Do I really have to pay speakers?

Isaac: 00:00:13

How do you as a leader of a growing community, Truly make a

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conference or event that has impact, a gathering with purpose and an attendee

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experience that knocks their socks off.

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An event that leaves your audience in awe and wondering where

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you've been their whole life.

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Make it Kickass is, the podcast that explores these questions by

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uncovering the strategies tactics and tools that we use every day to bring

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our clients' conferences to life.

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I'm Isaac Watson, executive producer of Kickass Conferences, and we are

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here to help you make it kick ass.

Isaac: 00:00:52

Hey everyone.

Isaac: 00:00:52

Welcome back to another episode of Make it Kickass.

Isaac: 00:00:55

I am the executive producer of Kickass Conferences, Isaac Watson, and with me

Isaac: 00:01:01

in our remote studio because that's how we roll things and that's how we love

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it, is Operations Manager Nessa Jimenez.

Isaac: 00:01:08

Hello Nessa.

Nessa: 00:01:09

Hi isaac.

Nessa: 00:01:10

Hi everybody.

Isaac: 00:01:12

All right.

Isaac: 00:01:13

We are spending this season talking about some of those hot questions

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that we get asked all the time from people who find out that we

Isaac: 00:01:22

produce conferences for a living.

Isaac: 00:01:24

And today we are talking about one question that comes up a lot.

Isaac: 00:01:32

That question is, do I have to pay speakers?

Nessa: 00:01:35

Could this be like the number one?

Nessa: 00:01:37

I'm trying to think of the ones we're talking about, could this possibly

Nessa: 00:01:40

be the number one asked question?

Isaac: 00:01:42

I would say of all time I would say that this question has come

Isaac: 00:01:47

up with new clients and perspective clients, 99.999% of the time.

Isaac: 00:01:53

So I think.

Isaac: 00:01:55

I think that this probably is, Yeah, the biggest question that we get asked.

Isaac: 00:01:59

So as you might guess, we have some thoughts on the subject.

Isaac: 00:02:03

Yes.

Isaac: 00:02:03

Because , this is what we do.

Isaac: 00:02:05

Yeah.

Isaac: 00:02:06

So let's dive into those.

Isaac: 00:02:08

First.

Isaac: 00:02:09

What do people really mean when they're asking this question?

Isaac: 00:02:12

They're saying, Do I have to pay speakers?

Isaac: 00:02:14

Oh, do I have to, Yeah.

Isaac: 00:02:16

Do I have to?

Isaac: 00:02:17

What do they really mean, Nessa?

Nessa: 00:02:18

Yeah.

Nessa: 00:02:19

What they're basically asking is for permission for can

Nessa: 00:02:21

I get speakers for free?

Nessa: 00:02:23

Do I have to pay people?

Nessa: 00:02:25

Can I get away with having people speak and not paying them anything?

Nessa: 00:02:29

Or can I use, having a low speaker fee or no speaker fee to balance my budget

Nessa: 00:02:35

because in their mind they're thinking that the speakers are what's gonna

Nessa: 00:02:40

mess up their whole budget, right?

Nessa: 00:02:42

And, if so and like I know this other conference person that

Nessa: 00:02:47

doesn't pay anybody anything.

Nessa: 00:02:49

If they don't have to pay their speakers, then why should I have to, why should

Nessa: 00:02:52

people expect to pay at my conference?

Nessa: 00:02:55

And yeah, I wanna do what they did cuz it seems like they're doing fine.

Nessa: 00:02:59

And finally there's people who are just straight up I don't

Nessa: 00:03:03

know how much to pay speakers.

Nessa: 00:03:04

How much do I pay?

Nessa: 00:03:05

Is there a magic number that is the speaker payment number?

Nessa: 00:03:09

And if so, please tell me what it.

Isaac: 00:03:11

I think that's a lot of different ways to come up with the same question.

Isaac: 00:03:15

There's like several different mindsets coming out of that.

