Meetup has the infrastructure and processes set up to help you create successful events to grow your healing practice. Discover success tips for starting yours, including what should be in a session, where to advertise, and what helps it become well attended.  Free live training on how to fill your calendar as a healer so you can support yourself and your family, go to: https://www.highpaidhealers.com 

Instead of attending other people’s events, you can increase your visibility and clientele by creating your own.  The easiest way to create events is to create your own MeetUp locally. And luckily now because of the pandemic, they have also created online MeetUps. MeetUp has all the infrastructure in place to get publicity for your meeting.

Some best practices for your MeetUp

First, Set up the process that people go through during the meeting, from beginning to end.  

For example, the best meetups are those in which they allow you to interact with people that show up. Schedule a period of time when everyone can network.  You are creating your own networking event this way. People will come again and again just for that.

Next, you're bringing people in to show them your healing processes and talk about similar concepts. The networking is to just bring people together so they can feel comfortable in the environment. And you can even set the rules with how they network. 

You can describe the rules that you have to network with one another:  introduce yourself, tell people one interesting fact that they wouldn't learn any other way about themselves,  where they live, where they come from, etc.  

The next part of the event is you're going to give a 10 to 15- minute talk.  And you can speak after a  meal where people will pay a lot more to come in, or you can have as an evening after dinner session.  You might have some herbal tea and light snacks, maybe fruits and veggies, nuts, dried fruit, or something else healthy, of course. 

I would give my first talk about the importance of grounding and centering yourself every day.  Then you have them go through that exercise. You can do healing on them during that time, with their permission. And then you make an offer at the end of your 10 to 15 minute talk.  For example, make  an appointment with you would be the best offer.  You can also make an offer for a series of healing sessions, although your first time out, it’s less likely they’ll take you up on that. 

Last, have some free time for people to talk and ask questions.  This would end up being approximately an hour to an hour and a half. 

People can stay afterwards to network and chat for another half an hour.  

I've been to meetups that are a lot longer. And I find them really intrusive in my day, unless they're after dinner. And the nice thing about meetups like that is that you can have them the way you’d like a meeting to go.

 Tips for a successful MeetUp Group

When you create your MeetUp on the website, make sure you use a compelling title and strong purpose for it.  Have the following prepared ahead of time:

1.  Title and summary (Both should be compelling)
2. Who this Meetup is for
3. Category to place it in
4. Where it’s going to meet
5. When it is going to meet: use the same time, day of the week, week of the month.  Once a month is the right frequency.
6. Twelve topics thought out ahead of time, with brief summaries.  Put these up on the website.
7. Emails to go out through the MeetUp platform.  

This way, your participants know what to anticipate and be able to schedule their time accordingly.  People know what's coming and they can put it in their calendar

If your participants enjoy your meetups, including you, topics, results, and camaraderie, they want to keep coming back. Right. Let's say they're the third Wednesday of every month, or the first Monday of every month, your attendees can create an event on their Google Calendar.  Meet once a month.  On the group page on meetup.com, you can also set the group rules.

Make your purpose for your meetups be helping others and creating community rather than selling.  You can then connect later by phone, which is where you can find out what they want, need, then make your offer.   

I've connected with people by phone from meetups. Sometimes I've bought their offer; sometimes I didn't. However, I've met a lot of really great people at meetups that I went to regularly. 

Another point is that some people will not think there’s value in a meetup if you don’t charge a small entrance fee, maybe about $40, to help defray the costs of the room, food, and handouts.  

Some shops and restaurants have rooms in the back for creating meetups: you're going to have to rent that space.  Many of the attendees will agree and happily pay to be able to attend such a fun and valuable group.  

Research which topics are of the most interest to your audience.  For example, you can check which topics get a lot of interest on YouTube or through Google searches.  A couple of the topics that my audience enjoys is accessing your subconscious either by muscle testing,or many of the other ways to access your subconscious. This means they  understand who they really are and what their inner desires are, for example.  That would be helpful for a lot of people. 

Another great thing to do is readings on participants during the session. People love to learn about themselves. 

How would you get people to show up to your meetup?

Meetup has an excellent marketing engine.  That's one of the reasons it's so successful. You can also advertise on Facebook as a local event with geo-targeting, video and even paid ads if you want to grow your group with a certain kind of client.   You can use Eventbrite, which allows you to create events for free and advertise on there for free. They will also help you collect the money: they take a percentage of it. You can advertise it on the event section of Craigslist. 

These are ways to get traffic, but really what's going to bring them in is that you have a schedule. You have a purpose for the group with a compelling title and compelling purpose

Let's say you are helping people have better pregnancies, more enjoyable pregnancies.  “You deserve to feel great during your pregnancy.” would be a really compelling hook.  Then the call to action would be: “Join this meetup now to cover enjoy your pregnancy from beginning to end. And then you're going to have the list of topics for the next year in your future meetup dates. 

This is going to be really helpful for you to find and mine for new clients. And aside from that, you'll get to meet other people that are interested in the same topic as you are. Many business people come to events, especially if they have the issues that you are explaining. 

These business people might find synergy with one another to keep them coming back over and over.  For example,  you might find somebody who's really great at Facebook advertising, that someone else can partner with them. 

this is how I've met a lot of people and have either partnered with them or introduced them to others that were looking for a person along those lines.  Making good introductions is a great way to create community.  Some will work out, some won’t. It's always good to try it out. 

I hope this was extremely helpful for you to really think about creating your own events.  It's a lot easier than you think.  You do not have to go to 1000 networking meetings and call people in. That's how I did it the first time. That was a lot of work. This is a little simpler because there's already all of the infrastructure there helping you succeed and it is very reasonably priced.

Standout Quotes:

• "Some of the best MeetUps are those that  allow you to interact with the other people that show up." 
• "MeetUp formats that work well are either a meal or an evening after dinner session."
• "For great MeetUp attendance, plan out your topics a year in advance and publish them on the portal."
• "Set the MeetUp group rules, it's your group and have it for the purpose of helping others and creating community."
• "At the end of your brief MeetUp talk, make an offer for a free discovery session."  
• "What's going to attract people to your MeetUp is your title, purpose and schedule of talks."
• "Meetups are great for meeting people with like interests and drawing new clients into your healing practice quickly."
• "Creating your own events is a lot easier than you think, especially if you are using a program with infrastructure in place, like MeetUp."