Timelines and Registrations For Booking Professional Speakers

According to THE SPEAKER REPORT's latest findings, almost 55 percent of survey respondents said they prefer to secure professional speakers six to nine months before the event.

For-profit corporations appear to operate on a shorter timeline, with 26.7 percent reporting they
finalize decisions less than four months before the meeting, although we should note that the small
sample size (15) makes us hesitant to place too much emphasis on this point.

Organizations that have a formal certification program tend to finalize a bit sooner. The largest
segment of certifying organizations make decisions eight to nine months out (36.7 percent), while their
non-certifying counterparts only do so 24.1 percent of the time, preferring instead to wrap things up
closer to the meeting’s date.

written by Jeff Cobb, Jeff Hurt, Dave Lutz, and Celisa Steele
published by Tagoras and Velvet Chainsaw Consulting