Everything you need to know to become a paid public speaker | With VaynerSpeakers

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Vayner Nation, a very exciting, brotherly, family vibes, family table vibes episode today. Look, between the DMs I get, the amount of information that gets thrown to me on email, DM, my text message, hit me up, 212-931-5731, about speaking. I want to be a speaker. I want to book you as a speaker, Gary. What is speaking? How do I get into speaking? I was like, fuck it. let me just do a podcast on this so I can send it, so I get this over with. And so who better than my two brothers who run Vayner Speakers, which is a VaynerX company. By the way, if you're a CMO, CEO, corporation, event, and you have not touched base with Vayner Speakers, A, shame on you.

0:50B, I'm very expensive, so you're probably not gonna be able to book me, but we do rep some of the best speakers in the world. But here's the reason I'm saying this, and go to vaynerspeakers.com. These guys are Menches and my brothers, and we do it our way here, which is provide value. So whether it's them or somebody on their team, you could probably extract some insights or not get ripped off on a speaker or make a much better choice on a speaker, even if it doesn't go directly through us. So, Zach, Steve, why don't you introduce yourselves? How's it going? I'm Zach, CEO of VaynerSpeakers. Zach who?

1:24What, are you like Madonna already now? Zach Nadler. Sir. And we've now worked together for 15 and a half years. Yeah, we've got to get into it. We're going to get into two or three best stories when you were repping me at CAA when I was a raw, raw character. I can't wait. Please tell me something maybe I haven't heard. So go into your head. Okay, wonderful. And the better looking guy? Steven Weiner. I run sales at VaynerSpeakers. Worked with Zach when he was at CAA for 16 years and then booked you through Zach for about eight years. and that's kind of how this all came together. Yeah, I'm trying to think where I want, I may want to go up front because I know people are like, everything's, the world's fast and people are busy.

2:05So before I go into like how we came together and then some fun stories, why don't we go right into the meat of value? Men, I'm going to go with a series of questions. What is, what's the state of the union on speakers? For the people that are speakers right now, getting paid 10K, 15K, 25K, 40K, 50K, 75K, 100K, 150K, that range. As speakers, what should they know? Is the market back? What's going on with virtual, physical, global, US, industries? Give us a state of the union of the speaking demand or even supply. Is like now with social media, what I did well, now everyone does. Are there too many speakers, so the price is going down?

2:49Are the best of the best? All that good shit, fire away. Yeah, I would say first off, there's never been more speakers and more events than ever before. We're still doing virtual events. I would say maybe 10 to 15 % of our year is virtual. And talk to me about the broader market, because obviously we'll get into the VaynerSpeaker stuff, but like general market, what is an A-lister getting to do a virtual, and what is like a C-list? Like what's the rate, like from free to like what? Yeah, well I mean the marketplace has grown. When I started in this industry, like the top of the market. Oh, I apologize, on virtual.

3:23On virtual, got it. Yeah, well I think with virtual, it is usually like the big name celebrities can be getting a couple hundred thousand dollars for virtual to try and draw on traffic. Amazing, right? Everybody at home, can you imagine? A couple hundred thousand to do a Zoom for an hour? Amazing. The low end, I mean, people doing it for free. Of course. It's an opportunity to get in front of an audience. Yep, I spoke for free in my career. Absolutely. I'll still do it if there's a trillion people and I think it's smart. Not really, I know you're laughing because I say no to like hefty six figures, but if you're listening right now and you're like, let me just make this up.

3:58If you're an event in South Korea, if the biggest event in South Korea draws 200 ,000 business people and they emailed me and they said, you will stand and there'll be 200 ,000 people in this mega arena that we created in South Korea, I would go. I know that's not real but I would go. All right, so 5K, 10K, those are real speakers. That's kind of the market over COVID especially, the virtual market changed because now we need one name to draw in traffic and everyone else can fill. They don't have to be the big names. So it's kind of been a gap that was created. And what about physical? Are we fully back physical?

4:3280 % pre-COVID? Yeah, we're fully back. We're more than stronger. And what about fees for speakers? Down, up, left, right? Up, across the goal. The high end is up. Speakers are pushing their fees higher right now. I think they're... The A-list? It hasn't hit the tipping point. Not even the A-list. I think B, C, D list also. So the 15K guy or gal, 25K, that kind of move? Everyone's moving a little? Yeah, everyone's going for the money grab right now. And I think we will start seeing it to peter off soon. But right now there's a lot of money that's flowing. And so what about the people that are booking speakers on their side, they're hearing this?

