The First Person to Speak Loses

There's a moment on every booking call, whether it’s for a speaking gig or a consulting client…it usually pops up right after the person on the other end told you how much they love your topic or service. It’s that moment when the meeting professional takes a breath and asks, "So what's your fee?"

Whatever you say next is probably wrong. Not because your number is wrong, but because you're the one saying it.

Let me tell you how I learned that, and I'll warn you up front, I come out of this story looking pretty foolish.

I should also say that I don't like sales. It's my weakness. It's the least favorite part of any business I've ever been a part of, and I've been a part of a few. So none of what follows comes from a guy who is naturally good at the money conversation. It comes from a guy who got burned early and had to build himself a script so he'd stop freezing up.

The suite in Columbus

My first two paid speaking gigs came in the late-2000s. The first one found me organically SEO, of all things, and the second one found me through Facebook, which tells you roughly what era we're talking about here.

The first was three keynote sessions at a summer camp leadership retreat for teenagers. They offered me $1,000 plus travel, room, and board, and I was elated. Genuinely thrilled. I took it on the spot.

Then the next meeting called. This one was out of state, overnight hotel stay, ground transportation, taxis, food, the whole thing. And they said, "Hey, we'll cover your travel. What's your speaker fee?"

I had just come off a $1,000 gig. So I said, "My fee is $1,000."

Then I got there. They flew me first class. They put me up in a two-room suite on the top floor overlooking the river in downtown Columbus, and I want to say it was somewhere 1,200 square feet. It was beautiful. It was massive, at least compared to my college dorm room, which was my primary residence at the time. And I stood in the middle of it and realized I had undersold myself by an amount I will never actually know.

Here's what went wrong, and it wasn't the number. It's that I anchored my whole fee to the last check I happened to receive, and worse yet, I said it out loud first, before I had learned a single thing about what this organization could actually afford.

The rule

The best piece of advice I have ever heard when it comes to speaking fees is this: the first person who speaks always loses.

Not "know your worth." Not "charge what you're worth," which is advice I find is more of a self-help pump-up line than sage wisdom.

Now, I can’t take credit for this idea. This comes from a friend of mine—she is a high-powered executive that has won quite a few negotiations, to the tune of 10 figures…. She said, “The first preson to say the number always loses.” The person who names a number first hands the other person all of the information and either gets a fast yes (meaning you were under budget) or a fast no (meaning you were way too expesnive).

Everybody already has a number. They have a budget, it got approved in a meeting, it's sitting in a spreadsheet somewhere. Now, it may be a range. And it may even be a figure just in that person’s head, but there is a number. Your job on that call is not to be brave about your fee. Your job is to get their number into the open before yours.

The Fee Conversation Framework

So how do you actually do that without being weird about it? Here's the framework I run, in order, and I'm giving you the actual words.

Step one, just ask. "I love your organization, and I think we can make this work. What is your budget for this event?"

That's it. It's warm, it assumes the deal is happening, and it puts the question back on the one holding the purse strings. I used to dress it up more, something like "I've been able to work within many budgets, what's yours?" and honestly the shorter version is better. Ask the question and stop talking.

Let me say that again, then stop talking!

Most of the time you'll get an answer, and then you can accept or counter.

Step two, for when they say they don't know. Sometimes they'll tell you they don't have a number yet. Fine. Don't immediately push on the fee, take a side-step instead. "Okay, if you don't know the budget line-itemed for the speaker yet, do you know if you were planning to reimburse travel for the speaker? A hotel room? What's included?"

This one works because it's an easy question, and people like answering easy questions. They'll start talking. And now you're learning what's covered and what's coming out of your own pocket, which changes your number anyway.

Step three, and this is the one nobody actually does. Be quiet. Wait for the pause.

People cannot stand silence. It is the single most reliable thing about human beings on a phone call. So when they start talking, let them keep going, don't rescue them, and don't fill the gap with a nervous "but of course we can be flexible." The silence is doing your negotiating for you, and it's better at it than you are.

Step four, the comparison question. If they still haven't given you anything, ask: "What have you paid other speakers in this role?"

Sometimes they genuinely don't know, and that's okay. But most of the time they'll say, "Oh, we've paid X for other speakers in this slot." Now you have a real number out of a real budget, and you can say, "Great, that's well within my range. My fee is X."

Step five, for the call that goes in circles. Some calls go on and on and you never get to anything specific. The last thing you want to do is exasperate a meeting professional or be too pushy.

Successful speakers are the easiest ones to work with.

When I can feel that happening, I say this: "I never want my fee to get in the way of working with you. I've worked with a lot of meeting professionals on creative ways to cover my full fee and travel. Are you willing to work with me on that?"

They say yes. They almost always say yes. Then you say, "My fee is X."

Say it confidently. I was just talking to a friend who's moving from entertainment to keynote stages. We looked at some comparable speakers and helped her set a fee range. She said she practiced in the mirror for hours saying that fee and then shutting up, so that when she got on a call, she would be able to say it confidently.

So, confidently say, “My fee is X.” And then you stop talking. Again.

Never take the first no

You'll get one of three responses. "No problem." Or "that's a little more than we were thinking." Or "oh wow, we can't afford that."

Most speakers hear the second or the third scenario and immediately start discounting themselves out loud, which is really just my Columbus, Ohio mistake wearing a different hat.

Don't do that. Say this instead: "Okay, totally understand. What were you thinking you'd be able to afford?"

Because, as we already established, they already had a number. They've had it the whole time. A no is very rarely a no, it's usually a smaller yes that hasn't been said out loud yet, and the only way you'll ever hear it is if you ask and then get comfortable with a few seconds of quiet.

And sometimes the answer isn't that event at all. I turned down a gig not long ago where the money truly didn't work, and instead of just declining, I asked what their budget looked like for their other meetings during the year, the ones closer to home. Turned out several of those had higher budgets than the one they'd originally called me about. Same organization, same relationship, better gigs for me, and I got there by asking one more question after the no.

There are other times where you may be able to negotiate fee alternatives…but that’s a conversation for another time.

One thing before you go run this

I want to add some fairness here, because a script like this can curdle into something gross if you let it.

I believe in fee integrity, and I think it has a double meaning. The first is the one everybody talks about: this is my fee, and I'm not going below it. Fine, I agree with that, mostly.

But the second meaning matters more, and fewer people say it out loud. Fee integrity also means that when a meeting with deep pockets calls you, you don't turn around and quote them ten times what you'd quote a small association or a startup just because you looked them up and you know they've got the resources. Getting them to name the number first is not a license to charge whatever the budget will bear. Those are two very different things, and the speakers who confuse them tend to have short careers.

Until next time,

P.S. I want to hear your Columbus story. What's the gig you underquoted, and when did you figure it out, on the call or standing in the hotel room afterward? Hit reply and tell me. Mine was a two-room suite and about twenty years ago, and I still think about it.