Is It “Unspiritual” To Charge a Fee When You Speak?

photo © 2008 Horia Varlan | more info (via: Wylio)

I’ve been conducting speaker training for two years now. Most of you who come to this site truly want to speak in the Christian world. You want to speak in churches, at camps, to youth groups. You want to make a difference for God. You want to share the message that God has given you. But you can’t do this without receiving some sort of compensation, because you need to be bringing in some income.

Does that make you unspiritual?

That’s an important question, and it’s interesting that it seems to come up pretty much solely concerning female speakers. Male speakers, after all, are paid all the time. They’re called “pastors”. But many ministries to women exist that do not really believe in compensating their speakers.

In fact, I read a thread from one of these ministries where people were appalled that one speaker asked for about $150 to cover her gas, rather than the traditional $50 or $75 that the group paid. How could she think of doing that?

And yet, my question would be, how could she not?

I’m afraid that many women speakers are battling this idea that to ask for money makes us unspiritual. I find this puzzling, because at these Christian events, the people have paid caterers. They have bought decorations (and thus paid stores). They have, at times, rented halls. It was not unspiritual to pay for food; it is only unspiritual to pay for food for your soul. Very strange.

But I’m also opposed to it for two reasons: the first is scriptural. The second is practical. Let’s tackle them both in turn.

1. The worker is worth his wages.

The Bible clearly states in 1 Timothy 5:18 that “the laborer is worthy of his wages”.

In other words, those who are involved in ministry should be paid. They should not be expected to do it for free. Certainly those in the New Testament church sold their belongings and gave to the poor, but that was their choice, and they were giving to their own community. I often take the money that I receive from speaking and give it away, but I give it away to the charities I support. If I go to a church that is two hundred miles from where I live, I do not know that church or its ministry. I want to support the ministries that I do know. To expect a guest, who is not part of your fellowship, to pay your fellowship for the privilege of speaking (which is what it amounts to if a group does not pay adequate travel expenses), is unreasonable.

Now some groups don’t pay because they don’t have the money. I’ve spoken at both churches and groups who apologize profusely for not paying, and I don’t mind that at all. They have little money, and so they can’ t pay, even if they want to. What bothers me is the groups that make it an issue of spiritual pride that they do not pay, so that no one becomes puffed up. I think this is a misunderstanding of Scripture, and can be damaging to their own group.

2. If you don’t pay, you damage your own ministry

Here’s where I really see the problem, though. Becoming a gifted, effective speaker is something that takes work. Yes, we are gifted, but that gifting needs to be trained. It needs practice. I have always been a gifted speaker, but I am so much better today than I was eight years ago because I have had so much practice.

Who are the best speakers out there today? Those who are actually speaking to groups that hire only good speakers. When a medium-to-large size church hires a speaker for an evening, that speaker knows that he or she has to really prepare. She has to be engaging. She has to be a little bit funny. She has to be able to speak well. She has to have an effective, well-crafted message. And so she works hard to be that.

The groups who insist on not really paying speakers are also saying, “we don’t believe that speakers should have practice or a lot of training, because that’s worldly.” Certainly they may give some training themselves, and I know groups that do train their speakers to a certain extent, but the best speakers are those who have spoken to a variety of groups, not just one type of group. They are speakers who have had to adjust to different personalities or circumstances. Speakers who have had to develop different talks, or gone deeper into the Word to find new material and new thoughts.

I used to speak for a group that didn’t really pay, going to a number of different circuits and speaking to a number of different individual groups under their umbrella. And I can tell you that the quality of speaker there differed tremendously from the quality of speaker at most women’s conferences I attended, simply because once people got good, they left.

Some women are comfortable speaking for no money, because that’s their ministry, and if God is calling you to that, that is perfectly okay. But we need to understand that it is not unspiritual to be paid for one’s work, and in fact, being paid for one’s work usually brings better quality.

I still speak for free occasionally when I feel God prompting me to. I often speak for little or no money when it’s a real opportunity to share the gospel to people who haven’t heard. But I don’t speak for organizations who refuse to pay speakers well as a rule, thinking that this is spiritual. It’s not. What they’re really looking for in speakers are people who are completely dedicated to their particular ministry, and not to ministry as a whole. That cuts down the number of potential speakers drastically.

