Conferences Where the Speakers are Paid Sponsors

It's time to expose something few seem to know about. There are business conferences out there where the speakers were not selected because they submitted a talk or paper and were chosen to be the best or most interesting. They were not hand-picked by a team curating what should be presented at this year's event.

They are up on that stage speaking to you because they paid thousands to be there. If you don't know that, it's hard to guess because the speakers might be from very famous companies. You'd imagine that they applied and were selected or were invited because they are from CVS, Google, Visa, Spotify, Schwab, and so many more.

Disclaimer: I haven't (knowingly) attended any of these events. It's certainly possible that some of these presentations are fantastic and informative, and attendees leave with great information. Just because someone paid to speak doesn't mean they're not an expert or not helpful. My goal in this article is to make you aware of this practice in case it changes how you evaluate conferences.

How does this work?

You buy a sponsorship package. You probably get vendor space, a speaking slot, and some other plugs. You get an attendee list so that you can market/sell to them later. And in some cases, the attendees have answered a questionnaire about upcoming projects they have related to the conference. Now you know more specifically how to pitch these people on what you do.

The conference's job is to deliver leads to all paying sponsors. And speakers, now's your time to really look like a thought leader. The company takes money from everybody... pay to speak, pay to sponsor, pay to attend.

The above screenshot is from the event sponsorship page on the IQPC website. These mostly read like typical event sponsorship reasons but look more closely at #5. High-yield thought leadership is for sale. Pay to speak at an event and you surely look like a thought leader. Establish your position. If only we could all buy our way to thought leadership by speaking at pay-to-play conferences!

IQPC pitched me twice.

First was October 2018. I contacted them about speaking at one of their events because I couldn't find any Call for Speakers for any of their events (which is one key sign that this may be completely sponsored). I was emailed a PDF sponsorship pitch and offered a package that included speaking, exhibit hall space, various marketing mentions, the list of attendees, and "inviting my prospects to the event," which I assume is so that they can be impressed by seeing me as a speaker on the stage.

This was offered at ￡5000. I told them I was having no problem being approved to speak at multiple conferences around the world. Why would I pay them thousands to be a speaker at their event? "Our speaking opportunities sell out every year because we put you in front our a pre-qualified audience who have specifically chosen to attend your presentation. The return ROI our speakers receive make the investment worthwhile." Yes, they are attending the event and choose to attend my presentation, but did that audience know I paid to speak to them? Unlikely.

They asked me how many leads I'd need to leave a conference with to declare it a success. I said that I don't measure conference success by the number of leads. If I get 1000 leads and zero turn into business, the conference might be a failure. Leads don't pay the bills; I'm looking for real business. I said if you are so sure about your event, give me a half hour slot (and nothing else, no other package) for free. If I get the business you claim I will get, I will pay for every conference you ever put on forever. They declined.

I asked them to find me a business like mine that spent the money and made WILD money from it. Give me someone I can talk to on a phone call and hear how it worked for them, and I'll pay and give it a try. Prove the ROI by finding someone like me who had success so I can speak to him or her. They declined.

They put me on their mailing list, and for a while, I was getting emails about not forgetting to sponsor this next event because over 700 decision-makers will be there looking for solutions and people like me. I unsubscribed.

I thought it was the last I would hear from them... until yesterday.

I got a LinkedIn connection request from a marketing assistant who wanted to partner with me on a 2020 UX event. That sounded good. I added the connection, told her I have no record of applying to that event, and were they considering me as a speaker. She told me that they were not looking for speakers but wanted to offer me a press pass to attend it, "partner," and "share my experiences with my audience."

I then took a look at where she worked. I told her that my conference notes say that IQPC is a company whose events are pay-to-play and I've already told her company I do not pay to speak at or sponsor these.

She messaged me a PDF about the upcoming event that listed the speakers but not any of their topics. How can I decide on attending an event without knowing what the talks are? Are you asking me to write a review of the event? Are you asking me to promote it before I've experienced it and gone to it? When you say you want me to share the experience, what if I don't like the event? Am I allowed to publicly say that I didn't like the event? What is the nature of this "partnership"?

I asked a lot of questions but didn't get answers. She replied that she thinks that given my profile, I could "help with a lot of the active projects they have been receiving" and "let's discussion a non-speaking collaboration!" Not so attractive to a speaker about to publish a book.

Looking at her LinkedIn profile, I saw that she was from a part of the USA known for straight speaking without much BS. I replied, "I feel like we're not speaking the same language. Can I please just get the honest, [town she's from] version of you please? What exactly are you looking for from me? What are "active projects we are receiving"? What is "non-speaking collaboration"? Can I PLEASE just get the honest Nassau County version?"

She responded:

"I oversee media partners which includes co-branding trade-off opportunities (i.e. you share our event, we give you a pass, so on, depending on what we want to do). These are non-paid.