Isaac: 00:03:19

And so I think that's a good opportunity to dig into kind of the underlying

Isaac: 00:03:23

problems that feed into these questions.

Isaac: 00:03:27

And for me, the big one that comes up first is that when you're

Isaac: 00:03:30

asking do I have to pay speakers or especially can I get them for free

Isaac: 00:03:34

or saving on speakers, fix my budget.

Isaac: 00:03:38

It's that they actually have no idea what the event budget is or what the strategy

Isaac: 00:03:43

around speaker compensation should be.

Isaac: 00:03:45

They just don't know.

Isaac: 00:03:46

Yeah.

Isaac: 00:03:47

And in this case ignorance is not bliss.

Isaac: 00:03:50

It rarely is.

Isaac: 00:03:52

But having, I, if you really don't know what kind of budget you're

Isaac: 00:03:56

working with for your event, then.

Isaac: 00:03:59

This is naturally one of the questions you're gonna ask because

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oftentimes community organizers aren't getting compensated through

Isaac: 00:04:08

their own event production.

Isaac: 00:04:11

And so the natural next step is why should anybody else?

Nessa: 00:04:14

But it also of makes sense from a perspective of if you've never

Nessa: 00:04:17

done this before, if you've never been on the organizing side of a conference

Nessa: 00:04:22

And you've only attended conferences.

Nessa: 00:04:24

Speakers play a big part of the presentation of a conference, right?

Nessa: 00:04:28

A speaker is the heart and soul of many events.

Nessa: 00:04:32

So you see that from the outside.

Nessa: 00:04:34

And so the assumption tends to be like, Oh my God, the speaker part is gonna be

Nessa: 00:04:38

the most expensive part of this budget.

Nessa: 00:04:40

I already need to start worrying about that.

Nessa: 00:04:43

How am I gonna deal with that?

Nessa: 00:04:44

And again, That's not true, that is from a lack of experience because honestly,

Nessa: 00:04:51

, the reality is in most budgets, like the speakers are, that's the easy part, right?

Isaac: 00:04:57

If you've got budget problems, saving on speaker compensation

Isaac: 00:05:00

is not going to fix them.

Nessa: 00:05:02

Correct.

Nessa: 00:05:02

And even, and paying speakers fairly, Even it's not gonna hurt the wallet

Nessa: 00:05:07

cuz there's so many other things that are way more expensive than that,

Nessa: 00:05:10

that you should not be worrying about.

Nessa: 00:05:12

Speakers

Nessa: 00:05:14

. Isaac: Yeah.

Nessa: 00:05:15

Let me introduce you to a catering menu or an AV services estimate, right?

Nessa: 00:05:19

Like those are the big ticket items.

Nessa: 00:05:21

Catering alone, it just is gonna make the speaker fees look like nothing.

Isaac: 00:05:27

Exactly.

Isaac: 00:05:28

I think another one of the underlying problems when people are approaching

Isaac: 00:05:33

speaker compensation like this, Is a resource management issue.

Isaac: 00:05:39

And by that I mean that especially as a first time organizer it's

Isaac: 00:05:45

easy to not really understand what your existing network reaches or you

Isaac: 00:05:50

may feel like, oh, I want so and but I can't afford them or I or I feel

Isaac: 00:05:59

like I'm influential in a space and so anybody I ask to speak at this would

Isaac: 00:06:03

totally be willing to do it for free.

Isaac: 00:06:05

I think that comes down to a little bit of ego too, which can be unhealthy.

Isaac: 00:06:10

And as we think about what resources someone has available to them, what

Isaac: 00:06:17

their network is that can start to help us understand who actually

Isaac: 00:06:22

should we be targeting with this.

Isaac: 00:06:24

And how how is that influencing this underlying question of what

Isaac: 00:06:31

do I wanna spend to get these the right people in the room for.

Nessa: 00:06:37

or in terms of research management?

Nessa: 00:06:39

Your- not research, resource management.

Nessa: 00:06:42

Your idea of who a speaker is or who qualifies as a speaker.

