Expand Your Fempire Podcast #150 Transcript

How to Cultivate Happy Clients with Retreats

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:24] Caterina Rando: This is Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you for a very important episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast.

[00:00:37] Today, we are releasing our hundred and fiftieth episode. It has been quite a journey from Episode 1 to Episode 150. I hope you, as I, have learned so much along the way.

[00:00:57] Today we are talking about thriving with women’s retreats. Regardless of what your business is, if it is business to business, if it is business to consumer, retreats are something I encourage you to embrace. Even for business to business, bring your clients in for a mastermind for an afternoon or a weekend. You can have retreats on speaking, on AI, on whatever services you offer, to move your clients and potential clients more towards mastery.

[00:01:39] And, of course, those of you that are in the women empowerment business, which is probably you who’s listening right now. Recognize retreats are a great way to have your clients keep coming back and build community.

[00:01:56] This episode is part of a live workshop that I hosted on this topic. You get to listen in as if you were in the virtual room. You may want to listen to this episode two or three times because I promise you it is info packed.

[00:02:18] We have done other episodes on retreats, filling your retreats. And by the way, if you’re doing events. Or group programs, not retreats. Note that what we’re discussing here is very much applicable to all of that as well.

[00:02:38] Listen, enjoy, listen to more of our 150 podcast episodes. Because I am here to support you to sell, to serve, to soar, and uplift more lives with your amazingness.

[00:02:56] Caterina Rando: Hi, my friends. Happy to be with you. Caterina Rando, serving women on a mission just like you to be yourself, do your thing, serve who you feel called to serve, and also massively monetize your mastery in the process. How does that sound?

[00:03:14] My friends, I have been doing my thing for a very long time. We’re celebrating 31 years this year. I’ve done at least 18 retreats. I’ve done them in Napa Valley. I’ve done them in Hawaii. I’ve done a lot on cruise ships, and some of you may or may not be aware that in San Francisco, I have my own space. It’s called the Thriving Women in Business Center. And there I host my speaker mastermind retreats, and we also do events for women.

[00:03:48] There are so many reasons why we want to do retreats.  I’m going to tell you why retreats are a great idea for your business.

[00:03:57] Women love to get together. Did everybody hear that? Women love to get together. Not only do we love to get together. We love to connect. We love to share ideas. We love to be girlfriends and sisters and support to each other. And I want to encourage you to consider the benefits of this for your business.

[00:04:28] I’ve got clients come year after year after year to our retreats. I’ve got one gal every year since 2014, she has come to at least one, if not two, retreats with me. So these are what we call long term and lifelong clients.

[00:04:48] Is that good for your business? Is that good for your bottom line? Yes. And you know what else it’s good for? It’s great for your heart. Because you get to meet and see women flourish under your guidance. Isn’t that wonderful?

[00:05:04] And they become your friends and they become your greatest fans and they become referral sources for you.

[00:05:15] What else happens? When women get together… okay, write this down… this is important. When we have women at our retreat, We have a few things that we want to make sure we’re doing.

[00:05:28] We want to make sure everyone in our retreat feels seen, heard, welcomed, valued, included. They get that they matter and that their voice matters and that they have massive value to bring.

[00:05:50] And there’s one other thing that we want to make sure we’re doing is we want to make sure that every woman feels safe in the room. That we create a container where she can be witnessed where she can not be judged. She can be accepted and supported. Are you with me, my friends?

[00:06:16] And part of how this relates to the planning, the producing and the profiting of women’s retreats is I want to make sure that you run your retreats with a few guiding principles and we’ll touch on some of them today.

[00:06:34] When women sign up to come on your retreat, my friends, They are, of course, signing up for a retreat, but they’re signing up to be with you, with you personally. They trust you, otherwise they would not be coming on your retreat.

[00:06:53] And I remember once I was doing a retreat at the Fairmont Keolani in Maui, Hawaii. We did three retreats there. Great place for a retreat. And a gal comes up to me and she says to me, “Caterina, I came on this retreat because I wanted to learn from you and you have all these other gals speaking.”

[00:07:20] Now, I do love to have other gals and other speakers and other activities and facilitators at my event. But what I realized when she said this, that I was doing it too much.

[00:07:34] I want to make sure if you’re doing your retreat that you are the majority in the front of the room as not necessarily speaking, but facilitating and holding the space. With me on this?

