A meditation on “You should teach a workshop!”
āYou should teach a workshop.ā
About what? I ask, as if Iāve never ever heard that from anyone before, as if I donāt think about it a few times a week, when I watch this stuff slide by on Facebook, the fifth-chakraĀ fellatio workshops and the publish-your-erotica seminars and ⦠on and on. My friends are infinitely talented, so it follows that the amount and varietyĀ of workshops that they can generate seems similarly infinite.
āPeople make a lot of money on those.ā
Do they, though? Some money, perhaps. I do need to keep my offerings diverse, diversify my holdings against the inevitable day when Fringe theatre is just no longer a going concern. And then, to be honest, all of the FB ads for the online workshops make me wonder. As far as I can tell, most of themĀ tell you how to teach online workshops about teaching online workshops. Theyāre a giant pyramid scheme that seems to imply that a new sports car could be in my future if I would just seize the day and teach a fucking workshop. I already have one workshop, Intimacy Improv, about creating more play and acting a fool in oneās sexy-time relationships. So thereās that.
But people are specifically talking about online stuff, things that I could teach online, which, hell, I know how itās done: the introductory emails that lead to the free webinars that are more than half infomercial leading to the next step, which is three different ways for the client to enroll and give me money, to get that one little thing that theyāve been missing. These online-workshop peopleĀ have mastered the slow reveal, I mean, they could definitely teach burlesquers about leaving the puntersĀ wanting more.
Iāve poked around in enough of these online offers to know the approach. The tips and tricks and four secrets that marketers donāt want us to know, those are most often basic things about knowing what you want to sell and who you want to sell it to. As for the workshops themselves, itās always about what you know how to do well. What are people always asking for your help on?
I can write. I can cuss like a sailor, blush-free. I feel okay asking people for money to support my art in, like, eight different ways. I can help a strange man get hard just by asking him questions for less than a minute. I can make eye contact with 100 strangers in a crowded bar and coax some of them into standing up and telling five-minutes stories about their first time. I listen well. I tour solo. I have a sizeable Facebook network that has a lot of dirty and self-aware pervs in it, so if someone asks in a private message āwhere should I go for these resources?ā, I can throw that question out onto FB and pretty reliably get an answer.
The thing is, though, I donāt think I can write a workbook for this stuff. I donāt know how to package what it is that I do. āChuck it all and pursue your passion for sexually explicit performing, and donāt starve to death on the road!ā This does not have “best seller” written all over it. More to the point, I donāt know how many people even want to learn that. My knowledge is so niche, most of it. I canāt teach people how to follow their bliss. Iām barely able to keep up with mine.
I could teach another workshop, but I donāt think I should. Not yet. If you have suggestions, leave āem here in the comments. Iāve probably already thought of them before, but Iām cautiously open to possibilities.
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