5:06So like a lot of people just got excited. And a small group, Fortune 500 executives that are booking speakers, events that are thinking about starting and need a big name. what is a good strategy for, how should they be thinking about not getting too caught on fees going up if they have the same budget as last year and they're hearing this like shit, what do I do? Like how should they attack? Just find new names, like what should they be thinking about? Start by going to vaynerspeakers.com. Smart. Obviously, it's the smartest move you could make. Nice right hook. But the reality is it's all about - And that is true by the way, right?

5:38Like because going to, if we don't represent them, you're gonna refer them and back to like why we think we're the best, we, and how we built so fast is we're not scummy about it. Right. We also were bespoke. So that's been the whole thing is that over the last 10, 15 years, the market's changed. Not everyone does the same event. It's not just get up on stage at this event and do something. It's we want a longer form interview, right? We want to do a workshop afterwards. We want to make something special. So that's what we try to do is listen and try and figure that out. And on the exclusive side, who does VaynerSpeakers rep exclusively these days in case somebody's trying to book one of these people?

6:12In addition to you, Jesse Itzler, Will Gadara, Kerry Walsh Jennings, Dominique Dawes, Christina Tosi, Tom Bilyeu, Laura Gassner-Odding. We have about 23 exclusive clients right now. We just signed Don Miller from StoryBrand down in Nashville. So we're with a lot of different people in a lot of different industries. For somebody who's listening who wants to be, because we're one of the leaders and there's others, they want to be an exclusive speaker. How big do they need to get and or how hot do they need to get, what do they need to do? What do they need to do? Well, I always remind people, and this sounds counterintuitive, you don't necessarily need an agent.

6:50Yeah, fair. Some great clients, great speakers do not have agents. They have great businesses. An agent helps you harness what you're doing and help you figure out a strategy behind your speaking. It's been really interesting. Some of the names you named have thought about being internal, have been free agents, and we've crushed for them. It's been eye opening for me, by the way. Meaning, as you know, in a lot of ways, as one of the only humans that has ever kind of repped me in a commission based environment, I mean, hence to how Vayner speakers even happened. You know, I myself am an agent and I've always kind of sold myself.

7:26But lately I've been like, man, I really need to think about, like I want to be in commercials, I decided, because I think it's funny. like genuinely I think I'd crush and my cameos and those would be good and like it would work for the brand and I just want it from like when I'm 90 I want to be like remember when I did you know this commercial or that commercial so but I realized like in that environment I'm like no I need to like really think about like there's a lot of people who grow by having a great manager or agent even if they themselves are great at it and I've seen that up close and personal with two or three of the names that you just rattled off they're doing way better by coming with us even though in their gut they were like no I want to do it myself or I want everyone to rep me it's funny I said something to one person once that wasn't about Vayner speakers they were going to go to a different speaking bureau I was friendly again back to not being transactional karma and he was struggling with going exclusive to this one firm versus staying free agent meaning everybody can rep me and whatever and I said look for some people they can do it but for most people If everyone's repping you, no one's repping you.

8:35100%. And I think where we've created success with some of the clients that you're talking about is they trust us to look at their entire business and what they do the same way we do with you. It's not a yes and no, it's not a transaction, it's not just a deal, it's does this make sense? How can we re-route? What are we doing? Before we were recording here, I was telling you, hey, I need to get into LA and London and Singapore more, So, you know, if there's speeches there, let's strategize. Yes, it's more omni. Strategy is the key. That was something I don't think we realized when we started the company.

9:06It was going to be such a game changer for us and our clients. You know, when I spent a decade at CAA, we were just transactional. We were just focused on getting speaking engagements. Here, we really look at the holistic view of what everything else people are doing, and we're not touching it. We don't do book deals, right? We don't do commercial deals, right? That's not the stuff we're doing, but we still care about it because the rising tide lifts all boats. Smart. Let me go with a different series of questions. I've always recommended this. Curious if you guys agree with me. A lot of people ask me, I wanna get into speaking.

9:34I always yell at them, I'm like, speak for free at scale. Reach out to places, don't have an ego. If nobody's calling you, that means you're not as good as you think. And so start Googling and ChatGBTing. If you live in Nashville and you wanna be in business, literally Google and ChatGBT, what are the upcoming Nashville business conferences? Go to the website, email, have humility, and be like, hey, I think I'm a good speaker, here's my social. Can you tell the story about when you used to pour wine at that first event to get on stage? Yeah, I mean, like my first, like I would do anything. Like when I was building Wine Library TV, even more, even forget about pour wine as like this is an added value.

