Bridge to Business Success Masterclass: Setting up and running a successful retreat

Hello, there's Kat. We got here Louise, Kate, couple of people popping in at the moment, and we'll give everyone a few moments just to, to, uh, jump in before we get going with our discussion today with Lena. And just out of interest, who here has either run a retreat before? Put it in, in chat. Run a retreat or thinking about running a retreat. I know a lot of people will be watching this on replay as well. And, uh, for those of you who are watching the recording, you're missing out on the excitement of being here in person, but we've got some amazing information coming up for you. Now, so who has run a retreat before or who is thinking about running a retreat? Thinking of it, Louise, fantastic. Yep, Pete's got his hand up. He's either run it or he's just thinking about it. Good to know. Okay guys, well, before I, uh, hand over to the amazing Alina, let me just tell you a little bit about today. Welcome almost and formally to the Bridge to Your Business Success. Every month we run these here in the Creators Academy. And this is just your chance and opportunity for looking at how you can, you know, follow your purpose, follow the choice that you have that is that purposeful choice around creating a business or actually improving the business. So if we think about having, you know, an impact and having a legacy and living in true nature and purpose, a lot of that is around how you can contribute to the world. So Business is one way of doing that, creating your own, you know, way to monetize your message, potentially step outside of the current role that you have, or maybe just grow the business that you have in mind or the business that you're currently running. Now, for many people, you know, when we think about, uh, running a business, there's so many aspects to it. And over the last, you know, 12+ months, we've looked at so many of these. I know that, you know, when people are thinking about how they can connect with their audience, we've talked about doing it online, we've talked about doing it in social media, we've talked about doing it on the stage, but a really powerful way of doing it is with retreats. You know, those real intensive, you know, opportunities that you get to grab people and really harness energy for a period of time. It might just be for a day, it could be for a weekend, or it could be for 3, 5, 7 days. I know, you know, a couple A lot of my mentoring clients have run retreats in Indonesia. They've run retreats in Bali. And, you know, running retreats overseas when you're based in Australia is a whole different ballgame. But even running retreats here in Australia or running local retreats, there's so many things that you need to know. Everything from, you know, budgeting through to how do you actually get people to turn up? You know, and, you know, I've run workshops where we've had weekend workshops and you're trying to think about how you can serve people and deliver, you know, goodness so that they can have this full experience. And then you've got someone turning around and going, I don't have my gluten-free morning tea. And you're thinking, oh my gosh, you know, so there's so many things that you have to think about. And when I was, you know, sitting with, you know, who would be my next guest on the Creators Academy Bridge to Business Success last month, I really, you know, it really came to me that retreats were something that gives us an opportunity to really shine and to have that one-on-one in-person experience. And you wouldn't believe it, the amazing Lena Milicaević, I think I've got it right, was chatting to me at the same time and I was like, hello Lena, I think that you're the person that I would like to interview and talk to about this. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce you to Lena. Lena has just the most incredible background, and thank you for, you know, indulging us, those people who've turned up here today, with changing the time a little bit. Lena is coming to us from Italy. She's European-centric. She grew up in Germany. She's lived in so many different places, and, you know, she has an MBA. She has a family. She's been, you know, expat with her husband traveling around, and, you know, she's run airports and been in port management. She's done all of these amazing things, but she's also a spiritual healer. She does yoga. She's had meditation businesses for over 20 years. And last year she started running retreats. So she's run them internationally and she's run them locally. So who better than to talk to Lena about the ins and outs of it, but also some of the mistakes and what we can take from it. So pull out your notepads because we are going to go deep into a real masterclass today about out the ins and outs of how you can run your retreat. With that all said, Lena, welcome. How are you?

Thank you. I'm, I'm great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Welcome everybody. And thanks for the great intro, Jane. Yeah, you, you really touched on an important point there. Like why, why would you even run a retreat? Like why, you know, apart from, you know, you have it in your heart, obviously, and you want to do it. But otherwise, it's like, why would you want to put yourself through that experience, right? Because it's a lot of work. And what really I see, and you touched on that, Jane Slack-Smith, it's like the depth of transformation that you can have when you're working with people for a longer period of time, whether that's a weekend, a long weekend, like for a weekend retreat, or whether that's a week or even more. You just have people with you all the time and you get to pick up all the threads, the pieces that sort of are left out there and, and pull them all together. So the, the transformation that you can provide, like how deep you can go in, in a retreat context is incredible. For me, that really blew my mind. Every time I come out at the end, it really is great.

And I think, you know, what I've always been aware of with retreats is you're making a conscious decision of actually taking yourself out of your own environment and putting yourself somewhere else and getting away from all the, you know, day-to-day things, but jumping straight into, you know, being present with what you're trying to learn or the transformation or whatever. I mean, as for people who are thinking about running retreats, and I'm going to hand it all over to you, but, you know, I'd love you to just take us through the experience that you had and the original experience, because I know that that wasn't so great, and then how you've turned that around since.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So my background, um, is Croatian. My family is Croatian, and my family happens to own a place in Croatia, um, that is suitable for running retreats. My parents ran it as a bed and breakfast for the past 20 years. Now they are retiring and I'm sort of taking it over. And that's the place where I run my signature retreat, which is the Tidal Flow Retreat for women. I work mainly with women. And I can already hear some egoic chatter sort of going on. Oh, she owns a place, that's easy, right? It's not. Everybody has their own dysfunctions, right? I'll talk about mine in, in this context. But just to give you a background, like, how, how did I come, how did I start off, right? And actually, Jane Slack-Smith, I ran my first retreat last year there. The truth is, I launched it the year before, so in 2021. I had had the idea for a couple of years. I also teach yoga, and initially I wanted it to be a yoga retreat there. And I launched it, like I did all the things, I organized, I blocked the bookings with my dad, and I told people about it. And I got lots of, this is great, Lena, great idea, I'm interested, blah, everything. And what happened is that no one turned up, like not one single person. It was like a nightmare come true. No one. So I had to cancel it. Basically, I just didn't run it. I didn't have anybody to cancel it on, right? There was no minimum number not reached. And that was really a blow in that moment. So what happened then is a couple of months later, I attended Alchemy. With William, and I volunteered for the Dysfunctional Formation process, and I was selected. And that was, for me, that was a page-turner because I brought this, you know, failure of my, with my retreat, I brought that into the process, like one of the three cases of things that I went for and I didn't get. And that was eye-opening. So I got all my dysfunctions about it. Like, I could actually see, okay, this is what I did. Part of it I already mentioned. It's like, I tell people— this is part of my dysfunction— I talk a lot, I get people's opinions and, you know, get the, oh, this is great, confirmation from outside. And then I don't do anything. Like, I sit there and wait. Like, the sitting and waiting is one of my dysfunctions. So I decided to run it again. I tweaked a couple of things. I didn't run it at the same time. Like, my first edition was in June, now I'm at the end of August. And then basically I started again with that awareness, and it made all the difference. So I was—

pull you up then. You decided to have a retreat. You pretty much went and told everyone. You didn't get pre-sales or bookings. You just expected them to turn up. Was that right?

Yes. Yes. I was very romantic about it. Yes.

I just wanted— I was just like, you know, do people pay and they didn't turn up? But just no one paid, no one turned up, and then you were—

no, no one paid. No, no, I didn't even get a booking.

Okay.

It was zero crickets.

You do differently. How, what, how, what was the, the big change? You changed the the time, so it was more acceptable.

