How to consistently win speaking deals and get 25-100% more than the budget allocation.

Hi there,

Chris Baldwin here (Founder of 10xSpeaker) with my very first blog post on 10xSpeaker.com. In time I would like many of our community members to share the insights and methods they learned on their journey as a speaker. For now, here is one of mine.

Here is my secret on how I consistently win speaking deals and get 25-100% more then the budget allocation of the event manager. This is how to get higher fees as a keynote speaker while delivering even more value for the event and its participants.

As a speaker, you get approached by an event manager/producer who are considering you as their speaker. The most important thing to do at this stage is LISTEN.

Listen deeply and become aware of their choice of words. The words they use are key to understanding their motivation.

I try to answer these 4 questions through good questioning. The first 3 are critical and the 4th is only if I feel they already know how I can help them. If they answer this 4th question, there is no selling to do! They already know what they want from me and all I need to do now is tweak the proposition and negotiate on price and terms.

1. Whats on your mind? – Give you insights into their decision making framework.
2. What do you want? – Give you insights into their motivation for calling you.
3. What is the challenge? – Give you insights into the problem you can help solve.
4. How can I help? – If they know already, let them speak. They own it now and they will follow through with it.

I manage to close 9/10 deals with this method.

Now once you have the deal, now you need to negotiate terms and fees. I am consistently able to get 25-100% more for my gigs then the event managers budget for me as a speaker.

How? I deliver more value while solving problems for them.

Specifically, I will offer the keynote plus a workshop or focus session at the event. Now they get me for 2 sessions (or even 3) for a bargain. Even though they are paying me more, the perceived value is much greater in their opinion because they are able to fill other sessions at a discount and its one speaker to work with instead of 2-3 (speakers can be a real headache to work with).

That’s why I adopt the philosophy of the NO PROBLEM speaker. Event managers love working with no problem speakers 

For me, it solves my bill-ability issue too. You see, I am there the whole day anyway, or event the whole event for business development, great food, great hotel and often an amazing city! Those are all hours I bill on the fee they pay me. I may as well put my non-keynote hours to work through a workshop.

Plus, in this workshop I get to up-sell 10xSpeaker training day tickets where the participants can get a full-day version of my 60-90 min workshop session. I usually get 20-30% of the people asking me for more information on the full-day trainings and this adds to my bottom line. This is part of my terms with the event manager and no one ever has a problem with that. It’s only more value for the attendees. Especially if you can give them a special rate which you can agree on with the event manager.

So there you have it. A way to close speaking deals, negotiate higher fees and up-sell for even more revenue and build community and a following at the same time. This is one of many strategies I use to grow an exponential model through speaking.

So what did you think? Was this useful for you? And maybe you have something to add to share with other fellow public speakers who got to the end of this article as you did!? Share it by commenting below.

To your public speaking success!

Cheers,

Chris Baldwin, PhD

Founder 10xSpeaker

Take my free public speaking course on the 10 most powerful public speaking lessons I can give you. It's 100% free and you can even gift it to someone you care about. Go to 10xSpeaker.com where you can signup for free!

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