On-Site Registration

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TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: So far Fred, we’ve been talking about registering people in advance. So, what about registering people that day? Is that something you should allow, you should set up? And how do you account for that?

Fred: Well, a lot of times, you put in your seminar brochure materials and promotion materials and on your website, you know, you put “Onsite Registration?” And it will say, you can register at—at the time of the event, day the of the event, the morning of the event, registration will occur, you know, one hour before start time for the seminar at 8 o’clock or if it’s 9 o’clock start. However, we can not guarantee you spaces and also onsite registration. There should usually be some kind of premium they have to pay in order to register at the event itself. When you mention onsite registration, what you want to do is, tell people, you know, how much they’re going to pay and how much of premium they’re going to pay, and what form of payment is accepted because this is one of the free-con things that people are used to do, right?

I guess that now, bad check fees are maybe a little less, a little bit more onerous than they used to be in terms of the ability of the, you know, the police and the agents who used to go after you. But often time’s people would pull this, where they would show up at an event and say, “Oh, you know, I didn’t register.” And they would write you a bad check. And there is no way you check on it now, again, that’s something that’s changed also when you have this instant ability to check whether or not a check is good. And I would encourage you to do that. Also, you want to make sure and have your credit machines available at your event, both for registration and for product sales.

But the registration process itself is also something we probably want to discuss. And, you know, onsite registration, I don’t know—how many times have you been to events and Avish, you go to a lot of events that are fairly professionally conducted. But have you ever been to an event where people didn’t know their, you know, their ass from their elbow in terms of registration?

Avish: Oh, yeah. There’s always, you know, some events have some confusion going on up there.

Fred: Well, some events have a lot of confusion going on. And so one of the things that you want to do is if you have a lot people, you want to make sure that you streamline this registration process. Because there is nothing more frustrating than having to wait in line, you know, 45 minutes to get your packet and your badge and everything else.

So, you want to make sure that if you’re doing onsite registration, not only in terms of payment but in terms of delivering people. Now, the question then becomes, “What will you give him?” Well, if it’s an expensive event, they’re probably going to want some kind of, you know, some kind of a thing or satchel to hold the stuff, along with various kinds of propaganda and outlines and even, you know, templates for the syllabus or the outlines, the notes, et cetera, that each of the people teaching are going to be using.

But—so, you should really take of this—now, if you have a small group like for example, the ninety seven dollar group that I had, a small group. I just had people’s name on a list and we, as soon as they said, “Yeah, I’m here!” We just handed them a name badge, said, “Put your first name on that.” So, for ninety seven bucks that’s pretty much all you got. Now, if I was doing the nine hundred ninety seven dollar one day event, we would have all our names, probably little ten cards. So, that they could find their seats and sit down, we would have had a fancy binder, with colored tabs and all that kind of stuff. So, registration entails not just getting it right or making it sure you give people all the stuff.

Avish: Is this something you do yourself or do you get someone to help you at the registration table?

Fred: Again, if it is an event that is higher priced, you definitely want to get someone because it looks a heck of a lot more professional. If it is something that you charge $97 for and anticipate less than 30 people, you can probably do it yourself.

Avish: Is there anything else we need to know about onsite registration?

Fred: No, I think that’s about it.