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Windfall Talkers
By Donna M. Owens
You would think his job as head coach of football’s Baltimore Ravens might keep him busy enough, but Brian Billick still manages to moonlight on the side.
His part-time gig: A few hours a month of speaking engagements at $25,000 a pop.
“That’s a lot of talk, huh?” quips the Super Bowl-winning coach, who accepts six to 10 engagements a year, locally and nationally, talking about “the principles of leadership and team building; sometimes decision making or crisis management.”
Billick is not alone: A handful of local speakers also are hot commodities, some of them working through speakers bureaus, others with their own publicists and agents.
Among Billick’s competition are the likes of NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, who reportedly wants up to $20,000 to speak; lawyer, sports agent, and author Ron Shapiro, who typically gets $12,500 plus expenses; and Congressman Elijah Cummings, who reportedly commands up to $6,000.
“Our speakers get anywhere from $500 to $20,000 plus,” says Ty Howard, who heads The Baltimore Speakers Bureau, a for-profit agency that lists regional and nationally known speakers and takes a percentage of booking fees. The highest fee for local speakers on Howard’s list, like Columbia resident Robert Wallace, author of Black Wealth, is in the $6,000 to $10,000 range, says Howard, while a handful of national speakers he represents can command fees like Billick’s. Another regional resource for various types of high-paid speakers is the Washington, D.C. chapter of the National Speakers Association. “It can be a very lucrative business,” says Howard.
“I started about 20 years ago, as a result of my visibility in law and sports,” says Shapiro, who speaks both nationally and abroad after building a lucrative law practice representing clients like Cal Ripken and Oprah Winfrey.
In 1995, he founded Shapiro Negotiations Institute, which offers seminars, corporate training, and conflict negotiation, and promotes Shapiro’s “power of nice,” philosophy, outlined in the book he co-authored: The Power of Nice: How to Negotiate So Everyone Wins, Especially You!
“I’m traveling, meeting fascinating people,” says Shapiro, 60. “I am still practicing law, but this is a whole new career.”
Though still in his 30s, Craig Thompson has already begun to draw a crowd, especially the young people he targets through his motivational speeches.
“I started out when I was 19 or 20,” says Thompson, an attorney with superlawyer Peter Angelos’ firm who also hosts a public affairs program on WUTB-TV and a radio talk show on WEAA-FM.
“My first experience was at an NAACP National Convention where I spoke on a panel about youth violence. Through word of mouth, I began speaking at schools and churches.”
Today, his Thompson Communications fields requests from colleges, government agencies, nonprofits, and other groups, charging $1,500 to $3,000 per appearance.
Another on the circuit is Dr. Patricia Newton, a physician, entrepreneur, author and activist. She heads Newton-Thoth, an international behavioral science management corporation and speaker’s bureau that represents leading authorities in African spirituality, science, and geopolitics.
You might find her speaking in West Africa to Ashanti tribal leaders (who named her a female king and chief); at a spiritual boot-camp in Mexico; or in Europe, lecturing on the link between melanin and addiction.
“The work and speaking I do is designed to take people, especially those of color, to a higher level,” says Newton, 56, who describes her fees as “negotiable.”
Billick, 49, is among the few who donate portions of his speaking income to a good cause, in this case the nonprofit Living Classrooms Foundation.
“I enjoy speaking,” he says. “It’s a service I do, but when I talk to people, I often come away with things that I can take back to my team. It’s always positive.”
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Baltimore Magazine June 2003 Issue
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The Baltimore Worldwide Speakers Bureau
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