Well, in my opinion, YES!

I do mind-body-spirit, wellness, complementary health fairs quite regularly and straight “health” fairs a bit less regularly. Here are a few compelling reasons why you should, and a few tips that could make them work for you.

Why you should display at wellness fairs

• Your primary aim at a fair is to get people’s names onto your list. Be sure you have a proper email list for them to sign (not just a blank sheet of paper) so it looks official and you capture the information you require. The challenge then becomes GETTING people to part with their information. One way I have done this is to buy about 50-100 cheap and cheerful gift bags at a £1 shop (or dollar shop in US). Buy ones that are 3-4 in a package for £1 (or $1). Fill them up with leaflets and articles, and put a sticker of your company (with your website URL) on the front of the bag. Line up all these nice “goodie bags” on your table. Tell people they can have one if they give you their email address. I use this method all the time to promote my Global Wellness Circle, so it means the bag is filled with flyers from lots of other practitioners as well as myself. However, you can find things to fill it with that are just from you. This strategy works like a charm… people simply want that bag, even though it is filled with promo materials! I routinely get about 50 new names on my list at every event I do.     
• Your secondary aim is to get people to agree to a free consultation or sample coaching session. At such events, the best way to do that is to offer a 10 minute micro session. Be careful, however, and only offer it to someone who is already engaging with you and who seems like a likely client. If you simply have a sign up that says “free sample sessions” you are likely to have a queue of people who are looking at you like some sort of free psychic or tarot card reader, and they are only doing it for entertainment. This is a waste of your time. If you do a micro session, stick to the 10 minute limit, and leave them with an enquiry. Get their contact info and see if they are willing to set up a full consultation with you. Put it in the diary, and make sure to drop them an email that says, “I look forward to our consultation on X date.”    

Things you should have in place for the show: 

• Get yourself a speaker slot. This is ESSENTIAL! Most of these fairs will give you the opportunity to do a 20 – 40 minute talk. Many of them do not charge an extra fee for this, but some might. If you do a talk, make sure that you have a clear call to action built into it (i.e., to sign up for a course, telecourse, workshop, purchase a book, etc). If you give a talk, and have no call to action, you are wasting a golden opportunity. Be SURE you get people to sign in and provide their email address when they attend your talk (ask them to tick a box giving you permission to send them info on your upcoming workshops).
• Be SURE you have at least one other person at your table with you. Choose that person should know all about what you do and should be comfortable and genuine with helping to promote your services. Sometimes I give someone a portion of the table to display their own products, in exchange for supporting me. How do they help? Well, you are going to need time of here and there for “bio” breaks, a walk about, lunch, etc., No one can go all day without some relief! Also, if you are giving a talk, you don’t want your table unmanned, or you will lose potential clients/sales. When you do walk about, don’t be away for more than 15 minutes at a time and make sure that you are making use of the time by establishing valuable contacts with other vendors at the event.
• Give attention to your display. This doesn’t have to be an expensive investment. A lot of people think you need an expensive banner or sign. While flashy signs/banners are nice, they cost a lot and are inflexible (i.e., once you have them, you can’t change them). A cheaper and more adaptable option is to have felt/Velcro display boards. I have a 3-panel tabletop board that is very lightweight and fits in a carrier bag. I take it everywhere with me (even on trains). I use one side to promote my coaching/Wellness Circle, and I have the other side JUST for my book if I am at a book event. I can change it around and add new things as they come in (ex: a new book review, a radio show I want to promote, a new course I am offering, etc).    
• Create a few attractive things people can take away for free … NOT just flyers and business materials! Write an article or a whole newsletter they can have (making sure your photo, bio and contact details are on the bottom). Free articles are some of the best and easiest freebies you can offer. Make sure it is on a topic that is immediately relevant to your niche and the kinds of clients you want to attract.
• Create a few things you can SELL. Don’t have any ideas? Try recording some visualisations on an audio CD, for instance. Slap a label on it with your contact details. Sell if for what anyone would charge for a CD. Even better, make an audio course and workbook, and put it all on a CDR. Try to make your money back for the table fees.  

The last mind-body-spirit fair I did, I made back every penny of my rent from book sales, I made a new client (who is still with me) and I collected 60 new names for my Wellness Circle, which turned into revenue as pretty much all of them have since started attending my Wellness Circle events. PLUS, these folks are now receiving regular updates about my workshops, books, etc., and many of them are buying them now that they have gotten to “know” me.

So all in all, wellness fairs are a great way for coaches to be seen, increase your list, and establish long-term clients/customers. 

