CHAPTER 9
FROM STEADY, TO
SURFER, TO STAR
,
HEY, AREN’T YOU . . .? WHY, YES, I AM!
IREMEMBER standing in the lobby of a Cincinnati hotel when a man waiting for an elevator said, “Aren’t you Alan Weiss? I heard you speak at my company’s conference last year.” That was kind of nice. It was even nicer when I was sitting in a boat with a dozen people on Grand Cayman, waiting to go to feed stingrays off the coast, when a man said, “Hey, you’re Alan Weiss, right?” (My son moaned, “Here we go again.”)
Getting off a plane together in Sydney, I warned Dolly Parton, who was sitting next to me, that there would be a huge crowd of reporters waiting for me when we disembarked. (There was, but obviously not for me.)
You can achieve the kind of semicelebrity that causes people to remember you because of the value and memorable techniques that you’ve brought them.
REFUSING BUSINESS (YES, REFUSING BUSINESS)
There is an anchor in the speaking business that drags along the bottom and impedes your progress, at times even leaving you dead in the water. This anchor is called “early success.”
Figure 9-1 The S-curve Phenomenon
All of us can name our first client, our first paid speech, our first opportunity to actually earn a livelihood as a professional speaker. The problem is that it is almost invariably business that we wouldn’t accept today. As super coach Marshall Goldsmith writes, “What got you here won’t get you there.”
Note the S curve in Figure 9-1. The “success trap” occurs when you cease reinventing and improving your material, approaches, and delivery. Because of entropy, all plateaus eventually erode.
Note that you have the greatest acceleration and the least “leap” near the top of the curves, not on the plateaus, where your speed has declined and the leap to the next level is enormous. So, change and the journey upward are critical to “celebrity” status (that’s when people call you and you don’t have to call them).
Here are 10 dynamics that tend to change as we gain expertise, confidence, and repute in the speaking business:
• Topics evolve. As we grow and learn, and as society and business evolve, we move to increasingly relevant and topical themes. We might have begun with “Improving Customer Service Impact” and grown to include “Managing the Customer Service Professional” or created “The Global and Remote Customer.” As our skills and learning increase, we might move into entirely new fields as well: “Embracing Diversity as a Sound Business Practice.”
• Fees increase. This had better be happening regularly. If you don’t believe it, start the book again at Chapter 1.
• Methodology changes. We might have begun with a heavy accent on lecture and full-group questions and answers, and later incorporated small teams and breakout facilitation. More commonly, we move from the “expert” position of newcomers to the “consensus” position of veterans, allowing key points to emerge from the group. Usually, as a speaker grows, he or she becomes less “scripted” and more spontaneous, appearing to be less of a rehearsed performer and more of an extemporaneous authority. Only confident people can interact freely with audiences and accept questions at any time.
• Technology changes. Many of us began with easels and whiteboards. Today, computer-generated graphics are common. Satellite transmission, Webinars, videoconferences, and teleconferences are all common avenues of audience interaction.
• Duration shortens. What were once multiday seminars tend to shrink to single days because the client wants less time off the job or wants the work included as part of a larger conference. Speakers with the requisite skills will tend to move toward half-day workshops and keynotes because there are higher fees available for less time on-site. One sure sign of growth as a speaker is that we can make the same points we used to in a third of the time. (Never believe anyone who tells you that a keynote is harder than a full day of training because it’s briefer and you have to cram more in. That’s hype and baloney, unless it’s from someone who doesn’t understand the differing objectives of a keynote and a workshop.)
• Buyers change. We often begin working through a seminar house that employs us as subcontractors. Or we sell to training directors and meeting planners. But if we’re any good, that sale should move to line executives (and be made by bureaus representing us).
• Industries expand. Many people enter speaking through an industry that they have been a part of. An insurance agent who is adept at training becomes a speaker focusing on insurance sales. However, once positioned, that speaker can use the same sales expertise to address mortgage lenders, financial planners, and bankers. Eventually, our former agent can address any sales group, regardless of industry, including such areas as telemarketers and call center representatives.
