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Self-Improvement Seminars
Summary: Type of
Seminars Available to the Public
This
segment of the self-improvement market consists of affordably priced seminars
offered to the general public, held in a wide variety of locations and cities
throughout the United States. These seminars differ primarily in terms of
size—the number of speakers at a one-day event and the average number of
attendees. Organizers such as Peter Lowe (Get Motivated Seminars) specialize in
hosting large, stadium-type events attended by as many as 5,000-10,000+ people
in a convention center, with 5-8 motivational speakers giving presentations.
These are
very high overhead events where most of the money is made “in the back of the
room”—selling the speakers’ books, audiocassettes, CDs, or programs, during the
breaks and after the event is finished. Usually, only 2-4 events like this are
held per year. Entry fees are kept fairly low—in the range of $50-75. Many
times, a whole office of employees is allowed to attend for the price of one
admission. There is usually one high-powered feature speaker (an ex-President,
Norman Schwartzkopf, etc) that commands a fee of $50-100,000, and a bunch of
lesser but still well-known celebrities from different fields (show business,
sports, the business world) that each command a fee of $10-30,000.
The other
type of public seminar is one attended by 50-75 people per session, located in a
small to mid-sized hotel, in dozens of cities and dates. It’s common for these
“traveling road shows” to blitz a city with 3-4 consecutive days of seminars in
one week. It is more cost-effective to run advertising campaigns like this
(radio, print, direct mail). These usually are held by a company such as Fred
Pryor/Career Track, and usually have a price tag of $79-199. The overhead is
much lower, but so are the profits.
With this
type of public seminar, the model is based on volume—hit a lot of cities during
the year, encompassing dozens or hundreds of sessions. This type public seminar
usually covers topics such as speed reading, memory improvement, and
low-mid-level business management skills improvement (becoming a better
salesman, administrative assistant, or customer service rep, improving your
communications skills, honing your computer or marketing skills, business
opportunities, franchising, real estate investing, etc.). Interestingly, weight
loss/dieting (always a big staple self-improvement topic) has never been handled
via these types of seminars.
In
recent years, especially since 9/11 and the latest recession, this
segment of the self-improvement market has been a difficult one in
which to turn a decent profit. Fred Pryor suspended operations for a
while, then reorganized and started up again. Fred Pryor Seminars
and Career Track used to be independent competitors, but joined
forces in a merger. Franklin Covey scaled down its public seminars
operations. And, the most splashy of the operations, Peter Lowe
International, went bankrupt in a combination of financial
mismanagement problems and a soft market. Lowe is operating again,
under the moniker “Get Motivated” seminars.
It has become
much more difficult to earn a profit when one has to pay high motivational
speaker fees and rent large stadium facilities, plus promote the event with
vehicles such as direct mail, radio, and print ads. The return on direct mail
has been steadily declining (even as printing and postage costs continue to
climb). Motivational speaker fees continue to rise. This combination of
logistical and market factors forced companies to abandon completely or scale
down substantially the number of public seminars offered.
No one really
knows how big the “public seminars” market it, or how fast it’s growing. People
at Brian Tracy’s office say that it is a small niche market and only perhaps 5%
of the population is interested in these types of seminars. They don’t really
consider Fred Pryor seminars to be public seminars. Rather, they consider them
“trainings”. It’s semantics. We do consider them self-improvement
seminars, on a small scale. People in the industry claim that this market is not
really growing, due to competition from the Internet and material available
online.
In fact,
companies such as Fred Pryor/CareerTrack now have many online courses, so they
have shifted at least part of their operations to the Web.
The Main Competitors
5700 Broadmoor St.
Mission, KS 66202 (913-967-8550)
www.pryor.com
Learning
Strategies Corp.
2000 Plymouth
Road
Minnetonka, MN
55305 (888-800-2688) President: Pete Bissonette
website:
www.learningstrategies.com
Skillpath Seminars
P.O. Box 2768
Mission, KS 66201 (800-873-7545)
National Seminars Group &
Padgett Thompson
P.O. Box 419107
Kansas City, MO 64141 (800-258-7246)
Landmark Education
353 Sacramento St.
Suite 200
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415-981-8850)
www.landmarkeducation.com
Peak Potentials
130-2155 Dollarton Highway
North Vancouver, BC V7H 3B2
Canada
(604-983-3344 \ 888-868-8883)
4710 Eisenhower Blvd., Suite B-5
Tampa, FL 33634
(813-884-7200 - media inquiries)
registrations: 1-800-880-7058)
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