Talking about a funnel – the free preview evening concept
While I was in the US, I realised that the bookings for the December and January workshops were very light. So I thought to myself: why don’t I ask some of my friends/Joint Venture partners to send an email to their lists and invite them to a free preview training, where I can offer my workshop at the end of the evening.
It took me about 3 hours to create the different websites, record audio, set up the autoresponders, book a room, PA system, video crew and arrange for the JV partners to mail their respective lists in the next couple of days. This is Thursday, 22nd November 9pm…. (http://www.secretshortcuts.com/evening/ForFriendsOfJavaid.htm)
The response was overwhelming – 256 optins on the first day. I was excited….
We had to get a bigger room and on Monday I decided to have some banners made (www.JustDigitalPrint.com) and also sent of 2 DVDs and 2 CDs to be replicated (www.AlphaDuplication.com). Anticipating many sales, I also had 100 homestudy courses printed and bound (http://www.topprintwindsor.com).
To get some more committment from the delegates I asked them to optin again at a confirmation page and asked them for some more details (phone numbers and names of friends). 126 confirmed their places.
Thursday the 29th November, just 7 days after the idea, we had a buzzing room with over 120 people (the room holds 100!) and we had an amazing time. I shared and trained using all the techniques and principles I learned and the energy was good.
The pitch didn’t go that well and I had a lot of feedback why that is. First of all those were people who sat in the room for free and I offered a £697 workshop. No warming up, no first step. That is a mistake. Don’t do that at home 
Secondly the timing to push for committment for next week (workshop 8th December!) is not good. I mean Xmas is coming and not many of us want to spend a grand on a one day workshop…
Upside: I learned loads, still made some money (we had 5 sales) and we have a great video from the night which will be a great DVD to send out to people interested in the workshop and to learn more about me. In short: the next one will be different. £20 to get in the room, they will get a training manual and CD to take home and I will offer a £97 or £147 product (homestudy or 1 day seminar, not workshop – where I can have more people in the room)
as Harv says: Every Master was once a disaster…. I am a work in progress.