Sporadically, I am invited to speak at various conferences. Last week, for instance, I was invited to speak at one focussing on private equity in Africa. I assume it is because I founded Crowdfund.
I would have been a part of a panel, although I was also invited to submit a proposal for a solo talk if I wanted to. (I did so, and it was warmly received.)
The delegates are paying R16 105 to attend the conference and the workshops. (Not sure if VAT is included in that).
The speakers are being paid nothing. It, apparently, is not in the organiser’s policy.
I think this sucks for two reasons:
1. I wouldn’t get paid if I presented.
2. The delegates are paying R16 100 to attend a conference to listen to speakers who are comfortable with not being paid. In other words, they are not professional speakers.
I was told that I am getting “exposure”. That may be, but I am not really looking for exposure in the private equity field. Plus, I must have some exposure there already, since they found me and invited me to speak.
I have long ago made the decision that if you want me to speak for you, or write for you or consult for you … if you are making money, so am I.
Don’t get me wrong: I am very, very happy to speak for free. I love to speak. I will speak for free at any conference that does not charge attendance or that does but just so that costs are covered etc (Tech4Africa falls into this category … I am thrilled to be speaking there, and would actually pay to do so).
Also, I think that not paying speakers is a VERY bad business model. Let’s do some maths: say you are going to have 10 speakers and you are going to pay each of them R10 000 to speak. That will cost you R100 000.
Now, let’s say you are expecting 200 delegates. R100k divided by 200 = R500. So you would have to charge each delegate R16 600 instead of R16 100. BUT, you would be getting 10 relatively high calibre speakers which would be worth FAR more than R500 to the delegate. Surely, if you are paying R16,100 to hear speakers that are happy to speak for free, then you would be really scoring to hear speakers who are slightly more professional. Also, a good speaker is a drawcard for the conference, thus increasing the paying attendance.
So who is going to be speaking for free? Only those who want to benefit from the exposure, which means they are standing at the podium with a hidden agenda. That’s not fair to the paying delegates. Especially if they are paying more than R16 000.
It goes without saying that most speakers who get paid to speak, will immediately treat the engagement more professionally and will put more effort into the presentation content, which bodes well for the paying delegates.
On a slightly different note: the more conferences I attend (local and international) the more I think that the traditional conference model is broken. Paying thousands of rands or dollars to hear unscreened presenters speak is a waste not only of money, but also of time. Getting spoken TO is not nearly as good as speaking WITH. At the recent SxSW conference in Austin (at which I actually did speak), the model is far better (but not perfect): there are about 20 tracks on at any given time and the talks are much more personal and interactive. As a member of the audience, you not only get the opportunity to *really* target what you want to listen to (the choice is so vast), but you have a very good chance of interacting with the speaker during the presentation should you need to.
Conferences are money-making businesses. In fact, they are huge money-making businesses. And most companies that run them get away with poor speakers, shoddy presentation techniques and end up with an unimpressed audience. The biggest reason for this is that conferences are seen as a money-making exercise rather than an educational exercise and are put on by the wrong people.
There is an easy solution to this: if you get asked to speak, and you know you would be adding value to the conference if you accepted the invite, insist on getting paid. If your request gets declined, the organisers will have to dig deep into the barrels for alternative speakers, which will result in a weak conference, which will result in the organisers struggling to put on the next one. Let them fix their own errors.
One can only hope.
I completely agree with you. We hone our presentations to come across with in-depth knowledge of our subjects and spend considerable time and effort on research. Consequently, we have every right to be paid for our services.
Another brilliant post, and I totally agree, Not that I am a professional speaker, but a conference goer myself.
I think if there is a way to make a conference a more open medium rather than a one way comm.
You make good points, Eva, but I wish you wouldn’t keep saying ‘for free’. I was repeatedly whacked by nuns for saying that and the words still cause me pain.
Thanks, I couldn’t agree with you more. I seriously think there is a gap in the market for quality, value for money, professional conferences. Wherever an industry focuses purely on their pocket at the expense of everything else, including quality, I believe there’s a wide open space for a service and quality oriented business to go in and take over the market, still making money, but with focus on service delivery…
Couldn’t agree more. The conference industry is riddled with charlatans. A favourite trick is to sign up well known speakers to help with their marketing, but if they don’t get the number of delegates they need to break even, they drop the whole event without a second thought.
I agree 100% Eve. Most of the conference organisers are parasites, living on the intellectual property and market value of the speakers.
The underlying argument of this blog is that some conference organisers appear to stage events primarily for their own benefit, rather than their stakeholders. Business that put their own financial interest above the interests of the paying public are on a slippery slope. The speed of internet information transfer accelerates this thankfully.
I absolutely agree. For a long time I have thought of the average conference as an easy ride for the organisers, making bundles of cash simply by bringing a bunch of speakers into one room during one period. How they have managed to keep this up for so long, I don’t know. This is most likely why many of the high profile speakers haven’t pitched at conferences I’ve made an effort to attend, sometimes internationally. The response from the organisers at the big names not showing up: “oh well, we’ll try and get their presentation and send it to you”.
I agree with you 100% – what are the organizers of the event trying to achieve? What are their objectives by not paying the speakers? Where are the profits going to?
I would understand if delegates were not paying, but R16100?
Suspect Business Model
Ditto most seminars.
Good for you. They are simply exploiting speakers.
I am continually amazed at the poor level of speakers we are subjected to at conferences, more like conferencezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Most speakers use a screen and flick through their presentation pages, reading them to the audience. For heaven’s sake, we CAN all read.
