It’s hard to talk about money. We tend to ask ourselves questions about money and what we feel our worth is when asking to be paid. We often are unable to talk to our peers or ask those in our field what they are making or how much they charge. Therefore, everyone is left in the dark and this often results in undercharging for our services, especially when it comes to public speaking for academics and those with advanced degrees. In this article, I will be sharing my advice on how academics and those with advanced degrees should set their public speaking fee.
START AN LLC
When you start doing paid speaking engagements, I recommend creating an LLC. Please note, I am not a tax professional or an accountant, but here is what I know. It is important to create an LLC because if you are going to be doing frequent speaking engagements, it means you are creating and becoming your own business. One of the main benefits to creating an LLC is that you will receive an EIN, meaning that this is the number you will write down on contracts and W’9s as opposed to writing down your social security number. One I began doing multiple paid speaking engagements, I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the number of organizations that had my personal social security number. Thus, an LLC has the benefit of protecting your social security number as you work with various organizations when booking these events. Another reason to create an LLC is while you are doing these speaking engagements, they come with costs. Therefore, as an LLC you will be able to not only get a business credit card or debit card but you can use these cards to keep track of your expenses and write them off because you are now running an LLC. For example, when I do speaking engagements I have to pay for travel by plane or train or pay for gas, eating between the engagements at the venue, and other similar expenses. These purchases can be written off but only if you are operating as a business.
FREE SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS AND SETTING CRITERIA
Free speaking engagements can be a good idea depending on where you are in your career. I teach academics how to get PAID speaking engagements and in general I steer away from advising on giving free engagements. However, if you are just starting out (graduate students or you have only done a handful of speaking engagements), do a limited number of free engagements if you need the exposure or more social proof around your academic brand.
Here’s a VIDEO ON HOW ACADEMICS CAN DEVELOP SOCIAL PROOF AND MEDIA COVERAGE
However, here’s a rule: do not go into debt for free a speaking engagement, and doing too many free events will devalue your worth. Doing too many free speaking engagements will place you in a pipeline of people expecting you to do free events making it an “cheap solution” for organizations. If you are local in your area or want to try a new topic idea, this could also be a great reason to do a free engagement, but doing free engagements depends on certain criteria. Here are four main points I ask myself if I am going to do a free speaking engagement:
- Is it local? (In other words, can I get there in less than 45 minutes?)
- Do I have a past relationship with the venue/ organization?
- Does the organization have limited funding? (Is it a church? A nonprofit?, etc)
- Is the event free to participants?
If I am able to answer YES to ALL of these questions, then this is when I will do a free speaking engagement. Only if I can answer yes to all three. It is important to give back to the community while setting certain criteria for yourself. If I agree to do an event for free based on these criteria, I ask for some value in return. This might look like, reimbursement for travel or an ad in their newsletter or social media posting of my services/ event. Again, you do not want to go into debt even when doing free speaking engagements. You should create your own free speaking engagement criteria and stick to it. You can always reevaluate the criteria if it feels too rigid or too flexible.
SETTING YOUR PRICE
When it comes to setting a price for yourself, ask a few questions:
Are you a sought-out speaker?
Do you have social proof and media coverage around your brand?
What do you believe people will be willing to pay for you (then add 1000 dollars to what you think because we always low-ball ourselves)?
What are people willing to pay?
Are you in demand right now (did you just win a major award? Is your speaking topic trending in the media news cycle? etc.)?
This is the time where you determine your value and how much you WANT to be paid. One of the first principles I recommend is setting a minimum fee. I recommend $1,000 as a beginning baseline. Nothing less as if you are reading this article you have an advanced degree (masters or higher and that is important because you have proven yourself as a subject matter expert). Second, think about your target fee in terms of the time and money it is costing you to prepare and deliver the talk.
The more speaking engagements you do and the more media coverage you have, largely determines how much people will be willing to pay. A lot of this game is perception. Don’t create your speaking rate “on the spot”, set an hourly rate for yourself. This means, adding up the hours that would be included in your travel, breaks, setting up, breaking down, preparing the PowerPoint and other points of consideration. Once you calculate how much time is needed for your speaking engagement, figure out how much you want to be paid hourly. If the host of the event is unable to pay your price, thank them for their time and consideration but walk away. The biggest leverage you have, is your ability to walk away. Even for virtual events as we have seen with the pandemic, set a minimum virtual speaking fee based on the advice previously given. Do not be afraid to walk away from an offer that is below your minimum or your set speaking fee. Here is an example of what this looks like on your end. Let’s say for a 1-hour talk at an event that is a one hour drive from your house. You have determined that you want to be paid $500 dollars an hour. Here is the breakdown:
1 hour for talk
1 hour for networking (before and after the event)
2 hours for travel
3 hours to prepare
Total 7 hours = $3,500
Now, you also have to add any gas and mileage you want to consider if the organization is not already covering that. So, here’s the advice, always know your hourly rate and stick to that in helping to determine how much you charge. You can get to the point where you can automatically tell a local venue that 1-hour talks are a minimum of $3500.
ACADEMICS CAN LEARN HOW TO LAND A TED TALK HERE
WHAT IF IT’S A SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT YOU WANT TO DO BUT THEY CAN’T PAY YOUR RATE?
In this case, respond back to the host or hosts stating your minimum fee, and if they do not have your minimum fee, for example, then find ways that can be of value to you. Think creatively to further your options on what you can do to expand the value they can give you. An example of this is asking the organization to provide a videographer who can record your event and having them send the best quality video of your speech to you. That way, you are getting a professional recording of your event, which has major value even though they can’t pay your target speaking fee. So instead of trying to earn the target fee, think of ways they can provide value that meets your target fee.
Lastly, if an event states that they are unable to pay what you charge, but while looking at their website they are charging participants to attend, this is when you want to stick firmly to your fee and be prepared to walk away. Your best leverage is not desperation but the ability to walk away.
INCREASE YOUR SPEAKING FEE: GO FROM UNKNOWN SCHOLAR TO PUBLIC FIGURE HERE
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