• Audience level increases. When we begin, both we and the buyer trust us with “safe” groups, usually front-line supervisors, new recruits, and/or low-paying customers. If we’re good, we become comfortable addressing anyone, and there is a great need for talented, confident people who can address senior executives, “grizzled veterans,” and tough, skeptical groups.
• Additional services grow. The lateral moves to group facilitator, emcee, after-dinner speaker, panel moderator, consultant, speech coach, and related roles are relatively easy for highly accomplished, well-regarded professionals.
• Products emerge. From the first taped session that produced a small audio album, the entrepreneurial speaker creates books, booklets, videos, performance aids, mentoring help, newsletters, hotlines, and a myriad of other additional revenue streams.
In view of these inevitable changes that affect good speakers, we have to be able to “let go” in order to reach out. This means that old business, no matter how instrumental it was to your early career (i.e., you would have missed the mortgage payment without it), will serve as an anchor, snagging you on the bottom, unless you cut it loose. At least every other year, you should abandon the bottom 10 to 15 percent of your business!1
Speaking Up: Only by removing business that is at the bottom of your priorities can you gain the ability to reach out and embrace business that is at the top of your priorities.
I’ve met and mentored hundreds of speakers who don’t have the “time” to expand their businesses. Their response is to hire marketers, subcontract business, turn down engagements, and generally tear their hair and rend their garments. The problem, however, is always the same: they treat all business equally, no matter how much it pays or whether it is congruent with their own growth plans, and they cling to old business as though it were still an umbilical cord!
Every December, review your past year’s business. Ask yourself these questions:
• Is it at the fee level I want, or even my average fee level?
• Am I growing, or can I do this in my sleep?
• Do they really require my talents, or could anyone do it?
• Is this adding to my image and repute?
• Would I be proud to cite this as a reference of my current talents?
• Have I been doing the exact same thing for more than two years?
• Have I become a habit rather than a resource?
• Would I take on business like this today?
• Am I challenged and joyful to do this, or simply comforted?
If the answers aren’t ALL positive, get out now. In fact, if even half of these answers go the wrong way, give the business away. Talk to the customer and explain the reasons, refer a trusted colleague (someone who is where you were a few years ago), or offer to do a few more engagements and then gracefully bow out in a smooth transition. What’s in the client’s best interests? Certainly not your continuing to take the money because you can.
Every day I see people whose literature still reflects the fact that they began in the business 10 years ago as a ventriloquist, a singing bus driver, a car dealer, or a beauty contest winner. But they’ve changed (one would hope), and they could be proceeding at a much quicker pace if the anchor weren’t still dragging behind them.
RISING ABOVE THE CROWD BY AVOIDING MEAT MARKET MENTALITIES
There is a pernicious trend in the profession, almost always abetted by people who should know better, to create speakers in a single image, thereby establishing a commodity that buyers can readily choose among based upon price and, worse, appearance. I have heard meeting planners say that they demand demo videos because they want to make a selection based upon the speaker’s “appeal” to the audience. That means, translated, the speaker’s gender, ethnicity, race, physical attributes, and other traits that should never enter the decision. When I recommended a colleague for an assignment at a Fortune 100 company that was beneath my fee level, the meeting planner told me flat out: “We don’t want a woman for this audience.” That, my friends, not only is unethical and moronic, but also happens to be illegal. Welcome to the world of “speaker as commodity.”
Fortunately, we control our marketing and our image, unless we surrender them. To make a million in this business requires a singularity, not a herd mentality. The following advice might be contrarian and countercultural, but the only people who are making really big money in this business are contrarian and countercultural by definition. Here’s how to avoid being displayed in a storefront with the rest of the merchandise, often marked down by the end of the month. (In a classic scene in Ruthless People, a character played by Bette Midler was kidnapped, but the abductors had to negotiate their demands because her husband didn’t really want her back. Hearing the criminals haggling and their ransom demands plummeting, Midler screams, “Oh my God, I’ve been kidnapped by Kmart!”)
