Seminar Logistics

Time and Day

A successful seminar requires the right time and day for the attendees, just part of your seminar logistics considerations. Say you're inviting retirees—you have your seminar during the day. Why? Because retirees will tell you as they age, their night time vision fails first. So they try and avoid driving at night. So if you invite seniors at night, you are going to lose about 15 maybe 20 percent of your attendance because people try to avoid things that might harm them. Unless it’s really important, they will avoid it. You will never know that. They’re not going to call you up and say I don’t drive at night. They just won’t show up. So it’s not like anybody ever tells you this. I guarantee you….pick 10 seniors and call them up and ask them how’s your nighttime vision? "Oh, it’s getting worse every year…" they’ll tell you. The other thing about seniors is the majority of them are of a particular sex, which is female. And females, at any age and particularly in major cities, have a safety concern about going out at night. So you are going to lose even more people because you are using nighttime hours. So if you are inviting retirees and seniors, please invite them during the day. Daylight hours is when you are going to get your best attendance. KNow your target market and get your seminar logistics correct regarding the right time to maximize attendance.

Business owners' major constraint is that they’re busy. So you need to invite them during a time when they have allocated for this type of stuff or will take a break. So I said don’t serve a meal…this is the exception. You don’t need to serve breakfast or lunch to business owners. Meaning you are using the food as bait. It’s that if you don’t use those times, they won’t come. Those are the times that the average business owner says, "Sure I’ll go to a talk. I stop for breakfast every morning anyway. So if I have breakfast at this place and listen to a talk fine," or "Yeah, I always try and meet with a client or take care of some personal business. So sure…absolutely…why don’t I go listen to this talk and I’ll have breakfast at the same time?" So for them using breakfast or lunch is a time-saving mechanism, not you waving some advertisements at them or going in for an unsolicited sales pitch.

When I did this with business owners, I gave them a sandwich buffet. So I started talking at 12:15 (it was slated to start at noon), they made their own sandwich and were ready to listen. So the point is, it wasn’t like I was spending unnecessary amounts of money wooing these people with caviar and delicious lobster bisque.

That wasn’t the point of the food.

The point of the food was that they needed to eat lunch, and all I was doing was facilitating their need for a good meal while giving my talk at the same time. I killed two birds with one stone and serving both party's wants in a non-threatening atmosphere.

If you are prospecting a market other than seniors or business owners, you’re going to have to find out what’s the most convenient time for them, and whatever you do, don’t assume. That’s the most dangerous thing you can do is assume. You have to call up 12 of them and ask them if you were going to a talk about finances, insurance or money….issues financial…investment stuff. What time of day would be most convenient for you? You ask 12 people and if 8, 9, 10 of them say the same time, bingo now you know!. But that’s the only way you can find out. Please don’t guess at this.

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Seminar Logistics- Location

Seminar Logistics-Meals

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