While most speakers chase glamorous conference stages, the quietly successful ones are earning serious fees inside corporate boardrooms, tackling the messy challenges that actually need fixing.

They’ve realised something everyone else hasn’t...

The mindset shift?

Stop asking: “What am I passionate about sharing?”
Start asking: “What problems does my passion uniquely solve?”

It’s the difference between:

Passion-first speakers: “I love speaking about the future of work.”
Problem-first speakers: “I help organisations navigate the cultural tension between Gen Z values and traditional management styles.”

And when you’ve worked out the problems you’re able to solve, everything starts to get a little clearer.

Especially which kinds of events you are most suited to speak at.

The vast majority fall into one of these three categories…

1. Social Media Calendar Events 📆 - £

Most established companies use certain events in the media calendar as an employee engagement tool. Targeting these events is a useful strategy because they happen every year and they have the potential to get you through the door at well-known organisations.

Examples: International Women’s Day, World Mental Health Day, Pride Month etc.

Typical speaking fees: £500-£3k (Fee dependant on your personal brand, type of engagement (panel/keynote etc), who’s attending and your negotiation skills).

Not big bucks, but that’s not the point. Make an impact and it’s a chance to:

1. Gain trust and build long term relationships ✨ 

2. Impress decision makers who happen to be in the audience 👏

3. Get recommended to other departments after the engagement 🗣️

Who makes the decisions?

Officially:
Chief of Staff | Director/VP/Head of… Learning and Development | People | HR | Events | Community | Programme | Wellbeing | [Insert Department] | CXOs | Executive assistants to CXOs

Unofficially: 
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are voluntary, employee-led groups that aim to foster diverse, inclusive workplaces. They are a back door into large organisations, like Adobe who have 7 ERG networks for employees to join.

Most large companies have an ERG programme and provide budget to run their own events programmes (often in sync with the social media calendar) that are completely separate to what is happening at a company/department level.

Minimum Experience Required: Entry level and beyond.

B. Training Events, Offsites and Away Days 🌲 - ££

Organisations invest big money into up-skilling their teams and cultivating employee connection. The more important the team (e.g. board, senior leadership team etc.) the more money they are willing to spend. Some companies have budgets of £1m+ to spend on a 2 day event.

Training event examples: One-off workshops, lunch and learns, half-day, full-day

Offsites and away day examples: Strategy days, board meetings, team retreats, quarterly kick-offs etc.

Typical fees: From £3k-£20k (Fee dependant on the level of seniority, your personal brand, type of engagement, and your negotiation skills).

Who makes the decisions?
If the event is across multiple departments (e.g. company-wide or for the senior leadership team) HR, Learning & Development, Chiefs of Staff/EAs are usually responsible. If it’s for a specific team or department (e.g. Sales team), they may have been given their own budget.

Minimum Experience Required: Trusted by other organisations, TEDx talk, book or similar social proof preferable.

C. Big Budget Company Events 🎤 - £££

These are often high production events run by businesses:

1. For their staff, or

2. For their customers and clients

These events are about building alignment, goodwill, showcasing thought leadership and (if customer facing) generating sales.

Examples: Annual Meetings, leadership summits, award ceremonies, product launches

Potential speaking fees: Anything from £5k-£25k (Depending on nature of the engagement [e.g. main stage keynote vs workshop in a side room], your personal brand and your negotiation skills).

Who makes the decisions:
Director/VP/Head of… Marketing | HR | Events | Learning and Development | People | Community | Wellbeing

Experience level required: A solid track record. Number of big name clients, strong testimonials, strong personal brand. Proof of you speaking (showreel or recorded talk) will help de-risk you from the perspective of the booker.

Understanding which events you should be speaking at is one of the most critical components for finding speaker market fit. It’s the very first thing we help our members with inside MicDrop.

We’ll be opening our doors to new members again in October.

Click here to join the waitlist

Alex

P.s. Found this email useful? It would mean the world if you’d share a one-liner testimonial.