Over the years I've run all kinds of events, from Weddings to Corporate Training, from the School Fete to Family Fun Day's at Tourist Venues and now I run talks and workshops to inspire people to love their lives. Events were great for me because I love organising, I love thinking of interesting ways to market events and I enjoy the pleasure people get from attending events and I've learnt a huge amount along the way...
This is a list of things that I learnt, what mistakes were made, what successes were had and how you can run a speaking or workshop style event that top's them all!
1) Only work with speakers that you like...
I have had the pleasure of meeting lots of people who want to offer talks and workshops over the years and I used to say yes to anyone and everyone - sometimes I wouldn't even have met them I just saw an email or had a quick phone call with them and fitted them in one way or another. Slowly I began to realise that this was not the best way to push forward any business that I was working with or for (after all most events are created to promote something else rather than just events in themselves).
- Whoever you have as a guest, stall holder, speaker, trainer, demonstrator etc has to be a good fit for your business - not just as another business but the actual person who will be attending the event.
- Meet with them, talk to them, find out what they are like, how they talk, promote, interact and then decide whether they are actually the right person for what you are trying to achieve. It's ok to say no - even if they are the most popular person on the planet - if it doesn't fit with your desired outcomes.
I once met a potential speaker after I asked for an introduction having liked some of their work, I instantly knew that they were not right for what I wanted to achieve. They were a big player in their world and I felt like maybe I should have them just for this reason but I knew absolutely that it wasn't a good fit, not long afterwards I found someone else who was a perfect fit and I was so relieved that I had said no to the other person!
2) Make sure your speakers have their own story...
I love to have speakers who talk from the heart, who can be vulnerable enough with their own story to share a little part of it with the audience...I personally feel it can be a great way to engage others and help them to feel more secure in exploring their own story or opening up to the new ideas that the speaker presents.
If you have someone who is unwilling to be open then ask yourself whether they will really bring anything to the audience (who they are essentially asking to be open by listening to them) - how can they ask others to be open when they themselves are not? Openness is not about sharing your entire life story with the audience or telling them every awful thing that has ever happened in order to demonstrate how they can relate...
it is simply about not hiding their humanity.
3) Pick a venue suited to the feel and outcomes you want to create for your event
This sounds pretty obvious but it can be overlooked. Venue is not the be all and end all when you are trying to pull in a crowd but it does have a bearing on the attraction and outcomes of the event.
- If you have an intimate workshop in mind and hold it in a huge village hall that feels very cold or lacks any kind of cosiness then you may find that a) people are not as willing to attend and b) they are less willing to take part within the session if they do attend because the space feels to daunting or overwhelming for them to be able to speak or share.
- The venue should always have the same feel that you are trying to create for the event itself - if you want people to feel energised, choose somewhere near water or with a golf club attached, or in a gym or with lots of colour.
- If you want people to create meaningful relationships with each other during an event choose somewhere more nurturing - at a spa, in a log cabin in the woods (as long as it's not the creepy kind!), somewhere with a big fireplace, somewhere with natural surroundings etc.
- If you are holding an event that needs to be really focused on the speaker (rather than the attendees) because you want to create excitement around what they are saying choose a venue with a stage and proper lighting or a space where the speaker stands that draws the eye with very little other distractions - like a theatre or somewhere without huge windows etc.
- If you want big changes to occur choose a venue with a challenge - a venue that is super expensive, a venue that is very unusual, a venue that sparks the imagination, involves a different mode of travel to get there - let it reflect the outcome you desire.
4) Close the gap between old and new behaviours
- What will people get out of your event?
- What is the behaviour they want to change and what new behaviour are they hoping to come away with?
- What will change for them?
- What will they achieve?
- Why should they give up their time and money?
- Why is this more important than something else they could be doing?
You have an event that looks at self sabotage for example,
the main selling point is not that you will be talking about what self sabotage looks like but that you will SHOW them HOW to move out of this state and into self belief instead - the old behaviour is what they will recognise as needing change and the new desired behaviour is what will make them book a ticket.
5) Create your title carefully
When you are selling a talk you need to bear in mind the thought process of the audience. I recently created a small, intimate workshop for people who wanted to learn to love again after experiencing heartbreak. It was a lovely lady coming to run it and I knew it would be incredibly valuable to those who attended.
