MBA2687 Q&A Wednesday: What's The Fastest Way To Make Money?

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Welcome back to the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zenholm where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you start, grow and scale your business. Before we jump in, can I get 30 seconds of your time? We love guiding you on your business journey and we want to help even more people build their dream businesses and lives Start. So if you could hit the follow button on this podcast app it would be greatly appreciated. It's completely free and it helps us out more than you know. Thanks. You see events really flip the script. Instead of you chasing customers, you Create something people want to be a part of. That's the beauty of events. People love to have a good time. We're talking about network mixers, dinners or rooftop parties, meetups, industry roundtables, even destination trips or events that you do overseas or even within your country. You sell tickets first, you collect the money up front. You don't spend a dollar until you lock in revenue. It's fun, it's energizing, and it's profitable, and it works fast. I've done dozens of live events here in Sydney, in New York City, in cities that I've been to around the world. When I travel every single time, I'm reminded this is one of the easiest ways to generate cash. So one of the easiest things to sell because people love having a good time. Like I mentioned, I'm actually running an event, a Christmas party for entrepreneurs called the Crazy Ones Christmas Party. And as I'm running and preparing for this event and selling tickets to it, I'm again reminded, man, this is so easy, and it's so nice to sell something that people are happily looking to spend money on, right? They're just throwing money at the situation, throwing money at us, because this sounds like a good time. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be interesting, and people love to socialize. This is something that we learned in Covid, that people love to get together now and see people in person and just have a blast. But how do you pull it off properly? Let me show you exactly how to do this so you can start next week, if not this week. Even if you've never done it before, the first thing you wanna do is choose your event type. What would your ideal attendee absolutely love? And there's a lot of options out there. It could be just a fun networking event with drinks or nibbles. Be a chill dinner with just 10 people in a nice restaurant with deep conversations. It could be a themed rooftop party with speakers and a dj. It could be a hackathon where you build an app in one day or something, right? Or you work on your software in one day, whatever it might be. The point here is, is that it could be whatever you want, but you have to understand who your audience is and what is most likely to sell out. What I have found is a good mix of fun and purpose really makes it happen. So fun being that whatever you're doing, it's just like a good meal, a good time, activities that people are interested in doing, and good purpose. It could be as simple as just getting together with people. They always wanted to meet, to network, to catch up with old friends, to just have a moment to enjoy being a business person or being an entrepreneur in my case, where I gather together other entrepreneurs. The key here is to pick something that feels exciting for you and the guests that you want to invite. And don't overthink it, okay? Just remember, people crave connection. Make sure it's fun, make sure it has purpose. That's it. Okay. And you can start small with a little meetup if you want to. It doesn't have to be a full day event. It could be something that is very valuable, but maybe a short period of time or maybe a few hours like a dinner. Now, we're going to talk about booking a venue next, but before that, in a bit I'm going to talk about the cost of these events and how to price these events so that you one, are making money. But two, it's easier to sell because you can afford to make it better. I'm going to explain, but first let's talk about booking a venue. This part is actually a lot easier than you might think. Okay. You can call your local cafe, restaurant, hotel, rooftop, even co working space, right? Tell them that I'm looking to bring 10 to 20 people, whatever number of guests you want to have on a weekday. Weekdays are a great time to have an event. It's a lot easier to get the space on the weekday and people want to spend their weekends doing other things or maybe, you know, with their family or have other obligations. Another reason why the weekday is awesome is because most of these venues will give you the space for free or for a small deposit if you book a month or two in advance. Why? Because these venues need foot traffic, right? And often if it's like a restaurant or a cafe, you know, you're buying food from them, you're buying drinks from them. So therefore they're happy to have you as a customer. You can take the space and they'll give you an area. Some places have private rooms even, and as long as you are spending money there, they are happy. For example, Nicole and I are running the Crazy Ones Christmas party for entrepreneurs here in Australia. And for our venue we chose an entertainment park, basically an indoor facility that has like go karts and mini golf and bowling and arcade games and all kinds of stuff. And they cater food and they have nice party rooms that you can use. The point here is, is that they're happy for us to use their space for free because we're going to be spending money on games and go karting and food and all kinds of stuff so we have the space to do the announcements and to get people together and to hang out because the venue is happy for us to spend with them. Now when you speak to the venue to book your spot, ask if they supply insurance. Some of them do. I would say most of them do. If they don't supply insurance for people that are in the venue, get event insurance. This is something you could do just one off for one day. It's going to be very inexpensive. When I looked into it, less than a few hundred dollars. Sometimes depending on the insurance company, it could be 50 to $100. Pretty inexpensive. Also, ask about minimum spend and factor that into your pricing. How much money do you need to spend at the venue in terms of food or drinks or whatever it in order for you to have the space for x amount of hours Looking for.

