How to Succeed with Offline Seminars for Business Owners

Nice thinking out of the box.

Next One try $1000.00 entrance fee. ( let them know that 50% off )

I would be willing to bet you get about the same amount of people.

I was thinking about doing something similar Mike. Let me know how it turns out. Where are you hosting the meetup?

Sounds great. I agree, I thought about doing this a while back too, but never followed through because I wanted to focus on another project. I have heard lately that Meetups with local business owners have been Crushin it. Good luck and let us know how it goes, which I'm sure you'll ROCK it!

Good luck with the seminar there and thanks for posting details about your plans.

Just curious, but I wonder if a higher price may have attracted more business owners for you, as many people will assume higher cost will mean a better education for them? Worth testing once you get the hang of running things anyway.

Hope you'll check back in and let us all know how things went!

Thanks for sharing! Great idea! Thought of it too a while back...not too sure what to talk about! What topics do you cover?

To answer some questions:

1. Hosting at a local Panera Bread. They have a walled-off meeting room of sorts that will hold about 15 people, and is free to rent.

2. This week focusing on meet&greet and then going to guide them through the essentials of getting people to buy their stuff online. Very light overview because I want them to tell me their goals so I can more closely tailor the topics to their needs and interests.

3. The price will vary depending on the topic and the length. I have good flexibility to rent several venues around town and can easily charge more/accomodate more if there's a need. Meetup also give you the ability to have people pay online (or I can just use eventbrite). I'm starting small to make sure I'm decently good at this.

Let me save you some money. If you go through the whole process of creating a group but quit before paying they email you an offer for %50 off!

GREAT SUCCESS! (Borat voice)

So how did the meeting go? What kind of professionals did you attract?

How did it go? I wanted to do this but to gain leads.

Here are a few things to add based on the ones we have been to before (as clients).

1. Rent a hotel meeting room. You need to show you are a professional and this is not expensive. In one of my old management jobs we actually rented the hotels largest meeting room for our monthly manager meeting (every store and assistant manager in the metro area aka about 40 people) and the costs were relatively low.

2. Charge more. You will get better turn out if you charge more. People want value and $10 is not seen as value. $199 with discounts seems to be a great price. Hell even for networking events around here people pay more than $10 and this is not a big metro area.

3. Make it an all day event, 9 to 4 with an hour lunch. So 3 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon.

4. Schedule it midweek (Tues, Wed, or Thurs). The reason for this is how business works. In a Monday to Friday world they will not want to be out of the office on Monday or Friday. I personally like Tues though I don't really know why. But make sure you understand the businesses you are targeting. Tues would be bad for a video store. Wed for a comic shop. Tues & Thurs last I knew would be the release days for book stores.

5. Aim for 20 plus people in the room. The less people in the room the more I feel scared my money and more importantly my time is being wasted. This may mean offering buy one get one free(I think this works great). Now you only need 10 businesses vs. 20. Also consider giving out tickets to hot prospects. They get value and you get a round about way to sell them. And finally if you have friends in business call in favors to fill spots. "John I only have 22 people scheduled to show up and you kow aways a few don't show. Do you have a few day to spend watching my seminar? I'd love to have your feedback."

6. Finally for all have them pay in advance. This means they are less likely to cancal. Remember it is "non-refundable". Of course like a good business owner you will actually refund if they need it.

So that was a gigantic FAIL!

I'm still glad I did it because now I know firsthand that it didn't attract my target market at all. Of the 10 people that said they were coming, only 3 showed up. The three that did make it weren't serious business people and will most definitely never become clients. They all bitched about the $10 lol.

Aaron Doud nailed it - charge more, better venue, different time, get more people.

At least I got back $30 haha.

What payment method would be the best option? You obviously would like to get the money before they even walk in the door. Paypal? Mail a check?

What did you all do? HOw long did you meetup?

Payment method question:

Eventbrite - QuickStart: Sell Tickets Online
I have never used this service myself but have been to multiple seminars when the company running them used it.

To the OP:
You learned some great lessons here about pricing. That alone IMO doesn't make it a fail. It take little failures and lessons learned to be successful. The key difference between the successful people and the wash outs is how they hanlde failure. If you learn a lesson from it and grow you will be a success.

I've run meetings like this for a few years. The reason you had poor attendance isn't the price. It's that you relied on Meetup to do the marketing for you.

Even free seminars, they need to get something free to show up. A meal, a book you wrote, a set of CDs...something. The problem was that these people didn't know you from Adam. You weren't a celebrity in their eyes. And Meetup doesn't attract an ideal audience.

Want ideal?
Business owners that have heard of you, and at least bought a book you have written or subscribe to your e-mail list.
They have heard, from soneone they trust, that you are the guy to talk to.
Once they sign up for your meeting, they sjould get e-mails every day about what they are going to learn. An interview with you is a good way to do this. Maybe a webinar with a local radio personality interviewing you (That's what I do).

If ten people give their sacred sincere word that they will be there...three will show up. Assume those numbers.

Three people isn't a meeting. I guess I still would have done it, but I would aim for thirty at least. Anything less that 20 people, and a room looks empty. You need a group dynamic. It helps sales.

You need to use direct mail. Postcards are fine, to a local list of business owners. They call in to sign up. It may take a mailing of 5,000 to get 30 to show up.
But now you have a room full of real business owners (and staff maybe). There is more excitement because it looks like something is really happening here.

You need an intro video. About you, if you have real accomplishments in your field, about the subject you teach, if you like. But you have to look important.

I also use meetup in my marketing. But I usually end up with one or tweo people coming because of that...and they usually don't buy. But the cost is right, so why not?

I've also just gone door to door to invite business owners to my seminar. Amazingly, that works. It's a personal invitation from you, so they are more likely to show up.

You may have to invite 100 for 20 to show up, but that's maybe two days inviting people (not really cold call selling, at least it never felt like it to me).

I've thought of hiring people to invite the business owners, but the effect isn't going to be the same.

I hope this helped.