To speak at our events, you must go through sponsorship (i.e. paid engagement). With sponsorship, you get access to all our attendee data, branding at the event (website, content pieces, signage), and other speaking opportunities (podcast, featured piece).

The attendees that come onboard fill out surveys with their active projects (i.e. I am looking for help building my design teams, I am looking to redesign my website, etc.) and associated budgets (i.e. I oversee $5k, 500k, 5mil, etc.). This way we can match agencies & vendors onsite. I thought this could still be interesting as their projects seem surface level aligned with something you could help with (i.e. CX strategy consulting)…am I off base?

If this is of interest, I can match you with our partnerships director to explain further, but anything speaking is a paid opportunity—it is the way we have 80% buyers and only 20% vendors in the room."

Read that at least twice.

My question to you as an attendee of this conference is: did you know that's what's going on behind the scenes? Did you know the event is asking you about your projects so that the sponsors can sell to you in a more targeted way? Did you know that every expert or speaker this company trots out across the newsletters, podcasts, videos, online community, events, and more all paid to be presented to you as that expert? Again, that doesn't mean they're not experts and you'll learn nothing. It only means they're there because they paid. If I am the #1 expert on the planet on a topic, IQPC's audience could benefit tremendously from hearing a podcast with me, and I were willing to speak for free, IQPC wouldn't include me unless I buy that slot.

She told me that sponsorships start at $12K. You might think, "Deb, that's not much, why don't you try it? Maybe this is how business gets done." Because the whole thing seems not quite right to me. Paying to speak to look like a thought leader seems not quite right. And I have no idea if this is how business gets done. This could be a very expensive experiment. And the last time I dealt with these people, they didn't have a single person with a company like mine who could speak to the success of sponsoring these events.

I have no idea if the idea of giving me a free press pass was real, especially since it appeared to come with a marketing partnership based on an unexplained whatever they wanted me to do. When I told her no thanks, I do not pay to speak at events and would not be paying to sponsor their event, she blocked me on LinkedIn and the conversation was over. Well, that's more like good old fashioned Nassau County behavior! When I didn't want to give them money, whatever "trade-off partnership" she was imagining was gone. It's all about the money.

I'm not impressed that she blocked me on LinkedIn. What happened to your press pass or other partnership ideas? What happened to "perhaps we have an inexpensive starter package that I'm sure would convince of the value of working with us"? That would be a normal sales tactic to try next. She hadn't previously let my declaration of not wanting to sponsor stop her from having partnership ideas (that I never fully heard about). Now I'm just blockable.

This doesn't work for me, ethically or as a business choice.

Without a real quality check of speakers or presentations, I have no idea who my fellow speakers are. And event sponsorship hasn't worked for me since before the 2008 recession. I've tried and it's created some leads but zero business.

Again, can I say for sure that this money isn't worth it? I can't say that. It might be worth it. I could spend $12K to speak at an event and come away with a lot of business. I only know that it doesn't sit right for me because I don't know if the audience knows this is what they're walking into. These are vendors paying to speak, which means there is probably no limit on whether or not they can plug themselves, "sell" during their talk, or other things that conference audiences sometimes find a turn-off. I don't like that you can (pretend to) "show" you're a "thought leader" by paying to be on a fancy stage. I don't like that people are paying thousands to basically attend business speed dating with each other.

Compare this experience to another email I also received yesterday. An event where I spoke this year but didn't sponsor contacted me about sponsoring their next event. I told them I tried sponsoring in 2018 and it got me nothing, so now I only apply to speak (and I did run a successful 2 hour workshop this year). Their response was that they were sorry the sponsorship didn't pay off for me and here's the link to apply to speak at the event he was trying to sell me. Thank you. That's classy and a good response.

IQPC aren't the only ones.

I'm pointing at them because I've had some interactions with them, but they're not the only ones. There is another set of conferences calling themselves DeveloperWeek that I am suspicious about. They do have a Call for Speakers, but once you fill that out, you magically start getting emails from a marketing or sales guy who would like to sell you a package that includes speaking.

Here's the typical process with them. I apply to speak. I'm told quickly that I wasn't selected but they do have some speaking opportunities available as part of packages. Wow, what are the odds! The fun part is that sometimes, after being "rejected" and pitched on the speaking package, I get an email from the event CEO that my presentation is still being considered and am I still available on those dates. I've received that CEO email for two different events. After I confirm I'm available, I magically never hear from him again, but I do go another round with someone trying to sell me a sponsorship. Perhaps they're going fishing to try to see if I'm still interested and if so, try once more to sell me something.

"Additional SPEAKING Opportunities at DeveloperWeek SF Bay Area 2019!

If you are interested in a DeveloperWeek sponsor / expo package where you can talk in a 25 min OPEN Session on a DeveloperWeek stage, let me know and I'll schedule a call. Packages start at $8,000 and include a turn key booth and 25min speaking opportunity."

Again, that doesn't mean that DeveloperWeek never chooses any speakers based on merit. Perhaps some of their event speakers from the most famous companies were chosen for their submitted talk and their thought leadership. Or maybe their company was sponsoring and this is the speaking slot that came with it. Who can say?

