#187: How to Host a Hit One-Day Workshop

Welcome back to another episode of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to get you excited about your course marketing, about building whatever program is going to help you scale your online based business. And did you listen to the last episode yet where I talked about inside our live cohorts might be a great idea for you to put your program out there, dip your toe in the water and figure out if you want to go out there and go out to market in a bigger way.

If you haven’t listened yet, go back, check it out. Also, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss one episode. And then if this podcast is making an impact for you on your personal or your business lives, please leave me a review. Today I’ve got a special treat with the rock star of event planners, Jessie Schwartzburgon on the podcast.

Now Jessie is a friend and think of a big name. Jessie has supported their event. I’m talking Tony Robbins, JJ Virgin, John Assaraf, Bo’ Eason, Mike Koenigs, The Learning Annex. Jessie has done an all your best life and I want a Jessie to come on to talk about what if we want to hold a one day workshop in in-person?

How do we market that? What is the experience look like? How do we maybe sell into the next step? Because she is the absolute genius at this and at all things events. Now, I know Jessie, because, gosh, it must be ten years now from Pam Hendrickson, who is a big mentor of mine when I worked for Tony Robbins.

And then afterwards I did work with Pat. I consulted for her own business. And I’ll never forget I met Jessie backstage. Pam Hendrickson and Mike Koenigs would do a make market launch event, and there was this cool lady backstage in charge of all the details, running the show, knowing the content, how to best present the speakers, how to serve the audience at the highest level.

And that was Jessie and then fast forward to both recent events. Now I’ve had Bowe on the podcast. I’ll link to his amazing episode. I’ve had Bo’s wife Dawn on the podcast. I’ll link to that episode. Just wonderful, wonderful experts and people. And Jessie helps to run their personal story power event. One of the highlights of my year, twice a year when they have it in La Hoya.

So we’ve become friends over the years and I cherish that friendship because she is so smart and so insightful and she, the way she thinks through content and sales is incredible to me. And I follow her on Instagram and she travels all over the world and she is a marvel. I thought, let’s have her on to share some of her ideas for how we can create an amazing workshop for our course creators or our students or our clients, because there’s no one better in the world to talk about it.

So let me shut up and I’ll bring on Jessie. Jessie, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to finally have you on. Oh, thank you. Good to see you, Gina. It’s so good to see you. Okay, let’s dive right in. I talked you up in the intro and how much I frickin adore you. I want to know we’re talking workshops today.

How do I know when I’m ready for a full day workshop? Like, do I need a certain size audience? Do I need my content in a certain place? In my business? In a certain place? Tell me, what do I need? Okay. So I think the question back to you is, can you do your ABC is And what I mean by that is, yeah, I mean, it’s pretty elementary, right?

Can you are you ready to do your first, first ever workshop. Sure. When you can do your ABCs. But what I mean by that is really the ABCs are do you have an audience? Do you have the budget and do you have enough content? So if I can, I want to break that down for you. Really, Class, please do it.

Like, what do I think is the right audience size? Well, you know what? I if I had to pick a number, I would say, can you get eight people in a room? I think that I think that’s the magic number eight. Just have like a great like energy to it. But also if you think in terms of it’s a workshop, right?

If you want to break them into doing some partner shares, it’s an even number. If you’re doing roundtables, you know, at hotels, those are those fit 8 to 10 people. So it’s like if you had to pick a number, I’m like, okay, yeah, if you could get eight people in the room to listen to your all day workshop or your week long workshop.

So that’s the audience part of it. The second part is the budget part of it. So of course you can put on an event for free, you can, but I think if you go through the offer to plan a workshop, you should put some bells and whistles in it, you know, are you going to be providing water, coffee, swag, audio, visual, you know, where are you doing this?

Are you going to have a team with you? Are you going to film it so you can repurpose it and use content? You know, those are all line items for a budget. So I’ve produced events that are $1,000 up to $19 million, right? It just depends on the muscles. But I think the question is like, do you have a budget to really put this event on?

Right. And I would say like bare bones minimums would be about $1,000. That’s fair. That’s fair. Okay. $1,000. Got it. So that’s the budget part of it. And then she is like the content. Like, do you have enough content to fill an all day workshop? So typically, workshops are like a 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and you’re going to give a morning break, an AM break.

