We keynote speakers, speakers and speakers – and since it concerns me directly, this time it will be a very personal contribution – we speak at events, trade fairs, conferences, congresses, kick-offs, customer events, association meetings, sales meetings, management exams, summer academies. B2B and B2C.
Wherever employees, customers, executives, participants, dealers, sales partners, suppliers, visitors, guests or listeners are to be informed, entertained, motivated and inspired with an entertaining and inspiring speech, a dinner speech or an impulse lecture, speakers and speakers come into action.
And especially in my special field – pricing or achieving higher prices, fees and contribution margins in marketing and sales – the professional holding of keynotes, lectures, speeches and keynote speeches is a very special industry. Why?
500,000 € and more for a lecture
The top international fees for keynotes and lectures are currently around € 500,000. Ok, but you can also get an impulse lecture from Bill Clinton, Richard Branson or Barack or Michelle Obama. Long before his presidency, Donald Trump demanded and – allegedly – received $1.5 million for a lecture.
But apart from a top speaker or a top speaker or worldwide top speaker with an extreme VIP status, let’s consider how much “normal” speakers, guest speakers and keynote speakers deserve.
Serious professional speakers and speakers can be booked from € 3,000 lecture fee, the most expensive keynote speakers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland demand beyond the € 10,000 speaker fee and in between virtually every professional keynote speaker, lecturer or speaker finds his price positioning.
This also applies to a speaker.
Fees for speakers – from beginners to top speakers
The fees for keynotes and lectures – given by beginners as speakers up to top speakers – extend over a huge bandwidth. Below you will find speaker fees in an approximate order.
Exceptions also confirm the rule, both for the colleagues Keynote Speaker Austria as well as Keynote Speaker Germany and Speaker Switzerland. For an impulse lecture in English you can sometimes calculate a little more.
4.000 € for 60 minutes lecture! – Isn’t that outrageous?
What is sometimes difficult for customers to understand – especially for clients who only rarely or even for the first time ask for a keynote speaker or a keynote speaker for a speech or an impulse lecture – is that someone, for example, almost “shameless” € 5,000 as a keynote speaker fee for one hour of lecture.
This is roughly the price range in which German speakers or top speakers Germany but also the top speakers Austria start (see chart ‘Fees for a lecture’).
Such a fee for a lecture of perhaps only 30 minutes is already a very decent monthly salary for the mass of the working population. And that’s what someone should get for a single speech or a short impulse lecture? This, understandably, seems to many to be very high.
Hour lecture is only the tip of the iceberg
But what many don’t (or can’t) know, don’t consider or never have realized is that most of the work for a professional speaker or keynote speaker is not the lecture, but all that has to be done before a keynote speech or sometimes even after keynotes have been held, so that the keynote speech or the whole event becomes a complete success and the participants think about it long after, talk about it and award it 5 stars.
Preparing impulse lectures and keynotes – the real work
“First the work, then the pleasure!” – This motto also applies 100% to keynotes and lectures. Every speaker and every key note speaker I know will confirm this: Standing on stage and giving a keynote speech is pure pleasure.
The real work is to prepare a speech or a keynote speech for an event. I am not talking about developing a completely new keynote speech, but rather making the existing keynote speech fit perfectly.
The aim is to make the audience feel that the speaker has picked them up in your world and to ensure that the organiser also communicates his message in the presentation, if necessary.
And for this it needs the following (time estimates are exemplary empirical values):
#1 Communication with the client at the request for a lecture (15 min.)
#2 Elaboration and dispatch of an individual offer for the Keynote Speech (30 min.)
#3 Follow-up or final telephone call with the client or the organiser of the event (15 min.)
#4 Telephone briefing Conversation to coordinate content and messages for the keynote speech (30 min.)
#5 Conception and staging (incl. research, graphic implementation etc.) of the speech or keynote speech (8 hours)
How organizers benefit from a successful presentation
But ultimately all these factors such as costs and efforts on the part of the key note speaker and also the investment per participant are completely irrelevant. Why? Ultimately, the only crucial question is “How high is the value of the keynote speaker or his speech for the event and the participants? There is nothing that is too expensive, but only things and services that are worth too little.
Visit https://alansteinjr.com for more details.