What I hadn't taken into consideration was the fact that not many people were willing to attend a talk with this title because it implied something about their lives and their hearts that they didn't want others to know about them. There was lots of interest but also lots of worried questions about whether people would know they were attending, would there be confidentiality assured etc.
People were attracted to it but not willing to tell the world that they were 'that person' who had been heartbroken - it was too personal to them. So in the end we ran this as an online seminar so that people could remain anonymous and it worked much better.
The same goes for talks around confidence - who wants to tell their friends that they are attending a talk on how to be more confident - if you are not very confident already this is probably the last thing you want to admit and to get more bums on seats you want people to shout about the events and invite all their friends! You can still do a talk on confidence but call it something like 'Shout it out - the best you ever!' or something similar which implies the content but doesn't name and shame it (as it were).
6) The disgruntled customer is your lead to the next talk title
Feedback is your magic potion for creating better events...there will always be a time when you find someone is disgruntled because of something that is inside them that the event didn't satisfy, these people are great because you can really get to the heart of what it was that they were expecting.
- Did you oversell the content and outcomes?
- Did you give enough content for people to actually make changes or was it simply that the person in question was not ready to hear the message?
- If they were not ready to hear the message - what message would have reached them more clearly? If you can find out you might have your next talk title created for you!
Perhaps you organised a talk on Angels or something more unusual and got someone there who thought it was all a load of rubbish - talk to them,
- why did they attend?
- Did they want absolute proof?
- Do they have a need to see something that the talk did not provide?
Dig for more insight so that you can sell talks both more clearly and transparently but also so that you can figure out a way to do the same talk again on a different level -
perhaps a talk on the different ways in which you can sense, feel and communicate with the angels/universe/whatever your thing is would be a good one to introduce people to the fact that it is not all about one big massive reveal but an on-going relationship with self....
7) Find something rare and well known
Recently I went to an airshow with the Vulcan - it is the Vulcan's last flying season and she doesn't fly often. The airshow sold out, I was privy to the profit they made (which was way above their projections) and people came from miles around, camped out, watched from anywhere they could nearby if they didn't get tickets and the plane only flew for a grand total of 9 minutes.
The reason this event was such a huge success was because
they found something rare and something that lot's of people had heard of. If you can find this you are on to a winner.
My own example of this was when I got to ask Nick Hewer from The Apprentice (well known) one question (rare) and could then share the answer on my blog - it still has hundreds of hits a day because it fits the formula.
In terms of speaking events try to find either a well known speaker who has not spoken for a long time or rarely speaks now, or try arrange a talk on a subject that is well known but rare to be able to access in the form of a talk...I'll leave that one with you!
8) Don't let small numbers put you off
The key thing with events is to get going with them. If you only have a small number of people attending for the first few then
go with it - sometimes that actually works much better when you are trying to build up a following for a particular speaker or a particular subject matter or a new business because you can really talk to the attendees and spend time with them.
This is great if you are hoping to get them to spread the word for you or to go on to work with you further because you have time to get to all of them individually and ask for more in-depth feedback. It is also a great way of learning how everything is going to work and ironing out the kinks before the numbers get higher..
.just go for it!
9) Always put a little bit of you into each event, whether you are the speaker or the organiser
There are hundreds of events out there,
but yours are the only ones run by you...you are what sell's it at the end of the day, the way you word things in your marketing, the way you talk about the event in your conversations, the mission you have for the events, the uniqueness that you bring to every interaction...always use that in your favour, don't be generic, don't be a copycat, be you and only you.
10) Always know what you want to achieve
For my events with
Love Living I know exactly what I want to achieve...
I want people to be able to dip their toe into lots of different ways of accessing and activating their self development so that they find a fit for them and can be inspired to love their life. I don't want to up-sell, to convert everyone or for everyone to buy my book or sign up to my course...I just want to allow space and ideas to be shared until people find what they are looking for.
If they decide that it's working with me that they are looking for then wonderful, that's perfect...if they also decide that it's working with someone else or trying something different or nothing at all, that's perfect too because it is what is right for them.
Know what you want from every event so you can be clear on how it is represented, what the expectations are and what the mission is at the end of the day, what you need to bring to the event (do you want to be able to take further payments, sign up clients straight away etc) and what the next steps that you want people to take are going to be and how you will show them to that next step.
To find out what events we have coming up please visit our website
www.lovelivingevents.co.uk or to find out more about Coaching and Training with me please click
here or visit the website.
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Love Nova xxx