It also puts an undo burden on the speakers, asking them to be away from home–from family responsibilities, from children, from their own churches–far more than the organizers of these events are. The speakers travel; the others don’t. And they are asking the speakers to take the money out of their family’s pockets to pay for these speaking trips, because it costs money to drive to different groups. They say this should be done in the name of “ministry”, but I question whether it is ministry to ask children or husbands to sacrifice without compensation. That can cause a lot of family friction and hardship.

I come back to the Bible: “a worker is worth his wages”.

My conclusion? Listen to the Holy Spirit and be open to speaking for free. But you are not unspiritual if you ask to be paid. You are simply being faithful to your family and enabling yourself to grow as a speaker, and that is a good thing.

What do you think? I know this is a controversial subject, and I’d love to have some of you chime in!

Use Your Words: What Should I Charge for Speaking?

photo © 2008 Tyler | more info (via: Wylio)
What are the going Christian speaker fees? What do Christian speakers charge? And how in the world do I ask for it?

That’s the most common question I get from people–how do I figure out what to charge for speaking? What do other people charge? And is it selfish to ask for money?

On this week’s Use Your Words program, I tackled this thorny issue. I’ve already written a longer blog post about deciding what to charge. That really is useful for getting into the nitty gritty! But let me sum up here.

Once people start asking you to speak, as opposed to you generating the engagements, then you should definitely charge.

Some organizations pay about $50 or $75, but let’s face it: that doesn’t even cover your mileage. So you need to figure out what to ask for.

When I started out, here was my thinking:

If I had to support myself, what would I need to make? Then what is that on an hourly basis? (basically divide it in half and then divide by $1000. So $50,000 a year is $25 an hour).

If I want to make $25 an hour, then what do I charge for an event where I speak for one hour? Well, you have to look at what goes into that hour:

• Time spent speaking
• Time spent at the engagement
• Average time of travel for the engagements you do
• Time spent in preparation

But then there are also other hours that you have to account for, like:

• Time spent building a website
• Time spent networking
• Time spent in training/study

Once I worked all that out, it looked like I was spending about 8 hours directly for each engagement, and then I averaged about another 3 hours that I had to add in to each engagement to cover my other time. And that gave me a figure.

• Then, take that fee and double it for an all day Saturday engagement.
• Take that fee and AT LEAST triple it for a weekend engagement

And remember, expenses are billed separately! So check out the blog post for more information, and listen in to the radio show for my explanation of fees.

And, if, after that, you still have questions, ask in the comments. This is such an important question, and I want to really help. So ask away, and I’ll write a follow up post trying to answer them all!

If you want to learn more about how to earn larger fees and start using business principles to grow your ministry, check out my audio downlaod, Treating Speaking as a Business. It’s only $12, and comes with a spreadsheet that helps you prioritize your marketing ideas and figure out where to grow. I know it will help!

Use Your Words: Multiple Income Streams from Speaking

Photo by sushi-ina

Every Tuesday at noon EST I give a 30 minute BlogTalkRadio show on elements of a speaking ministry–and it’s totally free!

Yesterday I talked about how to create multiple income streams from speaking. That sounds very high falutin’, but its meaning is quite simple: most of us just make speaking fees when we speak, but that often isn’t enough income to support the amount of time that we put into speaking. So let’s find other ways to make money from speaking that can help boost the income, so we can afford to speak more!

Let me give you an example: say you’re just starting out, and you’re beginning to get paid engagements, and your fee is $250 for a one-time talk, or $800 for a retreat. In order to make $20,000 a year, a part-time salary, you’d have to speak for 10 weekends a year, or 1 a month (excluding December & January), and 48 evenings a year, or roughly 1 a week. That’s really very busy, and probably not all that likely.

On the other hand, if you start selling CDs when you speak, or workbooks, then you increase your income without a whole lot more time. CDs are easy to produce, and workbooks are easy to produce, too! You can also sell e-books off of your website.

Listen in to the show to hear more! And here are some other blog posts that deal with this subject of how to boost your income when you speak:

What to Put on your Book Table
Making a Living from Speaking (goes over this show’s content in much more detail!)