10:12I, my first first event that I think you're referring to in DC, Nick O 'Neill's like DC meetup, I was the help. There was no stage. Yeah. I stood at a table and poured wine. I just wanted to be at a tech conference. Like, yeah. I don't think people realize that. And I think we say the same thing. Look, you guys know this, because I've been saying this a lot more, because I think, I'm trying to find a way of how to communicate that humility is a superpower without me saying, I'm humble. It's easy for me to be like, hey, tenacity's a superpower. I'm tenacious. I think when you say you're humble by nature, are you?

10:44But I'm trying to find a new way in 2025 to tell people, I'm watching a lot of people right now that are on the same path that I was on or want to be on, and just I can see that humility is their vulnerability. but I think this is interesting, because you have real look at this, you guys rep a lot and have repped and have been in the game for collective fucking 40 years or 50 years, whatever the fuck you guys numbers at right now. I also think humility not only comes in working for free, it's also being a pleasure to work with. As you guys know, I assume all these people that are on their first, that's their second ever booked speech, nobody really even knows who they are, and they're like, I need two plus twos, you know, I need a private jet, I need fuckin' green M &Ms in my room, don't look at me in the face, like, as you guys know, mine's just like whatever.

11:34Be human, be human. But I think on the humility part where, I almost, where I think where you're going and what I would say to other people is, stay in your lane of what you know. Don't try to go out there and say, I can talk on these 15 topics, that's not humility. Humility is recognizing what you are really good at and pitching yourself in that area and being really good in that area instead of agreeing to a deal just because there's money and now it's a conversation on AI and you really don't have the insight. It's self-awareness, right? It's not saying I can speak on marketing, management, leadership, teamwork.

12:06It's like pick a lane and then figure out how that could be helpful for any organization, any audience. Yeah, it's funny. I know that because we've been through this, us three for so long. I know that in 2026, a lot of my speaking is going to be about live social shopping. because we've seen this rodeo with me. But again, one of the things that's fun is I'm putting up all these videos of me in 2009, 11, 13, talking about live shopping. This has been 15 years for me, not because, by the way, I'm not gonna be talking about AI agents, even though I know it's one of the biggest things going on. My meeting prior to this, probably why I'm bringing it up, was two hours of really getting into the understanding of AI agents, and in two years I might talk about it, but I think I've always been petro, one of the reasons I'm an improv speaker is because I only talk about what I know.

12:52I don't need the slides. We were in Australia, and it must have been 2019. You were talking heavily on TikTok. And the conversation was, it's not just for the little kids and the girls that want to dance. And that's all you were talking about, and you're leaning into it. And one of the last talks you gave before the pandemic started, this was January 2020, somebody asked a question about blockchain. And you were like, I don't know enough about it, but what I do know scares me about the opportunity that it's going to present. Yeah, I think I'm glad you guys are saying this. Steve, I'm glad you picked up on it.

13:24I think it's a great, great call out. Everybody, if you want to be a great speaker, don't fake it. I'm telling you, you will get caught. People can feel it. You're not good on stage when you're talking about shit you don't know. You can memorize a deck and those are literally the public speakers who've done fairly well. Some of them have done well, but Zach will tell you for sure, and Steve as well, but Zach, I know I've talked a lot about this. That's who the A players make fun of. like you know it's like what are you gonna give the same speech over and over that's memorized you're a robot that's getting less interesting with AI coming and fucking virtual reality like be different and it can't just be about yourself right I think people are kind of they think like I've got this amazing story I overcame these great odds and often times they did but that's not interesting to other people it's like talking about your fantasy football team no one else cares yeah I mean I think correct me if I'm wrong guys the people that like shot Osama Bin Laden or like had their leg eaten off by a bear and like made it like those individuals do get a nice two, three year run, but they have to be that extreme that everybody knows about it.

14:23It's not like, you can't be Al Bundy and be like, I was good at high school football, four touchdowns. Like, it needs to be so big and so extreme, and even those people struggle to have a 10 year run, because like, okay, it's been heard. Unless they reinvent themselves, and then become good at something else. Give me, you got an example, or? No, you know, I think where I was gonna go with it it was more about the AI conversation in our space. Live events are not going away. People wanna be networking in front of people. Forever. Speakers on stage, the AI actually should scare people that are not experts, that think they can learn from AI and then just be on stage pitching.

