Tips on Setting and Raising Fees
The following is an excerpt from Jane Atkinson′s new book, The Wealthy Speaker. For more information, visit http://www.speakerlauncher.com.
How much should I charge for speaking is a question I get asked quite often? Thanks Jane for offering these tips.
• Assigning a dollar value to yourself is not an easy task. Many factors come into play – some relevant and some not. Below are some pointers for setting fees and knowing when and how to raise them.
• Start somewhere. Do your homework, ask clients and other speakers and set a fee. It may be low to begin, but there′s only one way to go – Up!
• You can raise it as you build your confidence and momentum.
• If you have any level of celebrity status – you write a column, do a national radio show, wrote a book that′s gotten some attention, etc. – then you can start higher than average.
• Put your fees down on paper in the form of a fee schedule. Don′t pull a different number out of the air every time a client calls. If you do seminars as well as keynotes, have them all listed on the page. You may use this internally in the beginning, but eventually you′ll want to make a fee schedule available for your clients. Everything that the client will need to set a budget should go on this page – include such items as speaking fees, travel expenses, AV requirements, etc.
• Don′t post your fee schedule on your website. You want to have an opportunity to establish value with your clients long before fee is discussed.
• Never charge more than your fee just because you think a client has more money. If you want to capture more of their budget, do it with additional value – programs or product – but keep your fee integrity.
• Travel expenses are typically separate. Some speakers offer a travel inclusive fee or a flat fee for travel. The benefit of a flat fee is that the client is never surprised.
• A great way to gauge if you are ready to raise your fees is when these situations arise: your clients tell you that you are too inexpensive or your calendar is getting full.
• Test your fee idea with the people who book you the most (i.e., bureaus, clients).
• Harry Beckwith in “Selling the Invisible” talks about meeting a little fee resistance. If you are not meeting any resistance at all, your fee may be too low.
• Make sure that you are always giving more value than your fee. Your client should feel more than satisfied.
• Know what′s going on in the market. Don′t be afraid to ask people what they charge. It might surprise you.
• When you continually share the platform with speakers who earn a much higher fee than you, then you need to consider making a change.
• Don′t allow fear to dictate your decisions. When you raise your fee, be prepared to lose 25% of your business from the bottom end, but know that you should gain 25% better clients at the top. Make room for those better clients in your business.
Jane Atkinson, All rights reserved.
Jane Atkinson has been helping speakers boost their businesses into the Wealthy Speaker level for more than 15 years. Along the way she developed a tried and true strategy for getting her speakers well beyond average and into the $1,000,000+ per year range in speaking revenues. Jane has also worked as Vice President of a speaker′s bureau, managing best selling authors and celebrities. Within the bureau, she also worked for a period as a booking agent and through her non-profit work has been in the position of meeting planner. So Jane has seen the industry from most every angle, speaker, bureau, meeting planner and now as a coach. For more information visit Jane′s websites at http://www.speakerlauncher.com and http://www.thewealthyspeaker.com.
This post came via
Terry L. Green, MVA
Fastype VA Services, Inc.
Helping Speakers, Coaches and Internet Marketers make more money 800-554-0897
info@myfastype.com http://www.thewealthyspeaker.com
