How to Launch a Workshop and Membership Without a Following

Guest 7: I do have a question as a talking about newbies. As a very new newbie. I'm planning on doing a workshop to that will then go into a low cost membership. But I, I'm just concerned about how to market my workshop and membership and everything. If I don't have a following to begin with. Like it's kind of the chicken and the egg. You know, I'm trying to get a following by doing the workshop in the low cost membership.
But then I don't have anybody to market it to
Paul: we, we all can relate to that. We've all been there.
Jeff (3): No
Paul: matter what the product or services. here's an interesting thing. Is anybody ever bought into a membership or course where you weren't following the person before you went into their workshop or their master class or the webinar?
Yes. Is anybody just like, like you weren't nurtured for two years or six months and then you bought their thing. You just like they came across your radar and you went into their launch mechanism and you bought, you were just like, like it. Yeah. So it was like more than half of the. That's how I found you
Guest 5: guys. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. I saw, you present once Paul in Amy's group.
And then like months later I was thinking I had this need and I needed to check with a couple people. So then I went to check with you and you told me I was asking you the wrong question and I was looking for the wrong thing and here's what I should be looking for.
Paul: And then I bought everybody. So glad you were coachable at the time because everything shifted in that moment, that epiphany moment.
Say
the same thing. I didn't even have a clue who you cute little people were.
Guest 9: And Emily Rean mentioned your name in passing and then I hopped on a call with you and here we are.
Paul: Yeah.
think you two are okay with, with me sharing this as well. Like Robin came right up to our online marketing mastermind as like a first purchase and Michael came right into our adaptive marketing program as their first purchase.
So it didn't have to come in like a low ticket thing, then a mid ticket thing and then the high ticket thing type thing. Like they, they had a certain need and a certain thing and they, they just went right there. Just. We get bought into all these Internet marketing things that you have to nurture people forever before they're going to buy a thing. And none of us as human beings do that in the real world.
Like we have a need and a problem and like we, you know, like we buy it, you know, type, type So does anybody have any insight putting an offer out into the world when you don't have an audience for that, that niche or that offer yet?
Guest 5: I've done it twice, Karen, and recently I did it once where I had an idea where I was doing something and so I just, and I had a follower then a follower list of I think 42 people of which 20 are my relatives.
So. And they, they didn't, they weren't my, my people. So I figured out who, who My people could be. And I told them, here's what I've got going. I'm going to give you the first month or two free, whatever, just come in and then help me test this and figure this out. And I only had three or five people at the time. But then they were really upset when I started bringing other people because I was starting to change the agenda.
And they're like, no, we, they liked it really small. And then I did again with the one that I have right now that went from like six people up to 87. When I told the six that I'm about to open it up and do more, they're like, no, no, no, no. We like it when there's just five or six of us coming to meet. It's like our own private little club.
because I could make it like really focused on them and I could talk to each of them, then they got to know each other and then they started to talk to each other and I was like, I'm not even moderating anymore. So I just reached out to them. I'm like, look, I've got this idea. Here's this thing. I think it might work. Can you at least try it for free?
I'll charge you like 24 bucks a month after that, and then you can decide whether you like it or not. And they're like, sure,
Guest 7: okay, that's a good idea. So,
Michelle: Karen, I've done a couple things. Especially at the beginning when I really didn't have a lot of followers, didn't have an email list, you know, that sort of thing, I really focused on borrowing other people's audiences. So the very first thing that I sold in 2020 was kind of like a course group coaching program hybrid, but it really came from.
I created a survey and I really picked at their pain point that they were having to the point where they wanted to fill out the survey because they were venting their frustrations. And I was able to post it in a Facebook group with permission. And in two days I then had over 150 people on my email list and I didn't know any of them. Like there were no established relationships.
And then six people ended up buying my offer. Okay. And what I was so surprised going through that experience too. Kind of like what Michael said, that community piece became really valuable to them and I had no idea that that was going to be something that really stuck with them. And that kind of led me down a path to start a membership. And I still have some of them in my first Membership that I created all these years later.
