Who Are NSA Members?

NSA members are predominantly independent contractors, the majority of whom provide consulting, training, coaching, and facilitation services in addition to speaking.

The majority of members (74 percent) are between the ages of 45 and 65. About 20 percent of all NSA professional members are 45 years of age or younger. Overall, the average age of an NSA member is 52.

Males represent 53 percent of all NSA speakers, females 47 percent.

Most NSA speakers have a college or higher educational degree. Thirty-eight percent have a masters degree, and 14 percent have a doctorate degree.

NSA members are experienced professionals, many with more than 10 years of professional speaking engagements behind them. The largest percentage of members (38 percent) have spoken professionally for 11 to 20 years. Nearly 23 percent have more than 21 years of professional speaking experience.

Seventy percent of all NSA professional speaker members have published a book. Similarly, 63 percent have published audio and/or video products.

On average, about 13 percent of independent speaker gross revenue came from product sales in 2006.

Where Are They Speaking?

NSA speakers are involved in many types of speaking engagements. On average, only about four percent of the presentations made by NSA members in 2006 were Internet-based or for virtual events, such as teleseminars or Webinars. In order of engagement frequency:

• seminar
• training
• breakout session
• keynote
• consulting
• coaching
• facilitating
• retreat
• entertainment
• virtual teleseminars
• virtual Webinars

Who's in the Audience?

Members address a variety of different audience types, most often companies and associations, least frequently youth groups and military.

In order of frequency of audience type:

• corporate
• association
• educational institution
• health care organization
• charitable organization
• service club
• government, other than military
• "other"
• public seminar
• religious organization
• youth group
• military

NSA members address audiences of all sizes. Though most audience sizes are between 15 and 200 people, a substantial number of audiences are larger than 500 and many are between 15 and 50.

Who Does the Hiring?

A variety of different decision makers are responsible for hiring NSA speakers. On average, only about seven percent of all NSA speaker bookings came from speaker bureaus in 2006, with more than 61 percent of NSA speakers receiving no bookings from speaker bureaus at all in 2006. The following list is arranged according to the frequency with which various decision makers hire NSA speakers:

• "other" corporate executives not included in the selection list
• "other" people not included in the selection list
• association executives
• planning committees
• training / education department executives
• meeting planners
• department managers
• human resource executives
• speakers bureaus

How Do Members Conduct Business?

The NSA member survey asked respondents to provide financial and business practice information. This information provides a good view of the state of the speaking industry as a whole.

What Do They Charge?

On average:

• the fee for an NSA speaker keynote engagement in 2006 was estimated to be about $5,000.
• the fee for a keynote engagement was 25 percent lower if the speaker was not required to travel to the presentation.
• NSA members charged about four percent more in 2006 than in 2005 for keynote engagements.
• the fee for an NSA speaker full-day breakout engagement in 2006 was about $5,200.
• the fee for a full-day breakout engagement was 13 percent lower if the speaker was not required to travel to the presentation.
• the fee for an NSA member half-day breakout engagement in 2006 was $4,700.
• the fee for an NSA member half-day breakout engagement in 2006 was 25 percent lower if the speaker was not required to travel to the presentation.
• NSA members charged about four percent more in 2006 than in 2005 for breakout engagements.

In addition to speaking professionally, most NSA members provide consulting, training, coaching, and facilitation services. Here's what they charge:

1. Full-day breakout: $5,200
2. Half-day breakout: $4,700

Real Measures Inc., a professional firm specializing in membership surveys, designed and conducted the 2007 NSA Member Needs Assessment Survey. Real Measures also provided analysis and summarization of survey results. Independent strategic analysis firm Association Insights helped interpret results and develop plans to better serve the professional speaker market.

The National Speakers Association (NSA) is the leading educational organization for professional speakers. NSA's 3,500 members include experts in a variety of industries and disciplines, who reach audiences as trainers, educators, humorists, motivators, consultants, authors, and more. As a service to meeting professionals, NSA provides resources and information on finding and working with speakers. Please visit NSA's Web site at www.nsaspeaker.org.