Conferences are a hell of a lot of fun. When done right, they’re also very rewarding — both for the organizer and the attendees. I get to meet many of my customers in person, which to be honest is a bit of an ego boost. And the people who go usually get much more than they put into it… new connections, new friendships, and new ideas.
The problem is that from a business + focus perspective, DYFConf hasn’t been the best “product” for my company.
Every year we’ve either lost money or broken even.
Every year we’ve just barely had enough attendees (I was almost on the hook for paying for about a dozen empty hotel rooms last year because of how hotel group discount blocks work.)
Every year we’ve struggled to even secure 2 or 3 sponsors to help offset costs.
And every year it’s taken dozens of hours of time to promote, get speakers, deal with the venues, etc.
So from a purely business perspective — there are other things we should be doing. But until now, I’ve justified it. “It’s good for the brand. It’s good for attendees.”
This is true, but it’s taking a toll on me and the team. It’s crazy hard. Almost every day something related to organizing the conference stresses me out… Will there be a big surge of last-minute ticket sales? Is the venue going to get back to me with something I’m not expecting? Will a speaker need to pull out?
And this is starting to affect my ability to give DYF the focus it needs.
I think if DYF was a proper events company, and we made good money with events and had full-time staff dedicated to just hosting these events, things would be different. But that’s not us. We’re primarily a training company who happens to host the occasional event. And something is “off” when it comes to the way we do things now: we aren’t charging enough, the format is wrong, we aren’t promoting enough, etc.
Here’s the deal:
DYFConf Europe, taking place 16-19 June in Stockholm, Sweden, will be our last conference for the foreseeable future.
We’re going to continue hosting a few retreats each year, which will be more focused on implementation and getting things done vs. the traditional conference experience. These will be limited to around 10 people.
I do know this conference – DYFConf EU 2017 – is going to be our best yet. We have speakers like Sean D’Souza, Rob Walling, Dr. Sherry Walling, Jane Portman, Mojca Mars, Shai Schechter, Karin Taliga, and myself. The focus this year is on implementation. We don’t want you to just learn new stuff, we want you to leave Stockholm having actually built something new for your business — so we’ve baked into the schedule focused time for creation, supported by me and the rest of the speakers.
And we’ve done everything in our power to keep costs down (our conference business model has been to break even off ticket sales, which might be a part of the overall problem.)
For $1,350, you get access to the conference, along with 3 nights at the gorgeous Yasuragi Resort and all your meals. And these aren’t catered box lunches… these are MEALS. Made for you at a resort that people pay a lot of money to when going on holiday.
I hope you’ll consider the final DYFConf next month.
We’re also adding in two big perks:
- 3-months of access to the Expert Roundtable, DYF’s daily live coaching platform
- A 1-on-1 follow up call with me after the conference to discuss your next steps
Any questions? Drop me an email!