14:59Or aren't great on stage. Right? Like look, I don't think, I mean, I don't care how advanced VR gets. We can go to an AI, we can go 30 years out. Even if I'm living in a fucking pod in the middle of nowhere, which by the way, I'll be honest with you, I can get sold on it. Like, you still don't want, you're still, and we may go robotic, I don't know, but I'm gonna tell you this, as long as like the soul of a human's a part of it, you're gonna wanna come out of it at times, like there is no full, there is no 100%. And I actually think it's going to make things like speaking events, you can see it with stand-up comedy, between the political nature, where comedy really does well when we're all hurting, and the nature of coming post-COVID, you've got like, and with what Netflix has done for stand-up comedy, just general awareness, you've got comics that, on where their brand sits today, 10 years ago, couldn't sell out small venues, selling out humongous venues.

16:00And I think you know how much I believe that the keynote format is the other one. I think it's gonna keep going, I agree. What else should we talk about from a Vayner speakers or a general speaker? How do we bring as much value for everyone who's listening? What else is, what haven't we touched on just yet that is like something you knew you wanted to talk about when we did this? Well, I'm curious for you, right? You've been a speaker, one of the foremost speakers in the world. Like you've done 100 speeches in a year multiple times, right? But then you ran an event. Yes, we got it. And you had to bring speakers.

16:28Yes. How did you balance all that? How did you balance your vision as a speaker? By leaning on you, Zach Nadler, so heavily that I barely even think I thought about it at all. Other than it was, you know, listen. I don't mind that. You really, first of all, it's the truth, by the way. Zach Nadler is, for anyone who doesn't know, not only being our speakers, but moonlighted out of the goodness of his heart, helping us at VCon in a humongous way. And it wouldn't have been anywhere close to what it was without you. And I'm excited for the next VCon, whenever that is. I'm staying on my stage at closing keynote thing.

17:05I appreciate that. But really, you had to balance business relationships, personal relationships, and an audience. Yeah, you know this. Yeah, so I'll answer. Thank you. One, audience over everything. So I didn't care if like, you know, how did we get such great speakers? I am such a menschy karma-driven human that I have so much equity in the universe that we're able to get people in a manner that most people can't. And this is, by the way, let me go on a side tangent. This is why nice guys finish first. When you actually have equity in the world. Like I know, and we work together, and I know my relationships with you guys, I know I could ask you for an actual favor that's hard.

17:47Because I'm a good dude. I just don't understand how people don't know it. So back, so A, that was a huge part. I think a lot of people don't have that leverage. Right, it's trans, back to Vayner, why VaynerSpeakers is gonna be the biggest speaking bureau in the world. We're not transactional. Even people we don't work with, you know, we're just gonna help. Like even this whole audience is gonna hear this for years to come. So first it was audience, like is this good? Like I have tons of friends, and it's like, I wanna speak, I'm like, fuck. I'm sick, I'll get back to you right now. Cause it's got audience over everything.

18:17That's my life, let alone VCon. Then it was do right by those speakers. But what was great about it was I had already done right by all of them. So the last part was logistical, and that's where you came in. The fact that I had peace of mind that they weren't gonna be taken care of properly. Especially when someone's doing you a favor, which is what the speakers did for me. Like, you know, so many of them did, bent backwards, like, you know, you wanna make sure like the hotel room's ready and like, and if they did, you know, some of these people were quite famous. If they did have a weird request, like, were there like those things accomplished and like, and like always, what was on my mind was when the flight's delayed, when the room is this, when, wait a minute, I'm on the same panel because they don't pay attention.

19:05I don't like that, like all the shit that you personally had to deal with you know, had you not been in that role, I would have been way more anxious because all of those things I would have cared overly about. I found it interesting watching that role with the dynamic of you being a speaker and then being now an event organizer. And leaning on Zach as a bureau and also as your bureau for you to say, this is a person that would make sense on stage and Zach saying, but what content are we driving, right? And having that dialogue of, we'll always book a speaker if you want a speaker. doesn't matter, you want that name, but then also bringing up the conversation of what is the content, how do we build the content around people.

19:46And it was less, over three years, it was less like, oh this person stinks Gary, what are you talking about? It was more about, to your point, Zach, and I was in the same place, what was cool about VCon is it's so broad. It was mindset, entrepreneurship, strategy, technology, like most people at this point can play in some place, but to your point, I'm like, oh, they can play in one of these things. What Zach, others did was let's refine that to something of value. And then really at the size and scale we were playing at, getting the panels right, what's the right mix, having different flavors or going all in on a flavor on a panel.

20:24Yeah, it's an amazing strategy to put. But to be frank, man, and I think this will make sense to you, the event for me on that part, it comes very natural because the only thing I've ever thought about is consumer. The way I sold baseball cards and wine and myself and VCon and what I'm doing with VFRED, it's always like how is this good for them in the short, medium, and or long term? Which one is it? Am I communicating well, blah, blah, blah. Well, and you've always, I should say, you've kind of given me the gift of context over the last 15 years, like understanding the context of things. I think with VCon, you would come in and say like, hey, are we thinking about doing something like this?