Nessa: 00:06:47

That's also something that is not explored.

Nessa: 00:06:50

Because they're just thinking about a website, of this is a

Nessa: 00:06:55

database of speakers and everybody here charges $10,000, right?

Nessa: 00:07:00

That's, that this is stereotypical image of what a speaker is, So going

Nessa: 00:07:04

into resource manage- management.

Nessa: 00:07:07

Thinking about when we say speaker, are we talking about the same thing?

Nessa: 00:07:12

Does that word mean the same thing to you as it does to us?

Isaac: 00:07:17

So the last kind of like underlying problem, That I want to

Isaac: 00:07:21

dig into, and I would say that this is maybe not the first thing that came

Isaac: 00:07:25

up for us, but it might be the most important thing is around exploitation.

Isaac: 00:07:30

And I it's a little tough.

Isaac: 00:07:33

But anybody, especially who works in creative, in the creative fields,

Isaac: 00:07:37

design, art whatnot, is very familiar with the classic meme.

Isaac: 00:07:43

I don't even, honestly, I dunno what the original source of it was.

Isaac: 00:07:46

it was a cartoon.

Isaac: 00:07:48

Talking about working for exposure.

Isaac: 00:07:51

And this notion of exposure capitalism . Nessa, I know you have a lot of.

Isaac: 00:07:55

Opinions about this?

Isaac: 00:07:56

Oh, yes.

Isaac: 00:07:56

And I think you're probably a little more articulated, articulate about

Isaac: 00:08:00

it than I am, as I stumble over my words . So I'm gonna hand it over

Isaac: 00:08:03

to you to go a little deeper.

Nessa: 00:08:06

Yeah.

Nessa: 00:08:06

So basically exploitation via this exposure capitalism, right?

Nessa: 00:08:13

This idea that, I don't have to pay you because I am giving you

Nessa: 00:08:19

access to this audience that I have, and that should be enough.

Nessa: 00:08:24

And then eventually one day someone down the road will pay you.

Nessa: 00:08:27

But we, what we know is that never, that's a cycle that kind of never ends.

Nessa: 00:08:32

There's all, you're constantly being asked to work for free and

Nessa: 00:08:35

for bigger and bigger audiences.

Nessa: 00:08:37

And then, . Yeah.

Nessa: 00:08:38

It's just expectation and it sucks.

Nessa: 00:08:40

And one of our core values at kickass conferences is

Nessa: 00:08:44

that we don't play that game.

Nessa: 00:08:46

Everybody gets paid for working and paid how they need to get paid.

Nessa: 00:08:50

Not in exposure, not in thank yous.

Nessa: 00:08:53

You know what I mean?

Nessa: 00:08:56

And that is a big problem, not just in conferences, I mean in everything in

Nessa: 00:08:59

design and art and all the things and.

Nessa: 00:09:03

It's really egregious in the speaker space though There are so many incredible

Nessa: 00:09:08

speakers that have been, that have spoken at huge events and they did not

Nessa: 00:09:14

get paid a dime and events that are turning million dollar profits and they

Nessa: 00:09:19

see none of that and yet their work, their image, all their reputation is

Nessa: 00:09:24

being used to sell this event and we.

Nessa: 00:09:27

We break that cycle.

Nessa: 00:09:28

Like we don't work with anyone who is unwilling to pay their speakers.

Nessa: 00:09:35

Yeah.

Nessa: 00:09:35

So it, it's a big problem of breaking that habit of just because it is

Nessa: 00:09:39

something that has been done so much and something that is so common that doesn't

Nessa: 00:09:45

mean it's right or that is appropriate.

Isaac: 00:09:47

I think to me, that comes back to.

Isaac: 00:09:50

Kind of unhealthy ego thing or this notion that I'm creating, like the stage that

Isaac: 00:09:55

I'm creating is literally a platform for this person to share their message.

Isaac: 00:10:01

And so therefore they should be willing to do it for access to this platform.

