MMI Seminar Packaging
I embarked on the personal MBA reading list early in 2006. I still haven't read a number of books on that list because some of them are quite hard to get here. I've also read other books not on that list but were personally interesting to me or were recommended by other people. One of these books is "Blue Ocean Strategy"
.
Essentially, it is about creating a new/niche market or uncontested market space to dominate. And one way to do that is by studying other alternative industries. Industries which provide products or services which take a different form and perform a different function but serve the same or similar objective. To that end, I've been studying other businesses and how they operate and sell their products and services.
Recently I attended the MMI seminar held in Singapore. The speakers were Americans (Canadians) and were brought in by a regional training company. Apparently it was the first time they held it in Asia. This seminar was marketed in several Asian-Pacific countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan (off the top of my head). Their marketing was just phenomenal. According to one speaker, there were 4000 attendees and according to another, 5000. Either way, there were a lot of people who attended.
They had a "VIP" section. I spoke to one of the participants in the VIP section and apparently he paid RM5000 (Ringgit 5K) for one ticket and got a second ticket free. Another participant I spoke to paid a few hundred dollars for their ticket. We got our tickets "free", but we had to pay an obligatory SGD46 "for the course materials" in order to attend, so essentially we forked out SGD 46 for 2 tickets. I think they offered free tickets to make up the numbers because they wanted a sizeable captive audience. In Internet Marketing parlance, this is known as the "front end" or to put a more positive spin on it, the "try before you buy" approach.
Throughout the seminar, they were selling everything from books, web subscriptions to the "wealth club", DVDs/CDs and jars to the real motherlode -- a series of courses they were charging a few thousand SGD per course. This, of course, is a very lucrative income stream, because while Asians are known to be big savers in general they are quite willing to spend money on education. (And I should know because I have a dad who you'd find hard to pry money from his cold, nerveless fingers but he'd quite willingly spend money on his children's education. OK, being needlessly mean to my dad here. He's not that bad.)
Just before every break, they would start marketing one of their products for about 30 to 45 minutes. Typically they would advertise the smaller items just before the 15 minute breaks and leave the course advertisements to the lunch and dinner breaks. The smaller items were typically related to the session topic they'd just finished conducting. And the speaker would mention how beneficial these items were in continuing the benefits of attending this seminar. [placeholder for long description on the marketing spiel] The speaker would start selling the course(s) by saying how they're the best in the world, how they've benefitted thousands of Americans in all the major cities all over the United States of America and how lucky the audience was for having the opportunity to enrol in a course without having to fly to the US. He would also say that because it's the first time they're conducting these courses in Asia, they're giving a discounted rate to attendees. He would also encourage people to act by saying that they may be conducting only the course one time in Asia because of time/commitment constraints and anyone who wanted to attend in future would have to pay "the full price". Not only that, they may have to fly to the US for the courses and be put on 2 year long waiting lists, same like the poor Americans. Furthermore, because there were over 4000 attendees and they only had space for 160 participants for any of their courses, spaces for the courses were severely limited and interested parties had to "act quickly before all the spaces were taken up". [placeholder for more of the techniques employed] The speaker would end by reading a series of glowing testimonials from fulfilled and wonderfully rich(er) and happy past students.
They were also careful to package their products so that you could buy individual items or a package at a special "discount rate" such as a series of 5 courses spread over a year. Moreover, they emphasized how important it is to enrol the entire family in specific courses because the benefit would be greatly increased to each individual if their family would also be enriched from the course and everyone could communicate on the same level. (I wish I'd brought along a recorder because that was such a brilliant pitch and I don't remember it verbatim.) Not only that, because they were so magnanimous and loving, they were giving a special rate for each family member or friend enrolled together. And they would each get a lovely course t-shirt and lots of other goodies "worth" $xxxx.
At the end of each break, the speaker would congratulate attendees who signed up for the course. I think because they wanted to sell the year long programme more aggressively, the speaker would also sometimes single out participants who bought that programme (they were given special big badges and a publicly announced special reception) . He would praise them for being brave enough to take that leap in dramatically improving their lives and taking charge of their finances.
On the last day, they pushed even harder for people to register for the courses and brought up what I perceive as the common objections...er...concerns that people had to the courses, such as the high prices of the courses and time commitment. They were pushing every hot button and subtly selling their courses at every opportunity throughout the second and third day of the seminar. One such amusing example of this was when a guy from Hong Kong (who probably worked in the finance sector since he almost started blabbing on about risk management before the speaker cut him short) gave his views on how it was safe to "break the arrow" because he listened to the instructions given and examined the "arrow" and decided it wasn't that risky to break it by applying pressure with the base of his throat. And right on that, the speaker jumped in to say that this was a great example of how important education is, that taking instructions from seasoned mentors was important in speeding up self improvement and how the various courses they had on offer could help us. Perhaps they didn't sell all the course lots by the end of the seminar because the speaker was still exhorting people to improve their financial, business and personal lives even towards the end.
Anyone who has read "Influence"
by Robert Cialdini would recognise some of the techniques masterfully employed in this seminar.
Assuming a "hit rate" of 2.5% or 1 in 40 persons makes a purchase, potential revenue from just one weekend might look like this:
160 x $8995 = $1,439,200 (assuming all spaces for the packaged courses were sold)
100 x $12 = $1,200 (for the books)
20 x $99 = $1,980 (for the baker's dozen book set)
100 x $150 = $15,000 (for the hypnotherapy CD set)
50 x $25 = $1,250 (for the 6 jar set)
500 x 12 x $99 = $594,000 (At a glance, the take up rate seemed quite high. Several people in the rows around me signed up on the spot. We shall assume these people signed up for a year's web subscription.)