Finally, if you want to go in depth in this topic and figure out how you can create products that will actually sell and generate some income–and how to sell them–my audio download on Creating Information Products will have you brainstorming for days!

When an Engagement is Too Good to Be True

Back in 2004, I received an email from a couple who were organizing a big conference in the northeastern United States for young families. They were launching a new ministry, and had a vision for replicating these conferences in communities across North America.

They were still in the infant stages of their dream, they said, but they knew it would grow. They knew it because their market research told them there would be 1000 people at their first conference. So they needed workshop leaders. Would I like to be a workshop leader? They could pay me $200, or, in lieu of payment, I could have a table in the huge resource room, where these 1000 people would be browsing for books. They couldn’t afford to pay my travel (which was extensive), or my hotel, but they were asking people to come and speak anyway, because it was those who spoke at the first conference that they would be most likely to consider speaking again as the conference grew.

I started emailing people I knew to find out what they thought of the offer. It seemed like this couple was very well connected, and had been in the planning stages for such a conference for a long time. This wasn’t a shoddy operation.

So I decided it was worth the investment. I loaded up my van with tons of books, had a friend accompany me so I could stay awake on the long drive, and we headed south for this three day conference.

That’s right, three days. That’s three nights in a hotel, with meals to buy for my friend as well.

And guess how many people showed up at that conference? 150. That’s right. 150.

And I had offered several workshop ideas to consider, many of which were very broad in nature and would have many people interested. However, they wanted something more specific, so I chose a much narrower topic.

Five people attended my workshop on the first day. We cancelled it on the second. And three people came on the third.

I think I sold 11 books.

I recently received an email from one of the readers of this blog, who is also part of my Facebook speakers’ community and a student of mine, explaining a scenario almost the same. She had been invited to speak at a conference, and it had been agreed that while she would cover her travel, her hotel would be paid for and she would receive a small honorarium.

Well, the conference was very sparsely attended. Her hotel was covered, but she is still waiting for the cheque.

When we’re starting out speaking, we’re often so eager for speaking engagements that we commit ourselves to something that we may very well feel disappointed–or worse–about later. Here are some things to consider when you get offers like this one, out of the blue.

1. Be Wary of Jumping in on the Ground Level

Don’t be a guinea pig. If someone tells you that they have heard from God that they need to start a certain ministry, and they’re planning a conference, be wary of accepting. Many people have big dreams; few have the ability to bring those dreams to true fruition. Often the first few such conferences are learning experiences. They learn how to market, what people actually want, and how to put on a conference.

They may have a great vision, but do people in their community share it? If no one has ever heard of them, and their passion isn’t shared, it will be hard to get people to come to a conference.

Need is not a good measure of passion, either. For instance, there’s a huge need for parenting courses for those with toddlers. If parents of toddlers could learn discipline techniques and basic parenting skills, our world would be much better off.

However, parents of toddlers are the hardest people to get to commit to coming to a conference, even if the need is huge. They don’t share the urgency or the passion for it, and they likely don’t have the time, money, or baby-sitters.

Similarly, there’s a huge need to speak to people who have remarried and are raising step-children. But it’s also notoriously difficult to get such people out to a conference.

If you have a passion for something, and you find someone else who shares that passion, and you’re willing to take the risk with them, that’s fine. But just because someone has a passion and they have invited you to be a part of it doesn’t mean that you have to go, or that you have to take that risk.

2. Be Wary of Smaller Churches

I love small churches, I really do. And I personally have never had any problems being paid from any churches I have spoken at.

But sometimes you’re hired by a church basically run by a few families, or by a home church. And they want you to come, and they say they’ll give you a love offering. You’re thinking it will be a few hundred dollars, and they’re thinking $15.

Or, even worse, you’re hired by someone and invited to come, but it doesn’t end up being a real church sanctioned activity. And the church doesn’t really know you’re coming.

Smaller churches often can’t draw more than a few dozen people to an event. If you’re willing to go for that, and if you have an agreement on your fee, go ahead. But if they’re promising the sky, stop.