Isaac: 00:10:05

Mm-hmm.

Isaac: 00:10:05

Without being compensated.

Isaac: 00:10:06

And I think That's a really dicey mindset to get into.

Isaac: 00:10:10

Before I started Kickass Conference I worked in the events world for

Isaac: 00:10:14

a number of years and I worked on projects where, you know, outside of

Isaac: 00:10:18

travel expenses, the speakers were speaking to thousands of people.

Isaac: 00:10:23

And not getting a dime for it.

Isaac: 00:10:26

And that rubbed me really the wrong way.

Isaac: 00:10:28

Did not like that notion that it's like, Oh, this is a privilege to

Isaac: 00:10:35

be able to speak on this stage.

Nessa: 00:10:36

I hate that so much.

Nessa: 00:10:38

And

Isaac: 00:10:38

I, yeah, I think that's

Nessa: 00:10:39

garbage.

Nessa: 00:10:39

I hate that so much.

Nessa: 00:10:41

I hate it.

Nessa: 00:10:42

And I hate anybody that thinks that way because that is such an

Nessa: 00:10:45

arrogant, that is such like a it's capitalist imperialist and.

Nessa: 00:10:52

Always, at the end of the day, that always is hurting people who are already

Nessa: 00:10:57

marginalized and on the outsides, because it's always gonna be, it always

Nessa: 00:11:03

ends up being a rich, influential white person doing this to people of color.

Nessa: 00:11:12

Women, queer people, disabled people who they're already getting screwed

Nessa: 00:11:17

by the system, but now they're getting screwed for the sake of being able

Nessa: 00:11:22

to get access to this community that they, and this, and the truth is, yeah,

Nessa: 00:11:28

they probably wouldn't have access if it weren't for that, but that's so

Nessa: 00:11:32

exploitative and so gross and I hate it.

Isaac: 00:11:35

Yeah.

Isaac: 00:11:36

Let's talk about some, a solution.

Isaac: 00:11:37

Ideas and some of the ways that we can combat those mindsets with actual

Isaac: 00:11:44

practical ways of working around this.

Isaac: 00:11:46

So I think the first thing, the first big thing for me, especially

Isaac: 00:11:49

when we're talking about this exposure capitalism, is starting by

Isaac: 00:11:54

understanding what you actually can offer to people beyond this exposure

Isaac: 00:11:58

platform, privilege, whatever bullshit.

Isaac: 00:12:01

I think that if you If you start by saying, Okay, this is the event that

Isaac: 00:12:07

I am creating, this is the audience that I am creating it for, and this is

Isaac: 00:12:11

what I want to offer to that audience.

Isaac: 00:12:13

And so therefore this is what I can offer to speakers to be able to deliver that.

Isaac: 00:12:17

That's the better mindset to start with.

Nessa: 00:12:21

And connected to that is the budget.

Nessa: 00:12:24

Don't talk to me about speaker payments if you don't even know

Nessa: 00:12:28

what your budget is, right?

Nessa: 00:12:30

That we start from there.

Nessa: 00:12:32

You do the numbers, you figure out what you need and from there

Nessa: 00:12:35

we can have a real conversation about what we can offer speakers.

Nessa: 00:12:39

And that could be on top of the honorarium.

Nessa: 00:12:43

I don't know, maybe you own a business and you could get 'em product from

Nessa: 00:12:47

your business, or something like that.

Nessa: 00:12:50

Like they're.

Nessa: 00:12:52

There's plenty that someone can do that can offer on top of an honorarium.

Nessa: 00:12:57

And we could step back a little bit.

Nessa: 00:12:59

We're not saying to offer more than you have.

Nessa: 00:13:04

What we're saying is that you need to offer something like $0

Nessa: 00:13:10

is not an honorarium . Yeah.

Nessa: 00:13:13

Yeah.

Nessa: 00:13:13

Like even if we're talking about $200, $300, you start from there.

Nessa: 00:13:18

This is what the black and white budget says.