Yeah, that was like, that was the only sort of organizational factual change that I made, um, because I didn't— for the first one, I didn't even, I didn't have a program set out, so there was nothing to tweak there. I just changed the time. That was the only like open factual organizational thing that I changed. The main difference was like, what was a game changer for me was I went into my dysfunction again. And this time I was aware of it. It was like, I was like, crap, I'm here again, you know, sitting, I'm telling people about it. And then I was like, I didn't actually put it out there really. Right. And so as you might know what happened to me, like when you're deep in your dysfunction and you're noticing it, there's tons of tension coming up. Right. And not always like I did have a vision for this retreat, and I made that a secondary choice, but I still wasn't in the 'how do I transform,' right? Like, how do I make that leap out of my— that action out of my dysfunction? And I knew what I needed to do, but I was stuck, like completely stuck. And what's—

someone with a background in project management, did it Did you kind of get— did you push into that and go, let's get the structure, or—

okay, so that didn't help at all. That wasn't it at all. Like, I was very emotional. My stuckness was really— it was an emotional stuckness. So what I did is I did this process, and to me, like, I call it ego guidance, right? So what I decided to do, I was like, okay, let's give that egoic voice— let's give it the stage, full stage, microphone, megaphone in hand, and I amplified it. So in practice, what I did, I did a journaling exercise where I just said, okay, let's hear that voice completely out. Because what I knew is like, that's, I'm not good enough, I'm not capable, like that, like, that's the core belief. I knew that, but it didn't give me enough. So what I did was I amplified it. And I'm going to read to you just to make you understand what comes out, because I went in depth, right? And what I mean by that is this, because I recently found that, that what I wrote in my diary, it just popped open the page. Okay, um, okay, I've spent the morning writing and fussing around writing and not publishing. Beating myself up for it, getting into a loop of not being able to fill my retreat. Oh, forget filling, not having anyone show up for it. That's my biggest fear at the moment. The failure, the shame of it, the fact that I've told people and now all those people will know. I will be publicly shamed and never do it again. My parents will look at me wondering why their daughter never gets to anything in life. They will see their beliefs confirmed to have raised a loser. My father will think again why on earth he hasn't been given sons. They will fear losing the property because their daughter won't be able to make it work, to make the necessary money it takes to pay for the upkeep. I will be a failure, a delusion for my parents, for everyone.

Wow, Alena! Give yourself a hard time, right? And, and I imagine, you know, for people who are listening to this who have, uh, dreams of having a retreat, I think this is really valuable and why I really wanted you to share this. And I appreciate you being so vulnerable and sharing that personal experience because at some stage you're going to get in your head and at some stage people are going to say, I'm going to turn up and they don't follow through. And in my experience, you know, uh, family and friends are the people who let you down the most. They all say, I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna support you, and then they don't. And you've like, ah, so, you know, you, I, I guess as a, as a, an observation point of view, it's, it's a great place to start because having that romantic notion of having a retreat, having a connection, having a monetary gain, you know, but creating a transformation for people in whatever the retreat topic is. The reality is that at some stage, all of these kind of imposter syndrome or not capable and is not powerful enough, whatever that is, can come up. So I just want people to be aware that this can happen. And for someone like Lena, who were very confident in, in many ways in her life, you know, for this kind of sudden, uh, you know, observation, I'm really keen to hear that What are the action steps that you took then to create an amazing retreat?

So the first action step, and this is why I read this out loud, because was this, because what happened was I now had it all on the table and I could look at it and really realize this is not true. Do you know what I mean? Of course my parents won't disown me.

Yeah, right.

Like, this is like, that was the turning point. And going this specific, like, not like, oh, I'm not capable, you know, it's like there's not enough personal connection. It wasn't for me. So going that, I could see this is ridiculous.

Yeah.

And then I could put it on to the side, like it wasn't lurking in the background anymore. And, you know, I didn't have to push it away because I you know, the energy wasn't going there anymore. It's like, oh, okay, like lots of tears. I still get emotional when I read it, like, you know, blotchy paper and everything. But that was— that's the first action step. Like, that is the first action that I took. And from then I got really active. So then I said, okay, this is about not telling anyone because I don't want anyone to know if I fail, right? I said, okay, now I'm telling everybody, everybody. So I put it on my personal profile, my internet. I didn't have a large internet presence at the moment, but I still did that. And I told all of my friends, yes, friends, family, everybody. But I went very specific. So there was one friend who also runs retreats. She has a property in southern Italy, and I approached her. So there I went, okay, if I tell her, would she market that to her audience, like to her people, will there be a competition thing? And I said, look, I'm just going to operate under the premise that this is heart-to-heart collaboration. And, and that's how I went to her and I asked her, look, this is what I want, what I'm doing. And would you tell your audience, you know, would, would that be okay? And do you want something for it, a percentage, you know? And she went, oh no, this is great. And I'll just send everybody an email. And no, don't worry, when I do mine, you do that for me. And I'm, you know, happy to do that. Awesome. And she ended up booking and bringing a friend. And so that, that was the first, right? A couple of people, a couple of women from my own network that I personally know locally came. And then I went on to a booking page. I'll go more in depth later. That's why I got the rest of them. And what happened is basically the retreat sold out and I ended up having a waiting list. So I went from zero to fully booked with a waiting list.

So can I just take you back? You know, you, you set the intention of having a retreat. You, was it a, how many days?

I went for a week directly.

7 days. Wow. Yes. 7-day retreat. So this is a lot of time you're expecting people. You had a structure and you promote when you're saying you tell people you're being very specific about dates, times, price, structure. We're going to do this, this, this is your outcome. Like you're very outcome focused. So how did you promote it from the, you know, what they're going to get out of it? What's in it for me?

So from that I did with the people that knew me, it was mostly, um, like they knew my work, they knew what I do. It's like, come go a deep dive, do a deep dive with me on this. And then the rest, what I did is my vision was for the women to come with me, take a week off their daily life, and it was specifically for women at a turning point in their life. So I went very specific with that. It could be— what I spoke to was 3 things, and I might hone that into just one. For next time. It was turning points, for example, physical, like menopause, right? A changing— some— your body is changing, you don't recognize yourself anymore. I got it for women, you know, you might have like an external change in your life, like a move, a big move, something like that. Or you just feel something's off and you can't put your finger on it. You want to change something. Like, that's the 3 things that I spoke to. and I specifically spoke to the fact that you're trying to go deep and understand what's going on and where you want your life to go. You're trying to do that at home, but it's not working.

And when you say, and I'm just interested in, in the messages, you say that you were teaching, you were targeting your niche. So you knew the niche and the 3 kind of ideal clients that you had, and now you're thinking you might change that to 1. What was that observation or revelation that allowed you to go, actually, I should niche further? So if people were listening to this and they're going, okay, first of all, I need to know what I'm gonna teach. I need to know, uh, who, who I'm targeting and how I'm gonna get the message out there. Why, what made you go from the 3 to the 1 in the next one?

I'm, um, I'm in the process of that.

Mm-hmm.

And mine, it, it was a coaching that I received. Basically. And that's why I'm sitting on that still. Like, I'm in the process of niching that down further. And it's about the insight that by the 3, like, that there's some subconscious delusion, like, veil over the specificity. That's what I'm sitting at. And that's why I'm saying I'm pondering whether to do that.

Because it's interesting. I mean, with any, anything or any creation, Being able to know who you're talking to allows you very succinctly to create the marketing message, create the transformational experience you want them to understand they're gonna get. And it's difficult if there's a, if there's a base characteristic or base something that links them all together, then that can work. But my observation has been if you try to be all things to all people, all your messages get confused, right? So that kind of targeting of the niche of who you're going to talk to and who you're going to target as your, you know, ideal kind of participant is really important.

Yeah. And the thing is, I want to talk to that as you're mentioning it. This was a process for me. Like, this specificity came when I had already put it out there. Like I got the specific— this, these three, like this wording, um, I'm going to show you later on the website how to put it— that came with a spirit guidance. Like it just came through at a certain moment, um, speaking to me, and I was just frantically noting it all down, and then I put it on the website. And, you know, but that came— look, I ran it in, in August, and this really, that specificity came through around June. Okay, like rather down the track. And just to give you context, what I just read to you, I looked at the date and I was like, what? Beginning of May, right?

Okay, yeah.

So just to give you an idea of the timing, right? Like I was sitting there in May and I still didn't have signups for the retreat in June. In August.