If you are planning an upcoming fair, drop me a line and let me know if I can help in any way.

Author of Amazon best-seller
The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self

Founder/Leader of the
Global Wellness Circle: the holistic HEART of Planet Earth!

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Monday 23 March 2009
Park Road West Methodist Church Hall,
Park Road West (just off Roff Ave) MK41 7SB

• Rich Gilbert, Forever Living. Aloe Vera the Miracle Plant. Historic facts, health benefits, and emerging advancements in the world of medical research.
• Rosamund Hoskins, Alexander Technique Teacher. Alexander Technique and Performance. How simple body awareness can transform your experience of performance as a musician, public speaker and other forms of presentation.
• Ursula Kraus-Harper, Registered Homeopath. Homeopathy for Menopause. A guide to natural homeopathic treatments for the relief of a range of menopausal symptoms.
• Lynn Serafinn of Create-a-Life Personal Transformation Coaching. A Formula for Joy (Part 3). Simple secrets for unlocking joy in your life now.
• PLUS music from John Levine of Alpahmusic to get your brain into a stress-free alpha state.
• AND exhibits, socialising and great community vibes.
• Come join us!

Doors open: 7 PM for music, social networking, displays
Programme: 7.30 – 9.30 PM
Entry £4 at the door. FREE to GWC members.

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Listen LIVE or “on demand” at
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn

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So along comes Wednesday and I log on to my switchboard for the show. John had agreed to call in at least 5 minutes before air time to touch base before we went live. But 5 min before the start of the show, there was still no one on the guest line. I watched the countdown… 4 min, 3, 2, 1… Suddenly I’m live on the air. The theme music plays. Still no guest. Yikes!

When I was trained in Leadership, we learned that a real leader is supposed to be able to throw out “the plan” when needed, and create something from anything… or nothing, as the case may be. Well, all I had was the title of the show, and little old me. No back-up plan whatsoever.

Hmmm… I thought. So what can I create from this?

Ok, so after the theme music died down, I do my usual spiel to start. I talk about last week’s show, and even the week before. Still no guest. Hmm… we are already 3 minutes into the show. So, I go ahead and introduce my guest anyway, but am completely transparent and tell the audience he’s not there, if you can believe that! I tell them I am just going to talk about the topic anyway, trusting he’ll show up.

TALK?? On what? I ask myself …This is supposed to be an INTERVIEW.”

Anyway, I took the topic of the show, “Using Creativity to Heal the Self” and just started “winging it”. I started talking about my own journey of creativity and how it helped heal me (or not). I ended up talking about my own creative process in writing the book (at least part of it). I spoke about how I let go of control of the need to create and allowed things to just evolve, and how this actually opened up not only my creativity, but allowed me to “heal” from many wounds from the past. I spoke about how different characters appeared for my book, how I “allowed” the characters to write the stories, and how this bought me to a deeper understanding of the story I was writing. I spoke about my story “Learning to Breathe” (part of the section on the “Iris” in The Garden of the Soul) where I wrote about my mother’s death. I spoke about my character “Crow”, who was inspired by an actual crow who came to my window one morning about 2 years ago, and prompted the flow and meaning of the story. I spoke about how Crow asked me questions to which I didn’t premeditate the answers, and how I simply allowed the conversation to unfold in the book. I spoke about the wisdom and the healing this kind of organic creative process brought me regarding many pivotal events in my life, such as my mother’s death.

Then, just as I was “sort of” making a point, and with a whole 14 minutes left to the show, my guest John Levine finally shows up. Apparently, he had been trying to call in for half an hour but couldn’t get through to the call (bless him!). But, as fate would have it, he came in right at a moment when I was just completing the idea of “allowing” things to evolve naturally (but where I would have gone after that, don’t ask me!), so I just sort of used the moment to create from whatever showed up and said something like, “We’re going to be creative right now and allow this moment to happen exactly as it is.”

Now, one would think that this is probably a host’s worst nightmare. It’s like all those dreams where you are pushed out on stage without ever having had a rehearsal (ever have those?). But you know what? I felt perfectly calm. I was well aware that I probably babbled my silly head off for 16 minutes. But I didn’t care. I felt connected in some WEIRD way, and simply remained open and fully transparent. Now, I find this a very strange thing to have done, and regardless of how “good” the babble ended up being (hahaha… I haven’t listened to it yet! Maybe YOU could listen to it and let me know!), I still feel pretty proud that I was able to hold the room for 16 minutes solo, and actually stay somehow on the topic of the show.

