Do you have a certain passion for something? Are you always explaining to other people how to get a certain thing done, or relaying your experience in an area lots of people want to learn? If so, and you don’t have a fear of public speaking, you may want to consider the business of running your own seminars. You can go as large or small as you want, renting out hotel ballrooms to teach thousands of people the newest tricks in real estate, stock buying, Internet wealth creation, or getting in touch with your inner strength. Most big speakers, however, started by hosting their own small seminars and building an audience, while perfecting their message and developing their own products to sell.
The Ultimate Goal
If you’ve got a hot topic, you can make money simply by hosting seminars every month or every other month. Most speaker’s ultimate goal is to use the seminars to sell products. What do I mean by products? I mean items that your students would want to buy that are for sale in the back of the room. Believe it or not, some of these items can be made with a low budget and quick time frame.
Common products sold at seminars include:
- Books (Regular print books, or eBooks sold on CD-ROM. You can get 5 free eBooks from Fred Gleeck to see a great example of what solid eBooks look like. )
- Audio courses (Remember the binder of tape cassettes? Today, speakers sell audio programs on CD-ROM as MP3 or WAV files, and some people are selling them now on Flash drives. Rounds Miller put out a great audio course called Professional Speaking for the Clueless, that discusses how to set up your classes to make money.)
- Video courses on DVD-ROM (Check out the eBay Explained DVD I made from a 3 hour course on How to Buy, Sell, and Profit on eBay)
- “Systems” or multimedia packages of different items designed to teach a full course of some skill or money-making system.
- Personal kits (for example, Franklin Covey sells organizers, binders, and calendars to their students)
The last main revenue stream for teachers putting together their own seminars is the hopes of getting speaking or consulting engagements from their students, which can be hundreds or even thousands of dollars in revenue. Nothing screams expert quite like the person who teaches the subject on a regular basis in your area.
Therefore, you need to decide on your ultimate goal. Is it:
a) Revenue from ongoing classes through admission and some products
b) Revenue from selling a variety of products in classes and online
c) Revenue from becoming a speaker or consultant in your area
Keep in mind, there are many speakers who make money in all three areas. However, your ultimate goal will help guide you on whether to focus on promoting your classes (a), building up a set of products (b), or using your classes to advertise your experience as a speaker or consultant(c) as you go forward.
Startup Costs
$600-1000: A decent laptop to develop your curriculum (Look for a laptop with Microsoft Office, so you can use Microsoft PowerPoint for slides, if you like Powerpoint)
$500-1000: An LCD projector to show your slides to your students (if you rent this, you will have paid this amount after 2-4 rentals. Buy it and it’s yours forever, or until it breaks, whichever comes first)
$100-150: Flip or Aiptek hand-held camcorder to record classes and for rehearsals. Trust me, this will come in handy down the road if you don’t see the value already.
Total: $1200-2150
50-100 hours: Development time needed to create your first class
Getting Up and Running
So, if you’ve chosen a topic and are ready to put on a class, you will want to get started right away. These five steps will prepare you to stand in front of a room of people sharing your expertise, and getting paid for it.
Step 1: Research the Competition
Get out there, do Google searches, look around your city, and see what classes for your chosen topic already exist. I would check with community colleges, vocational institutions, community centers, and any other adult education company, like a computer school, to see if your topic is being taught. If so, find out what is covered in those classes, see if there’s a missing area not being covered, or even consider attending the competition to see what you are up against.
Step 2: Develop Your Course
Put together your outline and estimate your class length. Come up with your main points to cover in the class, and decide what content you will cover.
- Is your class going to be a Basics course for people completely unfamiliar with the topic? (one or a series of 1-2 hour classes might be best)
- Are you going to create an Intensive course for people at different skill levels? (A half-day (3-4 hr) or full day class might be best)
- Or are you going to create an Intermediate or Expert course for people who are yearning to reach that next level? (At least one day, perhaps a multi-day seminar; Yes, you are limiting your potential students, but that focused targeting and expert knowledge is something pay a lot more for than the basic information)
Some people dive into making slides on PowerPoint, and estimate their class length by the number of slides or topics covered.