Alan’s Stand-Out-in-a-Crowd Techniques
• Eschew “showcases” and other “auditions” hosted by bureaus and third parties. Some bureaus will tell you that all successful speakers participate and will drop the names of people you know and respect. The problem is that it’s often not true (my name has been used, and I’ve never gone near one). These events will feature dozens of speakers, each doing eight minutes or so over the course of a full day for “buyers” who usually aren’t. Inevitably, low-level recommenders attend, and even legitimate buyers become glazed after the eighth or ninth consecutive spiel. Moreover, there is a charge for appearing (plus your travel expenses), which means that the third parties are profiting, which also means that they accept almost anyone who will pay the freight. These showcases are therefore often filled with novices, neophytes, and people who are new to the profession (or who haven’t been able to climb in the profession), which affects the overall quality. I’ve never viewed appearing in a showcase as a high-value image for the participants and have often used the reverse psychology: “I don’t appear in them because I don’t have to.”
• Be very selective about bureaus. I’ve alluded to this in earlier chapters, but I want to stress here that, while a bureau’s interest seems like a sign from the gods when we’re starting out, it can become an onerous relationship if it’s not collaborative once we’re successful. Bureaus that insist that they, not you, own the client, that insist on promotional materials that don’t reveal your own contact points, and that present you as simply another horse in their stable aren’t bringing you any value, even if they place you a few times a year. You are the one who is paying the bureau through your commission to it. You are the one who should make demands, not the bureau. There are some superb bureau principals in the field, all of whom I would trust with my wallet and, more important, my reputation. (I can always replace a wallet.) But there are some that, if you watch carefully, you’ll see hiding in the bushes in Jurassic Park and Lost World, along with the stegosaurs and raptors. The profession has changed, but they haven’t.2
• Don’t create a “canned” video. Demonstration videos can be quite effective. I’ve functioned well both with and without them, and contrary to popular industry opinion, my corporate buyers request them only about 25 percent of the time. I find that executive buyers virtually never request them. Meeting planners (and therefore bureaus) require them 80 percent of the time. I recommend that you don’t use one of the mass marketers of these services to create one. Several of these production houses are excellent and provide nearly flawless work. But that’s the problem. The result is “perfect,” and the products all look the same, no matter who is on them. I’d recommend that you hire a high-quality video production group that normally does industrial shows (the ones who provide the projections onto large screens at trade conventions are almost always excellent) or a local operation that shoots advertising and promotion spots. Have them capture a live performance with a client, using one or two cameras on you and another for audience reaction. The key is to show the “live,” unadulterated quality of your work. My original demo video was taken from a cassette that was in the camera projecting me on one of those large screens. Neither the lighting nor the sound is perfect, but then neither is any speech I’ve ever delivered. (You can expect to have a speech recorded with two cameras—one on the audience—edited, and finalized with title screens and voice-overs for less than $3,500. Shop around.)
• If you’re going to advertise or appear in listings, put yourself in the potential buyer’s shoes. Advertising in magazines or “puff pieces” with a quadrillion other speakers isn’t exactly singular. Appearing in a special “speaker’s issue” or in the house organ of a speakers’ bureau is hardly distinctive. Advertise and promote in unique settings. In what seems like every airline magazine I’ve ever read, Chester Karrass, the negotiations expert, has a multipage ad. Flying back from Barcelona on Iberia Airlines, sure enough, I found his ad in Spanish in Iberia’s in-flight magazine! I’m not advocating this expense (although it reflects what you can do when you make a million in this business), but you might try trade association publications, business periodicals, and educational magazines if you want to stand out in the crowd. Some speakers swear by advertising; others (myself included) largely ignore it. My point is, if you’re going to do it, don’t do it like everyone else.
