Aftermath from the Action Seminar
Hey guys, I'm finally back from the Action Seminar which I co-hosted with Mary Wilhite and Jason Fladlien. It's been a long week. After hosting that event in Dallas for two days I hopped on a plane directly to Chicago for three days at the AM2 Platinum retreat.
The first day of the Action Seminar was pretty fun... Jason and I both spoke twice, Mary Wilhite spoke, Marc Harty and Jeanette Cates spoke.
The second day was an all-day mastermind session. It was pretty cool when Jason dictated copy to David Burch (one of our old students). At one point we created a free report, squeeze page, and thank you page for Roderick Martin -- including a Flip video of him thanking people for opting in and asking to call his phone number for a free consultation.
Yes, we even uploaded that Flip video to YouTube right in front of everyone and watermarked it. It was pretty cool.
But the rest of the crowd didn't have anything specific to ask. They'd spend 5 to 10 minutes explaining every little detail of their business, and then ask, "What now?" Which was annoying, especially when Jason and I are internet marketers.
We spoke about product creation, time management, passion marketing, video creation, and e-mail marketing so why ask something completely unrelated to those things? I'd rather people asked questions in areas where we were experts so we didn't have to guess. I'm good (probably one of the best) at fast infoproduct creation, fast PHP programming, fast copywriting.
But offline marketing? I won't touch it. Nothing wrong with that... it's just not my area of expertise.
Anyway, that's me catching up. Do you ask ten cent questions or thousand dollar questions? Comment below and hit the submit button within the next 5 minutes.
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Just tell them “Great question, does anyone else in the room have questions similar to this? Questions on the mechanics of? Fantastic, we are putting together a DVD of Jason and I answering these questions plus any other questions you really need to know on (blank). Just stop at the back of the room and fill out a form and drop it in the black box marked, “Inquiring Minds”. Our DVD will be sent out to all members and anyone that wants a copy needs to fill out the credit/debit card info at the bottom of the form to get their copy of this priceless “Inquiring Minds” dvd for a mere 39.95. ahipping included”
Or include it as a bonus for some other upsell you are pitching at the seminar.
Always ask yourself the question first – that may sound so obvious that it bears no further thought…which is why so few do it.
I ask my self, out loud, as if I was the person on the stage who has to answer the question. Usually if it is a 10 cent question it becomes painfully obvious at this point – and I realize “I know the answer to this in my heart already”, or “I can find this out on my own”.
There is a verse in the Bible that says “Even the fool appears wise when he does no speak.”
And that is my “10 cents” 🙂
–David T. McKee
http://www.achievemaster.com
Great observation, Robert! It was a great seminar with a lot of take-aways. I thought your offer of the hands-on extra day was incredible! People who want to build an online business would be foolish to miss your next Action Seminar in Austin – I’ll be there for sure!
One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn is that 98% of people want to be told what to do. I grew up thinking everyone wanted to figure it out for themselves, so it’s taken me a while to get around to realizing this point.
As a seminar speaker and workshop leader I don’t offer open-ended sessions any more. I specify up front exactly what we’re going to cover. And I find that people relax, realizing that I’m in charge and will tell them what to do. They are very willing to follow strong leaders – like you and Jason. Just tell them what you’re going to be covering.
I save the open-ended discussions for those clients who want to discuss their individual plans in a one-on-one session. Some people are shy about asking and discussing in a group.
Jeanette’s RIGHT Robert, and they’ll be even more shy next time since you castigated them so severely for asking what you thought were ten cent questions.
Next time do what Jeanette suggests and let them know your expectations up front. You will all be happier!
Just my two, no scratch that, ten cents.
@Jeanette: Even with one on one coaching, some of these people are in the goofiest niches that neither I nor Jason have enough experience with besides booksmarts.
They are people with 100% offline businesses who come to an internet marketing event, and want to improve just their offline business. It makes no sense.
If ever do the mastermind thing this next time (I’m against it but Jason pushing hard to do it so it’ll probably happen) we need to do what Ken McArthur or Armand do and have a panel of experts help instead of just us… and hopefully a Ross Goldberg type of guy to get in everyone’s faces.
Doh ! C’mon, Robert … there is no such a thing as :
“I’d rather people asked questions in areas where we were experts so we didn’t have to guess.”
You are living on earth, dealing mostly with humans and .. ravaging news: ALWAYS in a group there MUST be two or more peoples are there for >50% unrelated purposes ..
A “10 cents” question have only two answers:
– a 2 cents answer;
– a million dollars answer.
First and easyest option when face a such a question, say:
“Your question have two answers: a 2 cents answer and a million dollars answer. Which one you want ? Oh, btw .. I accept usd, euro and gbp, cash only …”
…
I have answers for any question. Any areas of expertise.
I can see your guys’s point. Thankfully I didn’t tell anyone they were stupid for asking any question. (And there’s a difference between something that’s common knowledge to me that I can explain vs. something they can easily look up.)
Part of me wished they ALL had a blog that needed improving, or a sales letter that needed tweaking, or some pre-sell e-mails that needed to be written. Or at least, that we devoted less time to topics we weren’t so sure about.
Robert,
What’s a blog?
(ducks)
Robert,
I think part of the problem is that some people came to the second day hands-on, one-on-one workshop without a goal.
My goal for the first day was just to meet you and Jason. Check. I got quite an unexpected bonus of learning about deeply fear has affected much of what I do as well as strategies to get rid of fear: taking massive action and laughing at everything.
I had a list of things to do on the second day: Questions, sales letters that needed major surgery, product ideas, areas where I needed advice.
It was the action seminar, right? So, I came ready to work: laptop with Camtasia, microphone, Flip, external harddrive loaded with all I have, audio recorder, etc.
David,
I didn’t think about that. I guess we should have pushed them harder that first day to think of questions so they didn’t have to pull them out of thin air when we put them on the spot during day 2.