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Stage Finder only asks you four questions. Three of them decide how good the answer is. · Speaker Hub
Stage Finder only asks you four questions. Three of them decide how good the answer is.
The Stage Finder search form is short: speakers, topic, fee, format. Each field goes straight into the research request, so a vague entry gets you a vague list. Here is how to fill it in.
•5 min read
The Stage Finder form looks like it wants almost nothing from you. A box for speakers, a topic, a fee, a format. Most people type two names and press search.
That works, in the sense that you get a list. But each of those fields goes into the research request, and the request is the whole product. Thin input gives you a thin report.
The speakers box is a search term, not a wish list
You can add up to five names. Press Enter or type a comma and the name becomes a chip. Backspace on an empty box removes the last chip. Add the same name twice and the duplicate is ignored, whatever the capitalization.
Choose the five carefully. These are the people whose speaking history the tool researches, and everything else is built from what it finds. Two habits help.
Pick speakers who stand where you want to stand in a year, not where you stood five years ago.
Use full names. Stage Finder can fail to tell a lesser-known speaker apart from a more famous person with the same name, and when it does, the report says so instead of quietly dropping them. A full name, and a name with an unusual spelling, give it less to confuse.
The topic field takes up to 300 characters. The placeholder is "Leadership through burnout", which is about the right size: a specific subject, not a category.
Leave it empty and the tool says so in its own request. It tells the research that you gave no topic and asks it to infer a fit from the speakers you admire. That is a guess built on other people's careers.
Write the talk you give, in the words an organizer would use on a program page. "Leadership" matches half the conferences on earth. "Keeping a hospital team together after a bad year" matches a few.
The fee is a level signal, so give it
Of the four fields, the fee is the one speakers skip most, and the code treats it as the one thing it cannot find elsewhere. Your name, site, bio, topics and speaker profile are read from your brand kit. The fee is not collected when you sign up, so it stays a manual field.
It matters because the request asks for events you could realistically land right now, appropriate for your fee, and not aspirational stages far above your reach. Type what you actually charge, in a short form like the "$5k+ per talk" placeholder. The field holds 60 characters, so a range or a note fits.
An inflated number sends you toward stages that will not return your email. A number set too low aims you at rooms that cannot pay you. State the real one.
Format is the fourth field
Format is not a filter on the results. It is part of the request, and the post on the format dropdown covers what changes when you switch it. The short version: choose it before you search, not after.
Edit the search instead of retyping it
After a run, the form collapses and a button offers Edit search. Open it and the fields refill with the speakers, topic, fee and format that produced the table on screen. Recent searches, in the page header, lets you load an earlier run the same way.
Use that. Change one field, run it again, and compare. You learn more from swapping a single speaker than from starting over, and you can see which input moved the list.
A ten minute routine
Write down the talk you most want to give more often, in one sentence.
Choose five speakers at the level you are aiming for, using full names.
Enter the sentence as your topic and your real fee.
Set the format you want most, run it, and read the events table.
Edit one field and run it again.
Then take the best events to the drawer. The Peers page shows the speakers closest to your level, which is a useful check on whether your fee and your five names agree with each other.
Questions
How many speakers can I enter in Stage Finder?
Up to five. Press Enter or type a comma to turn a name into a chip, and press Backspace on an empty box to remove the last one. A name you have typed but not committed is added when you run the search.
Do I have to fill in the topic and fee fields?
Only the speaker names are required. Without a topic, Stage Finder infers a fit from the speakers you admire. Without a fee, it has no signal for your tier, so the events it picks are less tuned to what you can realistically land.
Why does Stage Finder not ask for my name, bio, or website?
It reads those from the brand kit you set up when you joined, so you are not asked twice. The fee is the exception, because it is not collected at onboarding.
The format dropdown on Stage Finder is not a display filter. It ships with your speakers, topic, and fee as part of the actual search request, which means leaving it on the default changes what the tool looks for, not just what it shows you.
Stage Finder returns four different kinds of answers from one search: events worth pitching, live open calls, where your admired speakers appear, and who to watch at your level. Here is which ones want a click and which are just reference.
Open any event in Stage Finder and you get an outreach draft with the event's name on it. The text underneath is one email per search. Here is what that means and how to turn it into a pitch an organizer answers.
