Working With AFS – Details and Investment
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“Kate Holgate has the best ear for speaking of anyone whom I’ve met. She understands what a speaker has to do for their message to resonate long after their presentation is finished.”
~ Barry Banther, CSP, CPAE; Past Chair, Board of Directors, National Speakers Association (and consulting client of Kate's) ~
Working Together
Whether you are a brand new speaker, an emerging speaker, or an established speaker, we celebrate all speakers who are interested in having a more impactful speaking experience. And so we thank you for your interest!
Please be sure to follow the hyperlinks throughout this page; these links will take you to other sections of our website where you can find additional information.
Even if it turns out that AFS is not a good fit for what you are looking for, I hope that you’ll connect with me on LinkedIn.
Over the years, we have created a business model that gives us the flexibility that allows us to work with speakers who range from brand-new-without-a-website speakers to long-established speakers.
Next Steps:
After you read about our services and requirements, if you are interested in being considered, please complete the brief questionnaire below and we’ll be back in touch. We recommend that you take a look at the rest of our website to get a complete idea of who we are and what we do.
Once we have our call and we learn about each other, we should know whether we should move forward.
If everyone does agree to continue, we will send you a much more comprehensive questionnaire which will be reviewed by the AFS team. We’ll also be able to give you an estimated date for onboarding.
AFS is going through a period of growth as we bring on more speakers and additional staff. Regardless of which of our services best fits where you are in your speaking career, we only bring in one speaker at a time as the process is very time-intensive.
There is always a waiting list.
We presume you are eager to get started, so working together will take some patience on your part. It’s important to us that you understand we would rather lose the opportunity to work with you than bring you on when we aren’t able to focus on you and what needs to be done to give you the most successful start possible.
[Written by Kate] – so what’s it like to work with me?
First of all, if you are chosen to be a part of our speaker family, that means I think you have something important to say and I want you to be a part of my Plan for World Domination. And what does that mean? It means that, short of becoming Queen of the Universe, I use Alliance for Success as my way to make the world better. It’s as simple as that.
It may seem strange to say this, but it really IS all about me because it is of the utmost importance that the speakers chosen to be a part of our speaker family have a message that resonates with me and the rest of my team. In order to be believable when we connect you with meeting planners, WE must believe. Believe in your message, believe in your commitment to success, and believe in your capacity to change the world.
Things to keep in mind:
There will be times that I am not going to be immediately available to you. And this might prove frustrating to you.
While I love my speakers, my first responsibility is to the meeting planners I work with on behalf of all of our speakers. I will reschedule a call with a speaker if a meeting planner needs me. Trust me, you want me to do that! You want planners to love working with us! My goal is to always respond to my speakers immediately but if I am traveling or in session with another speaker, I will always respond within a 24-hour period even if it means a quick message with a timeline stating when I plan to respond more thoroughly. If that kind of relationship would be overly frustrating for you because you require instantaneous responses in the same way you would expect from a person working for you full time, then let’s just connect on LinkedIn and enjoy that relationship.
I love my team and they take great care of me and our AFS speakers and planners. But, generally, I’ll be the one you’ll be working with first and most. I will bring in team members to assist with your needs for the most efficient completion of duties. I consider my team part of my family as well.
I’ll make mistakes. My goal is always to correct them as quickly as possible and to create a solution so that it doesn’t happen again.
We are going to have fun. During our calls, we’ll laugh, we’ll brainstorm and we’ll learn about each other and our planners. I’ll do anything that I can to help you create the speaking career you want! Oh and you should know upfront that I’m a southern woman raised by southern women, so I WILL call you darlin’ or honey or sweetheart (and probably baby) at some point. If you’d rather have a Ms./Mr. formal kind of arms-length relationship then you won’t be happy working with me.
Having said all of this, I look forward to learning more about you and how we can change the world together!
Your Investment
Only members of the military or first responders are considered for this service.
Please contact us for more information.
We know that not every speaker is in a place in their career to participate in one of our more structured services. Every speaker receives an initial consultation of up to 1 hour without charge. If it’s not the right time to go forward with one of our services above, let’s talk about moving you into our consulting service. If you want to be able to come sit in my virtual office and pick my brain, then this is for you.
Requirements
All speakers must maintain an eSpeakers subscription with an eSpeakers profile. (Disclaimer – I do not receive any compensation from eSpeakers. I simply have found it to be the best tool to track all event details.)
You must have a website and demo video.
All speakers must maintain an eSpeakers subscription with an eSpeakers profile. (Disclaimer – I do not receive any compensation from eSpeakers. I simply have found it to be the best tool to track all event details.)
If you are like many speakers, you know you are probably leaving fee revenue on the table because you hate the idea of negotiating your fee. Let me do that for you! I can sing your praises and it won’t seem creepy!
All speakers must maintain an eSpeakers subscription with an eSpeakers profile. (Disclaimer – I do not receive any compensation from eSpeakers. I simply have found it to be the best tool to track all event details.)
You may already have a manager and/or sales staff who close and manage your events. But you might want to be listed on our website for additional exposure. There are no outbound sales efforts for this category.
This service is commission only and, unlike our closing service, you are not required to list us on your website.
All speakers must maintain an eSpeakers subscription with an eSpeakers profile. (Disclaimer – I do not receive any compensation from eSpeakers. I simply have found it to be the best tool to track all event details.)