The audience usually notices.

Of all of the events you have seen me speaking at, only one is on that list as part of a sponsorship. I had bought the smallest exhibitor booth at the event. After agreeing to exhibit, they said they found an empty room for an hour during lunch (not so popular) and would I like to do a talk, which they would add to my booth package at no extra charge. Having had a very successful talk people evidently skipped lunch to hear, I still wouldn't pay for a package like that again. This event isn't pay-to-play in general. I doubt keynote speaker Woz paid for a sponsorship. :) And I was accepted the year after to speak without paying anything or sponsoring.

Every single other event has been an event I applied to speak and was approved or I was invited to speak. I did not pay for these. Nobody reached out to me and asked if I also wanted to pay to be a sponsor. I did not sponsor or pay money to any of these events. Nobody gave me an export of attendees so I could market to them.

And let me also tell you that after presenting to an overbooked room (the one talk that was part of the booth package), multiple people came up to me to tell me I was the best speaker they had heard and the only speaker who could take spontaneous questions on the topic. Everybody else seemed to be salespeople with limited knowledge and who got stuck when people asked questions. The audience can tell when presentations or speakers are really just sales people or an attractive face (of any gender) with limited product or domain knowledge.

How could IQPC win my business?

The interesting thing about IQPC's pitch is that if it works, it would mean mountains and mountains of money for my company. People with thousands or millions to spend being matched up with me as their vendor. One customer would make it all worth it and I'd pay for every event this company did until time ended as long as those returns keep coming.

People love free trials. What if you gave me 15 minutes to speak at one event? Now that's hardly enough but let's say it's the free trial. I'm on the agenda but I get nothing else... no podcast, no attendee list, no marketing plugs. Let's say I'm allowed to be matched with no more than 2 attendees in the room (as leads who have projects that fit my company's offerings) as part of my free trial. If the attendees are hand-picked for the speakers/vendors in the room, then people will hear me and want to do business with me. I'll barely need to put in effort! Plus I'll have 2 matches as an added boost.

It will cost me a lot of money to fly to this event, get a hotel, buy food, miss work, etc. It's already an investment from me. But if you're so sure that your model works, create a package that puts me in front of people and is a trial. Make it free or make it so cheap (under $2000) that I can't say no because it's worth the experiment. Make sure you have others who tried this and it paid off since I will still want to speak with them.

The young woman who blocked me must have thought I was an influencer. She wanted me to share their conference with my audience. She wanted to give me a press pass. She believed I would plug her event and pay for my own flights and hotels to go to a conference 6 months from now that has all speaker slots filled but no agenda or presentation titles yet. Or was I going to have to pay in some way for that? No idea. But if you've identified me as an influencer in this space, you'd think I'm someone to work with and not block. Heck, hire me to speak at one of these events and give them more credibility! :)

Side note, someone else in my LinkedIn world appeared to have received a similar message possibly from the same person. You might start hearing from these people. Ask questions and get answers!

We are now all influencers.

I would love to tell you that I sponsored an IQPC event and it was fantastic. I'd love to tell you that I met great businesses who were eager to hire me or my company, and it all worked out. I'd love to tell you the sponsorship package was reasonably priced, and that it was easy to make a decision given all of the happy repeat customers similar to my business who I was able to speak to and hear how well it went and continues to go.

I'd love to tell you that but I can't. I can only tell you that some conferences are pay-to-play. That doesn't mean they are valueless for all involved. It only means that if you prefer your conferences to not have gathered speakers by who was willing to pay for the slot, you have a few telltale signs to look for:

1. There isn't or wasn't a CFP or Call for Speakers. You never noticed a speaking application on the event website. None of their mailing list emails remind people that it's time to apply to speak for next year's event (many conferences do email that since they know great speakers come from their community).
2. The people who you think of as industry thought leaders and top authors aren't speaking at any of these events. While many smaller events can't afford the key thought leaders, the larger conferences often can. There are people you now pretty much "expect" to see speaking at an industry conference... yet they never speak at one of these conferences because the payment is going in the wrong direction.
3. Attendees aren't glowing about the event or they're not going back year after year. When IQPC first pitched me, I searched Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn for at least an hour trying to find anybody talking about the upcoming or previous conference. I only found speakers plugging that they would be speaking. I wanted to see attendees saying it was a great event and they'll surely go to the next one. I couldn't find that. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But if we're all influencers and we typically have strong opinions about events that cost us or our company thousands, I really expected to see something out there! The silence was bizarre.

Good luck, attendees!

I hope that every event you attend is valuable. I hope you leave with real, actionable information that you can try right now at your workplace rather than having heard opinions on "the future of" and other sessions you can't really act on right now. I hope you hear good information that helps you rather than sales pitches.

And if you want to consider having me speak, I have a little speaker website at DebbieLevitt.com. :)