[00:07:50] And here’s the other thing you’re not doing, you’re not in charge of the venue. You’re not in charge of the lunch. You’re not in charge of setting up the room or getting the handouts or stuffing the tote bags.

[00:08:06] Your job is to be with the ladies. Did everybody hear that? Your job is cento per cento, as we say in Italian, 100%, to be with the ladies, to be available for the ladies.

[00:08:21] And it’s very important that your team gets that that’s your job.

[00:08:27] Oh, I used the word team. You mean you don’t do it all yourself? No, my friends. You don’t do it all yourself because your job is to have a great time and be 100 percent present with your ladies.

[00:08:41] And let me tell you something else. When you’re hosting a retreat for women, what do women love to do? We love to help, right? We want to help out. And I tell my team, “don’t let the ladies help out.” They’re not here to work. They are here to retreat. And I also tell my team, “don’t look like you’re working.”

[00:09:08] I remember one day we’re on a cruise ship, we’re doing a retreat. One of my gals, she’s running down the hall. She’s huffing and puffing. She’s looking schlumpadinka, which means she’s looking not pulled together. Like she’d been working all night. And I said to her, “my friend, this is not how we present ourselves.” In fact, I say to my team, “if something happens and I got to have somebody run the retreat, you can step in and go to the front of the room and you look like the retreat leader.”

[00:09:44] Are you with me, my friends? Okay, very important that you have support and that your support recognizes that it’s all about this guiding principle: happy ladies.

[00:09:58] Any challenge that happens, no participants know about it unless you as the leader choose to talk to them about it. That there’s no complaino from your team, because why? The ladies are there for a retreat. And the more they’re getting a retreat, the more they’re feeling seen, heard, welcomed, valued, included, safe, the more they’re going to keep coming back. And you know what else happens? Even when you don’t have it on the agenda? Transformation.

[00:10:33] What’s the difference between results and transformation? I’m gonna tell you right now. Results are things we can see. More sales, your numbers go down or up. Those are results.

[00:10:49] Transformation is when the women at your retreat see themselves differently. They see that they are enough. They see that they are full of massive value. They leave your retreat feeling more powerful than when they showed up.

[00:11:12] That’s transformation. And whether or not that’s in your sales copy- that’s your goal.

[00:11:23] We did our last Bliss Retreat for Women Leaders on a Mission. It was last April. The women signed up to come on this retreat, my friends, before the pandemic started. We had to push this retreat out 3 years. And instead of Alaska, we went to Mexico.

[00:11:45] On the ship there were a few times when women stopped everything and they chose to take time to share something that they had never shared with anybody. And be witnessed and accepted in sharing what they chose to share. Later a gal said to me, “Caterina, did you plan for this to happen?” And I said, “you know what? I didn’t plan for it. I knew it would happen, and I know how to be present with it when it does happen.”

[00:12:24] And that’s the difference, my friends, from just doing a retreat, like, let’s do these activities. Let’s get all our, our stuff together and you as the facilitator being present because you’re not running around. Being present to create a container where everyone feels valued supported and safe.

[00:12:49] The other thing is these women that were on that ship last year, every month we have a meeting just for us. They talk every single day this morning before I got here. There was already 10 messages in the, we call it the “bliss sisters” chat.

[00:13:06] What I’m saying to you, is that You are helping these women with your retreats, create long time and lifelong supportive friendships. And it’s not only great to uplift their lives, but it’s great for your business. Because the more they feel seen, heard, welcomed, included, and valued by you, the more they’re going to thrive.

[00:13:31]  So let’s jump in to some key questions that you want to answer before you do your retreat. And I’m also going to talk to you about some big mistakes that I’ve seen. Does that sound good? Okay.

[00:13:46] The first thing is that here’s what you need to get started. You need a date. You need the times. You need a price. And you need a location, right? Date, time, price, location. But there’s one more thing you need is a theme or a focus.

[00:14:06] And here’s what I also want to say is a big mistake. You only want to do a retreat for your ideal clients. Did everybody hear that? For example, we did a retreat in Napa Valley one year. Great retreat. We went grape stomping, by the way, sidebar, when you can do an excursion that people would not necessarily do themselves like grape stomping is a great example, that makes your retreat extra memorable. Because you’re giving them something that they wouldn’t normally get. And be sure to include surprises and unexpected activities in your retreat.

