Well organized (and certified)
Some of the difference between the US and Europe may be due to organization like
the NSA.
(If you are European the name may make you think of a particular flower in the bouquet of American security services. It fooled us the first time we heard it. The NSA in our context is the National Speakers Association, and not the National Security Agency. They are, I assume, markedly different organizations.)
But the American love of acronymic proliferation doesn’t stop here. If you’re in the NSA, you can get a CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) certification and maybe get awarded a spot in the Speaker Hall of Fame as awarded by the CPAE (Council of Peers Award for Excellence).
(We should probably do an acronym guide at some point? Let me know if that sounds like a good idea.)
Although the use of acronyms may elicit a WTF from Europeans, there is arguably something to be won by this approach. The difference in speaker income is case in point.
The explanation of the difference in income for speakers can’t be explained by the wealth of the nations alone. Several European countries are very close to the US in terms of per capita income - and still nowhere near in terms of speaker fees. To phrase it differently, there is something more than economics at play here.
By the way, if you are an American speaker wanting to go to Europe, keep in mind that customers in the old world may not know what a CSP is - and promoting it in your sales material may be something similar to speaking Chinese to them.
Ni hao ma.