The Art of Hosting Workshops & Events Online

But I think it’s very important to understand that marketing, in the way that I see it, is really just communication with an end in mind,

Welcome to the Soul-Sourcedâ„¢ Podcast, unconventional business advice for the highly creative, secretly sensitive and wildly ambitious entrepreneur. I’m your host, Christine Kane. Let’s do this.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Soul-Sourcedâ„¢ Business Podcast, episode number 48. And I am going to coincide today’s topic with what I am about to do this week. But first I want to say thanks to everyone who has jumped in and joined the Uplevel community at Uplevel Cafe. It’s, it’s an amazing group of people. We already did our first group coaching call, and I was so excited at the level of questions that we had and the kinds of things people are working on in their business. It’s a very cool group in there and very supportive and people are already doing the Awesomeness Inventory, which is something that is one of the first things I suggest that people do when they get into Uplevel Cafe. And so, uh, thanks you guys. I’m really excited to have opened the doors again, finally for the first time in, well over a year, but, uh, if you want to check it out, you can go to Uplevelcafe.com and find out more there.

But for now, uh, we’re talking online workshops and online events and online retreats. And I am about to lead one. I’m about to lead my Uplevel Academy, M Club clients in our second retreat of the year. We do these retreats every single quarter. And I also had some really interesting, um, coincidental little meetups recently, one with a person who used to be a client and someone else texted me, who is a client who in someone else who was a client for some reason, each one of them brought up the book, The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. And I read that a few years ago. I loved that book, and so it was really affirming and beautiful to hear people say that they thought of me and they thought of M Club. And they thought of Uplevel when they were reading that book because of how we do events.

And for those of you who don’t know The Art of Gathering, I recommend it highly, if you do any kind of, any kind of workshop, any kind of retreat, any kind of meetings even, because it, it walks you through so much better, so much better than I’m going to do today, um, a lot of the elements and mindsets and skillsets of leading any kind of event, and I’m going to focus kinda specifically today on the online aspect of it. But these things I’m going to talk about today can be applied to in person events as well. And why I want to do this is that I have been, I’ve been on stage longer, I think now, than any other thing that I’ve done in my life. Um, I started off doing music and then I got invited to do a lot of trainings and teaching. And I was hired by the federal government to teach government leaders, uh, a program called Practical Creativity. I did that, uh, for a day-long event in, in, uh, at a leadership facility they have in West Virginia for a year, actually two years. I think I did that every other month.

And so that started me doing teaching and leading events. And I also hosted retreats here in Asheville for small groups of about 20 to 30 people, think the most we ever had was 35. And then of course started Masterminds and, and I’ve just done a ton of hosting of things, of leading of things, and then as we shifted, we were, we were already doing Zoom and online stuff, but then this year, of course, everything became primarily Zoom. And there was a whole other host of lessons with that. Plus I’ve helped many, many clients start event based businesses and do things online and create events. And so I have a lot of experience at doing this and I’m going to do my best to really point to the art of doing this. And I’m going to place it in a context that may be a little different, but I think it might be something that serves you to see where, where we make assumptions and what we can do about it and how we can step in a little bit more to leading these things.

Because one of the worst things about doing an event is how you feel so not in control because you’re, once people enter a room, once people entered the Zoom, suddenly there’s this huge X factor, and that’s, it’s that there are now people there and they’re either going to answer, or they’re not, or they’re going to sit there with their arms crossed or they’re not. And, and you have to know so many different things and you almost, in some ways, your brain has to be a little bit of a multi-tasker because you’re watching so many things, especially when you’re in person, for sure, but that’s not to say that you are completely a hundred percent not in charge, and so therefore, just throw caution to the wind because there are so many structures and so many ways that you can create a container so that this thing really evolves beautifully and naturally, and in a way you want it to so that people feel engaged and that people feel seen, and that people get the content that they came for, whatever it might be.

