This episode of the My First Million podcast features Sam Parr and Shaan Puri discussing the speaking fees of high-profile figures like Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Gary Vaynerchuk. They also share personal anecdotes about their own experiences hiring speakers for their events and analyze the business model behind professional speaking.
Topics: Speaking fees, entrepreneurship, business models, professional speaking, event management, personal branding
Speaking Fees for High-Profile Figures [00:06]
Sam Parr: I did some research. How much do you think, if you’re Obama and Oprah, I would put them in similar categories. Maybe Obama a little bit above in terms of influence, but not like terribly above. How much do you think, and I didn’t ask them, I just researched it and I like tried to find contracts. How much do you think Obama charges?
Shaan Puri: I would guess something between, I would have guessed 250 to 350k. That’s my guess for like a speaking engagement. But honestly, it could be more. It could be like double that.
Sam Parr: Dude, so I think it’s, I heard rumors, it’s in like the 1.2 million range. And that makes way sense. Obama is not going to get out of bed for less than a million. And I hear Oprah is around the $1 million range.
Shaan Puri: No small boy stuff for Obama, too.
Sam Parr: No, definitely not. And so here’s why, so I’ve heard like rumors and I talked to people that have had them before and that’s kind of how I came with that number. But let me give you some insider numbers. So, I only had one paid speaker ever at Hustle Con. So at Hustle Con, collectively, we probably had 200 or 300 speakers over a couple years, a handful of years. Casey Neistat was the only speaker that we had who we paid, and I was supposed to, you’re not supposed to talk about how much you pay him, but like this was like years ago, so I can do it. This was, I think, at the height of his popularity. I only paid him $25,000 plus a private flight from LA to San Francisco for $6,000, or from San Francisco to LA, I forget, but one way, it was only 6 grand plus $25,000. That’s nothing, right?
Shaan Puri: 25 grand, that’s kind of cheap compared to what, because he was at the peak of his powers at that time, too, right? It’s not like, it’s not like some C-list, you know, person who used to be famous. It’s like, no, Casey Neistat was a big deal then, he’s a big deal now, too.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s Speaking Fee [01:50]
Sam Parr: So I tried to get Gary Vaynerchuk to come speak at an event once, and he offered, his asking price was $100,000, or I think he said that you would have to buy $100,000 worth of books, and that somehow like pushes him up the charts or something like that.
Shaan Puri: Something like that.
Sam Parr: And so Gary Vaynerchuk was 100 grand. And I got speak, I spoke somewhat recently, and I asked, I got paid 25 to 20, 20 to $25,000, or maybe it was 20 grand plus flights. And then I think that we had Ashton Kutcher speak at an event that I was at, and the organizers like kind of like implied like they paid him around 150 grand.
Shaan Puri: So just some insider stories.
The Business Model of Professional Speaking [02:37]
Shaan Puri: This has always been the playbook. Like, I met a guy once who was writing a book, and I was like, “Nice, like, you know, what’s your goals for the book?” And like, he was kind of answering me, but I got the sense like, I feel like, you know, you ever hear a story and you’re like, “I feel like you’re leaving out the one important detail that makes all of this make sense.” Like, you’re not saying the wrong thing, but I feel like you’re just not saying whatever the right thing is. And sure enough, like 20 minutes in, he’s like, “Yeah, basically you write books so that you can get paid speaking gigs.” Like, it doesn’t matter who reads your book, it’s you just need to be a guy who writes a book. And then you like do a thing, you like pay a certain amount to get like up in the charts so you can say, “New York Times bestseller” or like, you know, “Amazon bestseller.” And, um, and then that just increases your paid speaking rate by like 15k. And then that’s like, you know, how you make your money back for this whole like book process.
Sam Parr: And I was like, “Oh, okay, that makes way more sense. Like now I understand.” And I was like, “So this paid speaking gig, like how does this work?” And he kind of broke it down for me, kind of step-by-step. And I remember being intrigued, but also, you know, the cost of like, you know, they basically like the idea of like, “Oh yeah, what you do is you fly around,” like you basically have to go, you’re never home, like you’re flying around all the time. So he was at that point trying to figure out, “All right, the next step after this,” you know, and and I sort of started thinking about, “Okay, what is the move straight to the end version of this?” And I was like, “Oh, okay, I think I know what I would do.” It’s like, I would do a, this is how I like, I was thinking about the podcast at this time, like I was thinking about creating one. I was like, “I think I would do a podcast that I could just record right here, whenever I want, maybe in batches, and as long as the conversation’s fun, I don’t think I would care about making any money off that.” And I feel like if I could do that and I could get like, you know, what if like a million people were fans of the podcast? I feel like that would just jump me where all these guys are trying to go, where they’re like, ultimately, I think what a lot of these people want is like, they have a topic that they’re really curious about, that they like to research, they like to do experiments in, and they’re just trying to figure out a way to get paid to be professionally curious about that thing. I think like that’s like the generous version of of like how to think about this. There’s like the skeptical version of which is just like, “Oh dude, you’re just like some motivational speaker, like sort of scammy guru guy who wants to go around and blah, blah, blah.” But I think the the the earnest people, I think they just want to be professionally curious. It’s like, “How do I get to spend 90% of my time just like digging in on this topic I’m a nerd about, and then like somehow translate the other 10% of my time into enough money to fund me to do that in a in a cool way?” Um, and so I think that that, you know, that’s how I think about this stuff.
Speaking Requirements and Robert De Niro’s Contract [05:10]
Sam Parr: What I’ve been doing for speaking is I actually haven’t asked to be paid lately, but I do tell them I need two first-class flights, um, and I want you to pay entirely for the hotel for a week. And I will only say yes if it’s, so my wife and I basically, it’s so we can go to a cool place. So I only say yes. But let me tell you something interesting. So Robert De Niro, he, uh, so the Wall Street Journal did this thing where our friend shared it. So listen to Robert, so here’s what Robert De Niro got paid. So he did a movie called Savage Salvation in September 2020. He got paid $11 million. So he was going to be there for eight days. He asked for a round-trip private air transportation on a Gulfstream 5, is that a or a six? I don’t know how Roman numerals work, but a Gulfstream jet. He, uh, got to keep all of the costumes, wigs, and prosthetics, all the stuff that he wore on the on the plane, or all all the stuff he wore in the movie, he got to keep all of it. He wanted, uh, an additional fee for his, uh, personal trainer. He had to come and be flown there and he had to be put up at the Ritz-Carlton. In addition to the the 10 days that he had or the eight days he had to be there for production, he wanted a seven-day all expenses paid vacation to the Ritz-Carlton, followed by a vacation in Puerto Rico where you also had to pay for his jet and it had to take his whole family, uh, to and from. Uh, and then finally, he wanted one round-trip jet, uh, one round-trip private flight jet between New York and Elade in LA for a five-day stay anytime within 12 months. Those are all of his ass in his contract for all for eight days of work. That’s not bad.