teach a very basic wordpress class to some start-ups

[barbara schendel]

Hey all, 

I have an acquaintance that is in need of a teacher for a meetup.com meetup for small business startups. This is for people who want to learn how to make their own website on the cheap. She will have guest teachers show how to use a few different web tools over the weeks, Wordpress is one of them.  It will start in september. I think it might be a repeating thing like once a month or something. (you'll have to ask her to be sure)

During the presentation you can promote your business (in a subtle way) -- so you'll likely get a little bit of work out of it because the attendees will contact you if they want to hire you to help them customize what they tried to build themselves.  Either way it's probably a good way to get some exposure for yourself.

I will paste the info that I got from her below. Email me if you are interested and I'll put you in touch with her. 

Thanks!

-barbara-

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Would you like to be a teacher for a class?

 

In two days I am launching a Meetup called “Free Classes to Empower Small Businesses.”  I hope to offer about 4 classes each month.  These classes are for non-techy business owners and classes must be kept simple to understand.

 

I will be teaching the class below probably at least twice a month.

“How to Build a FREE Business Website”

Learn how to create your own FREE website using a web-based platform that can be used with any PC or Mac with internet access.  Demonstration of how to use the online editing tool, which is in a simple Drag-and-Drop style and is easy and fun to use.  Learn effective ways to make your site look professional and impressive without requiring advanced design skills. Topics include: Design, Layout, Photos, Links & HTML, Forms, Blogs, Forums, Shopping Carts, Member Area, Search Engine Optimization, Polls, Event Calendars, Appointment Bookings and more!

 

About Class Presentation

I own all the equipment including projector, slide screen, wireless connection and laptop so any space will work for classes.  No Power Point Presentation required!  It is preferable for you to project live websites and actually demonstrate how to create and manage different types of accounts and directory listings.

 

About Locations

I currently have over 10 locations available for our use in both Mpls and St Paul.  (If you know of a good location be sure to let me know!) Two hour class times seems to work well, with 30 minutes set-up time and 30 minutes break down time.  Classes MUST be FREE for use of room spaces.

 

Promote YOUR Business!

Although promotion of your own services will need to be kept low-key, the advantage of teaching a class for you includes:

• Introducing yourself and your services
• Establishing yourself as the expert in your field
• Handing out your business cards and thus getting new leads

[Nick Ciske]

"This is for people who want to learn how to make their own website on the cheap."

"Handing out your business cards and thus getting new leads"

I'm curious, is something like this really a good source of qualified leads? (asking honestly here as I've considered doing something similar and been asked on several occassions)

As in, do people who go to a free class looking for a cheap website turn into actual paying customers at a decent enough rate? Do enough realize they are in over their head and hire you (and if they do, are they still looking for *cheap*)? Do they recommend others?

Anyone (Toby?) have anecdotal or actual evidence on this?

Nick Ciske

http://thoughtrefinery.com

@nciske

[Peter Fleck]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Nick Ciske <ni...@thoughtrefinery.com> wrote:

As in, do people who go to a free class looking for a cheap website turn into actual paying customers at a decent enough rate? Do enough realize they are in over their head and hire you (and if they do, are they still looking for *cheap*)? Do they recommend others?

I've got experience in this space and would say that unless you really enjoy helping small businesses (I do) or have some grant money (I do) you aren't going to get a decent rate. There is one caveat there in that you could probably get a decent rate by offering up cookie cutter sites. ("Here you are! Choose from one of my three designs and you have a web site for $50/$75/$100.")

I have been consulting with businesses in Seward Neighborhood. It was supposed to be about social media but I start with their web site (if they have one) and move along from there. My time is paid for with a grant via Redesign, the Seward community development corporation. I love it and since I live in Seward it benefits my community. But in the time I've been doing it, I haven't had anyone ask me to build or improve their site. I'm not marketing that directly but I do let them know I'm in the business.

I offer a $500 no-frills build/consult using Automatic's WordPress.com. So far I've had one taker and it worked out well for both of us. Not marketing much - most of my advertising is word of mouth. If this did take-off, I'm not sure it would be sustainable but I am willing to try. But it's still hard to convince small business to build at that price point. They just don't see the value especially if they are retail with walk-in sales, a hardware store for example.

Peter

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[Toby C]

Nick,

I have been teaching WordPress classes like this for years, and the value is not in converting students to paying customers.  I would guess that For every 100 students I teach, one becomes a paying customer.  And, for me at least, that paying customer is not a high-paying one. 

I enjoy learning how people use the web.  Many of the people who take beginner WP courses are business owners or business dabblers who are exploring new things and pushing their techie boundaries.  I like meeting these types of people and learning from them.  I also enjoy the challenge of teaching.

An argument could be made that there is value in being out in front of people and name recognition and all that, but I don't really think there is all that much financial reward in those things.  For name recognition and job leads, you are better off speaking at UnSummit or MinneBar than teaching a handful of courses.

So, I would say that, from a strictly financial sense, it isn't worth your time to teach these courses.  I do encourage you to do it for all the other reasons, though!  :)

Does this help?

Toby

----

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[barbara schendel]

Yep that is the one. Same lady. Not really my thing but I know there is a market for this sort of thing (ie very cheap websites). She uses some other tool I think it was called Weebly, so she will teach that, but she doesn't know Wordpress and people will want that, so that is why she is looking for a teacher. 

The meetup itself is actually not a bad idea though -- it's so that small startups can get a simple site up by themselves, until such a time as they have grown enough to do it the 'right' way.

As for the value of teaching though, I definitely agree. This was actually how I met this lady was because I taught a (free) class one time for the MN web design meetup group.  So you might meet someone that could refer you to someone else, etc.. you know how that stuff goes.

[Nick Ciske]

I get that supporting others is the correct motivation to do this (and any leads are just a bonus). But when the person asking for teachers touts "Handing out your business cards and thus getting new leads" as a reason why you should do so, my BS detector went off, and I though it'd be good to get a discussion going.

That's a twist on the "Do my site free/cheap and I'll give you lots of leads" line that some clients try to get away with ;-)

My quick story: I did this once, ended up getting cornered by several people and giving out ~3 hours of free advice.

I got one bid request, which I lost to a Joomla developer. It would have been a big gig if I'd won it.

I got a nice lunch out of the audience, but cemented my relationship with someone (the one asking me to speak) who has passed other leads on, so it was worth it in the end.

I passed on the opportunity this year as I was drowning in work that morning ...

_________________________

Nick Ciske

http://thoughtrefinery.com/

@nciske

On Wednesday, August 1, 2012 11:12:58 AM UTC-5, Michele wrote:

To second some of the comments here, do it because you are passionate about providing support  to others, not because you expect to get leads.  It's nice to get in front of a new group and practice presentation skills and share something you love.  Groups that offer free classes to learn how to do it yourself don't have great odds in generating business for people who speak at them.  If the audience is large enough, you have better odds but also, know that, if this is the same group (http://www.meetup.com/Free-Classes-Empowering-Small-Businesses/) I saw advertised elsewhere, the facilitator has her own website business (http://www.wonderfullycheapwebsites.com/).