• Beware of coaches. There are a lot of speaking coaches who are not very good speakers. Okay, I’m willing to buy the fact that great sports coaches don’t need to have been superb athletes. But I do want the person who taught my doctor how to operate to have been a hell of a good surgeon. Therein is my problem, and yours. I can generally tell a coached speaker from 100 yards. These speakers exaggerate their platform movements and gestures. They articulate in ways that are not consistent with their meter and rhythm. They insert unnaturally long pauses. They overdo eye contact. They move around so much that they distract from their message. They appear to be delivering a piece from Macbeth, not merely a new sales technique. They artificially laugh (or worse, cry) at something that they’ve obviously rehearsed and performed 4,000 times. Coaches tend to remove the wonderfully imperfect distinctions about us and create smooth, unremarkable performers. I think most coaches are frustrated actors (or unsuccessful speakers). Stay away from most of them. We all need feedback. Buy a tape recorder and get a friend. This is neither rocket science nor Broadway. It’s hard to accept, but when we’re struggling in this business, the answer is in ourselves, not someone else.
Speaking Up: Generally, a little judicious advice will improve anyone and still retain his or her singularity. However, a great deal of paid “expert” advice will transform people into the output from a common cookie-cutter mold.
THE THREE KINDS OF SPEAKER AND WHY ONLY ONE GETS WEALTHY
There are three speaker “mindsets,” each of which will be manifest in a speaker’s professional behavior and demeanor. Only one will help create a seven-figure business. The other two will not. Are we clear?
1. The Speaker-Centered Speaker (SCS)
This is the person who talks about him- or herself at dinner for 30 minutes, then says, “Well, enough about me. What do you think about me?”
It’s all about the SCS. The speaking venue, client, audience, and topic are merely accoutrements that enable the SCS to “perform.” This is the person whose photo is on his business card or her stationery. The SCS’s name is on everything in sight, not for copyright protection, but for ego fulfillment. The arrangement of the event is for the SCS—the lighting, the music, the promotional material. You haven’t lived until you’ve read an SCS biography or introduction. Two self-published books make the SCS “one of the world’s most prolific authors,” and he or she has “addressed over a million people over the past decade” (do the math; that’s 2,000 people every week).
If the audience evaluations are poor, or if the buyer is unimpressed, the SCS is simply not appreciated, or “over the heads” of the client. The SCS will use jokes and stories that he or she wants to tell, showcasing their delivery, irrespective of their relevance to the proceedings.
Inevitably, the SCS will sing, dance, juggle, or all three.
2. The Audience-Centered Speaker (ACS)
This may seem like a logical choice. What could be better than being audience-focused?
The problem here is that the ACS focuses on “scoring” well with the audience. He or she actually speaks in ways that are aimed at the evaluation forms. The ACS desperately wants high ratings and will pander to the audience to get them. (Have you ever experienced the really lousy comics in small clubs who tell the audience to “give yourselves a hand”?)
The ACS will slap down a ream of audience evaluation sheets and show you that he or she has averaged 4.88 out of 5.0 over the last two decades. (I kid you not; I get a big kick out of replying, “Who cares? Who hasn’t?”) The ACS lives and breathes for audience love, and anything less than an extended standing ovation will drive him or her into the depths of depression for weeks. (Think of the great Billy Crystal movie Mr. Saturday Night, where the crowd goes wild after his comic routine, but he’s morose because he spotted a couple of people at table 5 who wouldn’t laugh.)
If the ACS is unsuccessful with the audience, the self-doubt and guilt are rather massive, and the speech will be changed and improved and practiced ad infinitum. The ACS wants love.
Which means that the ACS needs to get a dog.
3. The Buyer-Centered Speaker (BCS)
This speaker realizes that the buyer is the one who can rehire him or her. It’s the buyer’s objectives that are important, and the buyer often wants a certain style (meaning that the speaker’s preferences aren’t as important) and a certain message (meaning that the audience’s preferences aren’t that important). Many executive buyers want the audience to be discomfited, provoked, and sometimes stunned.
This speaker is focused on the needs of the buyer, not on the evaluation sheets or the desperate need to tell a certain story. The BCS is a businessperson who happens to be a professional speaker and is intent on pleasing the buyer. What could be simpler?
