When it comes to hiring speakers for an event, a lot of complicated booking procedures can stop people from doing it. Booking speakers through a bureau will not only make things easier for you, but it could also save you cash! When booking through a bureau, you can save 12% on average compared to negotiating with a speaker directly. This value may not make much sense, but understanding it isn’t too hard if you consider the benefits that bureaus offer.
Bureaus are often considered irrelevant mediators, but they serve functions far greater than just mediation. They act as partners who help mitigate risks throughout the process. When booking speakers, bureaus take care of several parts of the booking that a person cannot handle alone, ranging from assuring the highness of the speaker to guaranteeing all event regulations and logistical concerns are met. Bureaus take care of many complicated aspects of speaker booking. So instead of providing just a service, they ensure that your worries vanish.
Where Did The Savings Come From?
As expected, reimbursements come from the very strategies that make those savings possible. Here are some of them:
- Quality of the Speaker: Provided by bureaus in a wide scope, you are guaranteed to find what you are searching for as both vetted speakers and professionals of the best quality. These relationships also result in better-negotiated fees because they are long-standing.
- Cost Efficiency: Bureaus often have negotiated contacts or agreements with speakers that help reduce costs. Additionally, they handle all the administrative details, reducing the risk of hidden fees or last-minute expenses.
- Compliance and Legal Safeguards: Most bureau collaborations typically include compliance elements that ensure that the speaker possesses the requisite legal and contractual credentials. This minimizes the odds of unforeseen issues that have the potential to incur extra expenses.
- Post-Event ROI Tracking: Bureaus can also assist in post-event ROI tracking by, for example, collecting feedback to confirm whether or not the speaker’s actions corresponded with the goals of the event. Such attention to detail allows for a much more accurate assessment of the relative worth of the expense incurred.
While savings on expenditure is one of the primary benefits of engaging a bureau, there is much more. A bureau’s know-how and network are supplemented by its ability to provide a variety of services, making the process of booking a speaker unbelievably easy, painless, and efficient.
The 6 Key Benefits of Hiring a Keynote Speaker Through a Bureau
Having examined the cost savings, it would be interesting to examine what the other 9 advantages that bureaus provide about hiring a keynote speaker for your next big event are:
Benefit 1: Curated Access to Niche Talent Pools
Booking a keynote speaker requires finding and reaching out to talent who are new or specific to the industry, which internal teams struggle with the most. Without proper visibility into specialized speaker pools, this would be extremely difficult. Luckily there are bureaus that can help! Due to the niche talent shortage, most companies have difficulties finding the right speakers. But bureaus are able to foster unique events because they have access to niche talent pools.
Bureaus have access to proprietary databases created from years of expertise that research speakers. They analyze audience feedback and use speech analytics to make sure the speaker chosen would be beneficial for the entirety of the audience present. This ensures that rather than using credentials to gauge the speaker’s effectiveness, the speaker chosen is well-known for inspiring, engaging audiences, and delivering meaningful content.
For instance, consider a Munich headquartered automotive company who was looking for an AI ethics expert to speak at their conference. Instead of wasting precious time looking for the right match, the company worked with a bureau and found a speaker that saved them a considerable 23 hours of searching. Achieving this degree of accuracy and speed is difficult without a bureau’s extensive partnerships.
Moreover, bureaus know very well the nuances and regulations of their respective regions. No matter if you are reserving a speaker for a pharma event in the EU, or a tech summit in the US, they always check if the speaker covers not only the subject matter, but also meets the industry regulatory and legal standards for that region. This level of local knowledge provides an additional sense of safety and reassurance to the booking process.
In the end, these advantages are why it is best to go with a bureau as they give you more options that are far more specialized. It is more efficient and you are positively certain that your event is attended to by the right speaker that fits your audience.
Benefit 2: Contractual Risk Mitigation
One of the biggest considerations when engaging a leading speaker is protecting against late cancellations and content disagreements. The impact of both is often catastrophic and results in a lot of stress when looking for last minute alternatives. Fortunately, with bureaus, the hassle of such affairs is taken care of as they protect clients from such risks through tight after or post event agreements.
In every contract, bureaus usually have a clause for force majeure and a backup speaker’s guarantee. These protect the clients against surprise incidents, such as traveling problems or falling ill. For instance, at a technology summit in Tokyo, one speaker got COVID-19 just a few hours before the event. Luckily, the bureau’s replacement guarantee worked, and a different speaker was booked in four hours, resulting in a successful summit without any interruptions.
In addition to these guarantees, bureaus often provide indemnification insurance with high levels of coverage, such as $2M in North America. This ensures that any liability risks associated with the speaker’s content or conduct are covered, giving you further protection. The insurance acts as a safeguard against unforeseen legal challenges, allowing you to focus on other event details without added worry.
Benefit 3: Cost Efficiency Through Volume Leverage
Cost efficiency is one of the primary reasons for event organizers’ reliance on bureaus. For speakers in the middle tier, it is abundantly easy to overspend in the industry if one lacks the necessary experience. Bureaus utilize their business volume to negotiate with clients and cut costs.