[00:14:50] So we’re doing this retreat in Napa and one of my gals says to me, “caterina, my friend, Sheila would like to come but she’s not an entrepreneur. She has a JOB.” And I said, “fine, you know, all women need retreats, right?”

[00:15:05] Wouldn’t you agree with that? My friends, all women could use a retreat. Here’s the thing though. Sheila came, she had an amazing time, transformational, but you know what? I had nothing else for Sheila. She doesn’t need my sales class. She doesn’t need my speaker class to grow your business. All she did was come to the retreat.

[00:15:29] If you’re looking for long term and lifelong clients, which you are, okay, by the way, alert, and you are. Then you want somebody that comes to your retreat. And now they loved being with you. They loved the massive value and the experience. And now they’re open to what’s next. Are you following me? But if you are only having the retreat for them, there’s no next. Everybody got that?:

[00:15:59] And by the way, here’s a guiding principle: at the thing, you always offer the next thing. Did you hear that? At the thing, the retreat, you always offer the next thing. It might be a retreat. It might be a mastermind program. It might be coaching or consulting.

[00:16:20] At the thing, you always offer the next thing. Now that might seem obvious, but let me say this. What I see is gals are so busy getting their retreat together that they don’t have attention on the next thing.

[00:16:35] My first retreat I did, we did in Yountville, California at a place called the Villagio. Great place. They include afternoon tea. This is probably where my afternoon tea enthusiast At retreats came from, because they have afternoon tea included every day for their hotel guests.

[00:16:57] We did this retreat. My first one. I had 11 gals there. I did everything I could to fill my retreat. One gal bought a coaching package she never used. I put her in my retreat. Another gal, she wanted some consulting. She didn’t want as much consulting as the retreat was, but I said, “you know what? Come to the retreat for whatever that fee was.” I want to do everything to fill my room.

[00:17:23] On the retreat, I broke even with my enrollment and my investment. The upsell though at the retreat selling the next thing, which in this case was a year long mastermind, I made the most I had ever made in one sales day, which was $75, 000.

[00:17:50] Now, my friends, that wasn’t going to be paid all in that one day that was paid over the course of the next year. But my point is that I would have had just a break even retreat if I didn’t have my next thing available. Are you following me?

[00:18:07] And you want to offer it. While they’re in that positive space and positive energy and positive experience before they go home. Very, very important.

[00:18:19] And by the way, when we talk about sales, a lot of people think about the conversation. What we’re talking about right now Is sales strategy and this is essential.

[00:18:32] I was on a retreat in February. I was on someone else’s cruise retreat and I’m talking to her. We’re having lunch and she says, “well, you know, Caterina, I don’t know. I don’t want to do a cruise next year. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’ll figure it out in a few months.” I said, “no, no, my friend. You’re going to figure it out before we get off this ship, because your gals are here now. They’re having a great time.”

[00:19:00] So what she did was she decided they were going to have a beach retreat next year in Cabo, which, which is where we were because all the gals enjoyed it. She said, the pricing is going to be very similar. And she said, you’re going to get the best price to the gals that were on the ship. When you make a deposit before we get off the ship. So she didn’t even have all the money part figured out, but she got great signups because she made the invitation before her retreat was over.

[00:19:34] She didn’t have a sales page. She didn’t even have the final price. She had the dates, the location, the topic, which was renewal. And she let everyone know they would get the best price and the discount price when they made a deposit.

[00:19:51] Caterina Rando: So I want you to hear that because another challenge women entrepreneurs have is having to have everything figured out before taking the first step. Did I just ring anybody’s bell? My friends.

[00:20:05] So let’s go back to those questions. Date, time, price, location, topic or theme. And then who is your retreat for? And we’ve already answered that, right? Your ideal clients.

[00:20:20] And by the way, one of the reasons why women that are on a retreat are such great. Yes’s for the next thing. Here’s the reason behind that. The more time people spend with us, the more they are open to investing with us and the more dollars they’re open to investing with us.

[00:20:44] So be aware of this. This is why I do a free workshop 1 or 2 and one of my clients was saying to me earlier this week that she did a free workshop and she made an offer. The offer was higher than I would have recommended. So I wanted to ask her how many people were insta yes for that? And she said one, but the gal that was insta yes, already knew her and had already been spending time with her.

