However, if you then go on to let people know that you will be happy to get the a copy of a GOOD CLEAN audio of the event at a VERY reasonable price, most will NOT try and record it on the SLY.

What is the right price?

I would say about 10% of what they paid to attend the event. If you price a good audio recording at that price, most people will think it’s worth it to pay for a GOOD quality recording.

Do it this way and you’ll have very few people who WANT the recordings who wont’ BUY them!

I suggest you do it either at lunch or right after you finish for the day.

Make it a NON mandatory session and make sure that your speaker KNOWS that you are going to promote it this way.

How do you get people to come?

Let the speaker (who should be there before the session – preferably well before) do a short commercial about what he/she is going to do at this special session. Let them tell the folks what they will learn and give them the BENEFITS of attending.

This is a good place to have someone who is a strong closer for products do their thing. As long as they deliver some good, solid, content, people won’t be offended with a strong pitch at the end.

AND, since it is a SPECIAL session that was meant for those who WANTED to come, your attendees can’t really BITCH about a PITCH!

It’s something EXTRA. Unannounced and unexpected.

People always like little positive surprises like this. I suggest you do the same. Find one or two things of fairly decent value to GIVE people that you did NOT promise.

Those from Louisiana call this LAGNIAPPE.

It’s not just a good idea in Louisiana, it’s a good idea anytime you do a seminar or event of any kind.

This will help.

Make sure and thank people for coming and give them your full attention for a SHORT period of time. There will be those who want to get some individual coaching done at that time.

Let them know that you’ll be happy to speak with them more at a later date, after you’ve said HI to everyone else in the group. MOST will understand.

Getting to know a percentage of your audience is good for them and for you.

It will help you be LESS nervous when you get started and will establish a greater level of trust for later on.

There are many “gurus” who don’t do this. They stay SEQUESTERED somewhere in a back room until the moment before the event is supposed to start.

I suppose this is a matter of personal style, but this just doesn’t work for me.

If you like people and you’re prepared to deliver a lot of valuable content, do what I say to do here.

You need to start STRONG and end STRONGER!

Hopefully your entire event will be memorable, but when someone asks one of your attendees what they thought of your event, they will think back to how the event ended.

And how it started.

When you start putting your event together, think of how you will open and how you will close. There are NO two sections of your seminar or workshop that are more important.

If you’re looking for an example, go rent the video: The French Connection with Gene Hackman from back in the early 70s. Take note of how the film opens. This will give you an idea of how to start your event.

As for the close, make sure that do two things. First, give people a PLAN of ACTION for what they should do NOW to make things happen.

Second, give them something REALLY solid that you end with. Similar to how you started, hold back one KILLER idea until the very end. One that people will leave saying: “WOW, that one idea was worth attending the entire event!”

That being said, I record almost all of my bigger events in both audio and video form. I already own all the equipment, so it doesn’t really cost me anything extra but a little time and effort.

That being said, if you’re like me, I PREFER to learn using audio. When I travel back and forth to the L.A. area from Las Vegas, I’m constantly listening to audio learning programs.

It is a time where I can learn a LOT by just sitting in the car.

If the material is NOT easily taught by using just audio, then you will need to capture it in video form as well.

Most of the interview I do are done without the use of video. Why? They don’t need it.

Ask yourself the question: “Can my customer be well served to get this information in AUDIO form?”

If the answer is YES, then you need to make sure that you make the audios available to them.

In what format? Most of what I do these days is downloadable. I record everything in MP3 format.

You do NOT need to record it in a higher quality format than that. It’s just voice, it’s NOT music.

For all of my audio recording I use a Marantz PMD 660. There are many other choices, some of them much less expensive, but that’s what I use!

You can NEVER make everyone happy!

That being said, there is only ONE really good reason to do this. TIME!

Trying to get people back to your seminar room after lunch is like herding cats.

If you’re doing a relatively pricey seminar where food cost doesn’t become a big deal, then go ahead and do it. IF you go that route, make sure and provide people with at least 2 or 3 choices at the meals. Always make one a vegetarian.

Better yet, do a buffet. You can get them through the line quickly and back to their tables for a “working lunch.”

Most of my events that are either 1 or 2 day seminars I do NOT provide food. I DO tell people to grab a quick sandwich and come back to the room for a “bonus” session.

This usually works. Try it yourself!

My response is always: I AGREE! I’m sure you’re great. I’ll then add: For US to make the MOST money I think it would be UNFAIR for me to merely pay you a fee for the ad. I think we should split the money 50-50.

So let’s have you run the ad as OFTEN AS YOU WANT and just split the money. That will make you even MORE than my PAYING for ad space.

Anyone who takes you up on that deal, go for it.

If not, do NOT spend money with any of the people who approach you. Remember that most ad reps get paid by the amount of dollars in advertising they book. Their compensation does NOT depend on YOUR results!

My goal is to make it so that like me, you NEVER lose money on an event.

If you follow my advice, I only HOPE to get you as close to that goal as I possibly can.

When people come to me and say they are doing a seminar in 3 months and want my help to market it, the first question I ask is: “how big a targeted email list do you have?”

If they say NONE, I always suggest they take the money they were planning to spend on advertising and donate it to their favorite charity.

The money would be MUCH BETTER spent!

RIDICULOUS!

Never ask your participants to get up and do anything unless there is purpose and a POINT to doing it.

After you ask your group to do anything like that, you should be prepared for one of your attendees to say:

“Why did we just do that exercise? What was the point?”

If you don’t have an answer to that question (even if it never gets asked), then do NOT do the exercise. FULL STOP.

Do it right and no one will even ask the question.

Why?

Because when you are through doing the exercise, you’ll want to clearly illustrate WHY you did it, what purpose it served to get them to THEIR goals and WHY you did it at that time.

If someone in your group asks why, then your best way to respond is to turn to your group and say:

“Can anyone answer that question?

If you don’t have half the audience immediately shoot their hands up, you need to go back and work at the exercise to make it better. To make it more relevant and make MORE SENSE.

This area allows you to take any affiliate link that you have an insert it.

Here’s an example. I like a site that helps you to “spy” on your competitors. I reserved the name www.CoolSpyTool.com. I
took my affiliate link that I was given from the site associated with this site and put it into the forwarding area.

This means that every time someone goes to this site via my affiliate domain: CoolSpyTool.com I will get paid if they buy something.

You should do the same with any and every site that you recommend that has an affiliate program.

After doing what I just said, then you have to create a site that puts all of the sites you recommend together in one place. I call that a SENT-ME site.

For an example, take a look at: www.FredSentMe.com.

This site has any/all of the sites that I suggest people check out all together in one place.

Feel free to take that site and COPY it. Make one for yourself.

When someone comes up to you at one of your events and says: “Where do I find some of the sites that you suggest we visit?” You can say: GO TO FREDSENTME.com (Insert YOUR name where appropriate).