Agencies make bulk and seasonal bookings to save on costs. Off-peak high demand speakers are much easier to book and they are more willing to offer lower rates. Also, regular industry relationships can help any agency get favorable terms. EventMB 2023 suggests that agencies can get an average of 17% cost reduction for Fortune 500 clients, as opposed to independent negotiators.
In addition, there are regional and cultural differences in fee systems that bureaus tend to understand. In APAC regions, there might be negotiation precedences that are not as commonplace in Europe where most set prices are standard. They help you in enabling competitive regions and pricing so that the quality of your speaker is not compromised.
Benefit 4: Time-to-Event Optimization
In extreme cases, direct negotiations might make getting a speaker very difficult. Usually, speaker bookings alone take around 6-8 weeks, and measuring this against putting out an event can cause major inefficiencies. Bureaus, however, simplify these steps with rider terms set before and accelerated contracting, which means you can confirm your speaker closer to the date of the event.
An excellent example is a NYC fintech conference where the event organizer pulled in a bureau to get a well-known speaker only 11 days before the event. Because of the bureau’s established priority networks, the speaker was confirmed in a short time thanks to the bureau’s contracts which enabled the conference to go on smoothly. This kind of timely response is invaluable to event organizers with tight timelines.
Moreover, regional offices of bureaus allow for even further coordination speed. For example, a bureau with a hub in Singapore has faster access to speakers in ASEAN markets, improving time-to-event even more. This means that because of these relationships, you do not have to spend weeks waiting for international contracts, which helps you achieve your goal faster than ever.
Benefit 5: Analyzing The Event And Examining ROI
It is a challenge to identify the true value gained when assessing the return on investment (ROI) in regard to a keynote speaker. Many metrics exist, however they fail to accurately capture the actual value of the speaker’s engagement. Bureaus are able to furnish the right custom dashboards and advanced analytics, enabling them to accurately assess consolidation metrics.
These tools connect a speaker’s performance with various indicators like social media shares, lead generation, and attendee retention, giving clients useful data on the overall value of their investment.
For example, using speaker-attendee engagement heatmaps, a bureau in London assisted a client in identifying a 28% increase in interest toward event sponsorships in the post-event period. Such data not only confirms the effectiveness of the speaker but can also assist in certain aspects of planning and budgeting for the future. Bureaus make use of data tools that are compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations that aid in attaining valuable insights without violating any privacy regulations. Thus, if your business operates in highly regulated markets or more flexible emerging markets, you can be assured that privacy laws will be respected when measuring your speaker’s return on investment.
Benefit 6: Flexibility with Crisis Response
Events can go awry unexpectedly. Knowing how to reach them can ensure that your event is not disrupted. From geopolitical events to PR calamities, a myriad of factors can affect a speaker’s availability time. Direct negotiations seldom afford any adaptability. However, bureaus have systems already established to overcome these obstacles.
Real time substitution algorithms and other global speaker mobility networks enable bureaus to quickly identity the new speaker and incorporate them into the event’s agenda seamlessly. In case of an emergency, bureaus can quickly search through replacement substitutes using real-time substitution algorithms streamlining global speaker mobility networks.
Research indicates that 92% of bureaus can rebook speakers within 48 hours during disruptions( IASB 2024 report). This means that, no matter what happens, there is continuity with minimal disruption. For instance, Dubai-India-based bureaus that serve the MENA and APAC regions and other complex or remote locations can swiftly identify and book ideal substitute speakers for the region. This responsive flexibility not only helps maintain the structural core of your event collapse but also depicts bureaus responding to challenges stemming from the complex operational structure.
Conclusion & Actionable Recommendations
Booking extraordinary speakers is easier when using a firm’s service compared to the regular transactional approach and engaging the organization directly. Agencies elevate speakers sourcing from a tactical process to a strategy partnership. Niche talent pools are easily available through reduced contractual risks and cost efficiency alongside monitoring post event ROI. All these factors work together to enable the organization to concentrate on their prime goals while improving the overall experience of the event. These organizations tend to attribute greater significance to them.
Bureaus allow companies to concentrate on their core functions while optimizing the engagement of an event. With these significant advantages in mind, let us look at how you can utilize bureaus to improve your event planning.
For big businesses, it is crucial to choose bureaus with a compliant team. They will facilitate the negotiation of contracts as well as mitigate any legal issues that may arise. While working with such bureaus, you can rest assured that all contractual undertakings will be taken care of which will enable you to focus on other parts of your event.
Basic subscription models for bureaus can work wonders for startups. Small organizations can now gain access to A-list talent at a fraction of the cost and surpass big corporations in competition for premium speakers. Spending an excessive amount of money and compromising on quality is no longer required.
There are also geographies to consider in addition to the strategic ones. If you are based in a region that suffers from hurricanes or other such natural calamities, ensure that the bureau you are working with is prepared for disaster recovery. Any reputable bureau will have systems in place to address such mitigating disruptions.