How far out do you— would you advertise? Would you recommend people to advertise or start that?

So I would advise, so if you're going for, say, European summer months, so June, July, I would advise Christmas.

Okay, so we're talking 6 months in advance?

Yeah, 6 months in advance. This would be even 9 months in advance, but I think 6 months is a good is a good timing. Not so much for the people. Well, no, yes, because they start hearing about it, you know, the cycle, like how many times do people need to hear about something before they, you know, before it drops in, this is something that I really might want to do. It's mostly for yourself, like for me, because it's, it's that time ago, now I'm starting, now I'm putting this up and I'm putting this out, like it sets processes into place. And I'm going to go more specific with that, like how you do it.

Do you, you know, if you're 6 months and 9 months out, do you get the people before you book the venue or you book the venue? Do you have to put your money down? Like, what's, what's that?

Yeah. So with that, I actually spoke to a colleague who, because I have my own venue, like, so this is my dad, so I'm in that a bit different situation. So what you do when you book a venue, there is a time where you, you can sort of hold. This is negotiable, but here in Europe, this is how most venues work. You book it and you negotiate a time in which they will hold the place for you without making you pay. Then after that hold comes the moment where you have to put down, put a down payment down, which you lose if you then cancel. So in that case, the process shrinks down, right, time-wise. Or you go, I'm just fine with the risk, you know, the risk of losing the money, just additional tension. But it's, it's this, this period, then you, like with retreats, with this long haul, it depends on the venue. Some venues are really are easily booked out and they will have stricter conditions. You'll have to book a year in advance and make already a down payment. Other venues are a bit easier. They will say, okay, like until 3 months before, it's okay if you cancel and you get your deposit back. So there's a lot of room for negotiation with some venues. Others will just sort of email you, these are the conditions and it's that or it's that. So it's, yeah, so there isn't really a rule to this. You just have to tune in and do the bridges that come up with it. Yeah, but that is one thing, like if you, if you don't have something that's yours or friends, or where you can sort of start with something like that, you, there is you know, money to be put on the, in the table.

I know when I've run my like weekend workshops, I, you know, I ran them in different states and I essentially booked a room and because I had booked the room, I had the ability to have cheaper, um, uh, accommodation. So I made them pay for their accommodation and basically I had the conference, you have your accommodation and here's like the half price or 30% off. So, you know, that's also one way of doing it. So you're not, you kind of hold, that's great.

Yeah.

You don't have to be responsible, but obviously if you're going to a dedicated retreat venue, then, you know, the assumption is you've got the room and all the bookings. So there's different ways if people are thinking about this that you can run it. So you can actually, you know, minimize your exposure as well. And if someone doesn't wanna stay in the fancy pants hotel that you're in, but wants to stay, you know, Airbnb next door, that's just fine. They usually, in my experience, we were booking about, uh, about 4 months in advance, some of the big hotels in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, etc. And, um, they would hold the, the hotel bedrooms for a week, up to a week, just before the event, before they'd say, okay, no one else is booking, we're releasing them. So there was a little bit more, you know, we weren't holding the risk, which is another way that me and my—

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and you're right with hotels, that's—

Yeah, yeah, dedicated place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I don't have the money for this.

Yeah, exactly. And it's, um, and it's also the thing, like, as you're speaking different durations, you know, there is this general recommendation out there that if you start, it's better to start like with a weekend, like do shorter, and then work yourself your way up to something longer. I didn't do that. I went straight into the week.

Why not?

It's just like crazy.

Bring on all those fears.

Yeah, I actually think it's not necessarily a harder thing to do because when you do a week, there's going to be more downtime. Like, you do a week retreat, you're not filling the whole week with program and activities like hour by hour by hour because you want to give them time to integrate. So it's not necessarily that you are, you know, when you're doing a weekend, you'll be like, it's bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, you know, because it's, it's, it's, it's a more intensive thing. So I actually don't really believe it's necessarily harder or more, you know, more work to do a week.

Can you take us through the process? What are the things that people need to go through?

Okay, so with that, you've got to make some decisions right before you start. One is the intention, having a clear vision and getting rather specific with it. And the first thing that I do, like in this Natural Success community, or that I do, that I see sometimes speaking to people, is they don't make a secondary choice about it. So do that. That's the first thing, because what it does, it really keeps your focus. For me, that was a key turn, like really putting it in, having it in my choices. And I know William says, like, you do those once a week. I did them every day. So because it's— for me, it just went in, in, in with everything. Like, I did them every day because otherwise I'm Am I doing them? I'm not doing them. It kept the focus really strong for me. That was that. You've got to decide your venue. Jane Slack-Smith mentioned hotels are an option. You can get like a dedicated retreat space. You can even do it at your home. Like, you don't have to go fancy, professional, or what you think might be professional. Professional means like, you know, you might have a large living room. And a guest room, and then somebody staying next to— do you know what I mean? Like, you can do something really, really simple if you want to start out with that. You don't have to rent if you don't need to.

Yeah.

And the thing is, be clear of what you want to provide, right? Like, I led— I lead that particular retreat very much from, this is my home, this is where my roots are, and I'm inviting you in. Like, come to my hearth. That is the underlying energy current that I'm holding that from. It's like I'm inviting you into a place that's safe, that's sacred to me, and I'm opening my doors. That's where I lead from. And it depends. Like, I just came back from a retreat, I collaborated with somebody, and it was a completely different baseline energy. It's like This is a great, a fun place. I discovered this fun place. Let's all come along and discover it together. You see the difference, right?

Absolutely.

It's equally valid, yeah, but it's different. So that's like the baseline. And like, where do you— what's the energetic experience, the emotional experience that you want to provide, right?

It's interesting you said that. I've got a client I'm working with at the moment, and she's got a moonai kai rites retreat she's putting together in southern hinterland in Queensland. And she say— she said— I said, what's accommodation like? And she said, oh, it's like, it's a bunkhouse. Everyone's like in a bunkhouse. I'm like, really? Are people going to be happy in a bunkhouse? She's like, it's not about the accommodation. The, the natural environment is such a gift. It is so important to the rights, but to that awareness, she said, No one even cares. I thought, oh, isn't that interesting? You know, because you get in your head this condition like bunkhouse and I was like, wow. Yeah, that intention.

Yeah. So that's that. That is something that, yeah, that intentionality for what, like in your vision, what you want to provide, what's the baseline energy and then from there get, get your things together, right? Like what's a good venue for that? Like it has to match.

Yeah.

Like what, what, what I'm doing, I would never go into a hotel to do that, luxury hotel. It's not, it's not what I'm doing. Yeah, with it, with what, with my signature retreat, I might do that for something different, but for I Want to Provide, it's just not the right venue for it.

I love that.

Right, so get a match for what you want to do rather than about getting in your head how should it be, like what's this supposed to look like. Right. So that's the venue. Your numbers. How many people do you want there? Do you want like a small intimate group? Do you want big numbers? I would recommend doing this intuitively. It's more fun because you get an intuitive number, like tune in. What's the number, right? How many people? And it gives you what your intuition gives you. It's like a feel for the group size, you know, you might be, because you might be going, oh no, I prefer intimate and small and let's do, you know, 8 or 9 maximum, and then you get 20 and you're like, what? But your intuition is telling you what you're doing needs a bigger group and then you go with that, right? That's what you go for, for the number, and that will inform what sort of venue you need, right? You might not be able to fit 20 people in your living room if, you know, that's where you want to start out. So that's, that's, um, a thing. The duration— how long is it going to be? Again, maybe it's obvious, you know, for what you want to do, that a weekend is the right timing. And maybe you want to tune in and see what, you know, what, uh, what number of days comes out. Do you want to do a transformative structure like the program? Um, do you want to run a transformative structure? Is this about something else? Maybe it doesn't need to be transformative. Maybe you're doing something else. And, um, there's some very practical nuts and bolts that I want to talk to right now, which is— and we're starting with cost. But until now, I just want to know, are any questions, like specifically to what we've spoken about up until now?

