The Truth About Speaker Bureaus: 3 Things You Need to Hear

About this episode

Dan Irvin discusses the shortcomings of speaker bureaus and offers insights on what speakers should focus on instead.

"I finally realized I was not paying for a service. I was paying for hope. And hope is not a business strategy." Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! Fair warning — host Dan Irvin is ruffling some feathers in this one. In this solo episode, he takes on one of the most common "shortcuts" speakers chase: the speaker bureau. Dan has personally signed up with about a dozen of them. Paid the fees, built the profiles, sent the demo reels, connected with the reps. Total paid gigs booked across all of them? Zero. Meanwhile, he's doing 40+ events a year using the exact process he teaches at The Speaker Lab. So either he's unbookable — or something about the bureau model is broken. In this episode, he breaks down exactly what bureaus are actually selling, who they actually work for, and what to do instead. You'll hear about: Why the bureau pitch is so appealing — and why it almost never delivers what it promises The difference between a booking machine and a listing service (most bureaus are the second one) The four things bureaus won't help you with: positioning, marketing assets, coaching, and actual speaking experience Why the speakers who get booked through bureaus are almost…

People in this episode

Host: Dan Irvin

Topics covered

• speaker bureaus
• business strategy
• booking speakers
• marketing
• public speaking

Keywords

• speaker bureau
• public speaking
• booking gigs
• marketing assets
• coaching

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