122. Mark Black: Increasing Your Fee. When and Why it Makes Sense to Charge More for What you Do

Mark Black is a heart and double-lung transplant recipient – turned -4-time marathon runner, speaker and coach. He has been speaking professionally since 2005 and has earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation – a designation held by less than 2000 speakers around the world. He is here today to help you raise your fees so you can make have a greater impact and earn a bigger income.

Increasing your fee

Once you have had your first paid speaking gigs and you’re thinking about raising your fees, there are two main ways to know if it’s the right time to do it:

* If you’re struggling to fill your calendar, that’s probably not the right time to increase your fees. If you’re too busy, that’s the right time.

* The other good time to raise your fee is when you’re doing well but you don’t want to be that busy. For instance, you don’t want to be traveling too much anymore. Charge higher and you’ll have less engagements with a similar income per year.

Most common mistakes in setting your speaking fees

* Charging a high fee because “it looks good.” If you don’t have enough happy customers, you might be charging too high for now.

* Waiting too long to raise fee. Some speakers are afraid that they will lose clients and will not get booked again. The truth is that demanding customers (big corporations) will never hire you if your fees are low because they judge how good you are based on your fees.

What to invest in to become a more highly valued speaker

* Improve your material continuously. Invest your time improving your speech, script, presentation slides, etc. Hire a speaking coach. If your style is more educational, do more research.

* Invest in the business side. Figure out your weaknesses and hire someone to help you: marketing, video production, accounting, web design, etc. You can always upgrade as you go.