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Next, the numbers. If you take away anything from this episode, it's this one. Okay, this point I'm about to make, do the numbers. Before you invite a single soul, open up a Google sheet, any kind of spreadsheet and list your costs. The food, the drinks, the venue, the insurance, the audio gear if you need, you know, to rent something. Photographer. Maybe you want to get a photographer for the event and then add after all the costs, a 10% error buffer. You need room for error because there are things are going to come up or things that you didn't factor in and it's just good to have that 10%. So say for example, all your costs are $1,000. Then make sure your budget is at least $1,100. You have a 10% buffer. Next, set your ticket price based on at least 50% profit margin. There's nothing wrong with even going higher 100% profit margin. And I'm going to tell you in a moment why pricing higher is better for you and your attendees. But first let me give you an example. Let's say your event will cost you $500 to run, charge enough to make a thousand dollars. That means 20 tickets at $75. Now this is just an example, but I don't recommend you sell tickets at a low ticket price. Okay? I think you should be running events at at least a 2,300 hundred dollar mark to start with. Even more if you can. Why? People pay for good experiences. Okay? People are willing to pay more money if it's a good experience. And you can't make it a good experience if you're not charging enough money. You hear what I'm saying? So say for example, you want to set ticket price at 20, $20 a ticket, right? And you're going to invite, let's say 30 people. So that's $500 in revenue, right? So you can't spend much money out of that 500 to make a profit. Let's say, for example, you spend 250. So you're making 250. 250. And you spend 250. What can you do with $250 for these people, for these 30 people? And remember, you know, a lot of the, the costs like the food and the drink is going to be per person. We got to make sure we factor that in and make sure that we have enough to make sure this experience is great for them. So if you want to have a great experience, charge a little bit more. And people are willing to pay if you're able to show the value. And you can't show the value if you don't charge more. So my advice is just go a little higher. Charge 2, 3, $400 for a ticket. It's worth it if it's going to be like an amazing de station dinner, for example, and you're going to have maybe some fun little party gifts that they're going to have and it's a great curation of people or it's in a beautiful location with a great view and they're going to take pictures and it's going to be amazing. You know, Instagram post. The point here is that you need to be able to charge enough so that you can throw an amazing thing that's easy to sell. So once you figure it out, the numbers, you're already halfway making money. Because if the numbers make sense and you have enough money to make a profit, but also you're charging enough to make a great event, then you have a lucrative offer and now it's time to collect that cash upfront. So how do you do this? How do you actually send an invoice or get money from somebody via email or via direct message? So what I recommend is using Stripe. Now there's other platforms that are catered to events like Eventbrite, but Eventbrite charges like 10% fees. That means if you sell a ticket for $100, they're going to take $10 out of every ticket. And that's a lot of money. Okay, that adds up. And the reason why I say use something like Stripe, because Stripe has become very easy to use. Back in the day, it would just be like a developer tool. Now you can create products in Stripe easily and create payment links where they can just go to a page, create, put their credit card information, even play via Apple Pay and all that kind of stuff and go ahead and buy a ticket and you could charge tax and all that kind of stuff. It's very easy to create invoices in Stripe. Plus Stripe only charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, which is very reasonable, much better than 10%. Now keep in mind that if you're going to have some page describing the event, like a page on your website or a landing page of some sort, you're going to have to do that on your own. Stripe won't do that for you, it's just payments. Eventbrite does have that ability for you to just create a simple page. It's not beautiful or anything like that, but it is a page that you can use. So if you are able to just create a simple page on your website or with a landing page software, that's super simple. And then you could just email people these invoices or these payment links by Stripe, or you can just embed, create a button on the page and link that payment link to that button. Boom, they can pay for the ticket. Important thing here is that you want to keep it simple. You want to keep it mobile friendly. As soon as someone says I'm in, you want to send them that link. So I like to run my events via email. So basically what I do is I send an email to the people I want to invite and say, hey, we're doing this event, you're invited, you're one of the cool kids and we want you to attend. The first thing we do is we send them an RSVP form, which is basically like a Google form, and they fill out the form just to say, I'm attending dietary restrictions, you know, maybe ask a couple questions about who they are. And then that's it. We just fill in the form. Now we know that they want to attend. Once I have that RSVP form filled out in Google form, we email them an email with the payment link. We just say, hey, thanks for RSVPing. Here's the payment link. Make a payment within seven days. And that way we're collecting money before we even spend a dime with the venue or with the event itself. You don't need to chase money, you just start collecting it. That's the beauty of events now. You gotta deliver on your promise. In order for this to be a viable thing that you do over and over, you need to deliver on this event. You need to make sure that this thing shines, that it feels elevated. One of the reasons why it's very easy for Nicole and I to sell tickets to any kind of event is because we have a track record of running great events. Every time we run an event, it's fantastic. They love it and they just are so happy to get that email when they're invited to the next one. So when you run your first event, you got to make sure you knock it out of the park, even if it means you're going to take a little bit of a profitability hit. Be profitable, but maybe be, you know, 60% profitable instead of maybe 90% profitable for the first one so that you can really over deliver, so that you make your life and job easier the next time you run an event. Here are some tips. Send a prep email before the event with what to expect and who's attending. So I like to send an email out to all the attendees maybe about two weeks before the event, just saying, hey, we're excited. This is what's going to happen. Set expectations, give a schedule, tell them what they need to bring or pack or do