Providing you with the team to create your individual success!

-Marti Sullivan, President, Sullivan Design Services, Inc.
(One of Kate’s clients)

Are we a good fit?

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.

How our process works

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.

Shortly after we receive your request, you will receive an email with a link so that you can schedule a call during which we will discuss where you are in your career, what your goals are, and what your investment will be. 

If everyone agrees 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. We always have a waiting list. We’ll be able to give you a timeline when we talk; it could be weeks or months, it just depends on who is in line in front of you. 

 

Working with Kate

[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 within a 4-hour period even if I’m out of town and 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 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 projects for the most efficient completion of duties. I consider my team part of my family.

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 clients. I’ll do anything that I can to help you create the speaking career you want! Oh and you should know upfront, 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!

While we do celebrate all speakers, we know that all speakers aren’t going to be a good fit; it could be that they are too similar to one of our current speakers, or they speak about a topic that doesn’t resonate with us.

We choose our speakers carefully and we onboard only one speaker at a time. The onboarding process is time-consuming and there will be a lot to accomplish. 

When we connect, if we decide to go forward, I’ll be able to give you a projected timeline, But, in general, you can expect between 30 and 120 days, depending on how many speakers are in front of you on the list and where we are in the calendar year (we rarely start the onboarding process between mid-November and mid-January during CSP application processing season).

Initial Evaluation
The first thing we will do after we begin working together will be to evaluate everything. This process begins with evaluating your personal brand.  The process also includes the evaluation of your website, marketing materials, social media platforms, videos, and current sales processes. Following our evaluation, we will provide you with a plan of action that can be implemented by the AFS team or your own.  eSpeakers Subscription
All speakers (except those on a project-only basis) 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.

We offer speakers several ways to work with us.

Commission Only: If you are a military veteran or retired first responder, we will be launching a new division in 2022 – Joint Forces Speakers. We will be offering a limited commission-only service for our veterans and first responders who meet specific criteria.  Contact us for more information.

Individual Projects & Stand-alone Administrative Services: While some of the services on the list below are included for our management speakers, most of our project-based services, such as ongoing social media management, website design/maintenance/security, external public relations efforts, CSP application processing, etc. are not. These services can be added to our management services program for an additional fee or they can be contracted on an as-needed basis for speakers who are not a part of our management service.

Speakers may contact us directly about individual projects and are not required to be a part of any of our support services.

All of the services below will incur a project or hourly fee for speakers we are only working with on a project basis.  When AFS uses outside sources for these projects, such as website design, we never add an up-charge. 

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 Setup and/or Training

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.

Because of the highly individualized and intensive nature of the Speaker Development Program, we only work with one new speaker per quarter. There is a base fee to enter; that fee will cover our initial strategic plan as well as consultation on your presentation(s), platform skills, branding, website, videos, marketing materials, and social media platforms.

Once the evaluation is complete, we will make our recommendations regarding your branding, website creation/updating, platform skills coaching, presentation creation, and creation of strategic marketing materials and subsequent campaigns. We will provide a plan for your systems creation and implementation. At that time, if you would like to continue, we will provide a total fee based on the implementation of our recommendations.  If we go forward, we will serve as project managers as we put our recommendations in place. Services such as website and marketing material creation can be done either by a member of the AFS team or, if you have your own resources, we will work with them. If you wish to transition to our ongoing management program upon the completion of your SDP, we will honor whatever retainer fee/commission rate was in place at the time you joined our SDP.  

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. During that call, we will discuss where you are in your career, what your needs are and what your investment will be if you become part of our speaker family. 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 and sit in my virtual office and pick my brain, then this is for you. 

 

Contact Us For More Information!