Anyone have any questions, thoughts? You've answered it all perfectly.

Okay, fantastic.

Nuts and bolts, the cost. So just to be clear, you haven't, uh, even thought about costs or pricing or anything at this stage? You've just gone through the 'what do I want to create' you know, what's the, who's the person that, you know, what's my target that I'm going to create it for, what kind of venue, and then you've gone into duration. So you kind of, you're working your way down now and now is the only, the first time you really get into that pricing bit.

Yes. Mm-hmm.

Got it.

So let me just And did you want to share your screen? Yes, I will. Let me just get down to one thing here. Okay, so Can you see, um, cost planning? Cost planning. Yeah. Okay, so first of all, I'd like to hear from you. What do you think are the possible costs that you will be incurring? We already spoke about venue. What else? What do you think? Top of your head, what comes to your mind? Yeah, just unmute and blurt out, it's fine. Food. Food. Okay, yeah, food could be an extra cost. You— it could be included with the venue. Some venues you just book with a kitchen and everything. In my case, food was, yeah, was a cost. Anything else?

Activities.

Mhm.

Guests. Sorry. Guests that you invite.

If, if— oh, okay, so contributors. Yeah, sorry.

Martha's got their materials.

Materials, um, yeah, gadgets or materials, equipment.

Yeah, journals. So those kind of little gifts as well that you might have. Yeah, journals could come into that. Yep, insurance. And Samantha?

Insurance.

So there might be, um, you've already mentioned this, the partner affiliate referral fees.

Okay.

Merchandise. Yeah, merchandise. Photographer, videographer.

Okay, that could be Kajiro. Okay, let's see. Photographer.

And I guess there's some things there about pre, pre-conference too. Should we do that? Pre-retreat, like the marketing, the website, the marketing, website design, materials, promotion, all of that in there.

So you see, what most people forget, and I hear this all the time, is your own travel expenses.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Accommodation.

And depending on what you do, um, and where you go, this could be a significant cost, right? Um, because, you know, there's your own accommodation to pay for, your own airfare or travel expense in general, your own food, like all of that. Since you're assuming you want to run this as a business, that's a cost. So you—

and I guess also there's, um, there's just that knowledge of the local additional costs, unanticipated costs. So I know when they changed the visa requirements in Bali last year, if you actually want to teach there, you have to have a particular type of visa. So you can opt for the year-long visa or the short-term visa, but they're actively taking people out of the retreats off the stage and putting them on planes, which would just be horrific if you're running a retreat. So having that local knowledge as well of those local requirements or licensing would be something that would be really important.

Yeah, yeah, that's knowledge exactly about your— where you are, right, running it and the specific knowledge. So when you go here, I'm going to mark these yellow. What's the difference between the marked ones and the other ones? Does anyone see that?

Your attendees pay.

That the attendees pay? Yeah, ideally they pay for everything.

Can I answer?

Ah, yes, Jane, go ahead.

Me, me. Based on the number of people.

Yes, exactly. So we've got the yellow ones are what we'd call the variable costs. So you'll have more of that the more people you have. The other ones you will incur in them regardless of how many people you have. So that would be your fixed cost.

Great.

Um, I will, if you want to, I'm offering that, um, you can send me an email at the end of the class if you want to, and I will send you a checklist. Yeah, for like a retreat prep checklist, um, pre, during, post, because this is what I'm covering today. Um, so that these will be listed. So if you want to— don't want to jot everything down, I mean, if you want, and you know, writing helps your learning, that's great. But just to give you that framework. So we have fixed cost and we have variable cost. Okay. There is a third type, which is a bit hybrid. Some things, let's say you're going on an excursion and you have a van. And that holds X, you know, 10 people, and then you have the 11th guest booking in, that 11th guest will incur a cost of that extra van. So you will— that's a plateau, like you have one and then it shoots up and it goes to another plateau. So that sort of cost exists as well. And I'm just mentioning it because we're going down into the bowls here. So we are assuming you want to make a profit from this, right? And a profit is your revenue. This is what, what participants pay, right? Minus your cost. Okay, you want to make a profit. So why am I going this much into detail? This is very simple. And I mean, I have a business degree, but honestly, it didn't really occur to me to do this maths until quite down the track. I was planning my retreat, right? I was like, someone just looked at me, it's like, yeah, so, you know, how's your cost structure going? And I was Wow, I didn't do that, right? Like, there you go. In my head about tons of other stuff, and this is really important, and I'll tell you why. We'll get to that in a moment. So profit, you want to make some profit. And how you can easily calculate this, even if you're not a math genius, what you do is you add up all those that are not marked yellow. So your fixed cost, you have that as a starting point. And then with every booking that you get, you can calculate how much does every participant contribute on taking down that fixed cost. And what you— how you calculate that, it is your retreat price minus the variable cost per person. Yeah, that will give you the contribution to take down the fixed cost. I'll give you an example. Jane, do you know what the proper English name is for this contribution? Because I forgot. I know it in German.

Okay.

Okay. So what you want to do is say you have your fixed cost is 2,000.

I'm trying to understand this. You have— how do you come up with the price of the course if you're waiting to see people booked in to reduce the fixed cost?

No, this is a pre-thing, like a pre— let's say, let's assume, let's assume you come up with a price. Okay, sorry, thank you for that. So what, say you, you have your fixed cost, cost of $3,000. Okay, you've decided your venue, you've got your helpers and everything in. Some of this will be estimate Yeah, right. You work with a good estimate that, and then you know the variable cost. Yeah, is $200 per person. Per person.

Yeah, got it.

Okay, this is per person and variable. And then you say, okay, let's say I'm getting an intuitive pricing. Of 1,000, right? There's this thing about you can tune in what your price is, and that's a very valid thing. But then you want to know, like, how many people do I need? When's it going to be profitable? And all that. So this is a simplified example. So the contribution of each person to take down the fixed cost will be 1,000 minus 200, which is 800, right? Does that make sense?

800 to now per person.

800 is not— this is how much each person it's not yet your profit because you have your fixed cost. Yeah, it still needs to be taken down. So from each ticket that you sell, you sell for 1,000, you know 200 is already gone because that person will cost you 200 per person, right? So you have the 800, that's money that you get, but you know you have your mountain of fixed cost because in most cases it's It is the biggest chunk. So then what you do, you have the $3,000 and you say, okay, I got $800 here. So with one booking, the fixed cost that remains that I haven't yet covered is $2,200.

Right.

Got it. Booking number 2 comes in.

So you just go $3,000 divided by $800. Which should say you need about 4 people to break even.

Yes, that's if you're good with maths. You do your formula and you do that, right? So if you're not, you can do this step by step, and that's what I'm doing here, right?

Got it.

$2,200, second person books in, takes down your fixed cost by another $800. And you are now at 1,400. Great. So 1,400 left, takes down another 800, person 3 books in, and then you are at 600. Okay, 600. Another person books in, number 4, which is exactly what Jane calculated in a second, is now you've got $200 profit, right? Okay, so here you can see this is— you need 4 people. The reality will be you might have different pricing depending on the accommodation. Depending on the conditions you, they book in, you might, some might, you might give an early bird pricing to, you might give specific discounts to a certain category of people, like existing clients, for example. Like there's some choices that you can make, but doing it like this step by step by step, if you've got different pricing, it just helps you. I found it useful to monitor where am I at right now. With the people that I have. Doing it beforehand, this tells me, okay, um, if I have 4 people, I'm making $200 profit. This is my estimate because the costs, some of them are estimated. I'm not sure yet how much exactly this is going to cost me. So now I can go, okay, so what's my minimum number of people for to run this with? You know, is 4 enough. I just want the experience. Don't have 5, 6, right? This is your number where you go, okay, this is how many people I want minimum. If I get less, then, um, you know, what do you do? Do you want to cancel it or not? Like, this just gives you a very crystal clear awareness, and you can really take it step by step by And then you have, you know, maybe person 5 books in and now you need a bigger car.