[00:21:11] So one of the reasons why retreats are great is because people spend a lot of time with you. And so they’re very open to the next investment. Everybody hearing me on this.

[00:21:22] Who is your retreat for? Your ideal clients.

[00:21:26] So one of the things you have to answer is the dates, right? Okay, big mistake I see is women are starting with a destination retreat when they have not done a retreat in their area. And I have two clients right now that did not take my advice. And they scheduled actually 3 clients, they scheduled cruise retreats because I guess I make it look easy. They scheduled cruise retreats, a week destination when they had never even done a virtual retreat or a 1 day or 2 day or 3 day.

[00:22:02] So, people love you, but they don’t necessarily want to go to Timbuktu to spend a week with you when they haven’t spent a day or 2 with you without jumping on a plane. Are you following me my friends?

[00:22:16] Okay. So please, please recognize this. Yes, it would be really exciting to do a retreat in Italy, but you know what? I’m going to go on somebody else’s retreat. I’m not doing my own retreat. When I say this, because anybody that’s doing a retreat across the world, that’s going to be a big investment that, that you don’t get a piece of right? Because they have a huge airfare.

[00:22:42] Next year, I’m going to Thailand. One of my clients is doing a yoga retreat in Thailand. I’m going, but you know what my big concern was? Well, I’ve never been to Thailand. How much does it cost to fly there? Is it a thousand, two thousand, three thousand, ? Got no idea. So that’s another hurdle on top of her retreat that she had to address before I could even be a yes.

[00:23:07] Now she lives in the Pacific Northwest. If she said, “hey, Caterina you want to come to my 3 day yoga retreat?” Whatever the price was, I would have been insta yes.

[00:23:17] Why? Because I know that’s not going to be a lot of additional expense, but also the time commitment would be much less and that supports the insta yes. And the quick answer to be a yes. Because a week away is a lot of time for people to negotiate.

[00:23:37] Now, last time we did a retreat, our last retreat was 10 days. But I’m starting to invite people 16 months out. Did you hear that, my friends? 16 months out. And this is the other challenge that I see with gals wanting to schedule their seven day retreat across the world or across the country. They’re starting six months before the retreat. That’s not enough time.

[00:24:04] So start small, start in your area. Like I said, I started in Napa Valley and the first one was 5 days. It wasn’t 7 days. Because people are investing not just with their money, they’re investing with their time. But do they know they want to spend 5 days with you or 3 days? 3 days is an easier yes.

[00:24:26] Now here’s the other reason why we start early. Giving the ladies plenty of time to make their investment. Did you hear that? Plenty of time to make their investment.

[00:24:39] Because your retreat is probably not in their budget. It’s probably not in their budget, right? To have it be something that is an easy yes for them financially, You want to give them a lot of months to pay for it.

[00:24:54] Now, there’s something else I’m gonna tell you. The first time we did a retreat on a cruise ship, I wasn’t sure, because I had never done it before, I wasn’t sure if it’s gonna fly. So what I did was I did what I called pre publication. This is before the sales copy, before the fancy webpage, before the branding for the event.

[00:25:23] I put together a Word document. I reached out, I made a list of gals that I thought might be interested. By the way, they came from my current client base. Your current clients are going to be most likely to be insta-yes for your retreat. And I said to them, ” in 6 weeks I’m going to announce this retreat. Because you’re already in our community, I want to make this not introductory price… even before the introductory price is what I call the pre publication price. Pre publication. So this price is even better than the early bird or the introductory price.”

[00:26:04] “And that’s why the branding’s not done and there’s no fancy web page. This is just me and you having a conversation, me giving you a word doc that says these are the dates, the times, here’s what we’re going to cover, here’s the regular price, here’s the early bird price, and here’s your a little bit extra discount price.”

[00:26:25] You got that my friends? Now here’s the thing. When you get 10 gals to sign up at the pre publication, that gives you confidence to move forward and invest in getting everything ready for the big marketing and sales push.

[00:26:44] Somebody asked a question. Is four months too short to plan a local retreat? I would say if it’s going to be like three nights or two nights probably would be fine. But the challenge with doing it very soon is that you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to fill it fast.

