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Successful seminars are generally based upon the concept of
giving you the power to believe you can. The speakers usually
speak from insights and expertise gained from their own life
experiences. Self-improvement seminars give the attendees the
tools - and the motivation - to succeed. Thus, a well-organized
and well-presented seminar that helps people up the ladder of
success can't help but succeed because we are a success-oriented
society - it's an easy sell with an income potential limited only
by your ability to express yourself.
You won't need an office to make it big with self-improvement
seminars. The public doesn't visit you - you take your programs
to them. Self-improvement seminars appeal to almost
everybody - from blue-collar workers to top executives.
The average cost per person to attend a seminar is very close
to $300 - so your basic audience will be from the upper-income
brackets - but if you handle the promotional aspects properly,
you'll pull them in from lesser income brackets as well.
Many seminar promoters employ sales teams to call upon top
company executives and either get them to partially pay the cost
of several employees to attend as educational or business improve -
ment investments - or to foot the bill for the sponsorship of a
"group seminar" for all of that company's middle management
personnel. Many specialty speakers make in excess of $100,000 per
year with regular motivational and/or self-improvement seminars in
this fashion.
In the beginning though, you'll get your start by staging
seminars for the general public in restaurant banquet rooms, hotel
ballrooms, and convention centers. These will entail advertising
costs, plus the charges for the rented space, and an "on-hand" in -
ventory of the materials you want to sell to the people who attend
your seminars.
Generally, you'll do best with an intensive radio advertising
campaign during the week preceding your seminar date. In a
metropolitan area of half a million population, you should
spend a couple of thousand dollars on radio advertising, plus
about half as much for flamboyant newspaper advertising. Some
seminar promoters invest a quarter of their budget in newspapers,
then a quarter in direct mail and/or telephone advertising, with
half going into radio. Of course, the allocation of your
advertising budget should be related to the previous proven
power of each media within that particular market. Not too much
concern is given to television advertising, excepting for guest
appearances of the community service talk shows.
Most promoters spend all of this effort and money to promote a
series of free seminars. These free seminars usually draw huge
crowds, during which special "front men" turn everybody on with
super-motivational stories designed to whet the appetite of those
in attendance for more. These free seminars generally last only
45-minutes to an hour, and are strictly motivational in purpose.
Each person in attendance is handed a brochure describing the
up-coming "main event" as they leave these free seminars. An
attempt is made to get a commitment - at least a deposit for the
cost of the "real thing," which is usually set for the week
following. Those who do not commit themselves to attending the
big one are then contacted by professional telephone sales people
and given the complete sales presentation between the time of the
free seminar and the date of the real thing, which and experienced
telephone sales people - you can count on closing about 30 to 35%
of those who attend your free seminars.
If you don't have the confidence or inclination to participate
- be the principal speaker - at your seminars, you can hire local
sales training people, professional people from the medical
specialties, local "experts" known through your area newspapers or
broadcast media, and/or nationally known speakers willing to
travel and operating through speakers' bureaus. You might want to
contact Burt Dubin of Personal Achievement Institute - 225 Santa
Monica Blvd., Suite 305 -Santa Monica, CA 90401... Or Dottie
Walters of The National Speakers ' Bureau - 400 W. Foothill Blvd.
- Glendora, CA 91740.
Finally, a reiteration of the fact that there are literally
millions of people in all parts of the country willing and able to
pay you for helping them to improve themselves. You can start
with meetings in your living room, or your local restaurant. All
it takes is action on your part to get set up and a push from
yourself to start making it happen. Best of luck and now get
going with it.
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