Yeah.

Then that person 5 will not give you the $800.

Yeah.

That you get to contribution to your cost or to make your profit bigger. It might actually incur in a cost, like one person more might cost you money. Yeah, because the extra cost is larger than what they pay you. That's why I'm breaking it down step by step by step, because this is something I want to make this easy for, even if you have a story that you're not good with numbers, right? That's why I'm breaking it down like that.

Okay, and this in the price point, you know, you talked about the intuitive pricing Do you ever do any competitive and pricing analysis?

Yeah, that's what I did when I started. I didn't go intuitive. I went into, like, I didn't even think of going intuitive. I did an analysis. I basically, I researched online retreats in Croatia. So I went for that location, for that duration, and then I positioned myself more or less in like a medium, medium, medium, medium to lower. Like I was in, in the range where I presented myself. Would you do both now going forward, intuitive and what I'm doing now is, um, intuitively I, uh, I asked how much do I raise my prices So I went from what I charged last year, how much more?

And so, because for me, about starting a retreat, do you recommend that they have a look at the other competitors out there or other retreats that are in their space and then tune into what's true for them?

So I did it from a business perspective. I would recommend it. From a natural success perspective, there's pros and cons. Like, you can do it functionally or dysfunctionally. Like, you can do it functionally and say, okay, this is current reality and I want to be aware of it. And that's a good thing to do. If you do it dysfunctionally, where you go, oh, there's so many people doing the same thing, same price point, you know, you know where I'm going. Like, this can get very dysfunctional. So I would recommend it, but be aware of where you are coming from with it.

Good advice. I know. I mean, I had a course and I could see that the competitor had a same course for $7,000. So I'm like, I'm gonna save the world. I'm gonna make it cheap for everyday people. It'll be $3,000. She made a lot of money and I did a lot of work, you know, trying to make a lot of money, but it was a lot more difficult and I was like, I'm like, oh, that would have been a lot easier if I had a higher margin. And I did that dysfunctionally as about, I'm the savior.

I've moved on.

Yeah, it's really good.

Yeah. So I think it's a useful thing. It's like looking at these numbers. You're looking at current reality. That's what this is, right? Because there is this, and now our free talk, you mentioned this romantic notion, you know, that, that, that can come up with, I want to run retreats and I want to lead this and everything. And, and I, looking back, that's what I did the first time around. I had a very romantic notion and I didn't put in the actions, right? This is just dreaming of myself in, in this, in this position, right?

Okay, so this can be Just from a point of view of a, um, a profit point of view. I spoke to someone recently when I was looking at how they were structuring their retreat and they said, I start with the, with the, you know, start with the intention and everything that they wanna do, but they get to the point when they get to the numbers and say, I wanna make $5,000 per person. Like that's where they, they've got that number in their head. They work out and very luxury. But they work out then the cost. But that $5,000 you could actually put into—

to this.

Yes.

Yeah, you do. Exactly. That's like, that's when you get— yeah, you, you get your intuitive pricing. Like, there's nothing wrong with intuitive pricing, but when you have it and you have your cost, what does it serve you? It serves you to get your number. Like, how many people do I then you know, need. Or you start with the profit and then, okay, this is my cost, this is the profit that I want to make. And then you, you do your maths, you look at these numbers, and then you get with what your price is. You can approach it from, from different directions.

I guess in that point of view, all you do is you'd put the— let's say in this instance we wanted to make $200 profit off every person, no one would you just put that $200 on top of the variable cost to make that $400 straight up? And so what that contribution comes out of, is that how you do that?

Well, it, it, um, it depends. No, no, you would have to, because you still have to get your fixed cost away. Like putting that on top of the variable cost wouldn't Wouldn't work.

You'd do that—

wouldn't, wouldn't really solve that particular problem. So, okay, with that, I'd like to move on to website. Any questions about this before we move on? No. Okay, awesome, which means marketing. I was clear. All right, um, where are we? I'm going to share another slide. So this is— I didn't— so this is one way, and I'm sharing this because, um, What I see also, and happened to me as well, it's like the getting hung up about, oh, I have to create a website for this, and how do I do that? Don't know, have the tech knowledge and all of that. And then how do I manage payments? You know, there's lots of practicalities that come with running a retreat. So what I really recommend is this. See, this is Book Retreats. Sign up to our newsletter. Awesome. Let me get that out of the way. Okay, um, Book Retreats is a booking platform. It's like Booking.com, just for retreats. And you can sign up with them, and what they have is they have a template already pre-made where you just fill in your photographs, your information, everything, and then you have a listing on their page, right? They do take a percentage for bookings that come through their page, but it takes a ton of practicality, practical stuff out of, you know, of your hands. So this is also something you might want to consider, is, you know, if you want to do that or not. I chose to do it because in the beginning I was just, this is too much to think about. I'm just putting it and I'm paying for it and it's fine. They take 15%. Right? And that is because I've done quite some research on it. That's the industry standard.

Okay.

Um, even if you have like a travel agent or somebody that does it for you, um, 15% is what most— some more, some a little less, but more or less around that. But so what they—

that's the technical component. They actually promote it as well.

Yes, because it is on their on their site, like people can find you there. And they— the Book Retreats is— it's one of the biggest providers in the market. They are US American. I think their headquarters are in California. So there's a big American audience that goes there, but it's international. They have retreats from all over the world. So you can put in your photos in, and then you have, you know, they give you a summary and they actually tell you not more than 200 words, right? Like, they have a structure. This is like, you're given a structure that you can fill in your information and your whatever you got intuitively. You know, it features the styles, the yoga styles. You can just— it's just buttons that you click on, and they already give you what do people want to know. So they want to know skill levels. Then there's a longer description. You can go show more. They have various cancellation policies that they have seen that work, and then you just choose one of them. You can customize it. I chose not to. You know, you can click on what benefits do I want to communicate to people, what makes it special. This is your, you know, your point of difference. The program. So whether you choose this or do your own, putting an example of retreat days is really important because it gives people like an idea, what am I going to do there, right? So excursions, lunch, all of that. Food, what do you include? What is, what is your, what are you doing? I chose to do vegetarian and I'm doing an all-inclusive, like I provide what all meals like, because my lead thing is you come here and you don't have to think about anything but yourself. Like, that's where I lead from. So I included everything. Um, you can have pictures, then there's something about yourself, accommodation photographs, and local information, location, where is it. So they have the map that uploads automatically when you put in your location. You can describe it, activities, then the organizer, which is the villa where we are at, and then what's included, what's not included, right? Also really, really important thing because you get very specific. So, you know, this is, it's sort of like part of a contract, right? You tell them this is what you pay, this is what you get, this is what you do not get. So very, very, um, and some of these are also a menu where you can just click, okay, the Wi-Fi, the meals, this, this, this, like, and then you can add your own, right? How to get there, also extremely important information which I had not considered before I saw this. It's like, of course, you know, Southern Croatia, you know, who knows how to get there? Like, you need to research, so make it easy for people to book this. You give them what they need to know, right? What are the closest airports and how much is transfer? What options are there? Are you providing that? Are you not? You know, even here, weather information, seasonal information, temperatures. What do you need to bring? Electricity and outlets. Of course, you know, not all countries have the same. Travel insurance, responsible travel. For, so for us, it's like no candles, no smoking, because a fire hazard. If you arrive by car, this is how long it gets from where to where, what to bring, visa stuff. Everything is in there. And then frequently asked questions that you can then fill in your answers. See how complete this is? I got great reviews. So, um, it's— this really makes it—

it's too cheap, Lena, for 7 days. What are you thinking?

See, well, this is Croatia. See, this is where my— I probably got hung up in my dysfunction. Croatia is still a relatively cheap destination. Yeah, that €800 is in a triple sharing room.

I did the mud baths. That sounds like pretty— I got my attention.

Yeah, it is. It is relatively— and I thought actually I'd up the price more this year, but I went with my intuitive numbers and I'm doing that and that's what I'm going with.