If you do not have a website and/or a demo video, we will work with you to create those assets.
*Commission on new business: when we either identify, pitch, and close with a planner you have not worked with or when a planner reaches out to us through our website.
**Lead follow up: these are leads that either come to us through your website, are from contacts you make at one of your speaking engagements, or are the result of us contacting your former clients.
Bureau commission: we do not charge any commission on top of the commission bureaus charge. Bureau activity is covered under our retainer.
One of the first things to keep in mind is that we always have a waiting list. Because we are not a bureau, we onboard only one speaker at a time.
When we connect, if we decide to go forward, I’ll be able to give you a closer timeline, But, in general, the wait time likely will be at least 60 days and could be as long as 120 days, depending on how many speakers are in front of you on the list and the expected duration of their onboarding process.
MANAGEMENT SERVICE OVERVIEW
Our goal is to provide a broad range of services to our management speakers. We have relationships with many allies who give us the ability to do this. From website services to marketing to publishing support to videography – we have people and our people have people. We operate as project managers for all services provided by our internal team, our allies, and your staff.
Our retainer speakers know that they should concentrate on those things that only they can do – writing, speaking, creating new content. We are here to provide you with the services and support you need and the connections to a team that is dedicated to your success.
Every speaker has different needs and so we tailor our services to whatever the speaker requires. These services are fluid and can change as the speaker’s needs change.
Our management program covers services ranging from, but not limited to: event management and logistics; administrative support; telephone calls and emails with you, meeting planners, staff, and allies; oversight of projects performed by any of our alliance members or members of your staff and/or service providers. Also included is targeted research on opportunities for outbound business development, as well as the best markets and industries to direct social media campaigns in order to generate incoming leads. Management speakers will include our contact information on their website and we will handle all incoming leads.
Retainer fee and commission rate are listed above.
MANAGEMENT REQUIREMENTS
All management speakers must start out with brand evaluation and strategy. The process includes the evaluation of your website, marketing materials, social media platforms, videos, and current sales processes. Following the completion of our assessment, we will provide you with a plan of action which can be implemented by the AFS team or your own. During this process, we will handle incoming leads but we will not engage in outbound business development.
The investment needed for this branding process depends on where you are in your career. An established speaker who already has great video content and an industry-standard website that clearly communicates the speaker’s brand, SEO management, and who has a well established social media and sales pipeline will have a shorter process than the new speaker without these tools.
Your initial investment for brand strategy will start at $2,500 but could go as high as $10,000 if you need the entire process evaluated, designed and implemented including video and the creation of a website. It is likely that your investment will be somewhere in the middle. Services such as social media, SEO, and website management will require an additional, ongoing monthly investment.
eSpeakers Subscription
All management speakers must maintain a subscription to eSpeakers at the PRO level ($74.95 per month). It is the best system for us to keep track of your schedule and your event details and it also provides the bureau-friendly profile we link to on your page on our website. eSpeakers is also the directory that Meeting Professionals International and many speakers bureaus use to populate their own directories. We receive no compensation from eSpeakers. If you are not currently a subscriber to eSpeakers, we’ll give you a discount code that will give you access for 90 days for $10.
INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS & STAND-ALONE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
While some of the services on the list below are included for our retainer speakers, most of our project-based services, such as ongoing social media management, website design/maintenance/security, some external public relations efforts, CSP application processing, etc. are not. When AFS uses outside sources for these projects, such as website design, we never add an up-charge.
Depending on the service, the hourly rate ranges from $40-$100 per hour and will be quoted prior to commencement.
Administrative Support
CSP Application
Evaluate and/or Set up Systems
Social Media Management
Proofreading/editing
Publishing Support
Presentation Creation and Coaching
PowerPoint Creation
Marketing
Website Evaluation, Creation & Security
Online Training Program Creation
eSpeakers Training
COMMISSION ONLY / NO RETAINER
Because of our strong connection to the military and first responder communities, we will be launching a new division in 2020, Joint Forces Speakers, specifically for members of the military (active duty, retired or honorably discharged) and first responders (active duty or retired). We will be offering them limited commission-only services and if you fit either criteria, please contact us for more details.
This is our ONLY commission-only service.
NEW SPEAKER DEVELOPMENT
We love working with newer speakers so our Speaker Development Program was created for those speakers who do not have an industry standard website, marketing materials, systems and/or demo video and who do not book at least one full-fee presentation per month.
All speakers must start out with a brand evaluation and strategy program. We work with some of the top branding experts in the speaking industry. This process begins with evaluating three aspects of your personal brand: Who You Are, What People See, and You as an Industry Leader. The process also includes the evaluation of your website, marketing materials, social media platforms, videos, and current sales processes – if you have any of these in place. If you do not, we can also “start from scratch.” Details about our branding program are above.
Because speakers in this program vary greatly, we will go into more detail during our initial conversation.
STILL NOT QUITE RIGHT? OUR CONSULTING SERVICE MIGHT BE.
We know that not every speaker is in a place in their career to participate in one of our more structured services. Every speaker receives an initial consultation of up to 1 hour without charge. If it’s not the right time to go forward with one of our services above, let’s talk about moving you into our consulting service. If you want to be able to come sit in my virtual office and pick my brain, then this is for you.
Deckard & Company!