So that, that was something that was helpful for me. And then depending on where your audience hangs out, like for a lot of the career coaching type work that I do, my audience is on LinkedIn. And a strategy that's worked really well for me has just been answering people's questions in the posts that they make on LinkedIn. So not necessarily creating my own content. I have a little bit more followers now on LinkedIn and can sell stuff off of there, but just going on other people's posts, answering their questions and getting a conversation started with them in the comments.
Sometimes it turns into they send me a DM or they ask for my link on something. And I've definitely sold workshops that way to people that I'm not connected to on LinkedIn. But you could do the same thing in certain Facebook groups too, depending on what their rules are. But those are some things that worked for me.
Guest 7: Oh, nice. That's the Paul Pruitt special right there. Well, I learned
Michelle: from Paul, so.
And Melissa. Michelle
Paul: was in our world for, for several years she has two different markets that it's cool to watch. Like, it's cool for us to, to sit back and just watch some of you ethically put things into motion. And it's all about being ethical and honest. Like, like, we don't go in anybody's space and do shady things or anything like that. We always respect somebody else's sandbox, but it's just one of those things just to observe and watch other people kind of, in a way play the game and do it the right way.
And it's just been fun. The last couple months I've been, I've been watching Michelle, you know, do her thing and it's been really cool to see that,
Guest 7: like watching our little birds fly.
Paul: Does anybody else have any input for, Karen? you have anything?
Diane (2): I would just say just do the workshop. That's base. Just do the workshop. Whether it's one person, 10 people, 100 people, because that is going to give you the visibility, number one.
Number two, it's going to give you the, more you do it, it's like, like a muscle. You're going to build that muscle and you're going to get more comfortable doing it and doing it. Like whenever I'm coaching anyone in adaptive, and it's like, should I do this? Just do it, just do it. Because if anything, you're just going to have practice with it, doing it, even if, if one person shows up even if it's a relative, and the first time is always going to be wonky, figuring out tech and what are you going to say, what are you going to teach?
And you're going to work all that out and you're just going to get more visibility. But as you create that visibility, that's also what's going to build that momentum to help build your list as well. People are going to see you and they're going to see you and they're going to see you and it's like, oh, maybe go, I should go check out this workshop. So just do it because that'll also help you hand in hand with building the list, the folly and the visibility and you'll just become more relevant.
I've been seeing you posting on social, so it's like I'm starting to see the podcast. So, there's those people that will see and don't say anything. They're lurking, but they're watching. So if you're just doing, if you're doing these workshops, they're, they're watching and they'll, they'll start to catch on with things. So
Paul: yeah,
Years ago we were in San Diego at a conference, this is like eight years ago, right before the pandemic. we hung out with Trent Shelton, he was getting mentored by Brendan Bouchard at the time. And he, on certain platforms he has like 4 or 5 million followers. You know, like, he's, he's pretty, pretty big up there, really awesome guy. And we had really good conversation with him and part of the conversation and I'll just never forget it just kind of stuck with me.
He's, he said he was like, pa. Like the most common question that everybody always asks me is how do you get 5 million followers? but they're not willing to Talk to the five followers in order to get the 5 million followers. And that just really stuck with me at the time that it's like, you know, a lot of us just want to skip ahead and have the big list.
We want to skip ahead and have the, the thing, but we're not willing to like pay our dues and like put, in the work and everything. And it reminds me back, it was actually yesterday was Melissa and I's 10 year anniversary of our first date we did one of our first offers that we put, we both had online things that we were doing already but we came together and put something out and we only had two people purchase it and it was like okay, but that was the starting point that led us into a nearly seven figure year business that we have today, ten years later.
And it was like. But it was those two purchasers just that most people give up throwing the towel. Oh, this didn't come easy. I'm going to go somewhere else. So I think for a lot of us it's mindset because the part with business that we don't give our ourselves permission is like if we want to be at the top of our game as like a musician, we would be practicing and practicing and practicing and practicing and practicing.
And none of us practice, you know, in a way we don't practice our presentation, we don't practice, you know, how to communicate better or how to do that Facebook Live or how to do that webinar. Oh, we don't need to practice. And then we show up on game day with no practice and we want to perform at the highest level and we don't give ourselves like how many hours, just like an Olympic athlete, like for years, how many hours, tens of thousands of hours do they practice for like a three minute set that and they're going to be judged on those three minutes and we all show up and it's.