So, you know, maybe around that 1030, 1045 mark, you’re giving a 15 minute break. You need to give a minimum of an hour long lunch break minimum, and then you need to give an afternoon break when you’re putting a workshop on the reason. What you want to do when you’re putting your schedule together is you want to think people start getting really squirmy after about 2 hours.

If you don’t give them a morning break or an afternoon break at about that to our break, you’re going to lose them. They’re going to be running out to use the restroom anyway. So you need to put a morning break and you need to put a lunch break in and you put an afternoon break. And so really what that gives you is do you have 8 hours worth of content, Right?

Do you have an hours worth to fill? And if so, then I say, yeah, go for it. You can follow ABC’s I have the audience, I’ve got a budget, I’ve got enough content to do a full day workshop then then go for your first workshop. Okay. I love this. Let’s break it down a little bit. So I talked about when I used to hold workshops and I’m thinking about doing again.

And that’s why one of the reasons why I reach out to you, Jessie, because you’re the best. And I did ten. I got 10 to 12 people in a room, in a beautiful conference room at the Natural History Museum here in San Diego over a weekend. And I used to love doing them. And that that space and that energy and then the content, like part of that content can be workshopping, right?

So if people are freaking out right now, like eight continuous hours, it doesn’t have to be a continuous hours. You can do breakout and, and workshops and they can be doing exercises and stuff. Right, Right. Okay, cool. Okay, let’s talk about the topic. So when I did workshops, I did build your course in a weekend. So to me that came out because people were asking me questions like, Hey, can I just sit down with you?

And we just get this done together. But how do you come up with a topic that you know is going to convert, that you know, okay, I can get eight people in a room for this? Yeah. Okay. So first you have to take what your topic is and put how to in front of it. If it’s truly going to be a workshop.

Right. Like are you going to teach them how to do some things, but you can’t do that. You don’t have a workshop, right? But there’s a formula that I’ve been using back since the days when I was working at the Learning Annex and I still work it today. I still use it today to come up with winning topics and titles, and so I’m going to share it with you guys right now.

And that is being Uber. Uber where when you go to book stores, grocery stores, when you’re in the airport and you know that when you’re in a bookstore and you’re walking by the books that are facing out in a section, those are the bestselling books, that means it’s a hot topic when you’re in line at the grocery store and you’re looking at a magazine cover and you see those titles on there, that is a hot topic.

So hot topics will sell. The hot topics convert into workshops. So let me use a couple like examples and scenarios. So for instance, remember when the secret that that movie had all the rage? So just putting the secret into titles, right? Really, really work. Well, I’ll just use a couple. I’m going to use a couple examples here, right, Because you can’t obviously that’s selling books and use it.

That’s like like for instance. John Great, right? Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. That’s his that’s his content, right? Yes. But all is in the subtitles. Okay. So if this was a book when you were walking through a bookstore and this is facing out, that tells you this book is a bestselling book right now, this is a hot topic.

So you want to look at the subtitles, which is the classic guide to understanding the opposite sex. Well, again, if you go to how to, it’s like how to understand the opposite sex. That’s great. I’m I’m Dave Asprey. Bulletproof diet, right? Yeah. The selling book can’t use bulletproof diet. That’s dangerous. I don’t know how If you look at his subtitle, Lose up to £10 a day, reclaim your energy, focus and upgrade your life.

That tells you that this topic is a winning topic, right? If this was faced out at the bookstore, you got a winner. So take something like this is if this is in your niche and tweak it to your to your topic so specific to right you could you just get that benefit right away. I want to literally you know, I’ll just do one more final one, please.

Gabby Bernstein, The universe has your back. Transform fear to faith back again. We know for it to be a workshop, it needs to be like a how to. So it’s like how to transform fear into faith, right? How to how to get past fear to reach ultimate faith. So it’s like taking some of these and putting your own spin on it.

That’s how you know you’ve got a winning topic to turn it into. So good, so good, and then winning topic and then doing like three or four benefit bullets, right. To just set that up as part of your reg page. So good. Jessie Okay, now we know our topic. We know we need do our ABCs. Let’s talk location a little bit because you are the master of this and we’re going to link to your Instagram on the show notes everyone needs to follow.