So what's interesting here is that there's a custom made, like every time we come up with a condition, it's too hard. I gotta do website. Yeah. Martha put in, you know, what do you do for your refund policies, et cetera. I mean, it's, it's kind of like the industry standard, you know, it's 30 days and no money back, whatever that is. So, you know, that's, it makes it easy. Just talk to me, with the last retreat, how many people came from this? What was the kind of numbers you said you—

so I had half of my participants from this, from this page.

Wow. Well, I just checked it out. I mean, it's got Australia there, Asia, Bali, everything.

So yeah, and there's one thing, and this is where, you know, when you're doing intuitive work, where this comes in. I had set this up. I actually had set this up for my first retreat that flopped. And I'm saying this because it's important: putting yourself on here doesn't guarantee you that you will get people. Like, it's not— that's what I thought romantically, you know, put it up there, people will find me and everybody will come. Crickets completely, right? So it's not enough. What this does, it takes that hurdle away of, oh my God, what do I have to put in there? And you 'How do I create a website for this?' and 'How do I take payment?' They take care of everything. They can take a percentage at the end, an additional one for transferring the money to you. So actually the total comes up to about 18%. So this is more on the expensive side, but they— like, my experience with them has been really good. Like, they're very responsive, they try to help you. Like, it's a good— it's a nice company to work with, like good values behind Where was I going with this? I've lost my thread. Yeah, okay, so what happened— I remember that friend that also runs retreats that sent emails to her friends. One of her friends decided she wants to come and she said, okay, so how do I book? And when she asked me, I was like, what immediately came through, okay, send her through the website. And I was like, okay, that's weird. Okay, I'm just going to go with that. I told my husband and he's like, you're crazy, it's going to cost you €200 just, you know, in fees and everything. And then I went into my head, yeah, maybe it's, you know, because I see how it works and maybe it's because then she can give me a review. And he was like, no, you're crazy, don't do it, don't do it. It's like, I went with it, I did it. And the, the week after she booked, I started getting inquiry after inquiry after inquiry after inquiry. What I think, and I haven't asked yet, but I don't have any other explanation, that that one booking bumped my retreat up in the ranking of the listings. Like that when somebody was looking for all the yoga or Croatia, that I was further up. Um, and the interesting thing is like I ran the retreat the last week of August. Uh, when I really had started having lots of inquiries was in July.

Wow.

But I had not realized that, that how many people would make relatively last-minute decisions about something like this, right? Yeah. Um, so that was a surprise to me, something that I learned. Or something that I learned. I'm so— I'm right now in the place, I'm curious to see what happens this year, like how that goes. But that was relatively last minute. So what it did was it put me in tons of tension, because when I had like 3 or 4 people signed up, I was like, crap, I don't want to cancel on them. And other bookings aren't coming in. What I did was to hold the end result, hold the end result, hold the end result. Out, right? And go with those little intuitive nudges like this one, like have that friend book through the site. Um, and then they, they started rolling in.

Great.

Yeah. So had I had put, you know, just to give you like the reality, you might put a deposit down and you actually might not know relatively close to the date how many people you're actually going to have, right? And I had to say no to a bunch of people. One of them contacted me 2 days before the retreat started, someone from New York, told me, so Lena, you know, is anything happening with the waiting list? And it's like, no, sorry, nobody's canceled. And she's like, oh my God, I really want to come, this would be so great. And there, bam, I'm I was like, you know what, what I can do is find you an external accommodation and I make you like a special price around that. Would you like that? And she's like, yeah, I can. Then, you know, but you know, you're from New York, are you going to be able to get there before I go out and find you? She's like, oh no, I'm already in London and, you know, I'm looking up flights as we speak, right? And she came and that was, you know, like out of the box. And this year I'm actually offering that as a type, you know, because you might have a friend there that has a home, and so you stay externally and just participate in all the activities. So that's, that's that, that's the website. And I really, for me, this has been a great experience and it's been, it just made it easy to get things out. Having said that, it still took me a relatively long time. And by that I mean, like, it took me around a week to put the first version of the information together, like all the writing, like the descriptions, the About Me. I had that from my website, but, you know, all these details that I ask for you, it takes a while. It took me a while to write that. You might be different, you might do, okay, I do spirit guidance and everything comes out within, you know, half an hour. Great. But factor that in. That's actually what I'm saying.

Just use my ChatGPT. Yeah, the Brand Voice one.

Exactly. Oh, and the pictures. I want to speak to that because when you first run it, you won't have pictures that you have of people at your retreat. So when you see what I did is I just used— worked a lot with pictures on the place. I still haven't updated it yet. With the new pictures. You know, this is a friend of mine and me in the water, the area. I had another picture of me doing healing work, actually. I put that in. I put the house, you know, I did— I set up the yoga mats where we would do yoga, and it's just empty, but it's still— it's— that's what the place looks like. So I conveyed the energy of the place, you know. Sunrise meditation. But as you can see, there's no people. This is just me, you know, and the food. There's no people actually doing the activities. It was enough. What I'm saying is it is enough, right?

It's interesting. When we went through and did a post-retreat analysis on the numbers to plan for the next one for a client, there's so many things that weren't necessary the second time. So getting that photographer or the videographer the first time to get the beautiful marketing pieces, you don't need them to turn up every time, or maybe one day to take a few photos so people can have the nice frame photo to take home or whatever that is. So there's a lot of those fixed costs that are in that startup as well that you don't need to get, uh, you know, repeat. And a lot of learnings. I'm sure there's a lot of you know, that first one probably cost you more than this, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. My photographer, um, I got one in because I wanted one. Um, I offered her free participation in a bunch of the retreat activities and free accommodation, free food basically. And then I, um, we made like a special price just for the photograph. So it was— I got her really, really cheap. But she's good, she's like a documentary photographer. And what happened is having her there turned out to be such a great experience for the participants because she's a person that disappears. She's not like put you in pose photographer. She just sort of disappears behind her camera. You genuinely don't realize she's there. And she, what she did at the end, she put up like a slideshow which mirrored back to the participants the process that they went through, like the tears, the joy, the dancing, the hugs, the laughter, the like everything. Like she's very good at capturing emotions. And that was such an important add-on. Like I decided to take her on like permanently for this experience because it just contributed so much to what it— but so that's what that happened.

And we have a question from Martha, is asking about your referral strategy. Like, do you have a, a partner, you know, promotion strategy? You're going to spend 20%, 18% to booking retreats. Is that like, do you have a strategy for referring people that you would then pay someone for a referral?