[00:27:10] The first thing I do, whenever we launch a new retreat is I fill the retreat. That’s my first job. Why? Because you need gals to come and you want to get their payment plans started as early as possible so that you have more yeses. And the closer the retreat gets in, the more you run into people who are already booked at that time. Especially women, women’s lives are full. Do you know any women who don’t have they don’t have a full life. No, they got full lives. So, as a result, we need time for them to get it on the calendar.

[00:27:51] Some years ago, I’m teaching my class actually in Napa Valley on how to do women’s retreats. It was not this short class was one day seminar. And at the break, one of my clients comes to me and she says, “Caterina, I love this idea of a retreat. You know what? I got a nice house. I’m gonna do one day retreat. In my living room and I’m going to invite 10 gals. We’re going to do yoga. We’re going to do meditation. So I’m going to do it in 6 months.” I said, “no, my friend, you’re going to do it in 6 weeks.”

[00:28:24] Now, she did it in 6 weeks and here’s why by the time 6 months had rolled around, she had already done 6 retreats. So she had 6 times more revenue and she had 6 times more mastery. So if you’re not going to pursue perfection, and you’re going to be okay. With maybe 6 gals instead of 12 gals or 20 gals, then I’m going to say, do it. But do recognize you’re going to have to get other stuff off your plate. So that you can do the enrollment.

[00:29:04] When we think of retreats, we think about all the exciting things we’re going to do. And all of my retreats, we do afternoon tea with fascinators. We’ve got this thing I do called the Accelerated Jewelry Exchange. We always have some fun excursion that we come up with based on what we’re, where we’re going. We’ve done snorkeling. Last time we were in San Diego, we had the guys drive Us around on the mini cabs, the ladies had so much fun. They were spinning all around. It’s so much fun.

[00:29:34] Oh, last night. I was looking at tote bags. Cause I always do a beautiful tote bag for my ladies. And I’m looking for tote bags for amp up. I want red and gold tote bags. I spent two hours looking at tote bags last night. That makes me bliss. And I’m sure you like that stuff to the creative part, right? But nothing happens until you’ve got smiles on the screen if it’s virtual, or derrieres in chairs if it’s live and in person.

[00:30:06] And so the enrollment is where I want you to think about putting your attention before a lot of the creative activities. Y you do have to plan what you’re going to do at the retreat, but you don’t have to have every minute planned out.

[00:30:21] Yes. I want you to do your first one ASAP. Your first one is not going to be the best one. But it’s that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be amazing. And transformational. It is in the doing that we figure it out and we learn how to be very effective at it.

[00:30:41] Super tip alert, every single day, as you start the day, get everybody’s voice in the room. First thing in the morning. I call it a check in.

[00:30:56] We have a morning check in, we have an after lunch check in, we have an end of day check in.

[00:31:01] Why? Because I want them to have an opportunity to get their voice in the room to share how they’re doing. Now, if you have a big group, you can have them do this in small groups with a partner or a triad. But everybody’s voice in the room consistently is an important part of a woman’s retreat.

[00:31:22] I’m going to tell you one of the things I do, which has been very transformational. This is one of my fun activities. And the great thing about doing retreats, it’s really a great place to try stuff and practice stuff and continue to upgrade stuff. As long as you’re not attached to perfection. I told you about our accelerated jewelry exchange. We did it about four times until I figured out how to do it so it was really fun. And not only did the ladies get some new jewelry, but they blissed during the whole time we were doing it. They enjoyed it the first few times, but it was only after I’d done it a few times and kept upgrading it, that really worked.

[00:32:06] Here’s another thing I do. It’s called “say it to my face.” And what happens is when women come, I give them a name tag sticker. But they put what they would like people to say to their face. Not behind their back, to their face. Donna, you’re an amazing leader with massive value to bring. Sierra, your enthusiasm lights up the room. Everyone is going to want to work with you. What would you like people to say to your face? Put it on the name tag, and you walk around the room, and everybody says to your face exactly what you want them to say to your face. And then you say, thank you. There’s no more conversation.

[00:32:55]  By the way, managing the chatting at a retreat, this is a skill you have to develop. Okay, this one exercise, I’ve done it every single day of a retreat. I’ve done it once or twice at a retreat. It is transformational for the participants, and I encourage you to either do it this way, or come up with your own version of it, and it will support your women and feeling seen, heard, welcomed, valued, included.