Jessie How do you find the ideal location? What’s your criteria in mind? Yeah, I mean, I use a lot of visualization with my events right before. It’s like, what do I want them to feel after they’ve left my workshop? Okay, so it’s like and also you have to really have a rough run of show. So run of show or show flow, we call it an industry is like the schedule of what you’re going to do throughout the day.

So let’s imagine you’re like, okay, the morning is content. The afternoon, I’m going to put them in roundtables. You need to think through the logistics like I need a space large enough that can have this. A lot of my clients are like, I want to do lay down meditations. I want to do some of the techniques. Now you need a venue with carpet, right?

Do you want them to be able to Are you providing lunch for them? If not, you need restaurants within walkable distance. So you have to really visualize the event and what you need in that space. And then you go out and find a venue. I’ll use an example of one that’s coming up. So I have a client, it’s called AT1 Ventures.

It’s at annual general meeting. They’re getting together to report on on a numbers. Right, right. But I’ve been really invest in really cutting edge, earth friendly, sustainable, science driven companies That’s part of their portfolio. So we’re having the event at the Academy of Science in San Francisco, right. Because it’s like, what is your theme? And then can you find a venue now?

I think hotels normally people think I need to go to a hotel and hotels are great. There’s a lot of pros to hotels. You have the furniture there. They’ve got the rooms there. There’s restaurants, banquets. Many of them are carpeted. So if you want to do those lay down processes with people that’s already in that space in your container, but they also have a lot of concern.

Expensive, right? Yes, I think venues, you know, you want to really think outside of the box after you’ve gotten clear on what that overall vibe is, is, you know, you’re looking at hotels, you’re looking at restaurants, you’re looking at museums like you did, you’re looking at theaters, movie theaters, community centers, parks, restaurants. Okay. There’s so many things outside of a hotel that can be your container, your home for your workshop.

Oh, that’s such good advice. I love it. I wish I wish I had this, like five or six years ago. But that is so, so good. You talked about lunch. Now I want to talk about the must that in your opinion? Right. Do we need to provide lunch like I love? Everyone likes a little lounge. I love coffee in the morning.

Right. So what do you the those little perks that you insist on for a full day? I don’t think you have to provide lunch for them unless it’s like you built that into your ticket price. Because that’s expensive. What policies you must work in break time like you actually need to work and great time going to lunch time.

A lot of people come to workshops is not only to learn from the experts, but they want that connection. They want that time to network with the other people in the audience. So you must work in breaks. You also. I really think it’s important that you bring someone in to help you run that event. Whether that’s someone you know doesn’t have to be a me.

Maybe it’s a friend, a significant other, a business partner, but for you to be in your genius zone and to do what you need to do on stage, you should not be worrying about when doors open, registration do the restrooms need to be cleaned? You know, like you need to be in your genius down right there and let someone else really worry about the logistics?

I do think that’s a must when you’re putting a workshop on 100%. Dajani, who’s been on the podcast, who was my director of communications, and she she would just help me with all those things you just list right there and like lunch orders, etc. And she was also there. She knew social media. So if there was a social media question, she popped in and answered it.

So it was like win win for me. It was awesome. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you really want to focus on your content and not on the logistics. You know, there is a lot of logistics. Anyone that’s done an event know it was there so much stuff, not just what’s happening from the main stage stuff that’s happening backstage out in the lobby, you know leading up to the event.

So yeah, I would say bring someone in to help you with your event. Okay, I love it. And you brought this up earlier saying you don’t necessarily have to charge. I do want people to charge. Like if you’re going to go through and like you said, if you’re going through the energy and the resources, I do want you to charge.

I also more more than likely want you to pitch something at the end. And you might disagree with me and I openly invite you to disagree with me. But you a master of sales, too. That’s one of the reasons I love you. You always have the next step serving the person. It’s not just about selling for you, but it’s about making sure that they’re taken care of with the next step.

If we are going to pitch at the event, like what tips do you have for us for the workshop? Yeah, absolutely. There are some key things you need when you’re pitching from from a stage or out of the workshop, whether that’s an online workshop, whether it’s in-person, it’s the same thing right? It really is. But one you have to get really clear on what your offer is and you need your offer to fit on a half sheet of a paper.

Because think of it, when you’re doing the pitch from the stage, you’re going to hand out an order form. Okay? And the top half of that is the title of what you’re getting, all of the things that come with this program, all of your bonuses, the event special. And then the bottom half is where they fill out their information, their credit card information.