Think. Usually when people promise the sky (“we’ll invite the whole community! We’ll take up a huge love offering! We’ll rent out the banquet room!”), they’re being unrealistic. Try to deal with someone who can give you specifics. What are you doing to attract others from the community? What is your church’s track record at events like this? Can you guarantee a minimum honararium so that at least my expenses are covered? If they can’t answer these questions, but keep talking about how God will provide, and God will bring the people, then only go if God is also telling you the same thing.

3. Always Investigate

If you get an invitation from a church, look up that church on the internet. See if they have had other events like this before. Ask if they have a committee. Be careful about just dealing with one person who doesn’t sound like they’re very affiliated.

If possible, speak to whoever spoke at the event last year and ask how it went. I had a friend email me this week because she had just been asked to speak at a weekend event I did last month. She’s been invited for 2011. So she asked what I had charged, what the group was like, what the atmosphere was that day, and whether I thought she’d be a good fit. We compared notes, she went away happy with the arrangement, and all was well.

There’s also an email scheme going on where churches in England supposedly email speakers asking them to speak at a big conference coming up. It’s usually within three months. They promise thousands of people. They give an email address and a website.

And it’s not real.

I don’t know what the purpose of all of this is, except perhaps to get your passport number and identification. But what I did when that email came to me was to Google the church and follow the Google link to the website (which was different from the one in the email). Then I emailed the pastor.

Never get on a plane or give up any kind of personal information unless you have verification that this is legitimate.

4. Ask for a Deposit

Finally, if it just looks like this may be a fly-by-night operation, and it doesn’t seem well organized, ask for a deposit of about 50% payment before you actually go. I don’t ask for deposits usually because I haven’t had a problem. Even that conference above was not a failure to pay–it was a failure to attract all the people they promised, and thus my sales were negligible. But they didn’t owe me money.

However, I do know some speakers who have been “stiffed” by conferences and churches when the event has had very low attendance and they can’t seem to pay their bills.

If it seems as if this isn’t being run by business principles, and you’re leery of participating, pray about it and ask for a deposit. If they’re not wiling to give one, and talk about how “God will provide”, back out unless you feel God telling you to step forward. It is not fair for someone to ask you to take a financial risk for their passion. If it is their passion, they should be willing to help.

I know it’s exciting when you get asked to speak, but don’t be lured into something that will cost you money when it’s not part of your ministry. There’s nothing wrong with sacrifice, but if I’m going to support a ministry, I want it to be one of my choosing (and I have several that I’m passionate about). I don’t necessarily want it to be the ministry of some stranger who isn’t really running it well.

Just be careful, ladies. I want your ministry to grow, but I want it to grow in the right way, and I want to encourage churches and conference leaders to treat speakers fairly and with respect. If we all start demanding that, maybe things like this wouldn’t happen anymore.

Treating Speaking as a Business

Is what we do a business, or is it a ministry?

It’s a constant struggle, isn’t it?

It’s interesting how often Christians see these two things in dichotomy. We think that if it’s a ministry, it can’t make money and we can’t use it to feed our families. It has to be something that we do totally altruistically. Our jobs, on the other hand, are our businesses.

I think this is a false dichotomy, because Jesus never encouraged us to partition off the different pieces of our lives. Whatever we did, we were to do it for Him. So if you speak, you speak for Him. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t make money at it, especially because most of us do need to get an income from somewhere, unless you happen to be blessed with a rich inheritance or something.

Paul is also clear in 1 Corinthians 9:14 where he says: “In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.” Why? Because if we receive our living from it, we’re able to dedicate a lot more time and energy to it. If it’s simply a hobby, or something that we do for free, then we have to spend a lot of time at a different job that actually pays the bills.

Of course there may be times when we speak for free, especially when we’re starting. We have to always be open to the Spirit. But I don’t believe that ministry and business need to be separate. I think ministries work best when they apply sound business principles about getting the word out there, budgeting for marketing, not going into debt, and trying to be sustainable. I have seen many ministries crumble because they focused so much on serving that they weren’t able to sustain it. They spent too much money, gave too much away, and then they burned out.