Yeah, this is what I offered this friend. Like I said, look, you know, I could to, you know, pay you 15% or even 10%. I mean, this is— you can, you can do that. What most people have told me that I asked for referral, they just asked for a referral back. Like, they didn't want percentages. They just said, okay, when I do something, would you then, you know, tell your people about it? And that's— yeah, that's what I did. Yeah. Um, one thing I'm looking at the time that I really want to speak to is during the retreat, because now we've spoken of how do you like put it out there, how do you get people to come, then you have to run the thing. So, and that is, that's a huge chunk, right? And actually getting the program down. What I did, I started getting the specific, like I had an idea of activities of what I wanted to do, and with the yoga and my my healing practice, some natural success. I didn't have— I had one natural success-specific activity in there. The rest was not. It was just the underlying of how I was with it and with them, the questions that I asked during mealtimes, even, you know, when we were just chatting. So that flowed in very naturally. But I didn't have like a very specific plan what we're going to do on day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, I did that a couple of weeks before. It's not necessary to have that all in place, um, a long time prior. And what happened is, um, the day before the retreat started, I was looking at the weather forecast, and it was just obvious that what I had put in place, what I had planned, was not going to work, right? Because I had activities like outdoor activities with the weather forecast with pouring rain, it was not going to work. So that is what happens. There's going to be tons of unpredictable stuff that, that happens and it will bring your dysfunctions out big time. It started in the planning itself because I thought we'd do the stargazing meditation, right? And then I I realized, oh, this is the week of the full moon, that you're not going to be able to see the stars. And I was talking it through with, um, with someone from this community, and we were sort of— and she said, looking at me like, why don't you do a full moon thing? You know, it's like, oh, you're right. You know, getting in my stress, I didn't see that. It was just so obvious. So swap that out. I had— we're doing a mud bath because there's healing, natural healing mud in, in that area where we go in and use that on our bodies. And I had found that low tide is the best moment. So I'd, you know, looked up the tide calendar and placed it at a time where it really worked well and done all that. And then the weather just threw it all. Yeah. So day 1, I replanned the whole week. Day 2, the weather forecast had changed again. And so I had to replan everything. And that's when I said to everybody, look, I'm just going to tell you the night before what we're doing the next day. And that's what you have to live with, not knowing. And everybody was like, oh yeah, that's fine. Like in that place already. But that's what I went down to. And it's just like every night I had to sit down and say, okay, these are the non-negotiables. These are my activities. And from how current reality looks now, I'm gonna juggle it. And the end result of what happened, like what I would not have planned, was so much better than what I had planned. Like the outcome, like the flow, the sequence of the activities was perfect in a way that I could not have anticipated. Not at all. Not at all. It was so much better. And What basically what I did is like I held during that week, and it was for me personally the first time that I experienced that, like holding the focus in such a strong way. It was just this question, okay, what serves that outcome? What serves the participants? Like, what do I want them to take away? Okay, what's in service of that? Bam, bam, bam, bam. Like, because you will have to make the decisions. And for me, that was something Jane Slack-Smith, like, with my, you know, personality type, it's like making decisions. I get like, what do we do? The thing is, you're leading this. It's going to be you who has to make the decision. Like, there's no way around it. Like, if you go— and I did that at the beginning— it's like, oh, you know, like, you know, with the group, it's like, so what should we do? Do we do this or that? Like, you know, what's everybody feeling like? Trying to make them happy. And it goes nowhere. It goes into absolute chaos because inevitably there will be, you know, one wants to do that, the other that, somebody comes out with third alternative and you're bam, all over the place, right? So I really had to— I realized that very quickly. And from then I did it. I stepped up into that, that sort of leadership. No, we're doing that.

Yeah.

And what it did was because the participants understood that I was holding such a strong vision because that's where I was deciding from. This is the vision that I have for you. This is in service of that. Don't discuss with me. Like, just, this is what we're doing. And I held it right through the end. It does not mean being deaf to useful suggestions. Yeah, those did come in. And, and you know it. Like, you know, when it's like somebody comes with it, Lena, you know, I was thinking, could we do this and that? And I was like, this is brilliant. And then I take it in. But in, in these moments where you're like, it's gonna be you that has to make the decisions, and that's, that's an important— the guideline is always what's in service of what I want to achieve here.

That's also, it's an interesting position in taking that leadership and setting that boundary from the start. I know with some of the retreats I've seen people run, actually, and William is very, very strict on this. Get in the night before, do not turn up on the day. They, you know, if you're coming in from overseas, there's jet lag. You're responsible for turning up in a way that you can participate. So if you're coming from Australia to America, when we did that Australia to Safari, it's like, get in a couple of days beforehand. I don't want to hear about your jet lag. Like, we're going from day one. And, you know, you find sometimes when people try to turn up on the day, they're a bit late and you're holding back and their flights didn't get in. So there's all of those things. So it's taking that leadership role straight up and saying, okay, here's the rules. You get in the night before.

Yeah, and that it is that, right? And, you know, then some situations happen, you know, where in, in my context, for example, I had one person there, it was a close friend who, um, I hadn't— I had completely forgotten or removed that she had actually run the retreat bit of a Zen center for several years, right? She was very experienced in, in that work. And there were a couple of moments where, by some external circumstances, I was so triggered that I stepped out of leadership because I was triggered, right, in my stuff. And then she stepped in, which was her dysfunction function, call it how you, how you, how you may. And I was triggered by that. It's like she's taking leadership from me, right? Fortunately, like, that stuff happens. Balance, right, about this, you know, I went into a power dynamic, also dysfunctional, but I caught myself because the lead question, what's in service of the group, was clearly I didn't step up, that's why she did. And I actually then had a conversation with her about it, right, but it was, it was a very good learning.

Yeah, and being aware of that, it brings me to a question about having a co-leader or having someone to support you support staff or whatever that is. Is there a magic number or is there something that you've seen in running these that you'd go, you know what, I need to have someone to assist me?

So you need someone.

Okay.

Someone that, yes, like I would never ever dream of doing a week. I wouldn't do alone a weekend. I would. But that's me, right? There's people who looked at me like I'm talking to lots of people about retreats and people that run retreats, they look at me, what you're doing a week and you're doing all the activities, you're crazy, right? Like they would never do it. To me, it's great. Like I love having the string holding the vision and choreographing the process. I love it. I genuinely love it. Others don't. So you have to know yourself in this, right? But I would not attempt doing this without somebody to support because there's so much. Like, I had my sister, right? Because I led this from this home perspective. So I brought my sister in as an assistant and a cook. So she did the cooking, she did the kitchen, and she did the support. Like, I wanted another person there that people could ask questions. Like, when I need to retreat myself, to pull back and regenerate, when I need a moment to myself, I needed somebody who knows where the towels are, where you can buy stuff, where, you know, that can give indications and, and support. Um, dysfunctionally, I chose my sister because I knew I could boss her around. She's my little sister, right? Functionally, I chose her because she was perfect. She's a very heart-open person. That was important to me, and she knew the place.

Yeah, so As we wrap up, post-retreat, let's jump into there. Is there any, some tips and thoughts that you have in the post-retreat and follow-up?

Yeah, do a completion, do a completion process on, on what you've done. So what have you created? What are you keeping? What do you want to change? Stepping into the new vision, like all of that. And do a cost analysis, like the maths that you did before. Remember, some of them are estimates. Minutes. So you put in the real numbers and you calculate how much actually it cost you, actually, really, how much money you made. There might have been, um, unexpected, non-anticipated costs that you incur, right? Um, put all that in and do your real math afterwards. That will inform your next retreat, and it might inform whether you want to run it or not. You know, you might come out of an experience like that and say, 'Well, it would have been interesting, but actually this is not for me.' And this is really important: get feedback, testimonials from your participants. My recommendation is talk to them, don't send out written forms, because you must— I mean, you have to consider you've spent the time with them, so you've built a relationship. So hop on like 15-20 minutes on a Zoom. Most people will happily do that for you, like it's not a lot of time, but they will not fill out forms because you remain in the relationship, in the emotion.

I think is probably one of the best things, especially if you've got someone who can take a film for you or something.

Exactly, and you can record it on Zoom, you can use it if you want to, and some people are genuinely are not writers, so you can then, you know, write up what they said and you can say, look, if you want to leave me a review, this is what you said, and they can just copy-paste it. So make it easy for them to do what you need, like make it really easy.

And what about follow-up with the people themselves?

Yeah, so with the people, it was something that I had not consciously realized, which now I do, is you've created really strong rapport with a group of people. So these are ideal clients, if you want to, yeah, in marketing speak. Where do you want to take them from there? Yeah, but naturally happened with this group is it created a regular women's circle with them online because we're in different parts of the world. But the group bonded so strongly that it was just the obvious next thing to do. Some have gone on and become one-on-one clients. Some are repeat clients, so they're coming again to this year's edition, you know, that sort of things. So you can think of a follow-up offer. It's probably a good thing to think of, you know, you can think of it beforehand. Where do you want to take them so you can market it at the end of the retreat? Even if you don't, if you forget, you can still, you know, just little things like at the retreat offering them a VIP discount for the next one.