The BCS is dynamic, innovative, and focused, but above all, is intent on creating a long-term relationship with pleased buyers.
You must become a buyer-centered speaker if you are to create serious, well-paid business in the speaking profession. To meeting planners, you’re merely an expense that had better not make them look bad. To most bureaus, you’re simply the implementer for a client that they believe is “theirs.”
Ergo, your focus must be on true economic buyers sans middlemen. Your appeal is to the person who can authorize a check and hand it to you, and who personally can tell you if you’ve helped improve his or her condition.
Million Dollar Speaking is all about creating the right priorities and becoming a “star” with buyers, not a satellite of bureaus and meeting planners.
PARACHUTE EXAMPLES
By “parachute,” I mean the skill and ability to “drop” strong buying incentives behind the lines, so to speak (pun intended). If you want to be a star, you have to shine. The sun’s energy comes from within, and so must yours. Don’t be lulled by false humility.
Speaking Up: This is a business for you, not a hobby (or you shouldn’t be reading this book). You must have the attitude that you are conveying your value so that people can avail themselves of it. That’s a service mentality and a business mindset. If you feel that you’re boasting when you try to bring people value, you’re in the wrong business.
Here are examples of subtle, not-so-subtle, and bold alternatives that you can parachute down from any altitude:
• Drop examples into your speaking. Don’t simply say, being a role model”; say, “When I was gathering notes for my new book, Strategic Leadership, I found that . . .” or “When I was facilitating a group of senior executives at the American Press Institute, we agreed that . . .”
• Create your own analogies. “I am to health-care consumerism what Jeff Gitomer is to sales, or Marshall Goldsmith is to coaching, or Alan Weiss is to solo consulting . . .”
• At the outset, try to arrange permission from your new clients for any combination of the following: use of their logo, testimonials, referrals, service as a reference, endorsement for a book you’re writing, and so on. “Seed” the environment so that it’s part of your agreement, and once you cash in enough of these chips, you have a highly impressive brochure, Web site, collateral, and so forth.3
• Mention people who have been on other agendas with you, even on different days. “When Colin Powell and I both appeared at the Red Cross International Convention, I heard him say . . .”
• Prime the pump with the media. When I was asked by a New York Post reporter who was interviewing me as a source how other consultants would describe me, I said, “They’d likely say I was one of the most highly respected independent consultants in America.” He printed that verbatim as his own introduction to me in the story. That quote promptly went into all my publicity material with the source cited as the New York Post.
• Form reciprocal agreements. My colleague, the aforementioned Patricia Fripp, has a technique of attending a networking event with a trusted colleague whose expertise is somewhat different and noncompetitive. When Fripp (she uses only her last name with friends) meets a potential buyer, she says, “Oh, you must meet someone by the name of Mary Lewis, who is just the expert you would need for that! I think she’s here; let me introduce you.” Mary Lewis, of course, is doing the same thing for Fripp.4
• You’ve heard of OPM (other people’s money)? Well try using OPB (other people’s books). Your statement might go something like this: “My views on leaders as avatars are shared by no less than Warren Bennis and John Gardner, and they’ve made these points in four books between them.” (But don’t “buy” the right to have a chapter in someone else’s book, which is merely a scam that enriches the “publishers.”)
• Use both strategic and tactical branding. Strategic branding occurs when Mercedes builds its quality image in the media. Tactical branding occurs when a local Mercedes dealership talks about being open for servicing on Saturday. For you, strategic branding is creating the words and logo that you want to use consistently for your public and personal image. Tactical branding is “Gloria Wilson’s Self-Esteem Workshop,” which is offered a few times a year. Get your name in front of people so that you’re identified with particular services and value.
• Create normative pressures. Provide your participants with handouts, cards, framed certificates, desktop job aids—anything that will cause others to say, “Where did you get that?” People don’t like to be out of the loop. If your sessions represent popular developments and create their own cachet, then others will want to become adherents. Leave things with people that figuratively adhere to their offices and positions, so that others are constantly seeing an advertisement for your offerings.