And this is, this is an incomplete training, cause let’s face it, we’re doing a podcast here, but it is some of the stuff that I’ve learned in some of the things that I’ve seen clients learn. And this is obviously basics, you know, go get The Art of Gathering if you want a starter. And there are so many great books about doing events and so many ways, you can learn it, but of course, the best thing you can do to learn is to do this and start hosting things and know that it will never be perfect. I like to joke that my first retreats, um, here in Asheville, when I did them, I was so scared because I was a musician and it was something I wanted to do and I was so scared that I, I kind of felt like all I did was sit in front of the room and read from books that I liked. And that was it. It was like, here’s another passage that I should read to you, but it wasn’t totally that way, but that started to shape how I led events and what I realized that people were really craving and really needing.

And so what I’m going to start with here, is something that I teach my clients time and time again, it’s, it’s, it’s about marketing, but I think it’s very important to understand that marketing in the way that I see it is really just communication with an end in mind. So marketing is just great communication and marketing is energy that you put out there. And what I tell my clients is that the enemy of great marketing is our assumptions. It’s our assumptions about people. It’s our assumptions about the event. It’s our assumptions about email. It’s our assumption. I mean, we just, we are as humans, we are just this bundle of assumptions. And what I’m going to share here is that the enemy of great events and great workshops is also assumptions. I think whenever we make these little assumptions, we tend to avoid. What we’re doing with an assumption is we’re just sort of leaning on a memory or leaning on a thought, as opposed to doing the deeper work of looking within. And when we look within, we look within ourselves and we look within who is our client, who is our person, who are we serving? And we look within the context of the event itself.

And so I’m also going to add one other thing, and this is a little caveat for my listeners. And if you’re new to this podcast, then welcome my friend, but if this is your first episode, um, thank you. But also, so my listeners tend to be sort of what my book, The Soul-Sourcedâ„¢ Entrepreneur points out, and that is the highly creative, secretly sensitive and wildly ambitious. And in particular, I’m focusing on the secretly sensitive, even though some people find that to be, you know, appalling or not cool or not very business-like. I find that many, many, many entrepreneurs are sensitive. Some secretly, some not so secretly, but the point of what that, that really is means is that there’s a more insidious enemy behind some of these assumptions. And then I’m just going to simply say, as you’re listening to this, you need to check in with yourself about that. And that, that enemy, I don’t like calling it an enemy, but it’s there, it’s this voice that I’ve talked about before. And it’s the voice that says, who do you think you are? Like, miss all that? Who do you think you are? And it’s the part of us that plays small. And so when you start to consider leading a retreat or an event or something, you’re really stepping into an ownership role, you’re really stepping into a power role and you’re saying, I know something here and the, who do you think you are voices are going to say, oh bullshit, and they’re going to have you play a little small. And what happens when you play a little small is you actually cut corners in terms of your marketing, your service, your communication, and all kinds of ways that you think you’re being like considerate and in nice and kind, and you’re not being too big for your britches or what other, you know, such shit that we’ve shared with ourselves over and over again.

But ultimately what you’re doing is a disservice. It’s a disservice to you and it’s a disservice to others. And I say this being someone who’s sitting here wearing the t-shirt of playing small and really being scared. And so you’re getting some of these lessons from someone who’s lived it as well. So I’m not trying to sit here and say, Hey man, stop playing small. Cause I get it. But I want you to just be aware that I’m not just saying we make assumptions because we’re stupid. No, we make assumptions sometimes because we have been so accustomed to playing small and not standing out and not being a leader, that that’s what we’re really breaking through on a lot of these. Not always, but some of them.

With that said, let me just dive into the first assumption here. All right. And the first assumption is, they signed up, so that means they’ll come. And when I say signed up, it could be anything from, they clicked on a button and gave you their email to, they paid you hundreds of dollars to, oh well, they’re in my mastermind and they paid $15,000 for the year to work with me or, oh, well they’re in a group program of mine. That’s $5,000. Of course they’ll come to the one event that I’m offering or whatever it might be. The assumption is, oh, of course they’ll come. And with every assumption, I’m going to give an action. But first I want to give some context for this. People are distracted. They won’t necessarily come. We see this in academia. I’ve, I’ve watched my, uh, family. Who’s all professors, college professors and teachers and all year long they’re shocked. They’re shocked. They’re shocked I tell you, that their students did not come to their amazing class with all of its intellectual wonders.