Guys like Clem Sunter have spotted this gap and have made names for themselves as professional speakers who are in high demand. There is nothing wrong with charging for ones services as a speaker, but if no one hires you, its because you arent as good as the money you charge.
@ Eve I loved this post! Thank you. I was an ‘in demand’ speaker in the 70s and 80s. As a full-time lecturer with a heavy teaching/research load I had to ‘work in’ public speaking engagements between terms or over weekends. That is, until I made a shocking discovery.
My male colleagues who addressed some of the same groups I addressed were being paid whilst I had been assuming we had all been giving our time and expertise to various groups as part of the overall educational philosophy of our institutions. Without exception each institution’s “Mission Statement” (detest that expression!) included the ‘policy’ of ‘contributing to the effort of bridging the ‘town and gown’ divide’.
Naive?I had been. But, armed with the information that my male colleagues were being paid, I sent Invoices to the various groups I had addressed. I said I was sure that their failure to inform me of the speakers’ fee they offered was nothing more than an oversight, one that could be corrected without assistance from the government’s equality commission…
The silence was deafening. I hadn’t expected any of them to undergo a sudden conversion to ‘equal pay’, I just wanted to set the cat amongst the pigeons. The squawk came later when I circulated an “FYI” memo to various women colleagues listing the speaking fees offered by groups/organisations in our region. That finally did the trick but only after the women demanded equal treatment. Twas ever thus…
I enjoyed reading this article!
Agree 100%.
A great deal of thought, research, and effort goes into making a presentation. There should be an appropriate reward.
Eve, I agree with you whole-heartedly. I worked at several well-known NGOs in SA and we often received calls for advice on conferences on topics on which we had expertise. On a few occasions, we naively provided information, advice and speakers to ensure that the conference would have the necessary expertise and outcome. When we found out about the conference fees we began quoting an hourly rate for advice and support and, suddenly there a myriad of reasons why they could not pay us. We refused to offer our services free to conference organizers who charged delegates, often exorbitant fees. I hope that more speakers are wiser after reading your article. Conferences are a money-spinner and the organizers care less about quality.
Eve, I totally agree with you about conference organisers who don’t pay speakers thereby ensuring that only people who are comfortable presenting for free are found at such conferences. So I’m not speaking for free..
Do the people who paid out R16000 know that they were going to listen to amateur speakers. Probably not. I agree with your position. This is just one more example of an abusive labour practice in our society; only here it is a demonstration that it is not just the indigent and the poor who are being exploited. As Siobhan has pointed out you also don’t know if it is only you who are intended to work as an amateur and therefore being taken for a schmuck… How could you even face the organisers knowing they were robbing you of your hard earned knowledge.
No dough no go.
it’s a good thing that you are standing up for your self, and I agree with you 110%
I will be interested to hear from the organizers of these conferences as to WHY they don’t pay their speakers? Anybody have the courage to answer?
Eve, you make your point very well. Writers also need to stand up for themselves. I recently offered an article to the news editor of a local “free sheet”. I emailed it and he later replied: “Your story is ineresting but what we pay wouldn’t even buy a big box of coffee and a muffin. However, I can run it as a letter. Let me know.”
I insisted that I be paid; even if “the fee is small” (I refrained from giving him a spelling lesson). He replied: “I will publish it as a letter and organise a cash voucher for you. It will take a while.”
A very small victory, but a victory none the less!
i beg to differ; conferences are very critical in mediating dialogue in a developing Africa. Probably the best place to launch yourself and a new company to be the who’s who in the market space.
if one has spoken at events and not reaped rewards then they need to reposition the proposition; but then again be careful of who’s organising your show because there’s still a lot of undistinguished coordinators trying to come up.
You need to know who the fellow speakers are, the calibre of delegates, where they’re coming from and how they can help your business; trust me that the majority of deals that matter are being initiated at conferences in business today.
The conferencing space in the 1st world has seen more and more interest from major corporations and here we are as Africans trying to shut down channels of business opportunity; some fruit for thought the next time we wonder why we’re third World! Regards!
Thanks for all your comments.
@Francesca I sent the conference organisers a link to this story, asking them for a comment. They thanked me, said they appreciate my position, but are unable to change company policy. (They put on dozens of conferences a year, I believe).
Maybe conferences that *do* pay their speakers could get a badge to display on their site, or membership of a body that recognises good industry practice….
Agreed… but the fact is, no conference could ever be worth paying over R16,000 for. Seriously! That organiser should be boycotted for ripping people off in the first place.
Are conferences, in general, ever worth paying an attendance fee for? (Other than to cover venue and snacks which sponsors normally cover anyway)
Spot on, Eve!
I’ve stopped talking at conferences for this exact reason. It takes a long time to put together a value-added talk which will be appreciated by the audience.
Conference organizers say that your reward is that you’re getting good exposure out of the speaking engagement. In my industry, however, I find that most delegates are simply sent to the conferences to use up the training budget (which incidentally is why the conference organizers get away with putting on poor conferences time after time). Very rarely are the conferences attended by the senior executives that I am targeting. As a result, I’ve found very little value in presenting, and am now very reluctant to do free talks at conferences.
I don’t think it’s going to change any time soon though.
Eve, interesting that you should write this on the same day I had my rant on walterpike.net
I always get suckered in because I actually want to talk and to share my thinking, I love it and it gives me a huge buzz. The feedback from the attendees has always been good.
But I am a professional speaker and I have had to make the decision to stop the free talks, because it damages my product – my talk.
I just don’t like the bitter after taste when I feel that I have been sandbagged.