Speaker Agencies, Speakers Bureaus and Speaker Directories in Germany: An Overview

In Germany, three kinds of provider put speakers on stage: speakers bureaus working for event organisers and speaker directories, plus speaker agencies that submit on behalf of experts. Speakers bureaus are the largest and best-known group, placing keynote speakers and celebrities with companies and congresses in return for a commission. Directories collect profiles that organisers can search. The smallest group works on behalf of the expert and gets them onto industry conferences where their clients sit by submitting talk proposals. This overview sorts the providers into these groups and shows which route leads to which goal.

Which speaker agencies are there in Germany?

Germany has three groups of providers that trade as speaker agency, speakers bureau (Redneragentur) or lecture agency (Referentenagentur), and they differ above all in who their client is. The term speaker agency is not protected. It therefore appears above the catalogue of a bureau that books celebrities for corporate galas just as it does above an agency that submits talk proposals to industry conferences for a management consultant.

The first group is the speakers bureaus. Their client is the event organiser, meaning a company or a congress organiser looking for a speaker for its event. The second group is the speaker directories, online catalogues of profiles in which organisers search themselves and contact speakers directly. The third group is the speaker agencies for experts. They work on behalf of consultants and companies and get their specialists onto the stages of their industry through submissions.

On the fringes, some organisers sell speaking slots as part of a sponsorship package, a model known as pay to speak, which quickly costs 10,000 euros or more for a single speaking slot. Sponsored sessions are often not labelled in the programme. How all the models compare in service and cost is set out in the pillar guide Speaker agency: services, costs and process.

Which speakers bureaus are there in Germany?

Among the best-known speakers bureaus in Germany are Speakers Excellence, based in Stuttgart, and 5 Sterne Redner, both with large catalogues of keynote speakers, moderators and celebrities. Alongside them work many mid-sized and small bureaus that specialise in business topics or in groups such as athletes and presenters. International speakers bureaus also place speakers in Germany and list German-speaking speakers for this purpose. Larger catalogues contain several hundred to more than a thousand names.

The business model is the same everywhere. An organiser describes the occasion and budget, the bureau proposes suitable speakers, negotiates fee and date, and handles everything down to travel arrangements. The organiser pays the fee, and according to industry sources the bureau usually keeps 20 to 30 per cent of it as commission.

Because the commission depends on the fee, a speakers bureau prefers to take on names that already command fees. The tiers that speakers bureaus and trade media consistently cite show the scale: newcomers receive around 1,000 to 3,000 euros per talk, established experts 3,000 to 6,000 euros. Well-known keynote speakers are at 6,000 to 15,000 euros, celebrities at 15,000 to 50,000 euros and more. An expert without a well-known name therefore rarely finds a place in a bureau's catalogue.

The stages a speakers bureau fills are mostly corporate events such as annual conventions or customer days, where a company brings together its own staff or clients. The speaker is there to inspire, and promoting your own offer is usually unwelcome on these stages. The distinction from an agency for experts is described in detail in Speaker agency or speakers bureau.

Which speaker directories are there in Germany?

The most important speaker directories in Germany are the member directory of the German Speakers Association, the open database speakerinnen.org and the speaker profiles on submission platforms for conferences. Commercial speaker portals also offer profiles for a listing fee, and universities maintain databases of female experts for academia.

The German Speakers Association, GSA for short, is the professional association for speakers, trainers and coaches from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. By its own account it has around 700 members and belongs to the Global Speakers Federation, the international umbrella body of speaker associations. Its member directory can be filtered by topic and type of service and lists several membership levels, including Professional Member. Speakerinnen.org is a volunteer-run platform that has made women visible as experts and speakers since International Women's Day 2014. Organisers and editorial teams search it for female experts when they want a balanced panel. Listing is free, and new profiles are reviewed before they go live.

Profiles on submission platforms work differently from a pure directory. Many conferences collect their talk proposals through such platforms, and the profile with bio and photo is then attached to every submission. Some organisers also search these profiles when filling gaps in the programme. How these platforms work is explained in Submission platforms for speakers.

All directories make you findable and wait for someone to search, and a profile works best when organisers are already looking for your name. The comparison with an agency is drawn in Speaker agency or speaker directory.

What do speaker agencies for experts do?

Speaker agencies for experts handle the whole route to the industry stage, from finding the topic to accompanying you to the talk, and the expert pays them for it. Their goal is a slot at an industry conference, an event where the professionals of a sector meet to hear talks from their field. That is where the people who buy consulting or software sit, which is why this stage works as a channel for winning clients.

Access runs through the call for papers, the public invitation with which a conference collects talk proposals. Anyone who wants to speak submits an abstract, a short description of the planned talk, along with title and bio. A programme committee, the group of organisers and specialists who put the programme together, compares all proposals and selects. Stage Starter takes this work off your hands: we find the right calls, write the submission and submit, then we follow up and accompany you all the way to the stage. You contribute your expertise in a few conversations, approve the texts and give the talk yourself. Working with Stage Starter starts from 990 euros net per month for the entire operation. If you want a written roadmap first, you start with the Speaker Audit from 2,000 euros net.

With our own submissions for clients we reach up to 19 per cent acceptances per conference, while the market norm at this volume of submissions is 5 per cent at most. The rate per conference is higher than per abstract because we often submit several abstracts to one conference and a single acceptance is enough. Across twenty conferences, 19 per cent gives a calculated chance of 1 − 0.81^20, around 98 per cent, of at least one acceptance, while the market norm of 5 per cent gives 1 − 0.95^20, around 64 per cent. The programme committee decides on every single submission, so no agency can guarantee an acceptance. Our database holds around 22,700 conferences, and on the reference date around 1,500 of them had an open call for papers.

How do the providers differ in cost and outcome?

The providers differ most clearly in who pays and which stage you end up on, as the comparison shows.

For winning clients the contract matters more than the fee, because a single contract from a talk is worth more than any speaking fee. If a consulting engagement is worth 30,000 euros to you, a single won engagement exceeds the newcomer fee many times over. At industry conferences with a call for papers, organisers usually pay selected speakers no fee, they provide a ticket and in some cases cover travel costs. Stage Starter therefore gets experts onto industry stages where their clients sit. All fee tiers including negotiation are covered in Speaker fees.

Who benefits most from which provider

A speakers bureau pays off for speakers whose name already draws an audience, for instance through a book or a sporting career. It generates requests for paid talks and takes negotiation and handling off their hands. A directory adds inexpensive visibility, and for women in demand on panels, speakerinnen.org is an obvious free listing.

A speaker agency for experts pays off most where contract values are high and calendars are full. That includes management consultants with five-figure engagements as well as software companies with products that need explaining and freelancers whose new business so far comes from referrals. For them the stage leads to clients, and a single won client exceeds the fees of an entire year.