Could you give me some advice on this?

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Almostgraduated

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Jul 16, 2007
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Yo what up,

I'm pretty new here, I'm 21 years old and have been making money online for almost three years now.

Lately I been slowing down on building sites and affiliate marketing because I dipped into some consulting work, while it is lucrative it isn't the easiet thing to deal with.

In any case, I was thinking about holding a seminar, my expertise isn't really in affiliate marketing but rather in two things, my main expertise is in expanding your already established 'brick and mortar' business online, and the other is building websites and getting the traffic you need for it.

In any case, I'm asking for advice on if you thing this would be good to do, and any suggestions you might have?

I was going to hold a seminar for businesses trying to get online, most of these businesses eithier have a crappy looking website or no jack shit about the internet. In eithier case there is a lot of money to be made from people that have never been marketing online, cause frankly they don't know what things cost or are worth.

The seminar would be on a Saturday at the Sheraton hotel near where I live, It would be from 11-2, lunch included.

My backend product would be to produce a custom web design and implementation strategy for each client, please note that the seminar will only be $200, but these custom designs would be $1,000+, The guide would show how to use your site to better your business.

My vision is filing 250 people out in the room, most seminars get a 30% conversion on the backend products, so I see complete revenue minimum of: $125,000 from the one seminar.

After the custom design is done, two-three months after the seminar, I was going to hold a workshop for 25 people for another $500, this would be for me to sit down with them, everyone on computers and to go step by step if they still didn't see success...

Now my questions:

1) Do you think that people would go for the custom design if they got really valuable information at my seminar?

2) Do you think the backend products are good. I don't want to offer any videos/ebooks/ basic shit, because that is not what I'm about, I like the one on one customer interaction

3) Buffet style Lunch or should I have them choose from three meal options like steak, chicken, salmon.

4) Do you think the whole seminar idea will work?

Sorry for the long post, thanks in advance for your help.

Peace.
 


Hi, just my opinion:
4) 30% conversion? It's about 75 people... I suppose it would be great, but almost fantastic, unreal. Some of them might be even not acquainted with what you will be talking about, others would fear to invest $1000, so I think the best advise will be to make it as persuading as it possible, and with some examples.
P.S. I'd prefer buffet style lunch
 
Of course it will work it's worked for years. First rule of selling shit at a seminar is people don't buy valuable information. The whole goal is to make them "feel" like they're getting valuable information while actually selling them your product. I was a speaker for Tony Robbins for a number of years and gave 1 hour "trainning sessions" to businesses for free. Really this is nothing more then a sales pitch make them believe they got value then hold the carrot out in front of them, then tell them they can't have it unless they buy your product. Can you imagine how many people would buy if they thought they could increase their sales 30% with your system? Just stop and think about what that would now do to your bottomline. Now have I sold you something or have you been sold that I have the answer by asking you some questions that makes you think I have them. Selling is an art and selling this stuff has an amazing amount of potential. I think it's the next Real Estate get rich quick trend we'll see all the speakers moving towards.

As far as the model I'd question it. The goal is to sell them something and not have to worry about it once you're out of the room. With your model you're setting yourself up for a headache. Imagine 200 people and 20% buy. Now that's 40 websites you have to get setup ASAP and everyone of them is going to want special things. Just sounds like a headache to me. Also I think your prices are way to low. Depending on who you're talking with and what you're selling. But 500$ for a bootcamp is way to cheap in my opinion.. Let me ask you this if you had the opportunity to sit down with someone that's been doing this for years looking over your shoulder, holding your hand and showing you the way do you think you could be successful at it? Where would you see yourself in 3 monthes if you had that kind of help? How about 6 monthes? 1 year from now can you see that really you don't need help anymore? How would it feel to be able to help others and teach them what you've learned? Well we're considering offering something like this but it hasn't been solidified yet. However if it does happen we're going to limit the seats to 20 to keep the setting initimate so that you have a lot of 1 on 1 time with the instructor. Now there's 200 of you in this room......

well you get point
 
I would do it if I were you. Use Google audio ads to target your city. Start out small to get the feel of what needs to be done for the "event" and to raise funds for bigger events.

I had a similar idea for a online trading workshop. I emailed Clear Channel radio station sales managers across the country and offered to provide a cut on the sign-up fee for each person that signed up from free advertising provided from the radio station. Mostly I got no response at all. A small handfull of stations replied back with a "no thank you but..." counter offer for discount radio advertising. However, two stations said it could be done. One is Seattle and one on Sacramento. The guy in Sacramento dropped the ball and I gave up trying to work around his schedule. The station in Seattle ( KOMO ) was very responsive to my offer but air time alloted for the elections last year prevented me from getting good air time for the spots. We decided to put the workshop off for some time. I received a email several weeks back from my contact there suggesting that the deal was still a go when I was ready. I also was contacted by a sales manager at a station in San Diego that was very interested and was offering two stations and channel 5 website banners as well.

All from a request for free advertising.

The deals are not off, I am currently working on a book to legitimize me and my system for further promotion. The book should be done by the end of the year and I hope to do some workshops at the beginning of next year.

Go for it! What do you have to lose?
 
You should be able to pull it off, but you just need to get the right model down.

I tend to agree with smaxor. With what you are trying to do it is better to charge more and get less customers versus being "cheap" and getting twice as many people.

