Wow, you get an email or a postcard in snail mail, inviting you to a free seminar!
Today I got one in the post and last week one via email. Both seminars are happening 90 minutes drive from where I live.
What to do?
Like me, you might be thinking of taking a course that will move your blog to prominence. You might be considering some coaching to take you to the next level.
So you read through the free invites. Great!
But hold on a moment.
There are travel and accommodation costs, because staying where the seminar is happening is a saner option than driving back and forth for 3 days. Then there is the opportunity cost, what you would be doing if you weren’t spending 3 days at a free seminar?
Des and discussed this when we looked at the invitation and Des said so when is free really free?
We have experience of this situation. A free seminar, or make a donation to a charity – a good cause so we thought. That’s fine, but does it make business sense?
We need to ask ourselves what’s the real cost? There are travel, hotel costs, meals, drinks and then perhaps (probably?) you find each session comes with a big sales pitch. And then you ask yourself, am I likely to learn anything new?
So what do I choose?
Stay home and do the detailed, consistent work on building my online business with what I already know and have not yet applied fully?
Or take the “free” option and work out that I probably need to spend $500 plus for travel, accommodation and meals? And then I will have to be very disciplined and not get drawn to that special “for now only, not $10,000, not $6,000, not even $ 2000 – for you, only $997 and you will make $xx,000 a month”.
It’s an individual decision.
What about you? Have you been to a “free” seminar about – or partly about – making money online? Was it worth the time and actual expense? I hope you’ll share.
Hrm, interesting page, you could use a nicer banner but the overall layout and design of your page is nice, your articles are not bad either.
I also I have monthly contests, so I would really appreciate it if you donated or entered 🙂
Hi Suzie,
I agree, “free” is rarely actually free. I haven’t attended any seminars recently, but in the past the ones I have attended, you’re right I definitely spent money. My favorite was probably when Tom “Big Al” Schreiter came to Hawaii … that was a fun night. I think I spent a couple hundred dollars, but it was well worth it.
Todd
Todd Morris’s last blog post..First Pictures of Jayden Taylor
I wouldn’t attend any seminar that was entirely synchronous. It’s too much like delivering yourself up to being a trapped audience. Another principle to consider is that of bootstrapping a business whereby you only spend money after you’ve earned it, not before.
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