Before I became a speaker, I spent 20 years in executive search. And executive search and the speaking business are basically the same business:
A company needs an extraordinary person for a very specific moment. There are thousands of plausible choices. The stakes are high. The person making the decision probably doesn’t make this particular decision very often.
And if they get it wrong, everyone notices.
Then the internet came along. In executive search, it was LinkedIn. Suddenly, clients could find candidates themselves. And everyone said: Why would anyone pay a search firm anymore?
Sound familiar?
Today, you can Google a speaker. Watch 47 reels before lunch. Ask AI for a list of “ten engaging leadership speakers under $30,000 who are funny but not too funny.”
Access is free.
But access was never really what you were paying for.
When LinkedIn began disrupting executive search, my firm did something that seemed completely insane: we taught our clients how to do our jobs.
We ran webinars on how to conduct an executive search.
We explained our methodology.
We published interview questions.
We gave away reference-checking frameworks.
We revealed our research practices.
Basically, we handed clients the IKEA instructions for building the bookshelf and said, “Have at it.”
And you know what happened?
Our business doubled.
Because the more clients understood the mechanics of executive search, the more they understood that the mechanics weren’t what they were paying us for.
They were paying for judgment.
They were paying us for pattern recognition.
They were paying us for knowing who looked perfect on paper but was a nightmare in real life.
They were paying us for knowing the wildcard candidate nobody would have considered.
They were paying us for knowing what questions to ask.
They were paying us for knowing what warning signs mattered.
They were paying us for knowing what to do when things went sideways.
That’s what a great speaking bureau does, too.
A bureau doesn’t just know who speaks about leadership, or sales, or belonging, or AI.
They know whose message meets your moment.
They know whose energy will align with your pressure point.
They know who crushed it last month, and who has a great reel from five years ago.
They know who customizes, and who only says they do.
They know who is terrific with 5,000 people in an arena…
…and who can make 150 executives at dinner forget that it’s 8:15 PM and dessert hasn’t even arrived.
And, perhaps most importantly, when your speaker gets sick, misses a connection, or something else catches fire 36 hours before your CEO walks onto that stage, you have someone whose relationships, rolodex, and reputation built around making sure your event doesn’t go down with it.
That’s not access.
That’s risk transfer.
And here’s the part I think a lot of event planners misunderstand: working with a bureau generally doesn’t cost you more.
We speakers pays the bureau commission out of our fees. You’re typically paying the same fee whether you come to us directly or through the bureau. So, yes, it’s costing me more to make this recommendation and, yet, I still am doing it with my full chest.
But, also… the bureau may actually be able to get you more for that money.
Why? Leverage.
You may hire that speaker once.
A bureau might hire them ten times this year.
So when a bureau agent calls and says, “Can you add a leadership dinner? Can we get an extra thirty minutes with the executive team? Can you do a quick video for us? Can you make this travel schedule work? Can you do a book signing and a meet and greet?” the speaker has a pretty compelling reason to find a way to say yes.
Not because the bureau bullied them into it.
Because relationships matter.
Speakers want to be the person that bureau wants to recommend again and again.
That means the bureau isn’t adding another layer of expense between you and the speaker.
They’re adding another layer of leverage.
They actually are costing you less, while giving you more.
And they’re doing something else you can’t easily do for yourself: they’re bringing market knowledge from hundreds, and even thousands, of other events into yours.
In short, they bring the magic.
In executive search, our retainer wasn’t really a fee for finding résumés.
And a bureau’s commission isn’t really a fee for finding speakers.
You’re paying for the thousands of decisions they’ve seen so that yours doesn’t have to be a guess.
AI will make finding speakers easier and easier. Good.
LinkedIn made finding executives easier, too.
But when the science becomes free, the magic becomes more valuable.
And the magic isn’t access.
It’s judgment, leverage, relationships, and risk transfer.
P.S. If you are considering booking a speaker for your next event, contact me here and I’ll happily connect you to my favorite bureau partners.
