I participated in my first expo this year. The Forever Young Expo at the University of North Florida (UNF) campus was an all day health products show geared for people who are looking for alternative methods of healing.
In previous years, there was a similar gathering called the Hope Expo. It was fairly large, and offered all types of alternative things from massage to energy workers to skin care products to meditation classes and filled the building that it was being held in. They stopped putting it on a couple of years ago, and since then, there has been a void.
The Forever Young Expo was a miniature version of the Hope Expo. They had 25 vendors in one room. They had advertised in the local paper, done a lot of e-mailings, and had all the vendors doing mailings. Unfortunately, not too many people showed up. At my guesstimate (and that of others) maybe 125 people came where they were expecting upwards of 4,000.
The dealers were charged $500 for their tables. I got mine for half of that. When I was turning them down explaining that I have yet to see a year where the company is above zero, they offered it to me for less. That was very nice, and greatly appreciated. Had I spent the full amount, I would probably be very upset at the whole thing. The people that spoke (there were talks going on all day about various subjects) paid a fee to talk. Had it not been for a fee, I would have loved to talk about Reiki. But then there probably wouldn’t have been anyone listening.
They run these shows in other areas, and draw a lot of people. But that didn’t happen here. They were looking at having it in St. Augustine, but Jacksonville has a larger community of people into alternative products. I think they may have advertised in the wrong places. If they had advertised in the local freebie paper, they might have drawn more people. If they managed to do some radio advertising, or managed to get a hook into the morning TV news shows, there might have been more people. I also think that the $10 entrance fee was a bit much for the small number of vendors inside, and that probably turned away a lot of people. It also didn’t help being the weekend before Easter, and a cloudy, cool day. Also, the Jazz Festival was downtown.
Basically, the place was dead. But even though it was, I wasn’t sitting around bored for too much. For the most part, I was working on people most of the time I was there. My goal was to try and drum up some business, not make sales, although I was prepared to sell gift certificates. I had hoped to make some bookings, but that could still happen. The true measure of the show will be if I get five bookings from it. If that happens, I will have made up the entrance fee. (When I did the Health and Retirement show last year, I needed some 17 bookings to make up what I paid to get into it. I got nine.) I am still hopeful that I will get a large enough return to cover the cost of this show.
The expo gave away prizes supplied from the vendors. I gave a gift certificate for a 1-hour massage. I had just finished working on someone when the winner was brought over to me. The lady I was working on knew her, and they talked for a moment. She told the lady that won how great I was. The lady that won replied “and I get him for a whole hour!”
The day started off with some of the other vendors coming around and talking. One had pulled something in her leg and/or knee and was having some trouble. I told her to get on the table and I did a few minutes of Reiki. When she got up, she was very happy. The next person was involved with the cosmetic surgery table next to me. He had hurt his knee. I did some Reiki one him as well. He was wearing a quartz necklace that one of the other vendors was selling that was a healing stone. He told me that if his knee felt better, how would he know if it was the Reiki or the crystal? I told him that if it felt a lot better as soon as he stood up, then it was the Reiki. He did feel much better when he got up.
After that, I was putting anyone on the table that wanted a demo. The first person was a lady from Natural Pest Control. When I worked on her, a couple vertebrae popped into place with a loud popping sound. This is something that needed to happen. When I was done, she felt much better. Not too long after that, her husband had come over and asked if I would crack his back too. No, no, no. I had to explain that I am not a chiropractor, and that I don’t crack backs. I’m not licensed to do so. If however, some of the vertebrae pop into place while doing a massage move, then they will. And they did, about four of them. I may actually see them at some later date. I can only hope.
One of the big things is to get clients from the vendors. They are in as much need of it as any of the people coming to the show.
I was pretty much working the rest of the show. Since I wasn’t charging for the work I was doing, I had a lot of takers. I figure that my best sales point is my work. If someone gets a sample, then they might come in for a session.
I met a few people that were interested in Reiki classes. I hope I see some of them. I showed two of them how to see the energy fields around someone. They liked that. One of Kay’s former students was there with me at the time (she also had a table there). She was telling these people what a good teacher I am. That was very nice.
With the few people that were at the show, I was surprised to see that I had 30 entries in the box to win a free massage. I pulled three this evening as winners. I was initially going to pull just one, but I figured that if I worked on more people, I would have a better chance of getting them to come back. All it is costing me is time, and right now, I seem to have quite a bit of it.
I worked on one of the ladies from the cosmetic surgery table next to me. She asked if I would be interested in working at the hospital one day a week. That would allow them to have a massage service there to refer people to as there are other services in the hospital as well. I initially thought she was talking about outcalls, and looking at one day a week as an outcall day to the hospital. But she was actually talking about my renting a room there. They could take some money from what I charge per hour to have me there and have clients that they are sending me. I could do that, but I would have to raise my prices $10 an hour to give them the money they would want for rent, and I would have to close the studio that day. If I wanted to work somewhere else, or have more than one location (as many massage therapists do), then it wouldn’t make sense for me to have the shop, and I shouldn’t then be paying rent on it for the full week. But the energies are right at the shop, and I would have to work on that somewhere else.
The bottom line was that it was a nice offer, and if I was starting out and didn’t already have a location, it would be an excellent deal. But as things stand, I’m better off staying in one place. It adds consistency to the practice. But it was nice that she thought well enough of my work that she asked.
So, although it was a slow day, I think I did very well, much better actually than the other massage therapist who was doing work in a chair. She had a few here and there. I was mostly busy.
Actually, I’m not sure what I would have done had there been 4,000 people.