Pomona Index Update: Summer 2025

June and July have been very different months for the speaker market, based on the Pomona Index.

To recap, this is the single number we produce based on a mix of statistics we keep to give you a sense of how the market is performing from our perspective. It factors in the number of enquiries we receive, what percentage of enquiries convert, and the value of enquiries as well, all benchmarked against a fixed point in our past so that we can trace improvements - or not! - a bit like a stockmarket. You should be able to look at the index month to month and compare it to the performance of your own speaking business to see if you're on trend, behind it, or running ahead.

June 2025

June continued the very up and down nature of 2025 for us with a particularly weak set of numbers. Very strong average deal size and reasonable enquiry numbers were dragged right down by an incredibly low number of conversions for the month - much lower than expectations. The final index number for June 2025 was just 360 - lower than either of the last two years.

July 2025

Fortunately things turned around completely for July 2025 with a record high for the month of 2195, our fourth best month ever and nearly 20x better than 2024! Things could have been even better with very strong average deal size and fair conversion numbers being somewhat pulled down by lower than expected enquiry rates.

Analysis

Our average Index score for 2025 is currently 1707. For comparison, that is 44% up on 2024 and 116% up on 2023. So things are very much going in the right direction.

The wild swings we see at the moment are a factor of our scale. Even with 100+ speakers on our books, we're not yet handling the volume of enquiries we expected to be. That's partly a function of our marketing, and attendees at the last Town Hall will know that we are completely turning our marketing strategy on its head from September this year. But it's mostly down to you, our speakers.

Though we've seen a marked increase in the number of enquiries coming from some speakers in the last few months, we're still not seeing the numbers we would expect. We know that some of you are still struggling to generate enquiries, which is why we have invested so much in training content to help you establish your proposition and grow your profile. But we can only really help you if you help us, by feeding the enquiries you do generate through us.