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HOW TO MAKE YOUR FORTUNE WITH SELF-IMPROVEMENT SEMINARSThese people have spent, and will continue to spend, millions of dollars annually to cultivate these "secrets" within themselves. Since the early seventies there has been a growing demand by the public to attend classes, workshops, and self-improvement seminars that will enable them to align their thinking and actions with those of people who have already achieved success. The popularity of such best-selling how-to books as Winning Is Believing. . . Think And Grow Rich. . . How To Develop A Winning Personality. . . Overcoming Shyness. . . Imagineering. . . New Life Options. . . Winning By Negotiation. . . Successful Visual-Verbal Communications. . . Conversationally Speaking. . . and countless others lends reinforcement to the huge market for self-improvement seminars. You can promote and stage these seminars--either as a generalist or as a specialist in a specific area of expertise--and attain wealth for yourself almost beyond your imagination! The market potential has barely been scratched, affording a real ground-floor opportunity for those with the gumption to take action. Dale Carnegie, author of the book How To Win Friends and Influence People was certainly one of the earliest, if not the first self-improvement seminar marketer/teacher. During the Great Depression, Carnegie recognized the desire in people to improve themselves. Following that insight, he worked out a deal with the local management of his hometown YMCA, got the word around that he was holding classes on self-improvement, and the rest is one of the truly classic rags-to-riches success stories of our time. You can do the same thing. The need is as real now as it was in Carnegie's day. People are seeking to better themselves--you can help them to do it. A self-improvement seminar is conducted much the same as a Toastmasters Club meeting. It can be held just about anywhere, from the informal atmosphere of someone+ s living room to the formalities of your city's convention center. Basically, a self-improvement seminar is a gathering of people where one or more speakers address a specific subject. More often than not, only a certain aspect of self-improvement--such as Developing A Positive Mental Attitude--is the thrust of the entire presentation. Successful seminars deal with "specialized areas" of self-improvement by focusing on a single topic rather than several issues. All seminars are generally conducted in a similar fashion, whatever the topic being discussed. Speakers make their presentations for forty-five minutes to an hour, and usually wind up their talks with an audience involvement activity or a question and answer session. Most seminars finish with the speaker circulating through the audience chatting with small groups, plus lots of opportunity for the purchase of self-help books and tapes by those participants who want to continue learning to apply what they've just heard. Always--sometimes even as the featured subject of the seminar--there's an atmosphere of positive thinking generated during these meetings. At the bottom line, motivation is a greater force behind these seminars than the attendees learning something they don't already know. The favorite phrase of many seminar speakers is, "It's the difference between having a dream and taking action--a matter of saying I can; believing it, and then doing it--because you can!" Successful seminars are based upon the concept of empowering the listener to believe that he can accomplish anything to which he sets his mind. Seminar leaders usually speak from insights and expertise gained during 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 earn money because it is being presented in 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 about $300, so your basic audience will be from the middle to upper-income brackets. However, if you handle the promotional aspects properly, you'll pull them in from lesser income brackets as well. Additional income is generated by the sale of books, cassette tapes, videos, and newsletters related to the featured subject of the seminar. Many seminar promoters employ sales teams to call upon top company executives and either get them to pay the cost for several employees to attend a seminar as an educational or business improvement investment, or to sponsor a "group seminar" for all of that company's middle management personnel. Many specialty speakers earn in excess of $2,000,000 per year with regular motivational and self-improvement seminars in this fashion. In the beginning, you'll get your start by staging seminars for the general public in restaurant banquet rooms, hotel ballrooms, and convention centers. This will entail advertising costs plus the charges for the rented space, and an "on-hand" inventory of the materials you want to sell to the people who attend your seminars. Generally, you'll do best with an intense radio advertising campaign during the week preceding your seminar date. In a metropolitan area of half a million population or more, you should probably spend several thousand dollars on radio advertising, plus about half as much for flamboyant newspaper ads. Some seminar promoters invest a quarter of their budget in newspapers, a quarter in direct mail and telephone advertising, with the remaining half going for radio spots. Of course, the allocation of your advertising budget should be related to the previous proven pulling power of each media within that particular market. More and more attention is being given to television advertising, especially late in the evening. A lengthy paid advertisement, these "infomercials" can be had rather inexpensively because of their air time--usually after eleven p.m. However, that time of the evening is when most of the prospects for seminars are watching television! The infomercial is a series of three or more, five to ten minute segments promoting your seminar, linked together to form a program of thirty to sixty minutes. The individuals segments must be brief and to the point. They describe the problem, introduce you and give your credentials, and explain the benefits of your seminar. After the segment, an announcer tells where, when, and how the seminar will be given, usually giving a telephone number to call for enrollment information and reservations. The next segment is then started, directly on the heels of the last. The short run-time of the segments allows you to capture the interests of viewers who are scanning the channels, hold their attention long enough to present your message, and then allow them to make a commitment to the seminar before changing channels. 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 the audience for more. These free seminars generally last only forty-five minutes to an hour, and are strictly motivational in purpose. Upon leaving the free seminar, each person in attendance is handed a brochure describing the up-coming "main event". An attempt is made to get a commitment--at least a deposit for the cost of the main seminar--which is usually set for the following week. 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. With good advertising, up-front motivational speakers, attractive program brochures, and experienced telephone sales people, you can count on making a sale to about 30 to 35% of those who attend your free seminars. If you don't have the confidence or inclination to participate--to be the principal speaker at your seminars--you can hire local sales training people, professional speakers from the various specialties, local "experts" known through your area newspapers or broadcast media, or nationally known speakers willing to travel and operating through speakers' bureaus. You can coordinate the event, gather the sales material for after-seminar sales, handle the advertising, etc., and allow others to present the program. Remember, there are literally millions of people in all parts of the country willing
and able to pay you for helping them to improve their lives. 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 to start making it happen. Best of luck. Now get going with it! |