You can parachute things at any time. It’s always advisable to have a few planes circling, amply stocked, until they are relieved by the next wave.
15 CONDITIONS THAT SUPPORT RAISING FEES
1. A Major Publisher Has Published a Book You’ve Written
This has to be a known commercial publisher, not a vanity press or a self-published work.5 Once you have a publication date, raise your fees—this might be six months in advance of the book’s actual release. Cite yourself as the author of the book by title, to be released in June of next year. Depending upon your existing fee structure, a significant hardcover book should increase your fees by $2,500 to $7,500, and if it’s widely reviewed and generates major media appearances, by even more than that.
2. You Obtain Major Media Exposure
I’m not talking about drive-time radio here, but rather a spot on public television or a business talk show, for example. You want to promote this as, “As seen on Business This Week” or “As interviewed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.” This is not as difficult as it may appear. A friend of mine, Greg Godek, writes self-published books on how to be romantic (1001 Ways to Be Romantic). He’s appeared on more major talk shows than Madonna (including a spot on Good Morning America with his 40-foot “love bus” tour).
3. You Develop Blue-Chip References
I carry my reference sheet right in my briefcase and include it in every press kit. I’ve never said to any prospect, “References can be supplied upon request.” It sounds too much like I’d have to wake up my cousins and tell them to expect a call from a stranger asking personal questions about my past. I thrust my references into the buyer’s lap because they reflect that buyer’s peers (or superiors) in analogous organizations. I’ve placed 15 on a single sheet because they fill up the sheet completely, as if there are plenty more that simply couldn’t be squeezed on (which happens to be true for any of us who have made it in this business). Their titles, addresses, and phone numbers are sitting right there, so accessible and so convenient that the prospect almost never calls them! After all, who would have the chutzpah to cite these people if they weren’t really enthusiastic supporters? The higher level and more known the people on your reference list, the better your position to charge higher fees representing the value you’ve brought to the buyer’s peers.
4. You Provide a Rare Breadth of Talents
Clients have asked me to present the opening keynote and then facilitate breakout groups. They’ve asked me to modify a presentation so that it can be given briefly to officers, be given in more depth to middle managers, and be integrated into sessions delivered by in-house trainers for supervisors. I’ve been asked to address boards of directors, to deliver a humorous talk after dinner, and to emcee an awards ceremony. Buyers have asked me to design a brief test so that the audience members can rate themselves against the attributes I’m presenting during the talk and have asked if I’d make the predominant part of my presentation a question and answer format. I’ve spoken in auditoriums with projection onto large screens, in amphitheaters, in classrooms, over board tables, and in cinder block, bunkerlike, subterranean basements. I’ve spoken to international groups, people with varying English skills, and people who utilized simultaneous translation. Some of my colleagues have spoken on buses, trains, boats, and planes. The more you can do, and the more different the ways in which you can do it, the more valuable you are.
5. You Write a Monthly Column (or Are Interviewed Regularly)
Many speakers have been able to write monthly (or weekly) syndicated columns that appear in business publications all over the country. I once mentored a fellow who had the monthly last-page humor column in Management Review, the former magazine of the American Management Association. He was unhappy about his fees not being higher! It had never occurred to him to leverage his extraordinary monthly visibility. Other people are interviewed frequently because of the nature of their expertise (e.g., negotiating skills) or a set of accomplishments (e.g., writing humor for politicians), or because they have an aggressive public relations firm that is constantly presenting them to national writers. If you can get into the public eye to the point that you can cite the interviews and provide the tear sheets, you can raise your fees because of your repute. (It doesn’t matter whether the buyer has read the piece; it only matters that you can show the buyer the piece. A good source for media interviews is PRLeads.com. The cost is about $100 per year at this writing. Contact Dan Janal there and tell him I sent you.)