Nessa: 00:13:20

But what else can I offer them?

Nessa: 00:13:23

Like I said before, can I get them free product?

Nessa: 00:13:25

Can I get, can we pay for their travel and their lodging pay for their meals?

Nessa: 00:13:31

Can we is there a sponsor that can help us provide additional money or stuff?

Isaac: 00:13:40

Yeah.

Isaac: 00:13:41

We like to think about a compensation package right, beyond just what

Isaac: 00:13:46

cash you can give to a speaker in return as a fee for service.

Isaac: 00:13:50

For them delivering a talk or contributing to a panel.

Isaac: 00:13:53

We think about what the entire package of how we are able to compensate that

Isaac: 00:13:57

speaker looks like for each client, and that's within the client, the context

Isaac: 00:14:01

of each client's budget and scope, and the number of people they're bringing

Isaac: 00:14:05

to play and all this kind of stuff.

Isaac: 00:14:08

A couple examples.

Isaac: 00:14:09

A few years ago we were working with a client.

Isaac: 00:14:13

For an event that was happening in Europe and we had invited a speaker,

Isaac: 00:14:19

we'd set the compensation package.

Isaac: 00:14:20

We said, This is our flat honorarium that we're offering everybody.

Isaac: 00:14:23

We're gonna cover your travel expenses up to X amount.

Isaac: 00:14:26

We're gonna do this et cetera.

Isaac: 00:14:29

We invited one particular speaker who came back to us and said this sounds great.

Isaac: 00:14:34

Would you also consider helping connect me with potential business opportunities

Isaac: 00:14:41

when I get there and reach out to a couple universities or areas that might

Isaac: 00:14:46

be willing to contribute more to have me lecture while I'm there, Things like that.

Isaac: 00:14:52

And we just went, Oh, that's actually brilliant.

Isaac: 00:14:54

That's low rent for us.

Isaac: 00:14:56

We can make some efforts.

Isaac: 00:14:58

You.

Isaac: 00:14:58

Send some intro emails, shop it around a little bit to help amplify this

Isaac: 00:15:03

speaker's profile and get them more of a reason to come because we couldn't

Isaac: 00:15:08

afford to pay their normal fee, right?

Isaac: 00:15:11

That's something that we can do to compensate them or to help

Isaac: 00:15:14

make that trip worth while.

Isaac: 00:15:16

That is a little more contextual to that speaker's needs.

Nessa: 00:15:19

Yeah, and it wasn't just exposure, it was literally connecting

Nessa: 00:15:22

them, like highly targeted leads.

Nessa: 00:15:24

Like these are the people, the type of people you wanna talk

Nessa: 00:15:28

to and wanna be in front of.

Nessa: 00:15:29

We've connected you with them.

Nessa: 00:15:31

And then after that, I think that speaker had two or three like onsite

Nessa: 00:15:36

visits during that same conference.

Nessa: 00:15:39

And they had a great time like connecting with these people.

Nessa: 00:15:41

When it went it.

Nessa: 00:15:43

At the end of the day, they were very satisfied with it because it

Nessa: 00:15:47

helped them reach goals outside of

Isaac: 00:15:51

yeah.

Isaac: 00:15:52

A another example would be a recent project we had where it was very

Isaac: 00:15:55

much a community oriented event.

Isaac: 00:15:58

It was all online.

Isaac: 00:16:00

It was a first time thing.

Isaac: 00:16:01

We had a very limited budget.

Isaac: 00:16:03

But out of that we were able to carve.

Isaac: 00:16:06

A little bit of honorarium for each person who contributed to the panel

Isaac: 00:16:10

discussions and to the content.

Isaac: 00:16:12

And we were able to approach that and say, Look, this is what we can offer.

Isaac: 00:16:16

We know it's not much but we value your contributions and if there's any other

Isaac: 00:16:23

way that we can support you, let us know.

Isaac: 00:16:24

And so just framing it from that standpoint, knowing that yes, we were

Isaac: 00:16:28

able to pay the speaker something.

