How much is a public speaker worth?  A fellow blogger recently tabulated the top ten here: http://bit.ly/9kSPj1

Who are they? 

Following is the (short) list with their per speech speaking fee: 

Donald Trump, $1-1.5 million

Ronald Reagan, $1 million

Tony Blair, $616,000

Bill Clinton, $150,000- $450,000

Rudy Guiliani, $270,000

Alan Greenspan, $250,000

Lance Armstrong, $100,000 and up

Al Gore, $100,000-150,000

Richard Branson, $100,000 and up

Sarah Palin, $100,000 and up

It’s an interesting list.  All but three are former politicians, thus confirming the idea that it may be public service at the time, but afterward you can cash in.  The others are celebrity CEOs or sports figures. 

Do the numbers appall you?  I often get incredulity or indignation from people not in the speaking business when I talk about how much more down-to-earth business speakers make (anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 per speech and up). 

But just looking at the number itself – for an hour’s worth of work! – is not thinking about the money in the right way.  Those speakers earn their money, and here’s why. 

Think about a typical business conference.  Let’s say there are 300 – 500 attendees.  It’s held at a nice hotel in some destination city, like Boston or London or Vegas or Paris or New York or Tokyo or San Francisco.  A typical budget for the entire conference is $1.5 to $2.0 million (USD).  So that speaker fee that seems so high is something like 2 % of the total.  Barely even figures.  As one meeting planner told me once, when we were haggling over a client’s $25K fee, “OK.  That’s less than we spend on coffee and donuts at the 10:30 break!”  And yet, for that sum, a headliner will leave his or her family, fly in coach long distances with an unpleasant airline, put up in a lonely room at the hotel, eat indifferent food, and then do his or her level best to charm a roomful of strangers, before heading home again. 

You may well attend the conference because of that headliner, so the drawing power of the person has to be figured in the fee.  If an extra 100 people attend because former President X is speaking, at $3,000 per, that’s another $300,000 in the coffers of the organizers.  And that’s probably on the low end.  It’s not hard to see how the relatively small investment in a headlining speaker pays for itself quite quickly. 

Now think about what it takes to become a headliner.  There are years of preparation involved for a speaker to be able to cash in on his or her fame.  Ideas, research, books, public service, inventions, innovations, businesses – real accomplishments that take time and perseverance.  You don’t just start speaking.  You come to it because you’ve starred in some other world. 

So that $40K is not just for the hour of speaking – it’s for the lifetime of preparation. 

Speakers earn their fees if they change the world by moving an audience to action.  If you’ve been in one of those audiences, you know what I mean.  An hour spent with a great speaker can set you off in a new direction, opening your life to new thoughts, experiences, and ventures.  What’s that worth?