And I, as a marketer, sit and listen, and it cracks me up because the assumption is, well, they’re in school. They don’t want to fail. So they’ll come. No, they won’t. They won’t come If they gave you their email address. They won’t come if they paid their $15,000, their $10,000, they won’t come because there’s a million reasons not to come. Now what we often think, you know, what you see most people do is they become this schoolmarm and they, they fuss at people and they say, well, you paid for this. You should come. And you’re going to fail if you don’t come. And that’s not, that’s like a non-starter for most people, deriding people is not marketing. What is the action step we need to take, is first off, we need to have a message. We need to have a why for this thing. We need to know that. And we’re going to get to that in a second. But it’s the big thing is you’re going to have to stay in touch. Meaning if somebody gives you their email and they’re coming, you want to let them know that the event is coming up. You want to send them the reminders you want to stay in touch. And this is where really great marketing savvy comes in because you don’t just stay in touch by shouting at them.

Hey, it’s tomorrow. Hey, it’s Wednesday. It’s in a Week. That’s what I call exclamation point marketing. And it is not effective. It’s just shouting. The way you stay in touch is that you want to keep people anchored to the why of this thing. And I will give you an example from, from somebody who has run Masterminds now and has had clients for 12 years in Masterminds, where people have paid me anywhere from 10,000, all the way up to 65,000 a year, to be a part of some coaching thing I’m doing. You would think if someone is that invested, they would come to their quarterly retreat because it is the foundation of the entire program, because this is where we dive in and work together. It is amazing how many people will tell themselves, ah, shit, I can just get stuff done. I don’t need to work on my business. I got too much to do.

And the message that I have to remind my clients of all the time and anchor them too, is that we absolutely, as entrepreneurs need to take time to work on our business, not just sit there and be busy in our business freaking out, because that all that wheel spinning, all that doing, doing, doing, doing is no match for you stepping back, asking yourself how you’re doing, doing a review of the last quarter, doing a preview of the coming quarter, getting clear about your priorities, getting some education and learning from other people, connecting with other people who are like-minded. That is the message. And it’s amazing how many people would rather just keep their heads down and not look up. And that’s something I know about my clients. And so this means that you need to come to our next assumption. We need to go to that one because when you break this next assumption, you’ll learn how to talk to these people and stay in touch with that message.

And this assumption is that the client, the student, the listener, the whoever’s coming to your thing, is pretty much anyone. Like I can talk to anyone and teach anyone and everyone. And, and the action obviously is that you need to get very clear on who your ideal client is on who this person is coming and not just the demographics and the typical avatar. You also want to know what is influencing them or impacting them right now as they are coming to this thing. Meaning what’s on their plate at the moment what’s going on in the world at the moment, what is really effecting them at the moment, because then as you speak to them, as you teach them, as you stay in touch prior to the event, you’re talking to the things that they’re experiencing right now, not just the avatar, not just the ideal client, the typical things we know, but what they’re struggling with right now, what’s on their mind right now.

And that also can inform some of the context for how you teach the content you teach. And that’s, that’s a key thing. So for instance, when I work with our clients, a lot of times, one of the things that I’ve seen with them over the years is that they think of marketing and they think Facebook ads, blogs, uh, warm letters, Pinterest, Clubhouse, whatever the new thing is, whatever the bright shiny object is. And what that started to inform was how I set up each and every one of my marketing trainings and that I teach what I call the three V’s of marketing. And when I teach those three V’s and I’m so sorry for my clients who might be listening to this, cause you’ve heard this so many times, but I teach Vision, Vehicle and Voice. And that’s what marketing is. And vehicle is only is what the vehicle is of the marketing, whether that’s a billboard, a Facebook ad, a blog post or whatever.

But the vision is where you understand the, what I call the Foundation Five. And the voice is how you yourself talk. And those are the things that we’re about to work on in this particular retreat. Like I will put it that way so that they understand like they are bought in because I’m understanding, I’m sharing with them who they are and where they’re kind of going wrong. And if I’m getting head nods in the room that I know I’m on the right track. And so, and of course the caveat again, is that I’ve done this forever. And I I’ve worked with people for so long that I understand where, where they’re getting stuck, where their challenges are. And so I know who my client is. And that’s your action step is to know who this person is.

