The uncomfortable truth about bureaus, bookings, and building a real speaking career
II’m listed with several international speaker bureaus. Some of the biggest in the world.
And most of my highest-value speaking engagements have had nothing to do with them.
I’m not saying bureaus are not great. Some do exceptional work. But the picture most people have of how a speaking career gets built, do good work, get listed, let the bookings flow, is a fiction. And believing it will cost you years.
HOW BUREAUS ACTUALLY WORK
Speaker bureaus are businesses. They earn commission on bookings. That means they prioritise speakers who are easy to sell, known names, familiar categories, speakers who fit neatly into what event planners are already asking for.
If you’re building something genuinely new, crossing categories, or operating in a space that requires education before it creates demand, bureaus are not your strategy. They’re a distribution channel for demand that already exists. Your job is to create the demand first.
Once you’ve done that, once event planners are asking for you by name, once your reputation precedes the introduction, bureaus become genuinely useful. But they can’t be the engine of a career that’s still being built.
THE REAL PATH TO THE STAGE
Every significant stage I’ve stood on came through one of three paths: direct relationships with event organisers, media visibility that made me the obvious choice, or referrals from people who had seen me speak and vouched for me in rooms I wasn’t in.
None of those paths require a bureau. All of them require something more fundamental: a reputation that travels without you.
That reputation is built through consistent delivery, specific positioning, and strategic visibility, not through being listed on a website.
ON FEES AND PERCEIVED VALUE
Here’s something almost no one talks about: your fee is a positioning statement.
Underselling yourself doesn’t make you accessible. It makes you unconvincing. Event planners at serious conferences have budgets. When someone comes in dramatically below market, it raises questions, not enthusiasm.
Know your value. Price it accordingly. And be willing to walk away from opportunities that don’t reflect it. Not out of ego, out of strategic clarity about the kind of speaker you’re positioning yourself as.
WHAT ACTUALLY MOVES THE NEEDLE
Build relationships with event organisers directly. Go to the events where decisions get made. Be in the rooms where the next year’s lineups are being discussed.
Invest in your talk. Not just the content, the experience of being in the room when you deliver it. The best marketing for a speaking career is the talk itself, delivered so well that half the audience becomes your sales force.
Get footage. Real footage, from real events, that shows what it actually feels like to be in that room. Not a highlight reel, the actual thing.
And stop waiting to be discovered. The speakers who build careers worth having don’t wait for permission. They create the conditions, build the evidence, and show up in the rooms where the decisions get made.
The stage is earnable. But it’s earned on your terms, not someone else’s timeline.