This is coming from someone who use to do a fair share of custom website/webdev work. Nothing sucks more than having 10+ companies (who have already given you a down payment) wanting their website NOW. Not only that but then they start getting all nitpicky and it just becomes a ton of maintenance.

Since it will be your first seminar, I can understand wanting to be on the conservative side. But if you really think you can get a decent amount of businesses to attend, don't be afraid to consider making the price for the website a bit higher.

Assuming you are a one man team, just be careful. It is easy to take on more work/clients than you can handle... which doesn't work well for you or the client.

Good luck and cheers! :D
 
I actually say I wouldnt do it.

During college I used to book a seminar about every 3 months for a stock broker, or investment advisor or whatever you want to call them. It is damn difficult. You have to call maybe 100 phone numbers to get one person on the phone and get them to come to the event. You will have to target about the same type of person as I did. Fairly rich, independant and well educated people. They have heard every pitch and are not interested.

All are seminars were free and included free food at a great hotel. 5 people would show up...

I dont think you have the patience or bankroll to do this for long. Start smaller, free seminars at the library or community center. Or just network meetings. I think both would be less stress and a better environment. At those big seminars would need guts, experience, and a bankroll. I think Merril Lynch was paying for a lot of what we were doing.
 
I agree with Drake - start small. Get someone from your local chamber of commerce to help you get the word out and set things up. Try to find someone who is experienced in seminars to give you some real life pointers. Set up a webpage where people can register and remit their funds. It's great that you are visualizing what would happen in a perfect world, but you must be realistic. Plan for more frequent smaller seminars than one great big one, you could even do one seminar in the morning and one in the evening to accommodate different peoples' schedules. If you keep your seminars smaller, your people will have a more intimate setting and you'll be better able to interact with your group on a more personal level. That's impossible to do if you have 200+ people all at once. Plus it's better to have a small success than a big failure.
 
Or you could market toward the unemployed and stay at home moms. Conduct a free seminar geared toward those that want to get rich on the internet ( a HUGE market). Target this market with TV ads on late night local TV. TV ads for employment are huge late at night because:

1) they are cheap
2) you will target alot of the unemployed on late night TV

I used to work as a marketing director for an Israeli Real Estate firm. We did infomercials on late night TV and made a ton of money (well the firm did..I didn't). Sure your not making the front end but if you are good you can sell the shit outa the backend products. All the big seminar guys work this way.

EDIT: I was thinking...the question I would have is "do I have the name to bring the masses in on TV advertising". Im sure that would be your question as well. From experience, I will tell you that a slick, kickass commericial will sell anyone. Just look at these e-book sites. They are slick and they sell. If your commercial is convincing and grabs the attention of the viewer..then you don't need a "name".
 
As others have said your concept will result in a big lump of work that can't be finished in time to have happy customers.

Big ass seminars with 200+ people are for selling products where the fullfillment is trivial (books sold on the day, E-commerce hosting, Ponzi Schemes).

You sound like an honest player that wants to build a business, so I'd suggest that you have small seminars regularly (weekly or monthly) and deal with the conversions from those in a timely manner, then when you've got the business processes down pat try to expand. I used to do this for a link building service we offered, and it worked well because the signups came in at a manageable level, plus you get referrals from happy customers and that really starts to build the business. (As well as the cross-sell opportunities)

Stores Online (trading under various names) do the whole big seminar, lunch and sell overpriced E-commerce services really well, they make tens of millions of dollars annually doing it.
 
Wow,

Thanks for the great advice, I think I might charge more and make it smaller, i was thinking about it more and I was thinking to money hungry instead of what I can actually do. Yea, I may make a lot onf the design customers, but hell that is a lot of work and I still need a life.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
 
I think you're trying to mix two things that don't work well together.

To get the web design customers, you need to have a free seminar/consult to pick up the clients. You bring them in, serve them nothing but coffee and donuts, and then you wow them with what you can do for their business. The downside is you'll get a bunch of annoying nit-picking people called clients that will suck the life out of you.

You say you want to get away from the designing for clients and into consulting, but your idea now ends with getting design customers. I think you need to think of a successful seminar that you can charge money for so you get paid there without tacking on an enormous amount of agony (the web design clients). Whether that means you stick to this idea and farm out the work, I don't know, but I really don't think charging people $200 bucks to come and hear about the fantastic site you can build them for more money is going to work. If these companies had that kind of money to throw away just to listen to your proposal, they probably already have a website.
 
Just one thing.. you haven't mentioned where you are... there's a few Sheraton Hotels in the world! Going by your pricing I'm guessing somewhere in the US, but people shouldn't have to guess!

Just a thought...
 
Try making it a class

I have done the seminar thing as an independent financial planner, it's OK but is pretty saturated in the market across the US, that's why only 5 people show up and they are looking for a free meal half the time. I have seen financial planners get together with business colleges, senior centers vocational schools, and community colleges. The planner sets up a 4-6 week class that "students" pay $295 to $495 for and are "taught" something like how to build a diversified portfolio or estate planning or retirement planning 101. At the end of the class the "students" get a personal consultation which is also a sales pitch for additional services. I would suggest you bundle a ton of services with recommended tools, hosting, etc and possibly team up with someone else to do something like this. You could make a lot of money doing this and really help some people get started the right way;)
 
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