The next assumption kind of goes right along with these other two. And that is, I gave them the title and they’ll know what it’s about. So we got the title of this thing. They’re going to know what it’s about. So the assumption is, is that they got the title of that webinar or the workshop you’re doing and it’s automatic that they’re going to understand it. But what you have to realize is that when someone shows up that day, they have been distracted by, they took their kids to school and got a flat tire on the way. They got in a fight with their spouse. They forgot to pick up milk, and so no one had breakfast and their toddler cried. Whatever it might be, they’ve got a million things going on and they have this thing on their schedule. They clicked on the Zoom link and there they are. And you’re getting someone who is absolutely toast and doesn’t even remember why they’re there. Potentially. We don’t know, not all the time. And so what we have to do with our action step here is really make sure that everything you do has a clear objective has a theme, has a title, and that you start off by anchoring them to the why of that thing. And that’s in all of your messaging. So the why of it is in the emails leading up to it. And you always never assume that they opened those emails, by the way.

That’s another thing is that we like to assume everyone saw the emails. Everyone remembers everything. And all of these assumptions are the, what I call the enemy of marketing. It’s the enemy of communication. And so what you want to do when you get them into that Zoom room or whatever it is, you’re going to anchor them back to the why of this thing. And so with that said, you know, Priya Parker talks about how everything needs to have an objective or a purpose or a theme. And so, uh, that’s, that’s a really key piece. Like even with a mastermind, you would think, well, it’s our retreat. Here we are. And, and, and just come. And what I try to do is always, uh, anchor them to a theme. So for instance, last year with, uh, when COVID happened and everybody was in the thick of pandemic, our entire June retreat, the theme of it was resilience.

And as we led up to it, I got people really anchored into that we are the resilience crew, we are here to be resilient and we are more than this pandemic. And as business owners, we’re now being called to find our expansion in this thing. And so it’s more than just saying, Hey, come to the retreat. You know, it’s part of your, it’s part of your investment. You know, really you, you don’t have the luxury anymore of just sitting back, even though I know that’s disappointing for some people, but it really calls those of us who are leaders up and out of the assumption and into really, um, having this thing that is an anchor, having this thing that has a purpose that brings some energy to people’s lives in a world where there’s just so much frickin noise everywhere. And so you want to you, that means you have to know the why you have to know the purpose. I mean, for, for our retreats, we have a theme each day, you know, day one is clarity. Day two is the marketing day, you know, day three is aligning. And so that it kind of gets people to understand where they are in this thing, because you know where they are, you know, where you’re leading them and where it’s going.

The next assumption about doing events, whether it’s in-person or on Zoom, is that people want excitement and hype. And we see this all the time. And I think probably this has been started by people like Tony Robbins, who get everyone hyped up and we all got their hands raised and we’re cranking up some Lady Gaga and we’re all dancing around and there’s all kinds of, you know, woo, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, and that works for people, if you are someone like Tony Robbins, or if you are someone who is anchored that way, and that’s great, but that’s an assumption.

And so what we often see, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been on something like this, and I probably, you probably leave it on one of my events like this because years and years ago, I think I did a lot of this. I just assumed that that’s what people wanted, and so we would start every event with, you know, there’s like this sort of false hype where you’re not that type of person and your peeps aren’t that type of people. And it, and we’ve been told it works, and so we just shout at people. So excited you’re here! This is going to be so great! And all those little falsities that we do.

And I’m going to give you a little story from, from music that actually started teaching me about this. There were some nights when I played music, uh, when I was performing and I would have a full room and for whatever reason, and I’m going to get to your energy in a second, for whatever reason, something in me was feeling really quiet and I would be backstage. And I would be like, oh, come on, get up, come on. Yeah, this is a thing You got to go out there and you got to play your song, play Tucson, or play, you know, something big. I can’t remember can’t cover my own songs, Virginia, whatever, it might be. Something that’s really upbeat, cause you got to start with upbeat cause that’s what people want. They came for a show, Get upbeat and, and I’m not that person, you know? And so there was a major shift in me that happened when I just followed the energy, I followed the energy and I started with a slower song like She Don’t Like Roses. And when I did that, it let me settle in to the energy of the room. And then I could go into where I was led next or whatever it might be.

