7 reasons why I don’t work for free as a professional speaker (or for a very low budget)

@CyrielKortleven

With this slideshare -and you can read a longer blogpost- I want to give a bit more background-information to event-organisers that I’m saying ‘no’ to free (or badly paid) assignments.Even if there are great ‘opportunities’ for future assignments from the audience. But I can’t pay my bills with a lot of ‘exposure’.

The yellow squares provide a bit more background information or reflect my personal experience.

"Hello, thank you for your proposal to deliver your presentation for our employees. We are and organisation with 50 members who would love to hear your story. It's a pity but we have very

limited budgets. But our network is very interesting and chances are big that you can get a lot of future assignments via our

organisation. We can pay for your travel costs and give you a nice present. Hope that we can collaborate. Organisation X"

"Hi, we have got your mail via ... In October we are organising an event for our clients. It's a very good opportunity to network and our clients are working in influential larger organisations. We have a policy that we never pay for speakers but you can be part of this great experience. Would you be willing (and are you available) to deliver a presentation for our clients? Thanks a lot, Organisation Y"

Two examples

1. Would you work today if you only received 20% of your normal fee?

Try to book a hotel room or an airplane ticket at 50% of the normal fee explaining the hotel manager or bookings agent that you will make a lot of promotion for his service to your network. Chances are small that you will get your room or ticket.

2. I invest a lot of time and money to be a top-professional

I invest around € 25.000/year to attend world-class conferences and getting coached by top-experts; spend 10 hours a week exploring blogs and articles and sharing this via social media; invest 6-8 weeks a year writing on a new book.

www.flickr.com/photos/wandering_angel/2280759746

3. Don’t compare a

top-speaker with an extra

coffee-break

85% of spendings on events is going to travel, hotel and food&beverage. 15% is left for business services technology and… speakers.

4. If the audience applies only 10% of my tips and tricks, they can

save thousands of dollars.

It’s very hard to calculate the value of a good speaker but if participants only apply 1 good tip that saves time, energy or money, that’s already

worth a lot of money. And then I’m even not talking about the inspiration and motivation or supporting them to go for a breakthrough idea.

5. You don’t pay me just for one hour of speaking but for more than thousand hours on stage.

During my 15 years of experience, I have probably spend 5.000 hours in front of a group (of which at least 1.000 hours on stage for a larger audience). Every new presentation profits from that experience.

6. I love your audience but sometimes, your audience isn’t that interesting for me if it comes down to future assignments.

One of the big advantages of my job is the variety of my audiences. But 95% of the audiences aren’t going to hire me (even if they really appreciate the presentation).

7. The road between an enthusiast

participant and a paid customer

is complex and long.

In my experience, the conversion rate from an enthusiastic participant to a paying customer is around 1/500. And when it goes

fast, it takes around a year before that new presentation will happen (because organisations don’t organise a bigger event every week).

All pictures are bought on iStockphoto.com or found on flickr.com (then I’ve added the link) or are my own pictures.

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Cyriel Kortleven is an international speaker & author of 4 books.

More inspiration on his website.