Anatomy of a Seminar - National Achievers Conference - Part 1

On a day early February, a friend of mine sent me a message. Enroll for this conference for just Rs 499, a once-in-a-lifetime offer, valid only for today, and you will never regret it!! What was that for, I asked. He said, you get to attend a marvelous full day seminar worth at least Rs 2000. You will have a day full of learning, and it would be an worthwhile investment. Investment, I thought... Interesting indeed.

I have always been wary of offers that come with a time limit, and especially limits that are really short. They seem manipulative. You can sense something wrong somewhere. I thought to myself, if the seminar is worth at least Rs 2000, why are the organizers giving it at a 75% discount? Are there many unsold seats? Or is the value really Rs 499, but they inflated the price to Rs 2000?

Such questions were rummaging in my mind and I was debating whether to attend it or not. Would it be a waste of time, apart from money? What would I gain from this? Finally, I came up with 3 reasons why I should register for it. First, I had never attended such a seminar and was curious to know what happens in them. Second, Rs 499 was not such a big amount, though it was being referred to as investment, that I should be worried about even if the event turned out to be a dud. Third, if not anything, this seminar would give me fodder for at least one blog post. Now, I think, it has given me dope not only for one but for several posts!

With some solid reasons backing my decision, I registered for the event. It was to be held on a Sunday at a convention center in Gachibowli. The seminar was known as National Achiever Conference.

Being the kind of person I am, I try to dig up a bit about everything. So I asked Google Baba and he gave me some Gyan. It turns out that Success Gyan is a Chennai based company which in my opinion is an amalgamation of event management, networking and learning company. One can become member of that, probably by paying something, and get free access to such seminars that they conduct around the country. Success Gyan is again a franchise of a Singapore based company, Success Resources.

Success Gyan, with help of its network partners, set up events at various Indian cities, the Singapore company sends speakers (more and interesting things about them later), the partners sell the tickets (may be on commission basis) and thus the events are organized.

People like me and many others spend some of their hard earned money and time to gain valuable knowledge, or shall I say wisdom.

But it is the company that organizes these events rake in the moolah. I just did a back of the envelope calculation. There were about 1000 people who attended the seminar. There were various types of tickets, starting from Rs 10000 to Rs 499. Assuming that the average value of the ticket be Rs 1000, the total revenue would be to the tune of Rs 10 lakh.  The venue would have cost Rs 2 Lakh.  The airfare of the invited speakers and success Gyan team would cost another Rs 20000 * 20,  Rs 4 Lakhs.

So, total expenses is 6 lakh. Income is 10 lakh. Even keeping 1 lakh more for contingency, there is a neat profit of Rs 3 lakhs. Of course this has to be divided between success Gyan and it's Singapore franchise. But then I suspect that there are even more income streams.