And the same thing for, for leading an event. I just, a lot of people, the, you know, the event planner that I used to work with, you know, has worked with Tony Robbins and, and so of course the assumption was we’re going to start with really loud music and you’re going to get out on stage and you’re going to be in the spotlight and everyone’s going to cheer. And there was one point where I had a major turnaround and I just said to her, look, I don’t, I am so tired of being on stage and being clapped at. I don’t need it anymore. I don’t care anymore. I don’t want this to be about me. I want this to be about them. And what I did was I just said, let’s start with me in the audience. Let’s start with no spotlight. Let’s start with no music. I’m going to start with a guided meditation. And I will tell you, I was absolutely freaking terrified when I did that the first time. Now it’s kind of like a matter of course that I do it, but what it does for my peeps, especially, you know, the secretly sensitive for, for my people who are not necessarily, I’m not saying that they all are and that none of them want to dance around and do stuff. But what my method of teaching is, and the way I look at this is that we’re doing deep work here. If I can keep you out of the hype and out of your head and out of like, feeling like you’re duty, bound to dance and stuff like that, and get you really into your body, then I’ve done you a bigger service. So I’ve set you up for learning.

And so, what I have shifted in, and this was years ago, so some of you might not even remember when I was dancing all around, but I start in that way. I start with a meditation. I, I don’t start with a hype at all. And with our M Club retreats, I start with the meditation and we, we, we begin the entire retreat with self-assessment. When I have a tool called the Focus 360, that really gets them to review themselves and do a lot of self coaching and, and see where they’ve been, where they’re going and get very, very clear. And I find that it opens them up for the teaching that much better.

Now, I am not saying start with a meditation. I’m not saying do it like me. What I am saying is consider your ideal client, consider the person who’s going to be in the room, consider who you are and how you like to begin things and what your energy is usually like, if you want to get hyped up and excited, great. If that’s your norm, wonderful. Don’t try to tone that down because it’s actually a strength if that’s you. But what I can suggest for your action step is to open with engagement or some kind of like some kind of engagement where you plant a question, you toss a question out there and you get a sense of who’s in the room and you also get the conversation going and another great thing to do, and what I just pointed to was that we do a self audit, like some kind of self-assessment. And we begin all of our events with it, because for me, it’s, it’s so important that my clients become empowered to coach themselves, to see themselves and that they’re not just leaning on some like guru teacher kind of thing. And they really become strong and grounded in what they’re doing. And the habit of doing that every quarter is just huge for them.

And I’ve only had one or two people say they didn’t like it. They just wanted me to show them the money and teach the marketing stuff. They didn’t want this self audit stuff. And I just got better at, at marketing and communicating so that that person would get out immediately. Like they wouldn’t even join my masterminds, because if you’re not about the strategy and the soul, you shouldn’t work with me. You just shouldn’t. Same goes for you. Like, however you want to do it, it’s going to really be of service to your people.

The next assumption is that people, and I actually already have spoken to this, is that they just want the information. Like when they come to this thing, all they want is the information and I’m there to give it. Now, if your clients are engineers coders and people like that, super left brain, that may be the case, but I would say that that’s an assumption and you don’t want to just make the assumption. You want to really take some time to review. And the action step that I gave here from my peeps and for people who may not just be all about the information is really think about how you lay out the information so that your people can digest it. Meaning, a lot of times people just want to blurt facts and data and concepts. And what I really encourage people to do is layout their, whatever their facts are, really keep it to, the rule of threes is very good. So, you know, three major concepts and for each one, teach the context, and by context, I mean sort of what I described with vision vehicle and voice, that sort of a context for how I’m going to teach the marketing when a teach or the context can come and the mistakes that they might be making around this or things that they’ve heard, that aren’t really true, or a client stories or stories about them or somebody you’ve seen in the chat before the, the training.

And you want to lay out context so that people can understand what they’re about to learn, so it’s not just left brain concepts, and then you teach your content. And so the content is, you know, the, the three items let’s say, that you’re going to teach. And with each piece of content, I always encourage people to have some story that they tell around it. So it’s not just like a two plus two equals four sort of thing. And you’re not just blurting out some information. You want to teach some sort of story that makes it come to life. So you have this three, three pieces of content, three stories, and then at the end, after that, some kind of activity. And so it could be a tool. It could be a worksheet, it could be something that they do, and then some kind of sharing to get it out of their brains and to each other and there’s connection created.

