Motivational speakers are in constant demand in the UK and around the world. At Pro-Motivate we can even tell you who is hot at the moment and who is not. We provide ongoing updates on our website of who our Top 10 speakers in demand are at any time for all to see. At present I can say that this is legendary British adventurer and ex-SAS soldier Sir Ranulph Fiennes, by virtue of the fact that he has over 40 years of fascinating stories and is amongst the world’s leading public speakers.

So what happens if you’re not Ranulph Fiennes and you’re looking for opportunities without a natural pipeline of business?

Put simply, you’ve got to work bloody hard to find it. This is where you need the help of speaker bureaus. In the UK the speaker market is fairly mediocre by comparison to the USA where agencies have been churning out speakers since the middle of the last century. In the UK the speaker market didn’t really exist prior to the 1990′s. There are a small number of reputable speaker bureaus and within them, agents who know their stuff and have the contacts that you would like them to have. There are also many web based bureaus that are effectively ‘skims’ of the leading bureaus – you should avoid these and can tell them usually by the poor quality of imagery and incorrect text that the speaker biographies contain. 

Speakers rely on bureaus for business. Sure, companies can go directly to a speaker via their website but this is additional hassle and the speaker agent is better placed to negotiate fees, suggest perhaps better alternative speakers and ultimately manage the entire booking to a satisfactory conclusion. The leading speakers will all derive about 90% of their business from the speaker bureau so getting into bed with a speaker bureau is highly recommended. I and Pro-Motivate would also strongly recommend a relationship with more than one agent, ideally 3 – 5, one of which should be in the USA if you have a particularly interesting background. But be aware in order to maximise your opportunities you’ll need to spend time building rapport with your bureau. 

A further option when working with a speaker bureau is to sign an exclusive contract with one bureau. This means that only this bureau will represent you in the open market. Unless you are Tony Blair or Bill Clinton who understandably cannot manage their own diary this is total waste of time. In the UK there is simply no need for exclusive speaker representation. Going exclusive means that you kill off gaining opportunities from other bureau and you’ll lose a lot of income at the same time. One speaker bureau doesn’t like booking via another speaker bureau especially if they know the bureau is also adding on a healthy commission. In the USA the speaker bureau’s split the agents commission 50/50 – in the UK this does not happen, the client two sets of commission without realising it. Pro-Motivate would like to see this overcharging by the few exclusive bureaus stopped immediately. Effectively the exclusive bureaus are getting the work from other agents and earning a full commission at the same time. That’s unethical business. 

Hopefully these tips are helpful and I wish you good luck in 2009.

If you require any further help feel free to drop me a line at Pro-Motivate.

Jonathan Curran

Founder & Director

Pro-Motivate International Speaker Bureau – London

Most simply the old saying that “the strong get stronger and the weak go under” is likely to be true for the thousands of motivational speakers who sell themselves (or we sell for them) into companies in 2009.

You’ll also here a lot of speakers and their agents telling people that a motivational speaker should be in greater demand in a negative market as existed last year and is sure to continue in 2009. Well running a speaker business I can tell you that even the best and most popular of the UK’s motivational speakers have seen a downturn in inquiries for their services.

So what should a motivational speaker do to find work to pay the mortgage? Well firstly 2009 will almost certainly prove challenging in most sectors, save the ultilities and national transport industries. My advice is that it’s a good time for a speaker to reinvent themselves and use it as a period to increase the tools in the tool kit and add more gumption and substance to their real life story telling. Why do this you might ask? Well if you won an Olympic Gold Medal in 1996 then your story has little interest to a group of people under the age of 35 years old these days. Times, stories and the people telling them move on. Steven Redgrave, a true legend of sport and possibly our greatest ever Olympian in Great Britain with five consecutive gold medals would struggle to compete on a speaker proposal with today’s stars Chris Hoy or Rebecca Adlington – you see what I am getting at, and I haven’t even mentioned that Chris Hoy’s fee for motivational or after dinner speaking is considerably less than SSR’s!

I’ll give you a current example of three of our speakers who very good at reinventing themselves. Blind motivational speaker Mark Pollock is currently doing one hell of a challenge, racing to the South Pole by foot, covering 1,000 miles in temperatures averaging -40. Alongside Mark are two of our other speakers James Cracknell and Ben Fogle. Now this is crazy stuff, but made harder for Mark in particular as he lost his eyesight in full exactly ten years ago.

James Cracknell, Mark Pollock and Ben Fogle are doing this as a massive personal challenge but also as they recognise the importance of constant reinvention if they are to maintain and actually upgrade their profiles.

Not everyone has to take on life threatening challenges but the importance of upping your game and constant reinvention is one that applies to businesses and individuals if you wish to continue to be successful.

Cutting speaking fees is only a small part of dealing with the economic crisis. My view is most definitely that there continues to be a strong market for motivational speakers in the UK.

Make use of any additional time that you may have to improve your background and pitch to the market. You don’t have to tell a motivational speaker to stay positive when the going gets tough!

My next topics for writing about will be who Pro-Motivate regard as the UK’s leading motivational speakers, based on demand over the past twelve months. I also intend to write a piece on why I don’t believe the UK has a great need for exclusive speaker representation and the damage that it does to the speaking sector as a whole.

Wishing you all a prosperous 2009

Jonathan Curran

Jonathan Curran & Jonah Lomu