video that walks you through this as well, and then you can, like, use this. And the best part about using this, using a speaker agreement, is you look like a pro even if you've never spoken before? So in the end, you have to decide. And this is why I always say, like, the most common, You know, response that I have to clients, to people asking me questions about speaking is it does depend. It depends on several other variables coming in. So I will ask you further questions, or I would say, like, if you were my client And you said, you know, like, hey.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

How much should I be charging for speaking for 90 minutes to these 20 people? I would I would tell you it depends. It depends. Do you want to just speak and get paid for your your 90 minutes, Or do you wanna be able to sell from the from the stage? Sell during this workshop. Call in more clients. Because I actually I I know that there are sometimes just like I was sharing earlier, how people will find out, like, What's your speaker fee? What's your speaker fee? And I have like, people have put money on the table for me. How much would you charge for this? And then I Send them over a proposal. And I have gotten back responses that say, oh, all of our other speakers are gonna speak for free, so we're gonna go with them. They may not be professional speakers, but as a professional speaker, because that's what I was, you know, I would charge for my time.

Laurie-Ann Murabito:

So you have to decide, how much do you want to get paid? How can you look like a pro? And if you're not a professional speaker, like, every time an offer comes up, It's about approaching it like a professional, but also making different decisions. And sometimes, Organizations, companies, associations, different meetings, different conferences, they have budgets for speakers, And that's an important piece of information to learn about. So till next time, you should definitely get your hands on the speaker agreement or Also, join the in demand signature speech wait list. I will tell you a little bit more about that, you know, in a future episode? But get on the wait list for in demand signature speech so that the next time that the doors are open, you're gonna be the 1st person to know about it. And inside in demand signature speech, it is a 9 week program that walks you step by step by step through all the different parts of a compelling, captivating, and converting presentation? Because no matter what your speaking experience is, if you're working with me, If you're taking one of my programs, you are gonna look like a pro right from the get go even if it's your very first time. So till next week, go be in demand.