[00:33:32] Even though a woman is coming on a retreat and she might think it’s a regular business event or getaway, I’m going to treat her super VIP. That means my team is going to treat her super VIP. We are going to have a gift for her every day. If I have to spend extra money on something, I’m going to do it.

[00:33:57] Here’s my budget strategy because you don’t necessarily know if you haven’t done it before what everything’s going to cost. You want to do your best to figure that out. And then on top of that, if it’s a. 1 day retreat, we add another 10%. If it’s a 2 day retreat, we add another 20%. If it’s a 3 day retreat, we add another 30% to our costs.

[00:34:21] And here’s why there’s always unexpected expenses. When we went to Hawaii for retreats, I would get cars for airport transfers. Well, what happens we got these sarongs, beautiful sarongs for all the ladies. When we went to Hawaii, I had everything shipped directly to the hotel. Open the box. There are four sarongs short. Well, instead of costing me $4 a sarong, now I got to spend $20 a sarong to go to Hilo Hatties to get some more sarongs, right? So recognize there’s always going to be unexpected expenses. And you want to include that in your budget.

[00:35:00] Here’s the other thing. If your retreat starts on Sunday, don’t get there on Saturday, get there on Friday. Why? Because you want to have a lot of time for preparation and getting set up for success. But also, you don’t want to be pressured and rushed and stressed because then your creativity can continue to flow.

[00:35:26] People ask about sponsors. There’s 3 kinds of sponsors. There’s a money sponsor. There’s a in kind sponsor and there’s a media sponsor. A money sponsor, they’re going to write you a check for some promotional consideration. An in kind sponsor is when they give you things otherwise, you would have to pay for. And a media sponsor is where they give you marketing, promotion, advertising about your retreat in exchange for something.

[00:36:03] One of the things we’ve done some years is in kind sponsorships. There’s a company, they make these great socks for women that say, you’re awesome, and you’re beautiful, and other affirmation socks. And I love these socks. I reached out to the company. I said, “hey company, I have 100, 000 followers on Facebook, 5, 000 friends at the time. I think 14, 000 on our list. I said, hey, and if you will give us socks for all the ladies, We will give you promotional consideration. We’ll put it in our social media. We’ll put it here. We’ll put it there.” You have to write down everything you’re going to do for them. We did that for the sock people. We did that for chocolates. You know, the, Barkthins. Barkthins, they gave me Barkthin packages for everybody.

[00:36:55] Here’s what I realized. Yes, it’s fun, and I always love to give gifts, but it would have been better for me to just spend the $500 or the $200 on the products because then I have my attention on making sure we’re doing everything to fulfill the sponsorship agreement.

[00:37:18] And so, especially in the beginning, I I’m not interested in sponsors. I’m interested in happy clients that want to keep coming back. After you’ve done it for a bit, If you want to add in a sponsor for some revenue, that is absolutely an option, but don’t start that way and recognize a sponsorship is like a client. Because you want to fulfill the agreement of that sponsorship.

[00:37:50] Also, are there other alliances that you can create to help support your event? So, for example, Julie has a podcasting party, and she helps women launch their podcasts. And so Julie is one of our partners for AMP UP, helping get the word out about AMP UP. And any of her friends that she refers, she gets a commission on their participation.

[00:38:17] And we’ve got about 15 women that are AMP UP partners who want to help spread the word because they’re coming, they’re excited about it. And so look at who can be a partner for you and partners can be great for spreading the word and getting enrollment.

[00:38:37] Here’s what I also want to say. With 18 retreats. How many times do you think somebody signed up from an email? Or from a website, or a post. Once. Everybody wants to have a conversation with you before they’re going to go on your retreat. Okay? So, yes, we’ve got to do the marketing. We do the marketing. We have 32 gals so far registered for AMPUP, which will be next April. April 27th through May 4th. Let me just take a moment to tell you about it.

[00:39:14] Amp up. April 27th, May 4th round trip, San Francisco. We’re going to Seattle, Washington, Astoria, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia. I have made this very affordable. We’re on a Princess cruise ship where everybody can get their own cabin. 32 gals are signed up for amp up. How many of them do you think signed up without talking to me? None. Why? Because they, they are going to have questions. They want to see if they vibe with you.