And I'm not saying this for you, this is for all of us is that you know, if as piggybacking on Melissa, if nobody comes onto your workshop, don't get in your head. It's practice, show up, playful out, record it and critique That's what professional athletes do. They watch the videos. They watch the videos. Where can I improve? Where can I let's let me improve this muscle.
And if you're talking to one person, you can have a personal conversation. It becomes turn it from a workshop into a one on one consultation, you know, and you probably will convert them at the end of the call because you gave them personal attention. You know, it's, we've all been in rooms where we thought way more people are going to be there and only a couple or a few or one is.
And it's like, well just we've, we've spoke at big national events where we were one of the workshops or whatever and like we were given a big room and like five or ten people showed up and it's like we walked off the stage and came down and sat next to them and did like a roundtable discussion because it just felt too weird to be in a room where we're like up on stage, you know, type thing.
It's like it felt more like hands on and intimate because we responded. But nothing builds your list faster with the right type of people than launching. So when we put a workshop out there, when we put a webinar, when we do a training series or a boot camp or a challenge, anything, it is the best list builder ever. Because whatever the hook is that you're putting into that, like you can make money instead of just doing a lead magnet, you can potentially make money at the end of this thing, you know, and so just bringing somebody to lead magnet, that's going to be like nurtured forever.
It's like you have, you know, so your workshop has a purpose at the end. So I would just lean in. And then as the others mentioned as well, we're human beings. A lot of us are isolated. since pandemic forward, we don't congregate as much as we should in person out in the real world. But we all do in different ways. But we do a lot online.
So people are already hanging out that have a common problem that you solve. So just the equivalent of a Facebook group. Now in some cases, like in Michelle's case, like, oh, some of a block of her people in the career world are in on LinkedIn, it's like, where do your people hang out? Because in some cases, some of our people hang out on Pinterest. In some cases, some of our people hang out on Reddit.
Like there's alternative places, not just Facebook, you know, not just Instagram, you know, like, where are your people hanging out already? And when you joked in earlier on and as Michelle said, like, oh, like Paul's really good. Yeah, we are a secondary choice in the marketplace. We're not a primary. So people like Stu McLaren, Jeff Walker, Amy Porterfield, and thankfully we've become friends with all them through the years.
We complement what they do. We don't compete with what they do. We have different offers. But what it is is their community, their first purchasers. Which means Stu, this week, as of tomorrow, is going to convince a whole new batch of people that they should leave their 9 to 5 job and they can make money online with a concept of a membership. Okay, and what will happen is there'll be some people that come through his world and then on the back end they'll be like, well, hold on, I built the thing, but now I Don't know how to market it.
I don't know how to do the Facebook ads, the SEO, the YouTube strategy, the social media. I need my copywriting to be looked at. My funnel's not converting all those problems that happen in a secondary decision. So we're in a. We understand. I'm not trying to convince somebody to leave their nine to five and to come into Internet marketing. So we hang out where people have already made that decision.
That's where we met a lot of you. But we did it in an ethical way. We showed up, we gave value, we poured into the community. But what does that do? That positions as an expert, that that creates social proof. You're celebrating, you're showing, like, what you do. So where are your people hanging out? Because they most likely have already bought products, services, solutions. They're already congregating in communities around those conversations.
And you just have to show up for the thing that you know and that you. Now, the last thing I'll just say in all this, because I know I went long, is also be careful when you're in these communities, because we all know too much. Only participate in the conversations of what you want to be known for. Not answering everybody's questions for everything. I know a lot in and out about Kajabi, but I don't want to be known as the Kajabi guy.
So I don't answer those questions in those groups. I'm just using as an easy example, like, I can answer that question. But Karen, you know, like, Lydia can answer those questions because that's. She's trying to position herself as a Kajabi expert. Right. So I'm not going to dip in that conversation. But if you're starting talking about marketing and sales, you know, I'll jump into that conversation. Growing, scaling your business.
I'll jump into that conversation because that's aligned with our offers. That makes sense. So it's not as much as a conversation we do participate in, but what you consciously choose not to participate in. That way you're known for something and then people will keep you top of mind, you know, but go where your people are. You're hanging out. where you'll get your people.
Guest 7: Thank you so much.
Diane (2): That was our. That was great feedback. Awesome.