6. Your Business Has Been Growing and Your Fees Haven’t Changed for Two Years
This is an arbitrary measure, but I’ve found it to be a very powerful one. If your bookings have been increasing over a two-year period (and you’re following my earlier advice about eliminating the bottom 10 to 15 percent) at a constant fee level, then you can safely raise your fees in the third year without fear of losing potential customers. (You won’t lose current customers because you should never raise fees for current customers for identical work. However, you can ask for concessions: “I’ll honor my past fee arrangement even though my fees have increased. However, I would ask that the entire fee be paid in advance to secure the date.” If you don’t want to honor past fees because they’re simply too low, then either raise the fee or abandon the work.) My practice is to raise fees for all new clients, but honor the old fee structure for existing clients (with the exception of those covered by point 7) because existing, valued clients shouldn’t subsidize new ones by paying higher fees than they are (which is why I’m outraged when publications provide better subscription deals for new customers than for their renewal customers).
7. Your Existing Clients Ask You to Do Something New and Different
The one exception—and opportunity—concerning raising fees with existing clients is when they ask you to do something novel. For example, I’ve been asked to provide feedback to management on the results of speeches across the country, to design programs specific to a given organization, and to learn the technical aspects of a company’s operations in order to create relevant applications. Others have asked for a transfer of copyright for the program or have wanted to create audio-and videotapes to incorporate into their training programs after I’ve concluded the assignment. All of these “one-off” requests allow you to structure a proposal above and beyond what you’ve normally provided in return for the clearly enhanced value that the client is requesting. If you feel that you have to do these things merely to retain the customer, and therefore cannot charge for their value, then there is something seriously wrong either with the relationship or, more likely, with your perception of how much value you’re providing.
8. You May Be Asked to Do Something You Can Do, but Don’t Like to Do
I despise full-day sessions. I find them labor-intensive, long, and uninteresting (for me). However, some clients rightfully demand them to take advantage of the expense of bringing their people together off-site (and others demand them incorrectly because they equate length with worth). My response has been to develop a tiered fee structure in which the full-day rate is extraordinarily expensive. However, occasionally a client says, “Just do it. The value far exceeds the cost.” And you know what? I find I really enjoy doing it at that rate of pay! Whether it’s the length, as in my case, or the type of audience (salespeople) or the environment (after dinner) or the geography (more than a two-hour plane ride) or the circumstances (three identical concurrent sessions in a row), you have the right to charge very high fees for things that you’re capable of doing but don’t like to do.
9. You’re Asked to Do International Work
My feeling is that you should always charge a premium for international work (and, no offense meant to anyone in the United States, you can easily include Alaska and Hawaii in this category, but rarely Canada). From an American perspective, trips to Europe, Africa, and Asia are especially grueling because of time changes, and South America is little better, even though the clocks don’t change as radically. I’ve found that I need a full day of acclimation, on the ground, prior to the session and, for my own health, an intelligent return, which isn’t always the first flight out after the applause ends. In addition, logistics are difficult: paper size is often different, electric current varies, words and phrases must be altered, examples changed, delivery modified to accommodate language requirements, customs paid on materials shipped, visas secured, money exchanged, and so on. Even for existing clients, and certainly for new ones, a significant premium is appropriate for international assignments. My suggestion is that you take your existing fee structure and charge a 50 to 100 percent premium for international assignments, depending on your confidence level and the other factors noted here.6 (Beware of people offering you a “tour” of multiple bookings in their countries as a package deal. You’ll lose your shirt. Once you board the airplane, they’ve got you, unless their check has already cleared your bank.)
10. You Are in a Nondifferentiated Fee Range
Let’s say you’re charging $3,500, working frequently, and growing your business. However, you know that you’re in a fee band ($2,500 to $4,000) that contains 90 percent of your competitors at your level of expertise and success. My suggestion is that you get out of there because you have to become more distinct. Buyers believe that they get what they pay for. Their expectations (and their egos—“I hired a $10,000 speaker for our conference”) are greater for a $5,000 speaker than for a $2,500 speaker. No buyer I’ve ever met said before the speech, “This is $5,000 worth of talent, and we’re getting it for only $2,000!” I believe that you can increase business by increasing your fees. Yes, you read that sentence correctly.7 (I don’t believe, by the way, that you create differentiation by doing bizarre things like charging $4,800, which some “experts” advise, as if the buyer is too stupid to know that it’s an attempt to be sneaky—close to $5,000.) If you’re good at what you do and in the midst of a crowd, step out by raising fees to escape the masses. The only people who follow will be the buyers. As you’ll see in Figure 9-2, once you develop a brand and repute (where the lines cross), fee ceases to follow value and value follows fee, because people expect to get what they pay for!