Isaac: 00:16:30

It wasn't by any means of market.

Isaac: 00:16:33

For a talk or anything like that.

Isaac: 00:16:36

But having that context around what your goals are and what you're creating will

Isaac: 00:16:40

help you craft a compensation package that that will both fit within your

Isaac: 00:16:45

budget and not come off as offensive or completely disingenuous to the

Isaac: 00:16:52

people you're inviting to contribute.

Nessa: 00:16:54

Exactly.

Nessa: 00:16:55

So I think we've talked plenty.

Nessa: 00:16:58

I think we, we shared our opinions, our hot spicy takes.

Nessa: 00:17:01

So why don't we bring it all home

Nessa: 00:17:04

? Isaac: I will just add one

Nessa: 00:17:07

That ultimately this speaker compensation comes down to speaker selection

Nessa: 00:17:12

and the process you use for that.

Nessa: 00:17:14

And so related to all of this is using a selection process that is appropriate

Nessa: 00:17:19

and contextually aware for your audience.

Nessa: 00:17:22

Your content goals and your budget goals.

Nessa: 00:17:24

And if you're thinking about that holistically, you can craft a

Nessa: 00:17:27

compensation package that's appropriate.

Nessa: 00:17:29

Okay.

Nessa: 00:17:29

So the our core question that people ask us all the time, the most

Nessa: 00:17:35

often is, Do I have to pay speakers?

Nessa: 00:17:37

Do I have to, Oh, do I have to, Do I have to?

Nessa: 00:17:40

Oh, do I have to pay them?

Nessa: 00:17:42

Yeah, you do actually.

Nessa: 00:17:44

Yeah.

Nessa: 00:17:45

And so underlying that question are the real questions of can't

Nessa: 00:17:49

I just get speakers for free?

Nessa: 00:17:52

I'm worried about my budget and so will not paying speakers help me balance that?

Nessa: 00:17:57

I heard so and so doesn't pay their speakers.

Nessa: 00:17:58

Why do I have to, Or even just how much should I pay speakers?

Nessa: 00:18:02

I just have no idea.

Nessa: 00:18:03

So I have these really weird misconstrued notions about what speakers cost.

Nessa: 00:18:07

So solutions around that are really understanding what you're able to.

Nessa: 00:18:12

You do that through proper budgeting, budgeting early and often, setting

Nessa: 00:18:16

compensation packages you as you do that budgeting process, and then really using

Nessa: 00:18:21

your speaker selection process in a way that is holistically aware of what your

Nessa: 00:18:28

goals are, what your audience goals are.

Nessa: 00:18:30

What your budget is and what you have to work with and how you can craft something

Nessa: 00:18:34

out of that is respectful and authentic.

Nessa: 00:18:39

And that show that really demonstrates that you are committed to your speakers.

Nessa: 00:18:45

Because at the end of the day, a conference needs two things

Nessa: 00:18:50

that without either of them, you don't have a conference.

Nessa: 00:18:52

One you need an audience.

Nessa: 00:18:55

Two, you need speakers of some, You need content, right?

Nessa: 00:18:59

And if you're not willing to pay for the content to be able

Nessa: 00:19:03

to get the audience in the.

Nessa: 00:19:05

You've got a problem, so pay your speakers please.

Nessa: 00:19:13

Thanks for listening to Make it Kickass.

Nessa: 00:19:14

We definitely have a lot of thoughts and a lot of opinions around speakers and

Nessa: 00:19:18

speaker honorariums, but we hope today's episode will put you on the right path

Nessa: 00:19:23

to inviting incredible speakers to your event and bringing them to your audience.

Nessa: 00:19:27

But if you wanna dive even deeper, if you want more, go to geteventlab.com and

Nessa: 00:19:34

get a free copy of the tool that we use with our clients to help them figure out

Nessa: 00:19:38

their conference budget so that they know how much they can pay their speakers.

Nessa: 00:19:43

That is geteventlab.com and I will see you all soon.