So this Monday, I want to help you treat your speaking like a business. I don’t think your speaking ministry will grow unless you apply sound, godly business principles. And so I’m hosting a teleseminar at 9pm EST on Treating Speaking Like a Business. We’ll cover:

• Time Management: How do we balance training, speaking, and marketing?
• Online Marketing: What do I need? Who do I talk to? How do I network?
• Fee Schedules: How much do I charge? And how do I bring up the subject?
• Promotional Materials: What do I need? How much should they cost?
• Giving a Professional Air: Helping others take you seriously
• Goal Planning: How can I measure progress?

You won’t want to miss it! I’ll talk for about an hour, and then I’ll take whatever questions you can throw at me! And teleseminars are really easy. You can listen online, where you can also type in questions for me in a chatbox, or you can call in with your phone if you don’t have high speed.

Don’t miss this! It’s only $10, and you will earn that back many times over as you learn how to set fees properly–and market to find bookings that will pay those fees!

To sign up, simply go here. Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Avoiding Early Burnout in Your Speaking Ministry

Thanks for all the wonderful responses to my post on how to set fees! I’m glad you found it helpful.

I want to revisit a few other themes and pick up where we left off. First, if you’re wondering whether it’s right to set fees at all, read this post.

Got that? Now I want to talk about another important aspect when you’re starting out: how to combine calling and professionalism to avoid burnout.

I am gifted to speak. That’s not bragging; it’s just something that God has gifted me in. I am not particularly administratively gifted, since it often takes me forever to answer emails, and never ever leave me a phone message. I’m not that great at hospitality. But I can speak.

Yet just because you have a gift doesn’t mean that you have to use it constantly, or that this is now the only thing that God wants you to do. For instance, I’m also involved with coaching Bible quizzing at our church, which is far less geeky than it sounds. And the teens love it (and they’re not geeks), and it’s a wonderful program. But it takes up four weekends a year, plus countless practices. I’ve turned down some very large speaking opportunities on the weekends that the quiz tournaments are held, because they’re my first priority because they have to do with my kids.

Does that mean that I wouldn’t have been used speaking? No, not at all. But those speaking opportunities will still be there in seven years, when my youngest is out of the house. I need these years with the kids now.

What I’m about to say may sound strange if you’re just starting, but here goes: if I wanted to, I could be booked constantly. You’ll get to that point, too. If you are gifted at speaking, and you use the techniques I’ve talked about to get your marketing materials in order, you’ll get bookings. And from those will come more bookings. And one day, you’re going to have to start saying no.

Lately I’ve been taking each speaking request to God a lot more and asking what I should agree to, because I don’t want speaking to be my whole life. It’s an important part of my life, but it isn’t all that God has called me to. And when you begin your speaking ministry, you have to start with that idea: what is it that God is calling me to? And how can I best use that gift?

One thing I aim to do is to be intentional. I’ll speak where I will have the most impact first. In general, these are outreach/seeker events, or community wide events. Denominational events come next, with church events at the bottom. I’d rather speak to women from different churches at one time, because then these women are returning to their home base with the message that I believe God gave me, and then that message can spread farther.

That doesn’t mean I don’t speak at individual churches; that’s still my bread and butter. But if I have to choose, I choose the higher impact engagements, even if the fee may be a little bit less.

I had to wrestle through this with God to make sure I was making the most of my gifts and my time. You need to do this, too. Otherwise, speaking can become “just a job”, or even a burden.

I have talked with other speakers who have become burned out because they haven’t put good boundaries around their time. They’ve taken engagements for weekend retreats, and spent hours traveling, only to have the ladies hand them $75 at the end of the weekend, which didn’t even cover their gas. It’s demoralizing and depressing, and if you keep doing that, you can lose the enthusiasm for using your gifts.

We need to use our gifts, but we have to temper it with treating ourselves as professionals. Again, that doesn’t mean that we don’t listen to the Holy Spirit’s prompting to lower fees on occasion; but don’t burn yourself out and sacrifice your family when that’s not what God is asking you to do. If you believe that God has given you something valuable, it is okay to be paid for your time. A worker, after all, is worth his (or her!) wages.

When you’re starting out, getting engagements is such a concern that you may take lots and lots that don’t pay. But before you get too caught up in a crazy schedule, go to God and figure out what is a reasonable schedule for you. How much can you afford to be away from your family? How much money do you need to bring in? How much do you need to charge?