So what I’ve just laid out is you teach for each point, you teach the context, you teach the content and in the content, have a story, some kind of thing that can, they can do work like little work there, themselves, some sort of tool, and then some kind of sharing. And it depends on the size of your room. You could do breakout rooms on Zoom, where they share, and then they come back and make sure you put a time limit on it, or, um, or they can do share in the group right there if you have a small group, and that’s completely fine as well. And obviously this is not something where you’re going to be making a sales pitch or anything like that. This is just strictly educational kind of stuff.

But that’s in my experience, what really helps to ground things for people. And then you can do Q and A at the end, if you want to do that. And that, that, you know, can go as long or as little as you want. And you know, the question is like, do I let people interrupt me or do I wait till the end? I think it’s always good to wait till the end, but I can be, I can be so easily interrupted that and get right back on track that it doesn’t matter as much to me, but I would say, wait until the end, that way you’re focused on your content and then you can do Q and A.

The next assumption is that, this is our last one, so just so you know where we’re at, the assumption is that this event, this workshop, this thing that I do, it’s just one more thing on my agenda. And I’m going to tell you why this matters and why this is not something you want to do. Like just sort of have it be one more to do on my list. One more thing I got to get done. So when I do a retreat for my clients, I clear up the whole week. Like I, this is the last thing I will be doing outside of the retreat is recording this podcast because I needed to get it done. And then the rest of the week I’m doing, I’m straightforward on the retreat. And even though it’s not happening 24 7 or anything like that, but the reason for this is because, and for some of you, this might sound woo, but for some of you this won’t, is that when we are leading an event or doing a workshop, we are gathering to us and around us, the energies of the, all the people who are coming to this thing, and you may or may not know this, but you will be impacted by those energies.

So it could be you feel a little more anxiety and you might think, why do I feel so much anxiety? Why am I so nervous? Why am I so freaked out? I would like you to consider that it’s not all just you, that whenever you’re leading anything, you are holding the energy for other people that you are holding the space for other people, you will get better at doing that. But if you have a very thin veil between you and others, I. E. If you are secretly sensitive or empathic in any way, shape or form, then anytime you host anything like this, you’re going to be feeling other people’s energy, their nervousness, their, their self-esteem issues, whatever it is in context of what you teach.

And so with that said, the action step here is that you need to honor your style and your energy. And what that means is that you want to clear the space for this to happen. You want to clear the space for you to have the morning before it, so that you are fully grounded, fully present in your body, have some kind of little ceremony that you do prior to getting on this thing. It doesn’t have to be enormous. I’m not talking incense and candles and unicorns and rainbows. That’s not where I’m going. I’m meaning really honoring yourself and honoring your audience enough to be grounded so that you can serve them fully and not just sort of look at this as one more thing to do and get done with and thank God that’s done.

And so I clear the whole week out. It depends on your, the time of your event, but mostly what I want you to consider is that whenever we’re leading at anything, we are now opening up our energy field to the energies of other people. This is not to say protect yourself from all that horrible stuff, because I think that can, there are ways you can protect and guide your energy with violet light and all that kind of stuff, that’s great. But if you have the attitude of these people are coming at me and I’m taking on their energy, that that can set you up like a little bit, like now I’m doing a little bit of, you know, the spiritual ego thing, and that’s not it at all. It’s that when you can be fully present in your body. And I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this, but when you’re fully grounded and fully present, protection becomes not as much of a thing, because you are filling every cell of your being, your energy is all there. And so there’s not as much space for little tiny misfits and weird energies to come zooming through you or whatever. You’re just, you’re fully there and fully present. So with that said, the last action step is to really honor your style and your energy and feed yourself and make your, make sure you are resourced to be able to do this thing and lead this thing well.

Okay. That’s all. I’m going to go get ready for my retreat. Thank You so much for listening. I hope this help for those of you who do events, retreats workshops, or whatever it is you’re doing, and yeah, go get, go get the book, The Art of Gathering. I’ll put it in the show notes as well, and I will see you all next week.