So that's always good. And you know what, that observation that you had around the post rapport and the group kind of want to stay together, they're going to do it organically. So you may as well create a structure for them. And if it's a product or a subscription or, you know, whatever, that's great. But I'd encourage if there is a learning opportunity or transformational experience that you're facilitating in, in your retreats for those who are listening to this, actually formalizing it with, you know, part of the marketing. And we're gonna have, you know, a follow-up a month later and a 3-month later just to see how, what, what, how you are still doing it. But what you can do is then bring that forward as well to get them to know each other and actually have a, like a pre-retreat meet. And it could be like a, um, you know, what to pack and what to do, what to expect, but also just to get to know you, about their expectations. And you can actually create that buzz beforehand for the excitement. So think about butt-ending— is it butt-ending? I think it's book-ending. Book-ending the retreat with that, that kind of engagement. True.

Thank you.

Is there anything, any questions anyone has, or any observations? Lena's like given us so much goodness here. Does anyone have anything? Yeah, Pete.

Hey Lena, I just wanted to— I'm very interested in the concept of intuitive pricing, which I hadn't contemplated before, um, and how close was your intuitive pricing to your final price? So if you get an intuitive price, you go with that, right? I didn't in my first because I went— I positioned myself more or less where the market was. That was my, my thing, how I approached it. Now I said, how much more do I charge for this year? And that's how much more am I charging. Like, I'm not budging from Good on you, and you stuck with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Welcome.

The only other thing I can add to some, uh, something that I have become aware of through other people and asking about retreats is that, and a couple of you brought this up earlier in the, the question around insurance. So the, um, Um, if you are, uh, taking people off for an adventure to visit something, putting them in a van, going surfing, going for a waterfall retreat, or doing some type of, uh, exercise that— or excursion that's off, get them to pay for it themselves separately to what you include in your price because the provider's insurance will cover it. So if you have someone who's going on a, like, little excursion with you, surfing or mud bathing or, you know, whatever that is, or if there's a formal thing and they trip over and hurt themselves and you're up for a million-dollar lawsuit, you don't want that on your insurance that you have. You want that on the person who's facilitating that adventure for them. So just be aware that there are ways to offset some of that risk as well. So, uh, great question from Martha. What are the most important considerations for a potential guest participant in your experience? The most important considerations for a potential guest.

Martha, are you asking about reservations or what they're looking for?

Do you have—

I understand the question.

Do you take that in case of emergency? Do you take that type of information?

Oh, in case of emergency, um, I didn't. I might want to do that. What I did, I, I had them, um— oh, why would they consider my retreat? Okay, I'll answer that. Um, with the, with insurance, it depends on country. Europe is a little bit different with insurance. I did have them sign a disclaimer before. Also for the use of image, like the photography, like I had consent around that and around, you know, self-responsibility and all of that. Why would they consider my retreat? That is what I got in the intuitive guidance about. This is like, I have this section in the listing, this is for you if, like I made it very, very clear. And for me it was women in transformation. Jane Slack-Smith.

Yeah. So if we kind of just bring it back, Martha, this might help. You know, one of those, the things that Lena spoke about was, you know, telling people about what you're doing and you can't tell someone what you're doing until you know what you're doing. So setting the intention and you, you, no matter what you're teaching, I used to teach property, you know, I used to teach lots of different things, finance, wealth, blah, blah. But there is always an endpoint of what you want that person to experience, and that's what your marketing is going to do. So if you understand your niche, as Lena said, and understand your audience and be very specific, you understand what the transformation your skills and resources can bring to that audience, then your marketing and your web page and everything you do is going to actually, you know, speak to that. That. So there is a transformation of knowledge or experience or, or whatever. And, and I think it's, you know, it allows us then to, everything comes from that intention of what you want them to experience. So, you know, if you are trying to pull out something specific to what's going to be the big aha, it's really, you know, as Lena said, you need to have to step into a circle or, or what's obvious to you of what, how you deliver your heart and your message to your community.

And there's something I want to add to that, and that is that this can be a process. Like, and I'm saying that because for me, for a very long time, I got stuck in, oh no, I'm not clear yet, I'm not clear yet, so I can't really do my dysfunction. But for that, it has really been a process, and I've sort of honed it in as I went. Like, I started taking action with what I knew, and for me The whole listing and the wording that I use, like what I want those women to achieve, to be able to put that clearly into words, that came after. What I had personally was like more like an emotional energetic feel for what it is. So when I chose, even like I had a flyer in the beginning, the images that I chose in there, like they had to be like an emotional match for what I wanted the feeling to be, right? So that's how vague it was for me in the beginning, but it was enough to inform the energy and the emotion of what I wanted to transmit. I was not able to put it into words. That came later, like it happened in, in one of my spirit guidance sessions, like the very specificity of, of the wordings. So don't get hung up on, I'm not clear yet, I don't know how to express this. What you might have is a sensation for it, and then you go with that sensation, with the emotion that you want to convey, even if you don't know how to put it into words. But it will inform imagery, it will inform how you speak about it, and then the more you speak about it, the better your words become, the better the words become a match for that emotion. Like, it can come together in that way.

And just also, I mean, everyone in a Creators Academy, you know, you're advanced students of the work. You all have coaches. Work with your coach on it. I mean, I spoke to someone last week and she said, I think I'm going to reduce the price of my retreat. I'm like, nope. She's like, you're right. I was just in my head. Like, you know, sometimes just, this is something, as Lena said, she's got it as a secondary choice. You know, when you're working with your coaches, to bring this up because sometimes you, you know, you're so into the detail, you can't be the observer and have a look and you just need that oversight. So, I mean, that's obvious. That's an obvious answer. You know, work with the people that are working in your greatest good as well. And it doesn't all have to be on you, especially if you're in your head. Um, any, any big last messages that you'd like to share with us? Or any, you know, go forth and conquer words of wisdom.

Do it.

Do it.

If this is in your heart, do it. Don't mess around with, you know, this or maybe that. Like, I hope, I really sincerely hope, like, my end result was to give you a series of contradictions to your egoic voices, like, you know, website's hard, I don't know how to do this. This, like, this is it. This is why I'm doing this, because Honestly, like being able to take people on a deep dive on a retreat, whether it's for a long weekend, whether it's for a week, two weeks, whatever you want to do, it's such a gift to the world. Like the ripple effects of what those women took home and what I now observe, because we're still in touch with what they're doing in their lives. It's, it's goosebumps. It honestly is. So it's such a gift to the world. So if this is your way of doing that, of gifting that, do it.

I'm not brave enough to do it yet, Lena, but I have to say I'm going to everyone else's retreat, so I'm kind of enjoying myself. They get to be the person wandering around. But you've given a lot of food for thought. I really appreciate your time and the attention you put through and sharing kind of what hasn't worked and what has And I think for a lot of people thinking about running retreats, there can be just that romantic notion, and it can be just about me being the sage on the stage or whatever, and understanding that and pulling back and going, okay, what am I really creating? It's a choice from my heart. Who am I connecting with? And then the practicalities that we all forget about, which is we forgot to, you know, look at costs in the fixed cost versus variable. So I really appreciate your insights and everything you have. Lina is going to send me her email. I'm going to put it below this recording. Anyone who wants her checklist of pre, during, and post so that you don't have to go back to all your messy notes as I've got here, I really encourage you to reach out to her, maybe even go to the retreat in Croatia, which looks like a real bargain but we're not promoting anything here. But, you know, I really appreciate your time, Lena, and thank you for getting up so early in Italy. And I don't know, in the box that you're in, I'm a bit worried about you. But this is—

I'm in my daughter's back bedroom. This is her bunk bed because everybody else was sleeping when I started this.

I had to get some things from everyone. Thank you so very much. And I really appreciate it. Anyone who's got questions, drop them below. Lena's obviously in the group, and she'll be jumping in.

Yeah, don't hesitate, like, ask, ask me questions, and happy, happy to follow up.

Well, everyone, once again, what an incredible month. We've done retreats, open for any suggestions of what you want to hear about next month. And as always, here is to your success. All the best for now. Bye.