If you’ve booked a speaker before, you probably know most of this. If you haven’t, this is what we’d tell you on the first call. The shorter version of every conversation we have with new clients.
Ten questions, plainly answered. For anything not covered here, an advisor will respond inside one business day.
One business day
inquiries@apogeespeakers.com
You send us a brief. Inside one business day, an advisor comes back with a curated shortlist of three to five speakers we’d back, with reels, fee bands, and a candid note on fit. You pick a direction. We hold the date while you finalize internal approvals, then issue a contract. From there, our team handles travel, AV, and prep calls.
From first brief to signed contract, most engagements close in seven to fourteen days. Faster is possible. We’ve turned briefs into contracts in seventy-two hours when the date and the speaker aligned. Slower is also fine. Some boards take six weeks to approve a speaker fee, and the calendar holds during that window.
Standard fees cover the keynote or session itself, one pre-event prep call, and reasonable customization for your audience. Travel, accommodation, and ground transport are separate, itemized before you sign. Your advisor will spell out exactly what’s included for the speaker you’re considering.
No. Our commission comes from the speaker’s standard fee, not your budget. The fee you pay through Apogee is the same fee you’d pay booking the speaker directly, with the bureau’s vetting, advisory, and event management built in.
Yes, and often. The fastest way to lose a client is to put a speaker in front of an audience they don’t fit. If we read your brief and think the right answer is a speaker we don’t represent, we’ll say so. Sometimes that means we lose the booking. Most of the time it means we earn a longer relationship.
Yes, within reason. Standard customization (audience-specific examples, industry framing, focused Q&A) is part of the standard fee and handled on the prep call. Heavier customization (a fully bespoke session, a research-driven keynote, multi-day delivery) is scoped separately.
Every engagement includes one pre-event call between you and the speaker, usually thirty to forty-five minutes, scheduled one to two weeks before the event. The speaker uses it to understand your audience, your objectives, and what you’re trying to avoid. Most of our planners say it’s the moment they realize the speaker actually prepared.
Cancellations are rare and almost always for genuine reasons. Illness, family emergency, force majeure. When they happen, our team works the phone immediately to source a replacement of comparable caliber from inside or outside our roster. Contracts include cancellation provisions that are spelled out before you sign.
Yes to both. Most of our speakers deliver virtual and hybrid sessions regularly, and we treat them as a different craft from in-person work. We’ve placed speakers in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. Your advisor will sort the format and geography in the shortlist.
Two things. We curate aggressively, so the roster stays small and senior. And our advisors do the work, so there’s no portal, no chatbot, no mass-email blast. You get a human who knows your event and the speaker we’re placing.
