How to Get Represented by a Speakers Bureau (and When You're Ready)

How to Get Represented by a Speakers Bureau (and When You're Ready)

What bureaus actually sell, what they take from your fee, and the one thing no bureau can do for you.

October 30, 2026

Somebody told you to get a speakers bureau. Maybe a friend who speaks, maybe a podcast. And it sounds great. You know your stuff, somebody else does the selling, you just show up and talk.

I get it. My first talks paid me in coffee and every once in a while something like $250. No bureau was calling me back then, and odds are nobody would have picked up if I'd called them.

Bureaus are real and the good ones are worth every penny of their cut. But they don't build speakers. They sell speakers who are already selling. Once that clicks, it changes what you should be working on this month.

The short answer: A speakers bureau represents you when it can sell you fast and the commission is worth a rep's time. That usually means a talk a planner understands in one sentence, video of you in front of a real audience, a fee high enough that a 20 to 30% cut matters, and proof people already book you without help. Most bureaus don't want cold submissions, so check each one's website first.

What does a speakers bureau actually do?

A speakers bureau is a broker. An event planner calls with a date, a budget and an audience. A rep pitches a few speakers who fit. When one gets booked, the bureau takes a cut of the fee.

SpeakerFlow puts the average commission at 20 to 30%, and Skift reported in 2025 that bureaus "typically take a 25% to 30% commission per booking."

A bureau and an agency aren't the same thing, by the way. The International Association of Speakers Bureaus describes an agency as a company whose speakers are "exclusively contracted with the agency." A bureau books lots of speakers it doesn't own, which is why plenty of speakers sit on several rosters at once.

What a bureau won't do is figure out what your talk is. A rep might get a couple minutes on the phone to sell you to a planner. If you can't say what your talk is in a sentence, they can't either.

How much does a speakers bureau take from your fee?

Usually 20 to 30%. The math behind that percentage is the interesting part, because it tells you who a bureau can afford to spend time on.

That's rough math at 25%. Real rates live in each bureau's contract, and the IASB says plainly that it "does NOT set standards or guidelines for commissions or fees."

Now look at it from the rep's chair. Selling a $2,500 talk takes about the same phone calls as selling a $20,000 one. SpeakerFlow says it straight: for speakers under $10,000, reps "have less incentive to sell your services." Dorie Clark made the same point in Harvard Business Review: bureaus generally won't help until you've reached a certain price and popularity.

To be clear, that's not bureaus being greedy. That's just how commission works. And it's why the first job isn't getting a bureau's attention. It's becoming somebody a bureau can sell.

Read any contract for how your fee gets quoted to the client. In that same Skift piece, speakers described bureaus quoting a client more than the agreed fee and keeping the difference. Most bureaus don't operate that way. You still want it in writing.

How do you get represented by a speakers bureau?

Get booked without one first. Bureaus want speakers people already book, pay and ask back. A bureau adds fuel to something that's already moving. It doesn't start the car.

The IASB says bureaus want to be "confident that any speakers they recommend to a client" will deliver, and that "Name recognition is an important factor."

Video is the big one. The IASB describes a reel as a short, high quality video of you presenting to an audience, two to three minutes, and a demo as a longer video of ten minutes or more showing one full presentation. Executive Speakers, a bureau, calls a demo video "an absolute requirement."

A booking history matters too. Repeat clients and a fee that's been climbing tell a rep the market already said yes.

And then there's the talk itself. Can a planner, reading one paragraph, tell what their people walk away with? That paragraph is your program description, and it's the thing a rep forwards. If you don't have one yet, read what planners want in a program description. I call not having one "the nothing to send," and no rep can sell around it.

What do speakers bureaus look for in a new speaker?

A low risk pick for the planner, and a reason to choose you over the next name on the roster.

A book helps. Executive Speakers puts it this way: "It is not important to be published but it is a plus." Fame helps a lot. But for most experts the real problem isn't fame. It's that the talk sounds like everybody else's.