So you can charge this. You have a half a sheet to get crystal, crystal clear. Why I think that’s important. That’s only a half sheet. Two is because two on the offers, you’re going to lose the room. Okay. Now, in the offer, some key things that you need is you need to make a true event. Only special K can have authenticity with this.

Like if you’re saying, Hey, this program sells for $5,000, but at this event it’s half price. It’s only 2500. Make sure that’s authentic. If they went to your website, it better be listed for five grand K. Don’t be one of those shady salespeople. Also, you need to get them to move fast before they leave your workshop. Right? So we researched things that are called event bonuses and fast action bonuses.

So you want to ultimately get people kind of running to the back because there’s real scarcity. So you want to think of like some limited time offers, right? So when you sign up at this event, you’re going to also get this bonus, this bonus and this bonus that’s only offered to you, to those people here in the room.

And I really like a fast action bonus item. One of them to be a physical something something cool that they’re going to take home with them but practical and also something that’s not too large because you have to remember a lot of times people are traveling in for your workshops, so it’s like it’s a disservice to give them a big giant thing that they have to figure out how to get home.

So give me examples of that. Like that. They that you liked, they gave up physical. Totally. I just produced an event in Las Vegas last spring and it was called How to Grow with Video Live. So it’s people coming in to learn how to grow their business with primarily with YouTube. So one of the fast action bonus items was like a little tiny microphone.

So they needed to present so smart, like I have 25. It was like a little love that plugged into their phone. And so but it was so tiny, like they literally traveled home at this thing. So that’s something now like at a recent event, ours is you you get to come to a champagne toast. So it’s right there and it’s happy to have the event.

So we give them a little invitation card. Doesn’t cost a buck to make to print this out and then, you know, some other money to obviously have the champagne toast. But it’s like it’s limited. It’s happening here. So I think those fast action items are really, really key to in your offer. Oh, so, so good. Before I let you go, can we have a little fun and talk about mistakes and I’ll start your I don’t you don’t know this, but I booked a workshop.

It was the rock and roll marathon in San Diego. And so I’m in Balboa Park. And where does that rock and roll marathon go? All over Balboa Park. I’m getting, like, goose bumps just thinking about it. How I, like, totally messed up participants trying to drive in. Go. Well, I have like, a million of those things, right? Where I literally get every single event.

You’re going to have something that’s going to trigger you for the rest of your life, right? Yeah. I had an event once at Balboa Park and it was during a big street festival and it was like the parking was a mess. It was so packed no one could find each other. I mean, so. Okay, so how do you avoid them?

One Yeah. It’s important that you look at calendars and and make sure you do an event in Vegas. Find out what other big, big events are going on so that you’re not competing with them. That’s in all the major markets. Also really know how to read a hotel contract or a venue contract and that’s a great one. Clients that have come to me that I’ve gotten burned by it because those contracts are meant to confuse you.

You don’t know what you’re signing. Well, on I’ve got one and I just show you. Show me. This is an example of a it’s like a 15 page contract for a property in Las Vegas. I’m about to sign. It’s called It’s Fountain Blue now, like all all hotel contracts. So this is not just them. They’re all going to be like 12 to 15 pages.

And in this has stuff like how many guest rooms, what your food and beverage trip and force majeure like all this legal legal jargon but what you don’t understand like a lot of people don’t understand what is a hotel block Well, that’s you’re hearing this. Many people are going to stay at the hotel. If not, you have to pay for it.

I’ve had people come to me that have had to pay thousands and thousands of dollars in unfilled rooms. Wow. Yeah, like food and beverage. Guess what? So they’re like, they’re like, okay, yeah. In order to have this space, it’s a $10,000 food and beverage minimum. You’re like, Okay, fine. I’m going to provide lunch and dinner and breakfast and all this.

I can easily hit that. But there’s plus, plus, plus at these hotels, they automatically add like a 26% service charge. So, for instance, like this contract here, I’m getting ready to sign a $12,500 food and beverage minimum with them. But with all the plus plus pluses, it adds another $4,000. Wow. I don’t understand when they’re putting this together, like all the little and all the little things and that I’m lucky because I grew up with Tony Robbins, like production people who were just as awesome as you.

