Hire A Motivational Speaker - Inspirational Speaker's Fees

This article outlines a few helpful tips for negotiating with a leadership motivational speaker on his or her fee. The first piece of advice is: Don't do business with a motivational speaker that answers your question about their fee with "What's your budget?"

Take this as a big, red flag—this person either isn't working enough and will take whatever you're offering or they don't know what their value is to the marketplace. Either scenario is not good for you—they're not really a professional keynote speaker.

You want to hire someone with a valuable message and experience—that's what the fee is for—you are, after all, hiring a professional inspirational speaker so you don't have to worry about these things...

Negotiate With Your Motivational Speaker
Now, that said, you do want to get the best deal you can for your group. By asking the initial question about fee, you'll get an idea of how this motivational speaker sees him or herself in the industry. You want to someone who has a fixed fee, but you want to get them at your meeting at maximum value.

So, now that you know their starting point—ask them if they'll take less—offer 80% and see what they say…it never hurts to ask! If they agree—fantastic! You've just saved your group 20%! And, if they come back with a counteroffer, then you've saved something anyway. As the buyer, you always have the option of coming back and saying yes to their full fee if they say no. The best advice I can give, though, is when you're ready to hire them, offer a specific figure. Don't just say "Can you offer us a discount?" This isn't a buying question, this is a non-specific, soft question that doesn't give the speaker anything firm to negotiate against.

Or, if your group really doesn't have the cash to pay their fee, but you'd really like to have them present at your meeting—what else can you offer them? Do you have separate budgets for different slots that the one motivational speaker may be able to fill? For example, could your motivational speaker do a breakout session and a spouse program as well? This will save travel expenses for you as well.

Another tactic you might try is bartering if you can't come up with the entire amount in cash. Does your organization have something that would be of value to the inspirational speaker? Are you an office supply company? Do you have a trade magazine that has advertising space? Can you commit to having the same motivational speaker back at the next meeting to do another program?

Maybe you have an educational materials budget that you could buy a copy of their book for each person in attendance in lieu of a portion of the motivational speaker fee.

Negotiating your motivational speaker's fee should be straightforward—just make sure you've done some thinking ahead of time if you know you're working within budgetary restrictions. Most importantly, treat the speaker with respect and tell them how much you'd like to have them at your meeting. Speakers really love to hear that and most will work with you to make it happen!