The pre-work call is the only reason a $400 Saturday workshop worked

Ran a one day workshop for people coming out of the trades who want to start buying. Four seats at $400, so $1,600 collected, $180 for the room and $60 on coffee and printing. My time was about 26 hours total, most of it building the materials I'll reuse.

What nearly wrecked it was my first draft of the agenda. I had two hours on how to read a rent roll and 45 minutes on financing. On the pre-work calls, which I only added because a seat sold late and I wanted to check they were the right fit, all four told me their actual stuck point was the same: they can price a renovation to the dollar and have no idea how to figure out what a finished house sells for or who lends on it. Nobody cared about rent rolls. I rebuilt the whole day around comps and lender conversations five days out, which was a miserable week.

Outcome so far: two of the four have pulled comps on real listings and sent them to me. One had a conversation with a small local bank and got told what they'd want to see, which he'd been avoiding for a year. Nobody has bought anything and I'm not claiming they will.

What I'd keep is the pre-work call, permanently, even at four people. Thirty minutes each and it saved me from teaching the wrong day. What I'd change is charging for the workshop before I knew what was in it, because that's how I ended up rebuilding under a deadline.

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2mitchell_ray4 Get yoursPRO6

The comps thing tracks exactly. I can tell you what a bathroom costs to the dollar and I genuinely could not tell you how anyone decides a finished house is worth $240k rather than $215k, so you found the real gap.

Two things I'd push on. What happens when you have twelve seats instead of four? Thirty minutes each is six hours of calls before you've earned anything, and you can't rebuild the agenda around twelve different stuck points, so you'd have to pick a majority and disappoint the rest. My guess is you cap it at six and charge $700.

Second, what if only two had signed up? You'd have $800 against $240 of costs and 26 hours, which is a hobby. Did you have a floor where you'd cancel, or were you always running it regardless? That number matters more than the four who showed, because that's the one that decides whether this is repeatable.

The pre-work call is the only reason a $400 Saturday workshop worked

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