So Robin Efford is taught me all these things and I would send my contracts after it because I did a retreat at a small hotel and and I like nailed down every little detail like FMB and everything because I didn’t want to get nailed. Because I know that because we went on tour with Tony. Right? So but not everybody has that kind of education and you just have to be so smart and so on.

It. Or as how ask for help. Yeah, or ask for help. But again, it’s like it doesn’t have to be me. But like I know people that do what I do in this industry. It’s like it’s worth it sometime just to have someone help you find the venue and get through the contract process. Yeah, because they know how to negotiate the contracts that in your favor.

They know how to, you know, change some of that kind of shady legal terms. Yes. So you don’t. So you don’t get burned. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that’s definitely one of the mistakes. And then I think some of the mistakes that other people make too is there just of course, we all have high hopes with what our numbers are going to be at an event, but I find a lot of time for people are like, Oh yeah, I can easily get 100 people in the room.

Okay, How how big is your list? Are you going to spend money paying ads like getting 100 people in a room is not getting young people in a room can be hard if you don’t have a right. Right. And so it’s like being really, really conservative with your numbers. You know, like take that goal that you know, where you’re like, I have a hundred people, chop it in half and chop it in half.

Again, build your budget around that because I’ve seen so many people, they build their budget, they book this huge venue and then they don’t hit the numbers. And your stock, you’ve signed all these contracts and pay all these deposits. So yeah, no, that’s, that’s good. But before you go though, Jasmine, I should have asked you this upfront. Why do you love in-person events, though?

Because, like you love it, right? Like you like why are they so great for our audience? Like, why? Why are you so passionate about them? Yeah, I’m really passionate about them for a couple things. You know, I think COVID really changed the way people like to consume information. Now people are very much into like, Yes, I want to go out, I want to learn, I want to network, but make it an experience right?

So it’s sometimes hard to do all those touch points in a virtual live event. Sure. Like it’s like you can the decor, the food, the beverage, the people, the music, the lighting, the sound, the slack. You have so much fun with it, But they love to connect with each other. And also I think it’s a great opportunity to to get content for you way better than women.

So it’s like if you’re going to put on a workshop, spend the extra money to put a camera in that room. And so all of that content so you can repurpose it, you can sell it as a product down the line, you can chop it up and use it for social media, you know, or for bonuses. So I just I love events.

I love love live events, in fact, so much that when people contact me now to do virtual events, I’m saying I’m saying no, there’s other people that root for you. I just I don’t I really like I love live events for being able to do all the touch points that you can do. So good, so good. Oh, thank you so much for coming on.

You were literally leaving for Italy tomorrow, for the next like three weeks. Where can listeners learn more about you? Definitely Instagram. But what else you got? Tell me. Yeah, Instagram is a great place just to kind of keep up and like where I am in the world, but also just my website. If you go to GSC Events dot com J Yes I e events dot com.

It has information on me, it has my email address there. So just feel free to, to reach out that way and then make sure you follow her because you will be putting out a course one of these days because we’ve talked about that forever and just putting out your expertise. But we’ll talk about that on a different topic.

I need I need to I need to hire that expert. Gina, I need you. I certainly have enough content. You are. You could do three different courses right now like I already have. Yeah, we to talk about this. There’s the speaking courses, the planning events course there’s there’s multiple. So look to Jessie putting out those out in the future.

Thank you so much for coming on and squeezing us in. I appreciate you. What did you think of Jessie so good? Oh, my gosh. I have so many ideas that I’m going to use for my own business. And I’ll be honest, one of the reasons why I wanted to record this episode was because I’m thinking about doing physical workshops again.

It’s been too long. I used to do them pre-pandemic. I’d have to do a course creation workshops, and then I’d have these special retreats where I’d bring in experts. We’d go out to nice dinners. Oh was my favorite thing all year. And I loved hosting them and now toying with the idea of doing those again. So who better to advise me and us?

Jessie Schwartzburgon. So please, please check Jessie out. She is so amazing. You’re going want to follow her? Go to Jessie events dot com. We’ll link to it in the show notes and to her Instagram as well, because her Instagram is so fun to follow and hopefully something resonated for you, even if you’re not ready to do in-person workshops yet, perhaps in the future.

All right. So we’re going to have some really great guests coming up. Make sure you subscribe. Leave me your review. I would love it. Till next time, go create. Be you and be brilliant and get it done.