In my keynote work I call the generic stuff leaves. Leadership. Resilience. Communication. They're fine. They just don't belong to anybody. A root is the thing you only know because you were there, and I go deeper on that in How to Write a Keynote Speech.

For example, picture the head of training for a restaurant group, 20 years in. His leaf is "building a great team culture." His root sounds more like: "Your newest server learns the job from your most tired one, not from the manual." A rep can sell that second one in a sentence. The first one sounds like half the roster.

Should you pay to join a speakers bureau?

No. Real bureaus make their money on commission when you get booked. SpeakerFlow notes joining typically has no upfront cost, and Executive Speakers says on its own site, "There is no fee involved in becoming a rostered speaker."

If somebody wants money up front to "represent" you, you're the customer, not the talent.

Blasting your video to fifty bureaus mostly gets you ignored. The IASB recommends checking each bureau's website to see how it takes new speakers, and says "unsolicited submissions are not recommended."

Do you need a speakers bureau to get paid to speak?

No. Lots of paid talks never touch a bureau, especially early on. The median fee in that Talkadot data is $2,500, which sits right where a rep has the least reason to push.

Planners who do use bureaus have their reasons. In a 2024 survey from AAE Speakers reported by PCMA, almost seven in 10 planners who chose a bureau said the top reason was that the talent was priced well. AAE is a bureau itself, so read that one with that in mind.

My own start had no bureau anywhere near it. Back when I worked in TV in New York City, people kept asking me the same thing: "How do I break into the industry?" Next thing I know I'm getting invited to classes, panels and events to speak. To be clear, I wasn't pitching myself. It just kept happening because of the work.

You don't have to want to be a speaker to get paid to speak.

Antonio Neves

A bureau can come later. For the whole path from first talk to paid keynote, start with How to Become a Paid Keynote Speaker.

Build the talk a bureau could actually sell

Everything above comes back to one thing no bureau can do for you: figure out what you know that nobody else could say. That's the digging, and it's hard to do alone because you're way too close to it. Every quarter I take on a few keynote coaching clients. Unfortunately, I can't sit down 1:1 with everybody. So I built Build Your Keynote, a speaking accelerator built on my own process and coaching.

I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to formulate or update their keynote. It will save you hours of time.

Melissa Cohen, Personal Branding & LinkedIn Expert

Eight sections, asked one at a time. You answer in your own words, and when an answer is thin, it asks about the specific thing you said instead of moving you along, the way I would in a 1:1. Every word starts as something you said. You walk away with your core insights, a program description you can actually send and a three act keynote outline. It's not a course, there are no videos, and it won't pitch a bureau for you. It only works if you answer the questions. The first section is free, no card.

FAQ

How much commission does a speakers bureau take?

Usually 20 to 30% of the speaking fee, paid when you get booked. The exact rate is set in each bureau's contract. The IASB doesn't set a standard.

Do speakers bureaus take on new speakers?

Some do, and selectivity varies a lot. Most want proof you'll deliver: video of you in front of a real audience, a booking history and a talk a planner understands fast.

Do I need a demo video for a speakers bureau?

Almost always. The IASB describes a reel as two to three minutes and a demo as ten minutes or more. Executive Speakers calls a demo video "an absolute requirement."

Can I work with more than one speakers bureau?

Usually, yes. Bureaus typically book speakers they don't hold exclusively. Agencies are different and often sign speakers exclusively, so read the contract.

Is there a minimum fee to get represented by a speakers bureau?

There's no official minimum. But SpeakerFlow notes reps have less incentive to sell speakers under $10,000, since the commission on lower fees is small.

Antonio Neves has delivered 400+ keynotes for organizations including Google, Amazon, Visa and McDonald's. He's a former journalist with NBC, PBS and Nickelodeon, a Columbia Journalism School graduate, and the creator of Build Your Keynote.