How to get booked to give a keynote (and why some will never get paid)

Find Your Superpower newsletter 145

Read time: 5 minutes

Topics covered: Personal branding, final Brand Builder Mastermind cohort for 2026

I have seen this story play out over and over.

You decide 2026 is the year you get paid to give a talk. So you invest in yourself. You join a public speaking course, maybe two. You polish a signature talk. You practice your delivery until it is tight and stage-ready. You might even buy a new wardrobe for the occasion.

And then something really awkward happens.

You hear a pin drop. No booking comes in.

Like clockwork, this is usually the moment someone slides into my DMs and says,

"Hi Juliana, could you please help me? I've paid a lot of money to a coach who promised I'd earn serious speaking income this year. The only gig I got was a free panel with five other people. There wasn't even a budget to pay for my transportation."

When I ask how much they paid, the answer is typically between $10,000 and $25,000.

I sigh, because I have heard that story many times before in calls and emails, and then I say something that makes people incredulous and shocked:

If you want to command a speaking fee, don't start with how you look, how you sound, or even what you say.

(And please don't pay anyone $10-25K who whispers sweet nothings in your ears about getting you booked.)

I will die on this hill, because I want you to actually get booked, and the conventional path has the cart firmly before the horse.

Three myths about charging to speak

I have a PhD in biomedical engineering from MIT and I trained under the most logical and analytical thinkers in the entire world. I have been trained to think.

Just to expand on how serious I am about this, I was even required to take an entire class in graduate school called logic.

Thanks to this surprisingly lucrative and transferrable skill, people from all walks of life (and I really mean all the way from zero to hero), come to me with problems they haven't been able to solve on their own.

I approach speaking fees the way I approach everything: with logic, using basic psychology and economics 101.

I have also sat on the other side of the table as a summit organizer, and I have spent more than $200,000 booking speakers to date. I also watch who gets booked for $100,000, who gets booked for $10,000, and who gets booked for $1,000.

From that vantage point, let me dispel three myths once and for all.

Myth 1: Speaking well means getting booked for talks. I know many speakers who enunciate better than me, structure their talks better than me, and look more polished on stage than me. But that doesn't bother me, as I have been paid a speaking fee of $20K USD not once, but five times in a single calendar year. I may be flexing a little, but I really need you to trust me and let me help you. Stagecraft does not generate bookings.

Myth 2: Fees rise slowly and gradually. The next assumption is that we will always get paid more if we get on the circuit and persist. Getting paid $500 once does not put you on an escalator to $2,000, then $5,000, then $10,000. In fact, speaking fees can go from $0 to $5-10K if you play your cards correctly, or your speaking rate can even drop! Your fee is determined entirely by demand. If demand for you doesn't rise, your rate never will, even if you take twenty more overpriced stagecraft programs.

Myth 3: Speaking for free leads to paid invitations. There is some value in putting in the reps, but you must be ruthlessly curated about which opportunities you accept as it affects your supply and demand curve significantly... that's economics 101 from a biologist. Let me show you why.

The influencer who priced themselves at zero

There is an influencer who goes live almost every night for an hour or so, answering their industry's most common questions for free.

If someone were to ask me how much I would pay them to speak at my events, the honest answer is not just zero.

I couldn't invite them to speak at all at any of my events, because they have made themselves so freely available that no organizer can sell a conference ticket for essentially the same material that is given away night after night for free. This is no discredit to their value. It is simply about my ability, as an event organizer, to sell tickets on their name. 

Now, I do teach giving value away for free. In my Brand Builder Mastermind (last 2026 cohort enrolling now!) we call it the offer ladder: audiences ascend from free content to low, mid, and high-ticket offers, with keynotes sitting near the top. But what you give away for free need not be the whole works. In this person's case, cutting those live sessions from daily to once or twice a month would sharply reduce supply and restore demand.

Curating your free appearances fixes the supply side.

But the real engine sits on the demand side... and this also explains why Gary "Vee" Vaynerchuk can go live 24-7 and still charge $300,000 per talk.

Become a "category of one"

The most important way to raise demand for you is to build a personal brand so distinct that you become what I call, which I highlighted in my talk at Harvard Business School's annual Connext 2026 conference: a category of one.

A category of one means you are the only person in the world who does what you do, and does it excellently. If someone wants that outcome, there is no second option to call. That person commands premium fees for reasons that have nothing to do with wardrobe, diction or stagecraft (although please at least know the ropes).

They are simply the only option left to buy.

Most people push back here. "That's impossible, Juliana. There are plenty of people like me."

I disagree. There is only one of you. You just haven't found your superpower yet, and you may be doing things that make you look more generic and more commoditized than you really are.

The way out is to own your idiosyncrasies, your weird stories, your particular way of seeing the world. The more fully you become yourself, the more some people will love you and some will hate you, and that is exactly how you find your loyal tribe and customer.

Build the universe where you are Luke Skywalker (or Yoda, depending on your persona), not an Ewok in the corner of the galaxy that nobody can name.

 And... *drumroll*... that is how you finally get booked.

Build the personal brand first. I have never seen the money arrive in any other order.

To recap what I said:

• Stagecraft makes you ready for a stage, but demand is what gets you booked
• Your fee tracks demand and supply, so curate your free appearances strategically
• Building a category-of-one personal brand is the most direct route to getting paid handsomely

🚨Three ways to work with me before 2026 ends 🚨

1. LAST CALL! Join the final Brand Builder Mastermind cohort of 2026. We are closing enrollment very soon. $1,800 for 60 workshops over an entire year? That is a complete steal.

There are 100 days left this year. Don't defer this to "next year" only to find that life takes over again. Start 2027 strong, prepared, and confident. → Brand Builder Mastermind

2. Join me in conversation with the one and only Professor Klaus Schwab. On 24 September, 9-10 pm Singapore time (GMT+8), I have the great honor of moderating World Economic Forum founder Professor Klaus Schwab's first Zoom fireside chat.

I have been a Young Global Leader for more than a decade, and my first big break as a speaker was moderating three sessions at the Davos annual meeting.

I'll be asking him how he stays so sharp at 88 years young, and you can ask him questions too. → In conversation with WEF Founder Professor Klaus Schwab

3. LAST SEATS: Grab one of the last Summit seats. My third annual Find Your Superpower Summit, and our first two-day edition, runs 29 to 30 October in Singapore. Chris Do, founder of The Futur, is flying in from LA. Jasmin Alić is flying in from Bosnia.

Joining them: Alex Dwek, COO of Nas Company, and Annette Lee, the comedian, director, and actress who has rebuilt her brand multiple times and come back bigger each time.

We are in our last-call sale and nearly full. → Find Your Superpower Summit 2026

Many of the offers above may not exist in 2027.

You heard it here first. Let me work with you. I'm all in.

Love, Juliana your rocketship captain 🚀

P.S. 100 days is enough time to build a personal brand. It is also enough time to sit and wonder why you didn't. Winter is coming. Let's make haste and start chopping wood together.