KO Your Brand

Katrina Owens (00:01.55)
What's up guys, welcome back to another episode of KO Your Brand. This is a quick hit, this is Pulling Punches. I'm your host Katrina Owens, top personal branding and public relations expert. And today we are diving into a question I am seeing more and more of, and it's something I have a very strong answer to. So if you're a business owner and you've started to speak on more stages and you've started to really put it out to the universe that you want to be a speaker,

you're going to come across a pay to speak opportunity at least once in your career, but I'm willing to bet we're going to see more and more of this. And that means someone is asking you to speak at their event. And along with that opportunity, they want you to pay a speaker fee. And I feel so strongly about this because I honestly think that organizations that offer this type of opportunity or event hosts that offer this type of opportunity,

I think that they've got it wrong and I never think that they're doing this for the right reasons. So let me tell you why. Every single event I've ever seen that is a pay to speak opportunity has never been a high quality event that I would actually want to speak at. And what do I mean by a high quality event? Typically for me, that's the speaker lineup. And for me to feel like a speaker lineup is high quality, that means that

all of the speakers have an established online presence doesn't mean that they have hundreds or thousands of followers, by the way. It just means that they have a presence that feels like they're expertly positioned. They have great content that looks good. They're growing a following. And a lot of the time, these pay to speak opportunities actually prey on people that aren't really established personal brands yet. And that's why they're asking

for you to pay a fee because they see it as you giving, as them giving you an opportunity. The reality is that regardless of how long a speaking opportunity is, even if you're up on that stage for 10 minutes, okay, which is very, very short for a speaking opportunity, the amount of preparation and value that you are going to share on that stage is worth far more than you paying a speaker fee. Now.

Katrina Owens (02:27.584)
I'm totally not opposed to speaking for free. I still speak for free when it's the right opportunity. I still encourage my clients to speak for free, especially if you're still building up your speaker portfolio. If you don't have a sizzle reel, speaking for free is a great way to build up that experience. And if you do it right, you can see a significant ROI from selling from that stage, which is something I'll talk about in a longer episode, probably towards the end of the summer, because I'm going to have a couple.

taste studies to use. So when you are now paying a speaker fee, you're not only saying, I value my expertise at zero, you're actually saying, I value my expertise at less than zero, because I'm going to pay you to also prepare this presentation, deliver value, take time out of my busy day to get on your stage.

And that just does not sit right with me. It doesn't matter what stage you're at in your business, you have expertise that is valuable. And the minute that you start paying to get on a stage, you are completely devaluing the information and the expertise that you have. And that's why I feel so strongly about that. So another thing that I often see when it comes to these speaker fees that event coordinators are now requesting,

that people pay is that they'll say that the speaker fee is to cover, you know, production costs of the event or promotional costs. And let me tell you something, because as someone that plans events and often, you know, is bringing on speakers to some of our future events, that sort of thing, it is entirely up to the event coordinator to adequately price their tickets or get sponsorships.

so that they can properly fund their event. Speakers should never be funding the event. And that's the biggest issue that I have with this because we see these events that are out there running. And if you go to networking events and if you go to these larger events where there's speakers and maybe they're a half a day or a full day.

Katrina Owens (04:45.646)
Those events can easily cost upwards of $150. I mean, some events that I go to are more like $1,000 a ticket, and that's okay. But in that ticket price is the event coordinator covering speaker fees, know, if speakers are traveling from different places, it's covering travel fees, all of that. So the minute that I see an event that's selling tickets, but is also making speakers pay, I'm like,

so icked out and I really honestly lose all respect for that particular event coordinator because I just don't think that that's that business model feels like the equivalent of like an MLM to be honest. that's that's why I feel so strongly about not paying to speak on a stage because it really is the responsibility of the event coordinator to bring in the amount

the amount of ticket sales that they need to cover all of their costs and expenses. Now, here is a sneaky thing that I am often seeing. These event coordinators will actually call this fee a speaker sponsorship. And so sometimes you can sponsor an event, which also enables you the opportunity to speak on a stage. I see this, I see large organizations participate in this.

And I don't hate that part. But and I'm and I'm going to carefully describe this because I don't want you to think I'm contradicting myself. Being a sponsor, a speaker sponsor is very different than just being a speaker that's paying for the opportunity to be on the stage. So as a sponsor, you are likely paying for, you know,

ability to do a talk, but you also get a booth in the audience. You probably negotiate different advertisements in the program on social media. The amount that you receive is likely so much more. And every time I've seen a sponsored speaker or speaker sponsorship on a stage, it has always come off incredibly salesy, which is totally fine, but the audience can tell.

Katrina Owens (07:13.1)
So your business has to be in a very appropriate, your business has to know exactly how it's going to be using that speaker sponsorship so that you're not coming off super salesy and that you know that there's going to be other pieces that allow you to promote your event. And now I also wanna preface this by saying I typically see speaker sponsorships.

fulfilled by much larger companies and organizations. So typically it's software companies or big brands that are trying to get in front of the audience. So they're not there necessarily trying to grow a personal brand anyways. And that's the thing, right? We got to treat our personal brand like it really is this very, very precious entity because it is. So the moment that you devalue it by going on to a stage that's of lower quality because you paid to be there and so did everyone else, or you get on a stage,

and it's a speaker sponsorship. So now you're just like selling your heart out instead of actually delivering value. Like these are all things that actually affect your reputation as a personal brand. And so that's why I'm encouraging you to take it so seriously. So what should you do instead? Because a lot of people will say, okay, Katrina, like I know, I know I should not be paying for the speaker sponsorship, but I want to get on more stages. So like, how do I do that?

Build your own room first. Build your own event. Can be online if you're really just getting started, but you it doesn't cost a ton of money to do an in-person event either. You can start at small. You can charge a little, a low ticket price. Like all of those things are available to you, but it's up to you to implement. And I would much rather see you take that $500 that you were going to spend to pay to speak at an event and use that to start your own event instead.

because now you're building your own audience that's going to have a connection to you, feel tied to you. It's a room that you get to control. You can control the marketing that comes out of it. So to me, that's a much, much sounder, stronger investment that you're going to see incredible ROI from. There has never been a pay to speak opportunity that a client has shown me where I've been like, actually, this one feels okay.

Katrina Owens (09:35.746)
They've always given me the ick and this is why I had to come on here today and just tell you all of these reasons why I just do not think that paying to speak on a stage is a great tactic for building your personal brand. Yeah, sometimes we're going to have to speak for free to build up that expertise. Sometimes we're going to have to invest our own money into running our events and not to mention our own time and energy, but that is the nature of growing a personal brand that's profitable.

and I would much rather see you make that profit than give it to somebody else. So that's it for me. I hope this landed today. And for those of you that are out there going through this right now, this episode is for you because I'm seeing this more and more on threads. I'm seeing my clients coming to me with different opportunities and it's always a no. And so I just wanted to make sure that, you know, that no was loud and clear on KO your brand. So.

I really hope you enjoyed this episode. We will be back next week with more quick hits, more actionable takeaways. Please rate and review this podcast everywhere you listen to podcasts and I will see you next week. Toodles.