As an example, you can download my eBay Class PowerPoint slides I developed when I taught for the Learning Annex. A rule of thumb I learned is that, on average, you will spend 1 minute talking per slide. So, for my 3 hour eBay course, I had over 150 slides, and I was always scrambling to finish in 3 hours, especially when I had a lot of questions. (Some of my slides are jam packed with information.)
Do the research and fill in the gaps. While you may have an outline or something close to an outline in your head, you may have some gaps as you start to map out your course. Lay out your entire course, then go back and do research on the areas you are not as clear on, until your course curriculum is complete. Feel free to hit up your local library, bookstore, or the grand ol’ Internet to get the most accurate and up-to-date information.
Step 3: Test Everything
If you can get a few friends to sit still and listen, great. There’s nothing like the “rehearsal” as you get up there and talk through your material. If you have to, get in front of a mirror (or in front of a camera) and run through your course yourself. Videotaping your course is a GREAT way, as a tip, to have a product available to sell. You may only want to tape yourself after you’ve done at least 1 or 2 “test runs” of your course, so you can work out most of your issues before the cameras roll.
Step 4: Create a Product
You should have something for sale for your students, so that should be prepared before your 1st class. Options here include:
a) A workbook or handout packet, which can include your PowerPoint slides, notes pages for them to take notes, questionnaires, practice exercises, etc.
When I taught my eBay classes, I would prepare a 30 page handout of my PowerPoint slides. I would find a cheap local copy shop and pay $1.20 per set, and sell them at the class for $5.00 a set, with 90% sellthrough of my students.
So, let’s say you teach 100 students per month. (25 students per week) One handout set could net:
100 students * 90% sellthrough * 12 months * $3.80 profit = $4,104/yr
I then started adding more content to my handouts, like pages of URL web addresses and case studies, and would double my rates!
b) An audio interview of you discussing your subject area, with some content that won’t be covered in your class. Here, come up with the top 10 questions in your area, have a friend interview you, and talk for an hour or more. You can buy an audio recorder from a company like Sony, that can plug into your computer via USB, for $50-100, or you can use a service like FreeConferenceCall.com to record your interview and get the MP3 version of your interview. You can have your friend ask you questions like:
- “What is (insert your topic here)?”
- “Why should I pay attention to this topic?”
- “Who does this effect the most?”
- “How should I get started?”
- “What mistakes should I avoid making?”
- “What costs will I incur?”
- “How do I move to the next step?”
Let’s say that after you record your interview, you put the MP3 for sale at your classes, on your website, and on other sites like Clickbank, for a $47 profit. Between your classes and your website, this is what you could make if you just sold ONE copy of this interview:
- Every month: $564/yr
- Every week: $2,444/yr
- Every day: $17,155/yr
c) Related books in your topic area. Do a Google search for “remaindered books” to find companies that will sell recent books for a big discount off retail price, which you can charge more than your cost in your class. For example, if you are teaching a class on How to Play the Guitar, if you can find a book about Guitar Playing that is slightly out of date, but still a great book, that has been discounted from its’ $25 retail price to $5, you can buy it for $5, resell it for $15-20, and your students are still saving off the retail price. If you have your own books to sell, you can pick other books that don’t compete with yours to cover related areas. For example, if you have written books about Texas Hold ‘Em poker, you could sell other people’s books on blackjack or craps, since some of your poker students may want to learn about those games too.
Let’s go back to my eBay class example. Beyond the books I wrote, I would also sell eBay for Dummies for $20 when I paid $5 for it from these sites. Let’s say I had a 6% sell-through rate on this extra book:
100 students/mo * 6% sellthrough * 12 mos * $15 profit/book = $1080/yr from 1 extra product
Imagine if you carried several extra books beyond your own books!
Step 5: Find a Classroom
You will want a place that’s easy to find, has parking for you and your students, and has suitable accommodations to host your class (chairs, tables, etc) Options here include your local hotels, learning centers, and maybe even a community college who could rent you a room in the evenings. See where other instructors are hosting their classes to get ideas of where you can hold your class.
