Which Speaker Would You Rather Book... Or Be?

Which Speaker Would You Rather Book... Or Be?
By David Portney

Today I've got a little quiz for you - don't worry, this won't affect your final grade for this class. Hahaha...

Here's the scenario:

You're running an event where you're going to have a roster of speakers - this is your brain child - you've arranged a large hotel meeting room and you're having speakers come in to speak on a topic near and dear to your heart.

Your event will be on a Saturday - an all-day event, and you're allocating 90 minutes for each expert speaker.

You start making phone calls to experts inviting them to come and speak at your event.

You're excited because this event will bring together experts to speak on a topic very important to you, and you have an audience paying to get in to your event, and the audience is also very excited to hear these experts speak.

To offset the hotel banquet room and marketing costs, you're charging the attendees a nominal fee, so you're hoping to cover expenses or even make a profit. So far you have over 100 attendees confirmed, good job!

Now quiz time:

You've got one last slot to book, and you've got 2 speakers you're considering:

Speaker #1 wants a guaranteed speaking fee of $2,000, plus air fare and accommodations and those are the terms on the contract they've faxed over to you.

Speaker #2 does not charge a speaking fee but they do want air fare and accommodations covered, and their contract says that they'll deliver 80 minutes of solid content and then a 10-minute soft sales pitch for a $997 information package they'll make available for purchase after their talk, and they will split the gross proceeds with you.

You do the math and figure this:

Speaker #1 is going to cost you $2k plus the air fare and hotel room.

Speaker #2 is going to cost you air fare and hotel room, and you estimate that if 10% of the attendees buy the $997 package, you and the speaker will split $9,970, netting you $4,985.

All other things being equal - the expertise of the speaker, their "star power", each has a solid reputation, etc. - which speaker would you choose?

And, if you're a speaker, which speaker would you rather be?

Just curious....

Catch you later!

David
PS: If you enjoyed this article, please forward to a friend - and you might also be interested in a new article I posted on my website titled "Speaking in Public"