Total potential revenue : $2,052, 630 (or roughly $2 million)
Is that worth flying down from Calgary for or what?
.
Essentially, it is about creating a new/niche market or uncontested market space to dominate. And one way to do that is by studying other alternative industries. Industries which provide products or services which take a different form and perform a different function but serve the same or similar objective. To that end, I've been studying other businesses and how they operate and sell their products and services.
Recently I attended the MMI seminar held in Singapore. The speakers were Americans (Canadians) and were brought in by a regional training company. Apparently it was the first time they held it in Asia. This seminar was marketed in several Asian-Pacific countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan (off the top of my head). Their marketing was just phenomenal. According to one speaker, there were 4000 attendees and according to another, 5000. Either way, there were a lot of people who attended.
They had a "VIP" section. I spoke to one of the participants in the VIP section and apparently he paid RM5000 (Ringgit 5K) for one ticket and got a second ticket free. Another participant I spoke to paid a few hundred dollars for their ticket. We got our tickets "free", but we had to pay an obligatory SGD46 "for the course materials" in order to attend, so essentially we forked out SGD 46 for 2 tickets. I think they offered free tickets to make up the numbers because they wanted a sizeable captive audience. In Internet Marketing parlance, this is known as the "front end" or to put a more positive spin on it, the "try before you buy" approach.
Throughout the seminar, they were selling everything from books, web subscriptions to the "wealth club", DVDs/CDs and jars to the real motherlode -- a series of courses they were charging a few thousand SGD per course. This, of course, is a very lucrative income stream, because while Asians are known to be big savers in general they are quite willing to spend money on education. (And I should know because I have a dad who you'd find hard to pry money from his cold, nerveless fingers but he'd quite willingly spend money on his children's education. OK, being needlessly mean to my dad here. He's not that bad.)
Just before every break, they would start marketing one of their products for about 30 to 45 minutes. Typically they would advertise the smaller items just before the 15 minute breaks and leave the course advertisements to the lunch and dinner breaks. The smaller items were typically related to the session topic they'd just finished conducting. And the speaker would mention how beneficial these items were in continuing the benefits of attending this seminar. [placeholder for long description on the marketing spiel] The speaker would start selling the course(s) by saying how they're the best in the world, how they've benefitted thousands of Americans in all the major cities all over the United States of America and how lucky the audience was for having the opportunity to enrol in a course without having to fly to the US. He would also say that because it's the first time they're conducting these courses in Asia, they're giving a discounted rate to attendees. He would also encourage people to act by saying that they may be conducting only the course one time in Asia because of time/commitment constraints and anyone who wanted to attend in future would have to pay "the full price". Not only that, they may have to fly to the US for the courses and be put on 2 year long waiting lists, same like the poor Americans. Furthermore, because there were over 4000 attendees and they only had space for 160 participants for any of their courses, spaces for the courses were severely limited and interested parties had to "act quickly before all the spaces were taken up". [placeholder for more of the techniques employed] The speaker would end by reading a series of glowing testimonials from fulfilled and wonderfully rich(er) and happy past students.
They were also careful to package their products so that you could buy individual items or a package at a special "discount rate" such as a series of 5 courses spread over a year. Moreover, they emphasized how important it is to enrol the entire family in specific courses because the benefit would be greatly increased to each individual if their family would also be enriched from the course and everyone could communicate on the same level. (I wish I'd brought along a recorder because that was such a brilliant pitch and I don't remember it verbatim.) Not only that, because they were so magnanimous and loving, they were giving a special rate for each family member or friend enrolled together. And they would each get a lovely course t-shirt and lots of other goodies "worth" $xxxx.
At the end of each break, the speaker would congratulate attendees who signed up for the course. I think because they wanted to sell the year long programme more aggressively, the speaker would also sometimes single out participants who bought that programme (they were given special big badges and a publicly announced special reception) . He would praise them for being brave enough to take that leap in dramatically improving their lives and taking charge of their finances.
On the last day, they pushed even harder for people to register for the courses and brought up what I perceive as the common objections...er...concerns that people had to the courses, such as the high prices of the courses and time commitment. They were pushing every hot button and subtly selling their courses at every opportunity throughout the second and third day of the seminar. One such amusing example of this was when a guy from Hong Kong (who probably worked in the finance sector since he almost started blabbing on about risk management before the speaker cut him short) gave his views on how it was safe to "break the arrow" because he listened to the instructions given and examined the "arrow" and decided it wasn't that risky to break it by applying pressure with the base of his throat. And right on that, the speaker jumped in to say that this was a great example of how important education is, that taking instructions from seasoned mentors was important in speeding up self improvement and how the various courses they had on offer could help us. Perhaps they didn't sell all the course lots by the end of the seminar because the speaker was still exhorting people to improve their financial, business and personal lives even towards the end.
Anyone who has read "Influence"
by Robert Cialdini would recognise some of the techniques masterfully employed in this seminar.
Assuming a "hit rate" of 2.5% or 1 in 40 persons makes a purchase, potential revenue from just one weekend might look like this:
160 x $8995 = $1,439,200 (assuming all spaces for the packaged courses were sold)
100 x $12 = $1,200 (for the books)
20 x $99 = $1,980 (for the baker's dozen book set)
100 x $150 = $15,000 (for the hypnotherapy CD set)
50 x $25 = $1,250 (for the 6 jar set)
500 x 12 x $99 = $594,000 (At a glance, the take up rate seemed quite high. Several people in the rows around me signed up on the spot. We shall assume these people signed up for a year's web subscription.)
Total potential revenue : $2,052, 630 (or roughly $2 million)
Is that worth flying down from Calgary for or what?