21:01Or this guy would be really fun to tell this side of his world. And that was something that I think we didn't look at and I think it was the most fun for me compared to all the other events I've worked on because you kind of, you took the leash off a little bit and you let us do things that no other event was touching. 100%. Letting people talk about what they want to talk about, which is fun for the audience. They get excited about that. I got a good one because we have this kind of audience. This might be a good clip in itself. What if you're a speaker that's fallen off? There's a lot of them.

21:28You know, I've been in the game for a long time and I've been very fortunate. I do think context and evolution. I got fortunate that my skill was of the moment, which has allowed me to like really, and I'm early too, I understand why my speaking, in hindsight, now look, reflecting on it, I'm like, oh right, my core skill of like, not seeing around corners, but fuck, fast mover on it, and write about it, has really paid dividends. Not everybody got the luck of the DNA draw that that's their skill set, nor able to communicate. What about speakers, because I feel like there's probably a thousand of them, and that's the number I'm gonna use that are either gonna hear this podcast or see the clip if we decide to use it, that were like making 50K four years ago and now nobody wants them up for zero.

22:12Like what do they think about? There's style and there's content. Okay. Right? You are lucky to have both. Okay. Right? You can get on stage and deliver a talk on cookies if you wanted to. Yep. Right? Some people don't have that skill but they gotta lean on content. And if that's what they do, they gotta refine their content. Got it. Make it more modern, make it more relevant. Or if their style's suffering, get a coach, Have someone help you figure out how do you get better. Collect the audience and get them back to you. I think a lot of people just go to like, let me write another book. But that rarely works because it's like if you don't have the next thing, it doesn't matter that you're writing another book to make yourself relevant.

22:46You gotta refine that content. I'm gonna put you guys in a corner. But it's a fun corner. But it's gonna require some humility. But it's awesome. So here it is. Let's give some flowers. In your career, Steve, which person did you see come across the game and you're like, I don't see it. This person's not gonna be much. And you passed on or didn't like. Oh, this is gonna be, this is embarrassing. This is embarrassing. You have a good one? Okay, so which person came across and you were like, I don't know, like this is a complete waste of time. They won't be around in six months and then went on to have a good career.

23:26I watched one video on him and his name was Will Goddara. and I saw and I said to Zach and we were talking about and I said good content the video that I saw I didn't feel the energy was there on stage and and it's actually a great lesson of when people are evaluating speakers to go see only look at a video or look at a video that you don't even know who they're actually talking to so you don't know the context of the audience that may not be your audience and the first time I said it to Zach, I said, I'm not sure. I don't see it yet. How many events did he do last year? 120. You know what's funny about that?

24:07Lately, because I've not been speaking as much because I'm focused on the companies and doing it less, though I'm starting Dick Jones, as you guys can tell, I really love the stage, but it's funny. Last year was the first time because I guess I'd maybe if you'd been between COVID and out of rotation a little bit, or much more limited than the 100 plus, like I was doing for years, I've had so many people recently say, I've seen 39 of your keynotes on YouTube, I cannot believe how different this was being here live. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's kinda like music, right? Makes sense, right? You see like bands or whatever, and then you see it, like, that's cool.

24:47Yeah, that makes sense. Which is also why when live events came back, virtual drops so significant. Yeah, makes sense. Zach, how about for you? In your career? There are multiple people, right? I'm sure, I'm sure. I get it wrong all the time. Of course, that's the game. There were some of the clients I worked with the most at CAA were clients that I originally was like, I don't see it. Yeah. And I think - But let's, Zach. I'll give you a good one. Okay. Diana Nyad. Okay. She swam from Cuba to Florida. Yes, I remember. I watched the movie. Phenomenal speaker. Yes. But I actually made that decision without even seeing her speak.

25:16I just knew the story. As soon as I saw her speak, I was like, oh, like, yeah, of course. She's a one woman show. What about seeing them speak? I'm not letting you off the hook. I'll give you another one. Another client actually, Brian Solis. Oh nice, Brian. He's someone who came around when we started working together. Yeah, when I was around. And I didn't understand. Me, Chris Brogan, him, you know, that era. And I think I, like a lot of others, kind of pigeonholed into a social media world where that wasn't what he was. No. And he is just someone who also sees around corners, but adapts the idea of innovation for companies to understand how technology is changing the way they're actually going to see things.