One of our speakers, Jeff Davidson, just posted some helpful information on his blog for meeting planners who need to negotiate with speakers to stay within budget. Fee integrity is very important to speakers – and to speakers bureaus and meeting planners – but Jeff lists seven instances where speakers can legitimately justify reducing their fee for engagements. Among them:
I have personally helped clients secure speakers at discounted rates on various occasions for those exact reasons. Recently, for instance, we booked a speaker to address several departments within a company over the course of a year for 25% less than it would have cost for each department to book him individually. And it wasn’t too long ago that we booked a speaker to speak in one of those slow months – January – for more than 50% less than his standard fee.
As they say, “results may vary,” and some speakers are rock solid on their fees regardless of the situation, but it is important that planners don’t overlook the potentially “perfect” speaker candidate just because his or her fee happens to be above their budget ceiling. Read Jeff’s “Bargaining with Speakers” post on his Opening Keynote blog for the full list of seven ways you may be able to negotiate with your next speaker.
