How much does private public speaker coaching cost?

There are some variables that will impact the cost of hiring a coach

Hi. You might be wondering how much it costs to work with a public speaking coach. And that’s what I’m going to answer in this little video. I’m Shola, I’m a speaking coach and also a professional speaker. And my answer to your question is really this, which is, it depends. Because it depends on who you work with, it depends on what sort of skills that speaker coach has, it depends on where you work with them. Do you have to travel to them? Are they traveling to you? Are you working online? It depends on how many people are working with you in the session. So I’ve said here one to one, but sometimes you might get a special deal if there are a couple of you, maybe a couple of colleagues that are getting coaching and training together. So those are some of the variables that are at play here. But let me give you an example.

Coaches set their prices depending on their experience

So I have heard of coaches who charge as little as 50 or 60 pounds an hour. And that’s a great price if perhaps you’re a student or you have a limited budget. And quite typically, those coaches could be excellent. They could be very good. Maybe they want to just get a little bit of extra pocket money on the side. Maybe they are in training. Maybe it’s not their primary occupation being a speaking coach so they can charge on the low side. Equally, you have speaker coaches that can charge all the way up to 500 pounds an hour. I once was in a workshop with somebody who charged 10,000 pounds a day because she taught very specific skills. She taught people how to get onto big stages and promote their businesses and sell their products. And imagine if you’ve got, say two or 300 people in a room and you’re selling a reasonably priced product, if you know the right things to say and you set up your talk the right way, you can make many thousands of pounds from one session.

Some coaches have very specific or specialised skills

So of course, someone who teaches those very specific skills can charge a lot for their time because in turn, the person that they’re teaching can make a lot of money knowing the skills that they do, that they’ve picked up from that teacher. So that’s why speaking coaching can vary so widely from one coach to the next, because of their expertise, because of what they’re going to teach you, and also the value of what they’re teaching you. Because it’s not just that one hour of time that they’re spending with you. It’s all the expertise that they’ve picked up along the way. Maybe the speaker coach has got books. Maybe they are incredibly skilled in a particular industry. For example, I know a speaker coach who only works in the private equity industry and she herself worked in that industry before becoming a speaker coach. So course because of that specialized knowledge, she can charge more because she’s working with people from a particular industry who need a particular set of skills. And so that’s why it depends. It depends how much you’re going to pay.

Think about your budget

But what I’d suggest to you is this. If you’re looking for a speaker coach, you want to think about a few things. You want to think about what your budget is. You want to think about how experienced do you need that coach to be. Do you need them to just teach you some basic skills? Perhaps getting over your fear of speaking or how to stand up in front of an audience and look competent. Or are you wanting them to teach you very specific skills, like how to close your audience and get sales when you’re running a seminar? So think about, specifically, what do you want them to teach you?

Consider if travel is involved or if sessions happen online

You also want to think about whether you want to travel to that speaker coach or whether you want them to travel to you. Of course if they’re traveling to you, you should expect them to charge more. If you’re traveling to them, maybe you’ll pay less, but it could be that the cheaper option still is for you to work together online, and online coaching can be very effective. And also it cuts down a lot of time waste for whoever’s doing the traveling. It also cuts down a lot of that sort of, “Oh, do you want a cup of tea? Let me hang up your coats. How are you today?” A lot of those niceties that are lovely to have, but if you’re working online with a coach, a lot of that can be minimized. So it means that the coach’s time is spent more efficiently. They can see more people. And that means that they could probably charge you a bit less in terms of the fees that you’re paying.

Some coaches offer a package of self-study plus in-person sessions

There’s so many different variables here. So if I look at myself as a one to one speaker coach, I like to work with as wide a range of people as possible and so I have different packages. So I have a package of coaching whereby people get three 30 minute sessions with me. And then on top of that, they get access to a lot of self-study materials. And if you’re interested in that, you can go to sholakaye.com/coachme, all one word, and you’ll find out about that package. And I also have one that’s the same sort of deal with the online training, self-study, but you can get six half hour sessions with me instead of just three, which of course is a little bit more, but I put that package together because I have people that come to me who work for companies, and perhaps they don’t have a huge amount of money to spend on speaker training, but they still want to get some quality training with a good coach.

Coaching for executives tends to cost more

So I created that package, but I also work with executives. And in those cases I will charge a lot more because I might travel to that person’s office. That person, that executive, they might have a lot of responsibility riding on their shoulders and therefore they will need some specialized tips and insights from me that will help them to perhaps speak at a big conference or manage a big session for their company. And in those cases, I will charge more. That person may not want to do any self-study whatsoever. They want my time and they want plenty of my time to help them to get to the next level with their speaking. So in those situations, I would charge a lot more than somebody who is doing a bit of self-study and then having some punchy half hour sessions with me. So it really does depend.

What the credentials of the coach are

And for example, in terms of my credentials, I have books, I’ve got three books I’ve written. One is for people who work in the tech and STEM industry which I’m still working on releasing, but it’s all written and I have all the content that I use with my students. I’ve got another book, which is on general public speaking skills, How to be a DIVA at Public Speaking, which is for men and women. And I also have one which is coming out in a couple of months. This is now June of 2020 so it should be coming out in a few months, which is on general communication skills. So you might find that a speaker coach who has written books, who has specialized knowledge, who perhaps speaks themselves. So I’m an award-winning speaker, I’m a professional speaker. So someone like that would charge you more most likely than someone who speaks as a hobby or who has a bit of skill, and that they’re better than you, a bit better than you, and they can teach you a little bit more than you currently know, but it’s not something that they do as a full-time profession.

Understand the relationship you want with the coach

So there are a bunch of different variables in terms of how much you’re going to pay. And I think the important thing is for you to understand your budget, understand the skillset you want from your speaker coach, and understand also the kind of relationship that you want with your speaker coach. Because you might find that the relationship drives how much you learn. I’ve had coaches in the past who I’ve been really disappointed with. And they haven’t kind of been able to teach me in the way that I wanted to be taught. So don’t be afraid to kick the tires thoroughly, have a good bit of time with your potential new coach, asking them some questions, maybe it’s by email, maybe they’re very busy, they don’t have time on the phone, but maybe you could ask them questions by email.

It’s important for you to check out their materials before making a decision

Or they’ve got videos like this one on their sites that you can look at and then get a feel for how they work. Research them fully. Do they have a specialist area? Do they have books? Are they themselves a professional speaker? Who do they work with? So all of those sorts of answers will reflect in the price of that coach and also will give you a steer as to whether you want to work with them or not. So I hope that’s helpful. This is quite a long video, longer than I’d expected it to be. But I really wanted to answer this question thoroughly because, and also just because someone is inexpensive doesn’t mean to say that they’re not a good coach. But you just want to make sure that you get the right person for you from the outset so that you spend as much time as possible learning what you need to learn rather than having to worry about, is this the right coach for me? Am I spending too much? Am I spending too little? Et cetera, et cetera. That’s it from me and I hope that helps. Take care. Bye.

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Shola Kaye is an award-winning speaker, author and professional speaker coach with clients around the world. Her work has been mentioned in Forbes, Harper’s Bazaar and on the BBC.
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