Even though we only had 16 minutes, we managed to have just enough time for John to briefly tell how he first embarked on his journey to producing Alpha music. He spoke a little bit about how being the witness to his father’s lifetime of stress-related illnesses compelled him to find answers to the mind-body-spirit connection, which ultimately led him to use his musical talents to create music that can alter the alpha waves in the brain to restore health and wellbeing to listeners. He told me about his secret desire to record an album in the Taj Mahal some day. Paul Horn did that in the 70s on his album Inside, but all he had was a flute. Bringing in a grand piano would undoubtedly be a little bit more challenging! Unfortunately, we only had time for a small excerpt of one of John’s track on the air, but if you go to his site  at  www.silenceofmusic.com, he’s got loads of clips for your to hear. Of course, I will have John on the show again sometime soon. He’s a lovely person with a great story and a MASSIVE repertoire of Alpha wave inducing music. So and I really want to have the chance to present him properly on another show.

By the way, John will be appearing LIVE here in Bedford at our Global Wellness Circle evening this Monday 16 February at the Park Road West Church Hall, just off Roff Avenue. CLICK HERE for full details, or visit http://www.global-wellness-circle.com and click “events”.

So the question is, I wonder why the Universe wished this to happen? I trust I shall find out eventually.

But I must admit, I now have a real appreciation for the role of a co-host!

Be SURE to check out John’s site at http://www.silenceofmusic.com. He has a MASSIVE amount of music there, and you can here samples online.

Warm wishes,
Lynn

P.S.: Have a listen to my own creative process while I was creating from chaos:

AND it would be great if you gave it a little heart to mark it as your favourite! It will help me get higher in the ratings.

OR… subscribe the podast HERE:

P.P.S.: Next week’s guest is Royal Amber Rojas who has an amazing story of survival to tell! Make SURE you all tune in on Wed 18 Feb at 6.30 PM UK time to hear her incredible story on the air. You can listen to the show online at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn, either live OR “on demand”.

P.P.P.S.: Come on over and join Amber, me and lots of other colourful people on my new social network “The Garden of the Soul” at http://gardenofthesoul.ning.com

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**Olive Hickmott of Empowering Health. Energy Matters. Understanding your own personal energy system can be as easy as brushing your teeth!

**Isobel Bradley of Neways. Vitamins and Minerals: What can they do for your health?

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**Special Treat: MUSIC by local Watford harpist Lucy Haslar. 7-7.30pm and during interval

**PLUS exhibits, socialising and great community spirit!

Doors open: 7 PM for music, social networking, displays
Programme: 7.30 – 9.30 PM
Entry £4.50 at the door. FREE to all GWC members from ANY Circle!
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2009-01-29
End Time: 21:30

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• Lynn Serafinn, your host. Creating from Community. A bit of fun from one of her Co-Active Workshops to get the night going.
• Sarah Hunt of Peaceful Living Reiki. Understanding Your Chakras. How balancing your chakras can improve your overall health and wellbeing
• Ann Peckham of the Real Renaissance Cafe. We\’ve Got the Beet! How prepare a delicious and nutritious raw beet root soup. Come have a taste!
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• Lynn Serafinn of Create-a-Life Personal Transformation Coaching. The Joy Formula. A simple model for tapping into what you really need to feel joyful all time (part 1).
• PLUS exhibits, socialising and great community vibes. Come join us!

Doors open: 7 PM for music, social networking, displays
Entry £3.50 at the door. FREE to ANY GWC members from any Circle.

Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2009-01-19
End Time: 21:30

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Doors open: 7.30 PM for social networking,
presentations, and sample demonstrations.
Programme: 8.00 – 9.30 PM

Entry £4.00 at the door. FREE to GWC members from ANY chapter!

Here’s what’s on…

• Karrin Lawrence, your host introduces…
• Peter Moorhead of Celebrate Health and Fitness. The Difference between Men and Women
• Anita Breach of LifeStyle Group. Natural, Cleansing Weight Management
• Ursula Kraus-Harper Homeopathy. Period Problems? Homeopathy Can Help.
• Valerie Gommon Midwifery Practice, Independent Midwife. What is an Independent Midwife?
• PLUS exhibits, socialising, great community projects, local charities profiled. Great vibes and refreshments for all!

The Global Wellness Circle…

the HOLISTIC HEART of planet earth!

Web: www.global-wellness-circle.com
Email: circle@global-wellness-circle.com

Global Tel: 0845 880 25 28

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