You can’t tick the box but negotiate the fee
Olá!
Every year I do the same thing. August rolls around, Women’s Month kicks off and I sit on my hands to see whether this is the year I am finally surprised.
My darlings, I was not surprised.
Same thing, year after year
Invites go out, a panel gets assembled and someone posts something lovely about celebrating the incredible women on their teams. The theme is (usually) empowerment or inclusion or the power of women’s voices.
And then? We get to the fee and suddenly the budget is tight. Suddenly everything – and I do mean everything – is negotiable.
Who I’m talking to (and about)
This isn’t a jab at our clients. Really, it isn’t. The event managers and comms teams I work with are trying to do a good thing with a number somebody else signed off, long before August. They answer to the powers that be. I know how that feels.
This is a jab at checklist culture. At whoever keeps the list of days worth commemorating, with a tidy little box next to each one. Post, tick, move on. Because the point of a box is that ticking it costs pretty much nothing.
Emotional lift vs behavioural shift
I’ve said this before about keynotes, so let me say it again, here…
A Women’s Month post is emotional lift. It’s visible, it’s immediate, it feels good aaand it’s gone by September (when the feed moves on to how spring has sprung).
Behavioural shift is what your finance department does when no one’s watching. It’s what’s in the budget line and whether the fee gets questioned, chipped at and “revisited” (and whose fee that tends to be).
Everything is negotiated
In my experience, and I’ve been doing this a loooong time, I can tell when a fee is going to come back with a question mark attached. The negotiation is a little more enthusiastic, the counter-offer comes faster and someone mentions “exposure”.
I’ve had this conversation more times than I can count, and it’s never a lekker one. You cannot spend August talking about what women bring to the room and then spend the same August arguing a woman down on what she’s worth.
Women are not a “nice-to-have”
“Diversity”. “Inclusion”. “Transformation”. Lovely words, all of them. But watch where they sit on the spreadsheet. Nine times out of ten they’re filed under nice-to-have, and nice-to-haves are the first things cut when the number gets tight. Which tells you everything about how important the day really is.
Money where the mouth is
Asseblief. If the day or month is important enough to post about, it’s important enough to pay for properly. Be real. Acknowledge talent. Reward hard work. Book the woman because she’s the right person for that room, on that day, for that audience. And then pay her the fee she quoted, like you would anyone else.
If you’re planning something for Women’s Month – this year or next year – let’s chat. I’d much rather help you do one real thing than ten performative ones.
P.S. Hey, speakers and talent! This one’s for you too. Know your number, quote your number and then hold it – especially in August, and especially when someone tells you what a wonderful opportunity this is. A fee you talk yourself out of is a fee you’ll be defending for the rest of your career. And if you’re a man reading this, you have more leverage in a rates convo than you think. Use it on someone else’s behalf.
Simone de Villiers
done with heart
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