If you use your speaker dashboard, you’ll know we track where enquiries come from, including the sectors behind them. Three patterns stand out in our latest data.
Direct bookings continue to grow
Our last newsletter explored the shift towards clients booking direct rather than through the bureaus. Our data from the last financial year and the financial rear to date now shows bookings across the roster are evenly split between bureaus and direct clients. This is compared with roughly 75% through bureaus and 25% from direct clients four years ago.
We believe AI-assisted research is significantly contributing to this shift, with clients identifying speakers before approaching them directly. It’s another reason we continue to focus on how easily clients can find you and understand your offering.
But there’s an important distinction: researching a speaker directly doesn’t always mean booking them directly. Many large corporates have procurement arrangements and master services agreements with the bigger speaker bureaus. As such, they may do much of the legwork themselves, then use a bureau to handle the booking. This also helps explain the next two trends: fewer speculative enquiries and a greater share of bureau work going to the larger bureaus worldwide.
Fewer enquiries, but stronger conversion
The data also shows that over the past 12 months we are seeing fewer enquiries, overall but a higher proportion converting into bookings. Bureaus we speak to are reporting a similar pattern.
Our reading is that clients are doing more research before contacting a bureau or approaching you directly. This means fewer speculative enquiries and more considered approaches. So, if you’ve noticed fewer enquiries on your dashboard, don’t assume demand has dropped, the conversion rate matters too and is the most important.
Bureau work is becoming more concentrated
Bureau work isn’t disappearing, but it is becoming more concentrated. We’re receiving a greater share of enquiries from larger, established bureaus such as JLA, Leading Authorities, London Speaker Bureau, Chartwell and Speakers Corner. Meanwhile, enquiries and bookings from the smaller bureaus has fallen.
Across the Speaking Office roster, increased bookings from larger bureaus are helping to offset that decline, alongside growth from direct clients. Within the bureau market, this points to work becoming concentrated among fewer, more established businesses, making our relationships with their bookers particularly important.