beforehand, so they're not surprised. The other thing is that you got to remember that people need reminders. Don't just send one email, send several reminder emails. I would say at least three emails leading up to the event. Have a clear flow. One of the things that Nicole and I like to do at these events is have what's called a run sheet. And a run sheet is basically like a to do Schedule of what we need to do as the people that are running the event step by step from. Check in when they come in and okay, check their name. Yep. You're, you've paid and you got a ticket introducing people. How are we going to make sure that we facilitate this whole thing without a hitch? So like if we need to give out prizes, who's going to hold the prizes, who's going to give it out, who's going to give the speeches, who's going to make the announcements, who's going to take care of the food, who's going to make sure the caterer knows where we are? All that kind of stuff you want to. All the behind the scenes things need to be kind of listed out and written down. So when the day comes and you're running the event, you're not scrambling, you know exactly what's happening in what order and who's doing what. I also recommend including little surprises or at least one small surprise like a small parting gift, an unexpected dessert or maybe a handwritten card, a thank you note for attending and always follow up the next day after the event. Send a thank you email and include a Google form for feedback. Right. Include a link to Google form, get some feedback so you can improve upon your event next time around or any event in the future. And ask if they'd like to attend the next event or be invited to another one. Another thing we do is we ask them, hey, who do you think would be great as an attendee to another event that we do in the future? Who do you think would love something like this? And then we just add them to the next guest list. That last step, the thank you, the feedback and getting referrals. It's how you build reoccurring cash. It's how you can build this events business really where you can continue to offer great experiences to your attendees. Now, we don't run events full time, but you can, you can do this as a full time business if you want. But we do it as a side thing to raise money for a charity that we support called Hands across the Water. Hands across the Water helps children have a life of choice and not chance by giving them food and education and shelter and safety so that they can have meaningful lives. And we try to raise a certain amount of money every single year. This year we're trying to raise $10,000 and that's why we're running this event. We're so happy that we've sold enough tickets so that we can hit, you know, that milestone and be able to make that donation to Hands across the Water. But I'm mentioning this. I do this on the side. I've learned a lot through the years by doing it. But you can make this a full time thing. Let's run some numbers. For example, let's say you run a dinner for 12 people and the restaurant has a fixed menu. The cost will be $600. The room hire is zero because they'll give you the the room and the table because you're at a restaurant. Let's say you get insurance for $50 because there's only 12 people. You have $200 for small gifts as a parting gift. So the total cost for this event is $850. You charge $300 a ticket for this exclusive dinner. That's $3,600 in revenue. You make $2,750 in profit and in one night. Now, if you do this monthly, that's $33,000 a year. You do this weekly, it's $143,000 a year. Right? And that's not factoring in any kind of upsells or bigger events you do later or trips that you want to do. As an event coordinator, this is something that you can really viably do and it's a great way for you to get your feet wet in making money outside of your paycheck. Here are some bonus tips I recommend. I think that scarcity is one of the best things and easiest things to do in events because you can have seats. Like for example, a trip you're only going to take, you know, 16 people or 12 people. And we did this with our OSCON event where we took our good friends and entrepreneurs to New Zealand. We went to New Zealand and we had a great time skiing and snowboarding and having wonderful meals for a week. And the reason why we kept it to a certain number is because the dynamic of the group just kind of changes when it's too big. And in order for everybody to get to know each other and spend enough time with each other, you can't be 30, 40, 50 people. It's got to be a dozen people or less. So the scarcity makes sense to say, hey, we only have 12 spots. As soon as they fill, it's over. Use photos from past events. I highly recommend you take as many photos and videos as you can at the event so that you can post on social because FOMO is a real thing. Fear of missing out. Also leverage your network. Ask two to three friends to invite two to three people they know. And of Course, like I said, Charge enough $30. Events feel cheap and you can't do much with the money that you're going to collect from this event. So, you know, charge at least 100 bucks. Try to go 2, $300 so that you can create a special event. Also, if you're going to do trips like we did and they're going to travel, require travel insurance for these events. Okay? Make them get travel insurance and send you their policy so that you know for sure that they're covered. And a quick reminder, get public liability insurance for events if the venue doesn't provide it. So the fastest way to make money, you know it now, right? Create a great experience, something you would pay for, something that makes you say, hell yeah, I want to go this thing. This sounds amazing. And you sell tickets, you make money before you even spend a dollar. This is the dream business model. So it's a good way to get your feet wet and just taste what it's like to build something and then sell it to somebody. Make sure you deliver an unforgettable time. This is how communities are built. This is how movements are born. And yeah, you can go from zero to profit within a week. So give it a try. If this excites you, if it's something that's up your alley, I've given you the whole playbook. Go ahead and execute. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. What I love about events is you choose a venue, you choose a date, and now you have a deadline. It forces you to get going, to not procrastinate, to do all the things you need to do to pull a off a great event. People are counting on you. It's enough pressure to get you going and to get you off your rear end and make something happen. So if you need that kind of push, then you'll love running an event. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast, hit subscribe, or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now. Whether it's Apple or Spotify or ever. You listen to podcasts by hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

Is it time to reimagine your future. The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning and effective communication, and you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Eduardo.