ETA: My grandpa passed away on Tuesday night, so I’ve extended the holiday specials until this Saturday, as I didn’t have a chance to get the word out as much as I wanted about the workshop price change before the bundle bonus expired (due to taking today – 11/28 – and tomorrow – 11/29 off). Thanks for understanding.
I got super excited about the 2013 planning + systems + strategy workshop when I had the idea. I got feedback from a couple of people, who loooved the idea, and I’ve been wanting to experiment more with longer workshops, ever since I did the Day of Genius with Melissa Dinwiddie last year. I figured I’d run this workshop once in December and once in January and it’d be a good springboard for running more workshops in that format later in the year (which is definitely something I want to do more of).
And when I put it out there, I got crickets. Not exactly crickets – but close enough for my fragile ego to cause quite a lot of sulking and a bit of a self-pity fit (lots of “I’M DOOMED” and “Nobody likes me” and so on). And once I was done with that, which probably took much longer than it should have, I thought about what I could do.
It seemed like I had three options:
- Cancel the workshop entirely and/or move it to January
- Pout more and not take any action at all
- Change something about the pricing/structure of the workshop to make it easier for people to attend
I thought a lot about it. I could have cancelled/postponed, but I really wanted to do it (more on that in a second). Pouting wasn’t really getting me anywhere and I’d run out of chocolate, which everyone knows is the best part about pouting. It’s all downhill after that.
The most obvious option was changing the pricing or structure. And that brought up a lot of internal struggle. It seems like we’re (as business owners) constantly told not to offer discounts for various reasons, including that people rarely take action without some kind of investment. I’ve witnessed this firsthand – people getting something for free or ridiculously cheap and then not taking action (in fact, I wrote a recent post touching on similar issues).
But I’ve also been on the other side of things and been that person so hungry for change that I’ll work my ass off, even if I got something for free or at a discount or had to split it into a ridiculously large number of payments. I don’t necessarily think that lack of money means lack of commitment. (And the constant implication that those two things are one and the same is one of the things about traditional business advice that really rubs me the wrong way.)
I also know that financially this time of year can be pretty shitty. I’ve had some of those worries myself all too recently.
And, I know that this material is fucking awesome. I know it can help people.
I’ve witnessed firsthand so many people, who are talented and driven and creative. Their customers and clients and really, the world at large, needs what they’re offering like woah. But they end up getting burned out and upset and consider going back to (if not winding up going back to) their old job – even if they hated it with every fiber of their being – because of things like poor planning, overwhelm, and overbooking (usually in turn due to poor planning & a lack of systems). It sucks. It breaks my heart. It pisses me off.
And it’s totally freaking avoidable.
That’s why I didn’t want to just cancel or postpone the workshop, even though that arguably would have been much easier and it definitely would have avoided pushing all of my omgyou’reaflakeyfailure buttons. Yeah, I could use the funds from the workshop, but more important than that to me is helping people. I’d do it for free, except that really wouldn’t be in the best interest of anyone (especially Rain – she likes being in dog food & bones, yo).
So, after a lot of thinking, I decided to get rid of the whole early bird pricing concept with the workshop, and drop the price to $75 – still enough to cover my time, but much more accessible (and much more of a no brainer price). I know that December is a hectic month, but I really hope you’ll join us.
Bonus for reading this far: goodies!
Even if you don’t wind up joining us on the day of the workshop, you can download this tasty niblet and get a sneak peek at some of what we’ll be working on. It’s some pre-work designed to get you thinking on your big vision of things and the systems that’ll help you move it along.
As usual, if you have any questions, comments, or feedback, you can drop me a note (or leave a comment below). Thanks for being here, thanks for reading, and thanks for not thinking I’m a flake. 😉