This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's the best way to organize a meetup? What if you want to promote a successful meetup or sales presentation on a budget? You can do this in some side hustle fashion, some way to make money or build your audience, grow your community. There's all kinds of good goals that can be served by hosting meetups. I used to host them all the time.
I still do it once in a while, but not as often as I used to, just 'cause I'm not traveling as much. I guess that's one big reason. But meetups can be really fun. You get to hear directly from customers, followers, readers, subscribers, viewers, whatever your kind of business might be. So let's hear this question from Michael in San Francisco.
He's been inspired to try some new things. This seems like a good thing to try. Doesn't have to cost a lot of money. It can actually be easy and fun. So let's talk about how to organize and promote a successful event without spending a lot of money.
That's a key point. I should have mentioned that. Hosting a meetup without spending a lot of money and making it fun details in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Chris, this is Michael from San Francisco. I wanna host a free meetup or sales presentation to promote my business.
But I'm not sure where to start. Your books have given me the confidence to try new things. And I think this could be a great opportunity. What steps should I take to organize and promote a successful event without spending a lot of money? Are there specific venues or strategies you recommend for attracting attendees and making the most of the event?
Thanks again, and I look forward to your answer. - All right, man, thanks for the question. I'm a big fan of meetups, as noted. They can be a great way to connect with potential customers, promote your business or your brand, or just kind of build relationships for the longterm. Which is how I've always thought about the writing I do, the podcasts, other projects, events and such.
Really just trying to build longterm relationships as opposed to making quick sales. But if you are in the sales business, nothing wrong with that either. So what do you do to host a good meetup? Venue matters, like location matters a lot. If you're doing this at a restaurant or a bar or a coffee shop, you really want to have the best possible space.
What do I mean by the best possible space? Well, it's easy to get to, it's centrally located. It's close to public transit. If a lot of people take public transit where you live, or there's good parking if you live in a place where everybody drives. Then also, is it quiet?
Like if you go to a noisy bar or restaurant, that I've had a lot of meetups in noisy bars and restaurants and been to other people's meetups, it's not always the greatest situation. It's not great because people are there to talk and to meet one another. And if you can't hear anything and there's no space, if it's super crowded, then that's not great. So whenever possible, I try to work with the venue in advance, let them know, hey, I'm gonna do a meetup here. Is that okay?
Can we get a space? Maybe there's a private room. And often those are for rent. So what you try to do is negotiate a situation where, okay, what if drinks are for sale? Can I get a minimum?
You try to find a win-win situation for the venue in terms of bringing in new customers, encouraging them to buy food and drink. In some cases, they'll want to have a minimum. Like you commit to having, okay, $1,000 are gonna be sold. All right, so then you're on the hook if you don't sell $1,000 worth of food and drink. So of course, if you can avoid that, that's better.
But the point is venue matters a lot. And then I always try to get an RSVP system as well. Obviously it's free to come to these kinds of meetups. I'm happy for people to bring their friends and just walk in, but the RSVP kind of makes people pre-commit. And so then you can send them emails or other reminders.
It's like, hey, the meetup is happening. Looking forward to seeing you. Otherwise people hear about these things and the commitment rate is pretty low. Even when they do RSVP, sometimes they don't show up, but that just helps a little bit. And then always have a goal for the meetup.
What is the goal? Is it entirely informal or are you trying to create some kind of shared experience, some interactive element? Is there any semi-formal networking where you're like, here's some questions you can ask. Just think about people who are introverted, who don't necessarily like to go to networking events. How can you make it fun and interesting and welcoming for them?
I think if you start with that consideration, you're going to do a much better job than just having an open meetup, even if ultimately that's what it becomes. Just a little bit of structure goes a long way in these situations. And then of course, just going around to check on people, like you're the host. So don't spend all your time talking to the same people. If you're the host, you need to make sure everybody's having a good time.
And that usually involves connecting people, checking on them, as I said, making sure that they're having a good time. Like if they're already immersed in a conversation, it seems like they're happy. You don't need to interrupt them. But for everybody else, that's where you spend your time and focus. So if you do those things, you're off to a great start, Michael, anybody else.
And hopefully I will be doing some meetups of my own again soon. I'll be on book tour in the spring of 2025. So I'll say more about that a bit later. But for now, hopefully I'll do something else. We'd love to see you somewhere.
If you have a question, a comment, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Much more is coming up every single day for the rest of the year. Thank you for being out there. I really appreciate you. My name's Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
