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Hi Everyone,
I hope all of you are doing quite well today. We have been having some nasty weather as of late here in Columbus, but looking forward to some sunny days real soon. Before I move on with this post I want to say THANK YOU to all my readers for the wonderful feedback on my last blog post Why Every Hypnotist Should Start An Online Business
I wasn’t sure how it would be received, but it appears as if a lot of you enjoy the business related post I’ve been making as of late. I’m also glad to see a good potion of you signed up for the Free Webinar with Online Business expert Eben Pagan.
He produces some really amazing stuff full with content and value so I’m sure you’ll enjoy it and learn a lot. Please keep in mind that Eben won’t be directly talking about starting an online hypnosis business. He will be talking about starting and running online businesses in general so just make sure you take notes and apply what you learn.
The techniques you learn from Eben can be applied to any online business including Hypnosis.
Well, now that I’m done with my public thank you lets move on with this post. Today I wanted to talk about how you can turn your Free Hypnosis Workshops into money. Hypnotists all over the world use free workshops to promote their business and services. They are a great way to spread the word about your services or business and they aren’t very hard to put on and don’t take a lot of money. The most common workshops you see in our profession are weight loss, smoking and stress management.
Personally, I enjoy the model of getting a lot of people interested in a subject I’m teaching into one room as it saves me time and money in my marketing. Hell, if they showed up to the event then they might just be interested in what your teaching. This is what I like to call Targeted Marketing.
Now, if you gave me the choice of performing a free workshop or a seminar I will usually go with teaching a seminar as they provide more value to me and most of the time more value to the customers as I charge per customer and since the customer is paying they tend to be more serious. Seminars aren’t for everyone as they do take a little more money, time and planning to throw a proper one because if people are paying you want to give them their money worth.
Provide value is always the number one rule in my book!
Now, I love a good free workshop like the next person, but it amazes me at how much money Hypnotists are leaving on the table. For some reason Hypnotists just view the workshop as a way to market your services or practices and that’s it. Please don’t misunderstand me as the purpose of a workshop is to market yourself or your business, but so much more can be done. There are tons of ways to take a free workshop and turn it into money and I’m going to share the number one way in my book now.
As you can see from the headline I’m going to show you how to turn your workshop into a product. Hypnosis Information and Training Products are a huge market and a lot of money is being made. So shouldn’t you get a piece of the pie as well? Creating and selling products can bring in some nice extra income and the cool thing about a product is once you create it that product will always earn you money. Creating products are one of the easiest ways to leverage your time and money. Once you create your product you can sell it off-line, online or at future workshops and events. This is leverage taken up a notch!
So how do we take a free workshop and turn it into an information product? The answer is quite simple and may shock all of you….set up a camcorder in the back of the room and press record. I know, I can’t believe I just revealed the secret of ages with all of you. It amazes me how many Hypnotists never think to do this. This one simple step can literally take one workshop and turn it into many different products. A lot of Hypnotists complain about not having enough time to create products, yet they do a couple of workshops a year which can equal dozens and dozens of products if you do what I detail in this post.
So here is how it works. Before you begin the workshop just set a camcorder in the back of the room. Depending on how far you’ll be from the camcorder you may want to hook up an external mic so sound quality and volume isn’t an issue. In a smaller room the camcorder without the mic should record your voice just fine. You will always have better quality though if you use an external mic. Now, you can also set the recording device up yourself in the back of the room or you can have someone man the recorder for you.
I prefer to have someone man the station as they can keep an eye out on when the tape is running low, zoom in, zoom out and follow you around if needed. I’ve learned over the years that the best quality and product usually comes from just leaving the camcorder in one place and not moving all around. I use to own a promotion company which dealt in filming seminars so I know a little bit about the subject. I always recommend you bring a couple of spare tapes just in case your workshop goes longer then you expected. This is unless you have one of those fancy high definition hard drive based camcorders which store the information on a hard drive instead of tape. The type of camcorder you use can make a big difference in quality and also allows your editor to do a lot more with the footage.
Now, before you begin the workshop I always like to let everyone know were filming in case anyone isn’t comfortable. I recommend everyone sign a sheet saying they give permission to be on camera. The reality is you really will never run into problems with this issue as most people will be seated with the back of the head toward the camera, but you can never be careful. Most people actually expect workshops to be taped as that is the standard in other industries.