[00:39:50] So what does that mean? Now we’re now we’re back to sales class. Here’s the, numbers I use. It’s what I call four by four by four. If I want 60 women on my ship, I’ve got to have four times that 240 conversations, four times that number.

[00:40:15] Now that might seem like a ridiculous number to you, but recognize I’ve been talking to gals since February. So February, March, April, May, June, and we’re about halfway done. It’s going to take a lot of conversations because here’s the other thing. Sometimes you’re going to have four conversations with the same gal, especially if they don’t know you yet.

[00:40:39] I have got people coming on this AMP UP adventure who’ve not come on anything with me before, who have not been in any programs with me. So that is going to take more time. Okay? The other thing is it’s a week away. It’s getting on flights for some of them. That is going to take more time.

[00:41:00] So this is why I’m saying start in your neighborhood with a shorter retreat. Okay, everybody with me on this?

[00:41:09] By the way, here’s another thing for making sure you have time for on your retreat. Last year in October, we had about 10 gals on a cruise ship, and we were doing a retreat on how to do women’s retreats. I love doing a retreat on how to do retreats. And we had activities and educational sessions and then I said to the gals one afternoon, “hey, my friends come to my mini suite.” I always get a mini suite because then I have a place for everybody to sit together. “Come to my mini suite and we’re going to mastermind for 90 minutes after lunch. And then we’re going to go to dinner.” the ladies said, “great.”

[00:41:51] They came to my cabin. And they were there for seven and a half hours, seven and a half hours. They loved the masterminding part. They loved the visiting, the connecting, the sharing ideas, asking each other’s opinions.

[00:42:09] And at the end of their retreat, when I said to them, what did you like best? All those sessions I painstakingly put together? Our fun activities? You know what they said? The mastermind.

[00:42:24] And that’s why we’re doing the amp up. Because we’re going to get together and share ideas. We’ll have activities too. But it’ll be extra super fun. Make sure you have some masterminding time in your retreat. This is something that they absolutely love.

[00:42:42] You want to have a great retreat that’s profitable. And I would love to support you to do your own retreat so that you can bliss and thrive so much more in your business, because you have massive value to bring. There is a lifetime supply of women to serve.

[00:43:02] I want to encourage you to have retreats as part of your client offerings and you will find, by the way, that these will create some of the richest most fulfilling, blissful memories and experiences for you and for your clients.

[00:43:22] And let me say this cause we didn’t really talk about in our session. I do retreats as part of a program. So when somebody comes on a speaker mastermind retreat, they’re also getting training calls. They’re getting mastermind calls. They’re included in all our other community things. And for the gals that are coming on AMP up, we have pre calls. They get to thrive with retreats, masterclass series as a bonus. They’re invited to our summits.

[00:43:50] So as soon as somebody signs up for my friends, see, this can be a challenge with your retreats that are far out. You want to look, “how am I engaging these people right away?” So even though we’re not going till next April in July, they start with the master class series. Then they have the summit in August. Then in November, they have the other summit. We invite them to our July client appreciation event.

[00:44:17] So, you’re looking at all the ways to start engaging them now and building rapport with them, getting to know them, having them connect with each other before everybody goes on the retreat together.

[00:44:28] And that’s a big part of the retreat being so awesome when they’ve already started to cultivate relationships with each other in advance of getting together live and in person. That is a big super tip I want to make sure everybody got.

[00:44:43] I want to also support you with your sales and with using speaking to grow your business. And if you haven’t Been on a cruise retreat, come on ours. It’s going to be amazing. It will also be a great, incredible model for doing your own retreats. We’ll do masterminding, workshops, great activities. Oh, and by the way, your business gets to pay for it because it’s a business expense.

[00:45:07] . Bing, bing, bing. I know you have gotten massive value from our time together today. Please explore our many other episodes on lots of hot topics to support you to thrive and bliss more in your business. Also be sure to check out my website, CaterinaRando. com. There you can find out about my upcoming free workshops, about our programs, and I also invite you to join our thriving women in business community with Caterina to stay even more connected plus, if we’re not Facebook friends, let’s be friends.

[00:45:51] Caterina Rando: We have so much massive value here to support you and our thriving women in business community. I look forward to getting to know you and your business better, supporting you to sell more, serve more, bliss more in your business and uplift more lives. Can’t wait to be with you again on the Expand Your Fempire podcast.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.