In this YouTube segment, speaker Mike shares a practical solution to the common chaos professional speakers face when event hosts handle their travel arrangements. He explains how host‑booked flights and hotels become a logistical nightmare when speaking engagements shift, leading to costly rebookings and disputes over who should cover travel expenses. Mike proposes charging a "travel buyout"—a flat fee (e.g., $2,500) added to his speaking fee—so he can book his own flights and hotels, ensuring control and predictability. He also emphasizes the value of a dedicated travel manager (named Aaron and Erin) who maintains a single point of contact, updates itineraries on short notice, and allows the speaker to focus on delivering the presentation. The overall message is that a travel buyout combined with trusted travel coordination eliminates billing disputes and streamlines travel logistics for busy speakers.
Chapters
I do wanna give 'em one more tip. It's around the billing practices. When traveling, I used to ask the event host to cover my hotel and my travel. The problem was I would book events, say in Kansas City, and the person would book my flight from Newark, New Jersey to Kansas City, book my hotel. Then before the event, another event would call and say, hey, we want Mike speaking in California, Irvine. So now from Kansas City, I'm not coming back to Newark, now I'm going to Irvine. So they call the event host and say, hey, the travel you booked for me, I need to cancel, I need to rebook. It was a nightmare logistically. And secondly, the client says, well, why'd I have to pay for you going to California? Shouldn't they pay? I'm like, well, that's kind of the part return fight. We got to split it. It was a nightmare. Do what's called a travel buyout. Travel buyout is where you tell the customer, you hire me to speak, I charge $50,000. Secondly, you also are going to pay $2,500 as a travel buyout. Anywhere in the continental US I go, I fly and I book my own hotel. The reason we do this is I'm constantly shifting around and we cannot predict my travel even sometimes hours before I get to or leave an event because of other bookings. And this way, Everything's taken care of. It's in one person's hands, and that's difficult. I call Aaron sometimes at like 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm in like Europe and it's 8 in the morning. It's 2 o'clock here. I'm like, Aaron, sorry, little change up in the plans. I'm not going to London. No, I'm going to Vancouver and then Amsterdam, and I'm gonna work my way to London. Can you, can you fix that by tomorrow? It's really helpful once you're speaking and traveling enough to have someone that specifically does your travel bookings for you. I don't do it myself because there's so many moving parts to the point where I don't know necessarily where I'm going or how I'm getting there next week. I know Erin will have the itinerary in place. So she's the one point of contact. And if there's a shift or change, she's on top of it. Clients, hosts will reach out and say, hey, Mike, can you change this up? Can you arrive a little earlier? I'm like, you have to notify Erin. She'll modify the itinerary. It does require full trust and faith in that person, which I have full trust and faith in Erin and in you. But gosh, it makes it so much more seamless. And then I can stay focused on what I need to, which is deliver the best speech of my life.