Now Taking Students
You’ve got your class, you’ve got your products, now you need some students (or, as some people put it, “behinds” in those chairs). Your revenue will depend on the length of your class, so here are some revenue projections for what I see as the two most popular options:
The 2-3 hour seminar:
Per-class Costs
$100-250: Room rental for 10-15 people
$50-100: Materials cost (photocopying, binding, office supplies)
TOTAL: $150-350
Revenue
$50 * 10 = $500 ($50 admission cost w/10 students)
$5-20 * 10 = $50-200 (handout or workbook charge per student)
$200 * 3 = $600 (Sell a product or all-day seminar to 30% of your crowd for $200 a pop)
TOTAL REVENUE: $1150-1300 per class (Double your attendance, double your revenue; 20 people could earn you as much as $2500 in 1 night)
TOTAL PROFIT: $800-1150 per class
The all-day seminar:
Per-class Costs
$300-500: Room rental for 10-15 people
$50-100: Materials cost
TOTAL: $350-600
Revenue
$200 * 10 = $2000 ($200 admission cost w/10 students)
$25-50 * 10 = $250-500 ($25 materials charge for workbook, etc.)
$1000 * 1 = $1000 (Sell an advanced product or 1 on 1 coaching to 10% of your audience)
TOTAL REVENUE: $3250-3500
TOTAL PROFIT: $2650-3150 per day
Of course, what’s hard to factor in here (in terms of extra profit) is the acquisition cost of gaining new customers to your mailing list, and that will depend on what you may sell them down the road.
Tip: Build an affiliates page for your students that references all the web URL’s you discuss in class. For example, check out my Learning Annex Student Resource Page. This page gives you all the links you would need to get set up on eBay, PayPal, Yahoo, drop-shippers, price research, and more, and as the instructor, you can earn money referring your students to different websites.
Spread the Word
The main expense not covered in the above section is marketing costs. If you want to increase your class size, you can spend money to grow your base through avenues like:
- Newspaper ads
- Radio ads
- Flyers
- Search engine advertisements on Google or Yahoo
Your marketing budget is up to you, but should be tied into your revenue goals. If you want big classes every month, you will probably need to invest in lots of marketing expenses up front to get a big crowd. On the other hand, you can start with a low marketing budget and spend more money as you build your audience and teach more classes.
There are lots of free ways you can advertise your class, which take some time but will help spread your message regardless:
- Set up your own website that allows people to read about your class and enroll, either through an e-mail, a form, or calling a phone number. (This is actually a necessary expense. You need some sort of website to act as your hub of information. You can always use Microsoft Office Live Small Business to build a free website for now)
- Post free notices on community websites like Craigslist about your class, topic, benefits, and costs, and point people to your website to enroll.
- Contact your newspaper and alternative newspapers to add your class to their Calendar or Events section, if applicable. (Of course, if you can convince a local paper to cover your class in terms of a news or lifestyle article, that’s a lot of free publicity.)
- Build your own profile page on sites like MySpace and Facebook, and advertise your class (or your class website) through those pages as well.
- Make short videos describing what you are going to teach and post them on your website, on sites like YouTube, and other adult education sites like OneMinuteU to advertise your class.
- Set up affiliate deals with other adult education companies, if there is a complementary nature. For example, if you are teaching an eBay class, and there is a local computer education company that doesn’t offer an eBay class, offer them a cut of your admission cost if they refer one of their students. I have an agreement with Computers Etc in San Diego where they advertise my eBay class and earn a referral fee for each student I get from them. You don’t pay unless you get a student, and they can get extra revenue and fill a need they don’t cover. (Yes, this isn’t necessarily a ‘free’ method, but it only costs money if you get students, so it’s free in terms of upfront costs)
Wrap-up
You could teach the occasional class to make $1,000-3,000 a month, or add more topics (or products) to make even more per month and potentially even more than your regular job. I do not take into account any money you could make every day through your website selling products, as well as any potential “affiliate” deals you could make with other teachers who want to reach your new mailing list of customers, and other money making opportunities. You should definitely follow up with your students after each class, see what they liked, disliked, and perhaps get them to suggest other areas you could teach if you want to expand your education empire.