I tend to agree with 'points', so I'll offer my explanation: Doing expensive one-day workshops might be a great way to make money, but it might be damaging to your brand.
To me, it shows that the you are doing everything you can to wring maximum profit out of your existing infrastructure rather than concentrating on improving your core product. It has the same feel as a hot experimental band deciding to license their songs for fast-food commercials --- perhaps a good choice financially, but potentially bad for your image. It has a smell of desperation and greed.
As to the 'scammy' part, I'm guessing[1] that not many people are paying for these sessions of out pocket. Rather, they convince their employer to pay, and that it's worth it. This presents a conflict of interest if the turns out to be not worth the money. When your boss asks you if the company's $1000 was well spent, and it was your idea to go, one might feel compelled to say 'yes' and even to go again the following year regardless of any price increases.
This said, we'll probably be considering such strategies in the future. I have a food business, and while there is no way we could charge $1000/seat, there probably are some things we could do to boost the bottom line.
[1] Jason responds below to point out that most of they are paying directly. I'm surprised, but presume he's right!
"As to the 'scammy' part, I'm guessing that not many people are paying for these sessions of out pocket. Rather, they convince their employer to pay, and that it's worth it."
The majority of the people who attend our workshop do pay out of their own pockets. They are often individual entrepreneurs, business owners, or independent designers/programmers who are looking to learn what we have to teach. Anonymous post-workshop surveys have shown that people feel like $1000 is not only a good deal, but a bargain.
Workshops damage brands. They smell of desperation and greed. They're like fast-food commercials. They're scammy because they're based on conflicts of interest. They sap energy from your core product.
So naturally, you're going to consider doing them in the future.
Yes. Despite having a truly fantastic product, we're struggling to stay in business. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch to say that there have been times that I would consider robbing convenience stores to make payroll.
I love making a great product, but hate the constant pressure to compromise my ideals to stay afloat. Every day I keep this business going, I fear that I'm turning into someone that I don't want to be, that I can't respect.
But maybe my ideals are wrong, maybe workshops are win-win, maybe we need to consider them even if I don't personally care for them. They're certainly better than some other options!
I also don't really hold it against bands when they 'sell out' --- they know their situation better than I do. :)
The workshops I've done have been free. They have not been low-effort. I did a Crypto for Penetration Testers workshop on a Saturday that sold out the room and involved a team at Matasano writing 9 lab servers, and 6+ hours of scripted lecture. I did not at any point before, during, or after the workshop feel like I had "sold out".
Again: my head is exploding over this. Exactly what part of getting interested people in a room and talking to them seems scammy to you? And: if you're creating value, why is it wrong to ask for money for it?
It's not the asking for money, but rather the amount of money that is asked. I applaud your free workshops, and I'm even comfortable with moderate prices. But I genuinely can't conceive that someone would get $1000 worth of value from a day's training of anything. I want the cost to be commensurate with the value created.
One could certainly argue that the 'market' has shown it feels otherwise, but the market also has proven susceptible to Scientology and multi-level-marketing. I guess I fear that at the price being charged the audience must have expectations that can't possibly be met.
Perhaps my problems are simply my false impressions of 'value', which may be out of sync with reality. But based on the rates of good college courses, for a workshop such as yours, I could probably rationalize $100-$300 per person. Is there price at which you'd start to feel uneasy, even if some portion of the market was still willing to pay? $1000? $10000? $100000? Or relatedly, why didn't you charge?
ps. I don't mean to imply that Jason is not giving a top quality workshop. I have a similar feelings toward the Ted Conference charging $6000 a ticket and toward top colleges charging $50000 a year. It's not the quality I'm questioning, but the 'value'.
I see your point, but it seems to me that there's much more to it than that.
Sure, some people will give workshops primarily to make money. However, many will also give workshops for the experience of teaching. I have given trainings/workshops a few times and I've found it pretty satisfying to look for the best way to present things so that your audience "gets it" and goes out knowledgeable about the subject at hand. (it was particularly satisfying the very first time, two months after starting at my first job, feeling like I've been dropped off in there, ending realizing that I was indeed able to give that training after all :))
The thing is once you decide to give a workshop, you'll likely charge for it... and the price will be decided by the market somehow.
how differently would you feel if the same workshops were given away for free?
I mean, if I can't charge for the workshop, my primary aim is self-promotion, right? is that more or less scummy?
(now, speaking as someone who /has/ given free workshops to nerds, you have to be very careful about that self-promotion. Giving an actual sales pitch at a LUG is about the quickest way I know to get a bad reputation. Much worse than giving a technical presentation and doing it badly, or even doing a technical presentation and revealing incompetence.)
I feel much better about workshops that are given for free, although you are right about the delicate balance between reputation and self-promotion. I could feel just as good about offering the workshop as a bonus for existing customers, or for workshops where the price charged is commensurate with the cost to run.
It's possible that I'm just not a very good free-market capitalist. For example, while I want prices to reflect demand, I get uncomfortable at what I feel are extremes. What's a fair price for a drug being sold to someone with an otherwise terminal disease? Does this change with the actual effectiveness of the drug, or just on the 'buyers' belief in the effectiveness?
eh, you are just used to commodity markets (which really, I think, is where free-market capitalism outdistances everything else so sharply)
In a commodity market, nobody can charge much more than the cost of production or else you get competition undercutting you. Of course, nearly everyone puts a whole lot of effort into convincing customers they are not in a commodity market.
Personally, I'm also much more comfortable in commodity markets as well... and in my space, because everyone else is trying so hard not to be a commodity, this isn't as hard as you'd think.
But yeah, lots of people are offended when you charge more than a reasonable margin over the cost of production, as you would if it were a commodity. But you know what? nearly all software companies don't want those people as customers, simply because if you apply the commodity model of capitalism to software, you get open-source software.
the thing is, companies like 37 signals, I don't think, care that they offend people who expect to pay commodity prices. Most businesses want customers who are willing to pay a premium for a premium product.
Now, if I were to run a workshop, I'd be very concerned, because my customers are people who want to pay commodity prices; people who would be offended by large profit margins.
Some people say those are bad customers to have; I mean, if I can't stay ahead of the crowd price wise, I'll sink pretty fast. On the other hand, serving this market is much easier (well, for me, anyhow) than serving the 'premium' market. It's a market I understand, though, and one that is under served.
To me, it shows that the you are doing everything you can to wring maximum profit out of your existing infrastructure rather than concentrating on improving your core product. It has the same feel as a hot experimental band deciding to license their songs for fast-food commercials --- perhaps a good choice financially, but potentially bad for your image. It has a smell of desperation and greed.
As to the 'scammy' part, I'm guessing[1] that not many people are paying for these sessions of out pocket. Rather, they convince their employer to pay, and that it's worth it. This presents a conflict of interest if the turns out to be not worth the money. When your boss asks you if the company's $1000 was well spent, and it was your idea to go, one might feel compelled to say 'yes' and even to go again the following year regardless of any price increases.
This said, we'll probably be considering such strategies in the future. I have a food business, and while there is no way we could charge $1000/seat, there probably are some things we could do to boost the bottom line.
[1] Jason responds below to point out that most of they are paying directly. I'm surprised, but presume he's right!