Appropriate Thank You Gift Amount For Guest Speaker

[kimberland]

I'm organizing guest "speakers" for a writing loop.
The guest will do Q&A by email for 2 weeks.

What do you believe is the appropriate thank you amount?
The board is suggesting $50 but that's sounding low for 2 weeks.

 

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[kimberland]

Mostly we will get more of it than the guest.
The first guest is a motivational coach
so, of course, she's trying to drum up business
but other guests (such as detectives and dialect pros)
will be getting nothing out of it.

I heard back that the board didn't even want to pay the $50.

 

[Russ H]

If they're doing it do drum up biz, give them publicity.

More than they expect.

Worth more than a few bucks, esp if you can pull a few strings here and there w/other sites that talk about them, too.

(and let them know all the cool stuff you've done, *after* you've done it).

If they're local. offer them a home cooked meal (I'm only partly kidding).

If not, find out where they live, and get them something like a Starbucks card, or gift card to Whole Foods, or something they LOVE (try to weasel this out of them in friendly banter).

Just my .02

-Russ H.

PS For all the speaker gifts I've gotten over the years, NONE of them were memorable. Most ended up in the trash, sad to say. I *did* cash the big checks, though.

 

[Diane Kennedy]

A set of steak knives?

Okay, seriously, as a guest speaker the things I've remembered are a commemorative silver piece (which was kindof cool and I could then say I invested in silver...) and a beautiful silver necklace. (huh, apparently silver is a theme)

Generally, though, if I'm flying somewhere I would get expenses and then client contacts. The contacts were what it was all about.

For someone who is speaking to a group and doesn't have some kind of upsell potential (like detectives) you might be surprised as to why they want to do it. It could be they really want to teach. Or maybe they're interested in someone writing their story (and getting a "thank you" in the acknowledgements)

As another example, I post here for three reasons: (1) keeps me in touch with questions people have and things that are hanging them up - you might notice that frequently my blog posts deal more in depth with issues that started over here (2) a way to build my brand awareness (3) I have a lot I am learning from the eBiz guys.

So, I share my knowledge to receive knowledge. Could be your guest speakers might have the same agenda.

 

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[kimberland]

If they're local. offer them a home cooked meal (I'm only partly kidding).

The hubby says he has first dibs on the home cooked meal.
I'm not exactly Suzy Homemaker.
LOL

Great tips Russ about giving them all the publicity I can
and about the gift cards.
Since this will be done all online, I think gift cards (especially eGift Cards)
are easiest.
The writing folks are easy (Amazon gift cards) but I'm thinking that may not be the best for the other experts.

Thanks!

 

[kimberland]

For someone who is speaking to a group and doesn't have some kind of upsell potential (like detectives) you might be surprised as to why they want to do it. It could be they really want to teach. Or maybe they're interested in someone writing their story (and getting a "thank you" in the acknowledgements)

That is a brilliant idea.
One of the fund raising ideas for author sponsored charities is to auction off character names. So if you have the winning bid, you can have a character named after you or a loved one. An attempt at immortality.