It does nobody any good for you to burn out, or for your family to miss you and hurt with you not there. So pray about what you want your ministry to look like. And then set reasonable fees and reasonable limits so that you can grow to that point.

It begins with a calling from God; but God has to be a part of this at every point. Don’t try to build something just for you or you will burn out. Seek Jesus’ vision, and you’ll find that just the right number of doors will open!

Soon I’ll be starting an email course on how to launch your speaking career! Sign up to be notified (it’s FREE) here.

Creating a Fee Schedule for your Speaking Ministry

Hello everybody!

I’ve been looking at the search criteria that has landed people here, and it looks like people really want to know how much to charge when you speak.

Now, we’re all quite aware of the adage that it’s never polite to talk about politics and money. Especially money. We rarely share with others how much we make. It’s gauche.

But I want this blog to be of practical help, and so this week I’d like to start the ball rolling by sharing a sample fee schedule at several different levels. But first, a few thoughts:

1. When setting your fees, make sure that you delineate between different sorts of engagements. For instance, there’s the one time talk, usually under an hour, which you give at an evening event, or as a workshop at a day-long conference. Then there’s the one-day event, where you speak two times. The Friday/Saturday retreat usually involves speaking three times, with an overnight stay, and the full weekend usually involves speaking four times, with two overnight stays. If a Friday/Saturday event required a second overnight stay because of distance for me, I’d probably charge a little more. So keep that in mind. You need to have these different fees in your head, because you don’t want to quote a low amount when they’re really talking about a big conference!

2. Decide on an hourly rate. When I started making up my fee schedules, I asked myself, if I had to support my family on my own, what would I need to earn an hour? I came up with that figure. Then I asked, what would my expenses be over the year? I added that amount to my hourly rate.

Then I began to figure out how much I needed to charge for each type of event. For instance, let’s say you wanted to make $20 an hour at a one-time event. That requires being at the event for 3 hours, driving for 3 hours, and preparing for 3 hours. You should be charging $180 or $200 then, with mileage on top of that. Which brings us to our next point:

3. Factor in travel time to your fees. I live in a remote area, so anywhere I go I’m driving about 2-3 hours each way. That means a 6 hour drive to an engagement. I need to be paid for that time. If that makes me more expensive than more local speakers, so be it. My time is worth something.

Now, all of this talk does NOT mean that you can’t offer a discount if you feel God calling you to speak somewhere without charging, or at a reduced rate. But I find that in such circumstances, it’s good to figure out what you would have charged, and then give an invoice for that full amount, with the discount on the invoice, so that the church or organization understands what they’re getting. When they see that you’re worth a certain amount, they tend to take you more seriously.

4. Always charge travel expenses separately. (this is different than travel time; it’s simple expenses). The IRS allows $0.51/mile, and that’s a reasonable amount. You don’t have to charge that, of course, but keep in mind that that is the going rate. Mileage should not just be gas money, but it also has to take into account wear and tear on your vehicle.

That being said, here are some possible Fee Schedules. I’ll provide three different ones, and you can see where you end up:

Level 1: Just Starting, and Want Some Experience:
One day, 1 session: $75
One day retreat, 2 sessions: $150
Two day retreat, 2-3 sessions: $250
Full Weekend Retreat: $350

Level 2: Established Speaker
One day, 1 session: $350
One day retreat, 2 sessions: $500
Two day retreat, 2-3 sessions: $650
Full Weekend conference: $950

Level 3: Advanced Speaker
One day, 1 session: $600
One day retreat, 2 sessions: $850
Two day retreat, 2-3 sessions: $1,000
Full Weekend Retreat: $1,400

Now, whether or not you can ask for the higher fees depends on a lot of factors, including geography. I’m Canadian, for instance, and getting Level 3 fees would be almost impossible. But that just gives you an idea of some fee structures.

What I would recommend is that you start at a lower rate, and then, if you find yourself getting booked up, raise your fees. I tend to raise them every season by a bit.

Again, I don’t mean for these to be set in stone, but I know people want dollar amounts. So what do you think? How do you set fees? Share your thoughts!

Soon I’ll be starting an email course on how to launch your speaking career! Sign up to be notified (it’s FREE) here.