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10 Death Moves that Kill Events

by | Carla Singson, In the Magazine

You’ve heard it before — coaches and consultants making easy six figures over the weekend. It’s more fun than an online launch or a group membership enrollment…it’s an event!

With in-person events, coaches get to show up for their audience with a better backdrop, take opportunities for high level transformational change, and most of all, they also get to create real-life communities. The coaches realize their leadership at a much, much, higher level, and there’s fun activities and lifelong friendships to be formed. That said, it is not a surprise why a lot of coaches are attracted to the idea of hosting events.

As a professional event planner, I see a lot of them D-I-Y their events, and make drastic mistakes to their coaching career. In this article, I’ll help out coaches on how they can avoid these 10 “death moves” that kill the ideal coaching event experience.

  1. Making tickets too expensive. Some people are so pressured to make their money back right away that they make the tickets too expensive. Some coaches also don’t know their market’s capacity for spending, especially those who will have to fly in and book rooms. This is a common newbie mistake. Make your ticket price a “hell yeah” offer, and explore other ways to make extra income from other offers (VIP offer, extra mastermind day, merchandise, inner circle membership, etc.)
  2. Not negotiating properly. If you are DIY-ing your event, there’s a high likelihood that you will not be able to get the best prices for everything. Negotiate as much as you can, learn a little bit about the industry, and if you are doing this somewhere else, learn about the culture of that area as well. Also get at least 5 quotes for something before you buy it.
  3. Promoting and selling tickets too late. The best time to start marketing an event is 2-3 months for a local one, and 6-9 months for a national / international one. With several channels where your audience can reach you, you can start with unique and fun teasers leading to your “big announcement”.
  4. Not having a money making system on the back end. So you sold out your tickets, now what? You now have a room of people who are dying to work with you, people who want to see if you’re for real, and people who are ready to have their lives changed. You need to sell something else aside from merely tickets. This is not a concert, and you will not be able to give them the world by merely being in a room together for 2-3 days. Don’t waste your students’ momentum!
  5. Not optimizing room logistics for a sale or a really good event experience. The room layout, the stage height, food timing, the lighting, the temperature…if you’re not a pro and you’re just “winging” these, you might kill some sales or not deliver a particularly good experience to the people who paid to see you.
  6. Being over optimistic on how many people will show up. Depending on the size of your audience, the level of engagement, past events hosted, and of course, industry standards, there is a regular show up rate and there are also ways to increase it so that you can have a fuller room, primed for your other points of sale.
  7. Not understanding the true reasons people go to your events. Most people will tell you they  love coming for the learning. But as pro event planners, we have found that a huge chunk of people go for status/ “bragging rights”, networking, and mere inspiration. You need to do market research and actually pay closer attention to your audience. This way, you can think of ways to improve their experience better, in such a way that they will tell their other friends to go next time!
  8. Being cheap or ignorant on what it takes to fill a room. In the influencer “scale of commitments” from their followers, a like or a comment on social media is on the low end of this scale, but getting them to actually take a few days off their home, to book a particular time to see you, a flight here and there, an Uber here and there..that’s at the top of the commitment scale, and will take a real believer to go see you. This means that there is no direct ratio to how much of your audience will show up even if you have 100,000 followers. We have seen an influencer with 100,000 followers but could not convert one into a ticket buyer, and someone with a 5,000 Facebook following, but filled 8 rooms in one year, in different parts of the world. If you need help, pay for ads,pay for consulting, but be really careful about gauging audience interest to see you.
  9. Not learning how to sell at an event. Some people confuse their audience by selling a lot of things. Some can teach but can’t sell from the stage (seriously, we’ve seen a super confident influencer stutter while trying to do it!). Some also oversell with too many testimonials that it’s too ‘salesy’ that people actually start doubting the offer. Walking the thin line of selling and helping people takes practice and guidance. Make sure you equip yourself properly!
  10. Trying to do everything yourself. Do what you do and do it well. Leave the event planning and the strategy to the pros so you can be at your best and at the same time get your best chances of really making your event successful and highly profitable.  Ask for recommendations from your friends or talk to a few event pros before you decide. Personally I would say choose a team that has a solid sales background, and those who know how to put an entrepreneurial event together.

There you go, hopefully your events will be as successful as you intend them to be. Try to avoid these 10 death moves and your events should be golden! Good luck!

Karla Singson

Lead Event Planner

SNAP Events (www.snapevents.com)

 About the Contributor

Karla Singson, is a hyper active twenty-something Davao Event Coordinator who gets out of bed for Marketing and PR Consultancy, events management, and chocolate. On the side, she also writes, hosts events, accommodates speaking engagements and manages an online-based flower shop. That’s what she does for a living. But to live, she is passionate about feminism, arts, literature, and education. She also has unexplainable fondnesses for the color brown, arcade, books, tea and nail polish. And spoken word poetry. This is her 9th year in professional writing.

 

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