Figure 9-2 When Value Follows Fee
11. You Become an Internet Star
When you have a popular blog, you are constantly “retweeted” on Twitter, and people quote you throughout cyberspace, you can use this attention to further publicize yourself and raise your fees. Copy the plaudits and accolades onto your blog, and keep telling people about the numbers following you on a daily basis.
Speaking Up: Make no mistake. Buyers believe that they get what they pay for. Your fee actually creates an expectation range and ties into the buyer’s ego as well.
12. Your Newsletter Is a Hit
People ask why they should enter a crowded field like newsletters. Because Yogi Berra was right: no one goes there anymore because it’s so crowded. There are a lot of newsletters because people are reading them. If you can establish a strong niche following, you can parlay that into higher fees because of your publishing repute. Anything that can make those lines in the graph cross helps you to increase fees.
13. You Are Popular with Trade and Professional Associations
In most cases, appearing on the agenda, especially as a keynoter, at these associations is an instant marketing boost because the audience is usually seeded with buyers and key recommenders. When you have that kind of captive audience, make sure that your fees are as high as you can bear without getting a nosebleed. Once you’re hired, people talk, so you can’t go up from a low initial fee. (You can explain a lower fee for the nonprofit on the basis that you charge less for nonprofits, but I wouldn’t suggest that, either.)
14. A Bureau Is Recommending You Repeatedly
This means a couple of things. First, even if you’re not ultimately hired every time, the bureau thinks that you’re a prime candidate to bring it commissions. Second, the higher your fee, the more the bureau makes. Third, bureaus are lazy and scared, and often don’t put upward pressure on fees for fear of losing clients. Therefore, when you’re booked a great deal by the same bureaus, or even offered frequently, raise your fees. That’s your decision, not the bureau’s.
15. Every Two Years, If None of the Other Factors Prompt You
If you’re not raising your fees every two years, then either you’re underestimating yourself, you’re scared and have low self-esteem, or you’re not very good. I’m sorry, but that’s as candid and honest as I can make it.
How many of these conditions are you actively managing? No one grows by correcting weaknesses. We grow by building on strengths. If you’ve reached the levels of success in this business that this book is meant to engender and support, it’s remiss not to “turbocharge” your continued growth and prosperity.
How and when do you raise fees? Boldly and often. No one else, you see, is looking to do it for you.
SUMMARY
You may not become an international celebrity, but you can gain attention and even be recognized in this business. Parts of that route are counterintuitive.
Learn to turn down business. You can’t have a poverty mentality and feel that every offer is likely to be your last! Some business doesn’t pay enough, some hurts your brand, and some hurts your head.
Eschew the mass auditions and cattle calls. “Showcases” are never worth it. Bureaus should be placing you, not exhibiting you. Don’t respond to fishing expeditions from low-level people. Talk only to true economic buyers.
Only the buyer-centered speaker is likely to maximize repeat and referral business. Don’t worry about ovations and “smile sheets.” And don’t try to validate yourself on the platform.
If you want to create ongoing business with the buyer and with members of the audience who may be buyers, use “parachute stories”: drop in statements about your prior work, experiences, and clients to prove your points (“When I was working for a major insurer, we found that . . .”). It’s never bragging to cite your own experiences as actual examples of how something is accomplished.
There are many conditions that support raising your fees. Keep in mind that the more you increase your value, the more you can charge, but that increased value must be manifest to the buyer. Determine what you will use (newsletters, interviews, blogs, books, and so forth) to manifest continued value growth. No one else—not the economy, technology, or competition—controls this.
Only you do.