I used to sell Uniglobe Travel franchises in the early 90s and later even owned own. I was impressed by their attention to constant offerings of continuing education programs.
I met Marley Matlin in Palm Springs at our Pacific Rim quarterly meeting and one of the top sales training gurus in Honolulu the next quarter.
Then ten years later, I was one of their featured speakers for a Northern California regional meeting.
They have annual meetings where they go all out. They are typically two to three day events where they have breakout sessions and keynote speakers.
My personal preference is to do the breakout sessions which pay an average of $5,000 to $7,500. A keynote speaker will typically earn about $20,000 – $35,000 which financially is a lot better, but there isn’t an opportunity to connect with your audience like there is when you do a break out session.
I can typically gain a new one-on-one client for every ten people in a breakout session and make up the difference of the pay, but leverage the new clients to repeat clients. That is a lot more valuable than the one time keynote.
Others will argue that the extra time I spend to earn the money doesn’t make it as cost effective, but the more often I am in contact with a client, the more often I will be hired or get referrals.
Keynote speakers rarely get referrals.