So, once you set up the equipment to record, get permission and finish up the workshop your next step is to determine what type of product you want to create and then create that product. You actually have a few different options here and to me this is the fun part. I consider myself to be a knowledge worker, a term I learned from the teachings of Eben Pagan. So thinking of ways to make money and putting that into effect is quite fun for me. Here are the different options you have which all come directly from the Free workshop you filmed:
1. You can create a DVD or a series of DVD’s
2. You can rip the audio from the video and create an Audio CD or Audio Program
3. You can transcribe the audio into a written format and produce an E-book, Manual or Hard Cover Book
4. You can package all of it together and create a Home Study Course type of product
5. You can over it as online content to give away or sell to build your audience
As you can see you have a lot of different options here and all of it comes directly from filming that one workshop. So once you determine which route you want to take your next step is to actually create the product. This is the part that seems to keep people from creating products or taking action because they view this step as being ‘Hard” when in reality it’s quite simple. I’m sure some of you have the skills and knowledge to turn your workshop into a product, but I’m going to take a long shot here and assume most people won’t know how to convert video into DVDs, packaging and etc.
I won’t be able to cover every little detail in this post, but for now I want to just get you going in the right direction. This is where you have to start thinking like an business owner and not a Hypnotist. If you don’t know how to do this then you NEED TO HIRE IT OUT! You can use a service which I highly recommend called Elance.com which is an online service that lets you post jobs you need done. People who are on the site will bid on that job and then you choose who you want to work with in the end. Simple huh?
So for example if you needed to create DVDs out of the footage you shot then you would post a job for someone to covert the footage to DVD. People who know how to do this would bid on the job and then you choose who you work with for this project. Then you may want to hire someone to design the cover and the back of The DVDs and so on and so on. You get the point? The cool part is the prices you pay to get jobs done are excellent. You can find transcription, editors and a lot more.
There are other steps such as product duplication and other little issues, but as you go along you will figure this stuff out. Plus, let’s not forgot the resource known as Google which has damn near every answer we want. So when all is said and done you can have a product created in about a months time or less. You can then sell these products on your hypnosis website or you can sell them as physical products at your next workshop or event in the back of the room.
Now, a word of caution when you turn your workshops into products. Make sure you actually teach quality information at your workshop. For instance, if you do a hypnosis weight loss workshop and all you do is pitch your services then I recommend you don’t make that a product. Now, if you throw a weight loss workshop and you actually teach how to work with weight loss using hypnosis, give some demo’s, share techniques and stuff then I recommend turning that into a product. Your products are a reflection upon you and poor quality content can make you look like a poor teacher. So just be caution about the material you put out into the world.
A great example of turning workshops into products is famous Hypnotist and one of my teachers Gerald Kein from the Omni Hypnosis Center. He pretty much used this exact technique to build his hypnosis empire of training videos. He put on a number of different Hypnosis Workshops where he showed people how to work with different problems and just recorded them on video and then later released them on VCR and DVD to his students.
So, we are coming to the end of this post and I hope this little tip helps you out and sparks something inside of you to take action. Heck, maybe this idea never even crossed your mind until now. Either way, if you are someone who puts on workshops or events I highly recommend recording them because it can’t hurt to make some extra money turning your Free Workshops into Hypnosis Products.
To Your Success,
Joshua Houghton
P.S. Don’t forget about the free webinar my teacher and mentor Eben pagan is throwing in a few days on starting online businesses. This info can be applied to any online businesses including hypnosis. I know from experience that you will receive tons and tons of value from Eben. He is also offering a special right now which I recommend you invest in if you are interested in starting an online hypnosis business. For just $1.00 you can get access to over $500.00 worth of Eben Pagan teachings.
He just added two brand new bonuses from courses I’ve taken in the past. One is called Wake Up Productive which is a program that teaches you how to become more productive, get more done in a day and time management. This is great if you see clients all day and then you never seem to have anytime to get anything else done. The other bonus is his Self made Weath 81 min video which has changed the way I view money and the subject of wealth. Important if you ever want to move ahead in your life. All of this plus one full month of his Ignition Start-Up Business Coaching Program and his program Making Money as a Modern Guru for a $1.00.
http://www.ignitionstartup.com/CD808/
Remember you can cancel at anytime in case you don’t have the money to pay for the program the next month which is at a discounted price of $97.00 You still get access to everything during the first month for $1.00 so you have nothing to lose except the chance to learn something new. I know for a fact that Eben’s team doesn’t hassle people who cancel. You just call or send an e-mail and that’s it. It is completely risk free as he will even give you the dollar back if you don’t enjoy his stuff. So get access to everything for a dollar and if you like it and want to continue cool. If not, you still get access to all the cool stuff for a dollar then just cancel.
So if your interested in learning more click the link below which will take you to a video of Eben. Just watch the video and then fill in your name and e-mail to sign up for the free Information packed Webinar. Once you sign up you’ll be taking to a bonus page where you’ll see another video from Eben explaining the entire $1.00 offer. I’ll see you at the webinar as I’m signed up.
http://www.ignitionstartup.com/CD808/
Sat, Oct 31, 2009
Hypnosis Training, Marketing Tips