“Buy Low, Sell High” is a term you often hear in the investment world. In looking over my stock portfolio last week, I have come to the realization that it is a very tricky and risky outcome to achieve.
While past performance is never a guarantee of future performance in the speaker world either, there are certain indicators that that will signal a speaker fee increase. One key indicator is an announcement and release of a major motion picture about a speaker’s life. Over the years we have seen speakers’ fees go up dramatically when such a film is made. A few examples are as follows:
Captain Jim Lovell and Former Flight Director Gene Kranz – Apollo 13
Captain Richard Phillips – Captain Phillips
Aron Ralston – 127 Hours
Leigh Anne Tuohy – The Blind Side
Marcus Lutrell – Lone Survivor
JB Bernstein – Million Dollar Arm
Chris Gardner – The Pursuit of Happyness
Jim Morris – The Rookie
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The key to buying low in the speaker world is to book these speakers before the film is released. Here are three speakers who will be going up in fee in 2015:
Jeannette Walls – The Glass Castle (starring Jennifer Lawrence), based on Jeannette Walls’s memoir published in 2005 that lived for a resounding 261 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, is being brought to life by Lionsgate after seven years of practically stagnant development at Paramount.
Mark Schultz – Foxcatcher (starring Channing Tatum) is based on Mark Schultz’s autobiography detailing his and his brother’s lives as Olympic Wrestling Champions, all of which came to a grinding halt when one commits a harrowing murder. Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, its set release is in November 2014.
Dr. Beck Weathers – Into Thin Air, a book written by Jon Krakauer and currently being adapted into a major motion picture, stars Josh Brolin as Dr. Beck Weathers and retells the harrowing story of one team’s ill-fated attempt at scaling Mount Everest. Backed by the production company Working Title, the film has no set release date.
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Keep an eye on these three speakers. Today’s “unknowns” are speaker superstars of tomorrow!
The Speaker Experts 