What I Learned From a 3 Hour Basket Weaving Workshop

Yes, you read that right. I recently intentionally signed up to spend three hours on a Sunday attending a basket weaving class held at a coffee shop down the street from my house. My husband was away for the weekend attending a 49ers football game so what was I, as a 30-something year old, to do?

One's natural instinct may be to, oh, I don't know, spend time with friends, go for a hike, visit family, read a book, relax. But I've always been a doer and one of my favorite things to do is try something new.

I've always been a doer and one of my favorite things to do is try something new.

So I thought, what the heck. I can learn a new skill, meet some new people, and maybe stumble upon a hidden gift I didn't know I had. Basket weaving it was! I purchased my $65 ticket.

While my basket didn't quite turn out as I had expected (what is this, a basket for ants?), I did learn a few valuable lessons that can be applied to not only hosting a workshop, but many areas of business and marketing.

3 Lessons I Learned About Hosting a Workshop

1. Justifying Your Price - This workshop cost $65. A pretty hefty price tag in my opinion, but I figured that's only $21.66 per hour so not completely outrageous when compared to other lessons I'd taken (tennis, harmonica, pottery, etc.). The key to pricing a workshop is justifying the value of the experience you're providing. What are customers going to learn, gain or takeaway from the workshop? Is there something tangible they will leave with? Factor that into your price and promote that value! If you catch the interest of potential customers and effectively relay the value they're getting, they will justify the price themselves as I did by looking at it as an hourly rate.
2. Trust in Trust - While I previously had no interest in attending a basket weaving workshop, nor had I heard of the individual leading the workshop, I am a somewhat regular at the venue where the workshop was being held. When I saw on social media that this particular shop was the venue for the event and were 'co-presenting' I immediately had a sense of trust. You see, in my mind and my experience, that venue was an authority in other pastimes that I enjoyed. Their brand aligned with many of my values and to be honest, it's just really cute. I was sold without paying much attention to the details because of the affinity, and trust, I have for the company that was promoting the workshop.
3. Anyone Can Teach a Workshop - I suppose it's my own fault for romanticizing basket weaving, but I had assumed that the basket weaving workshop would be taught by a master basket weaver. I had imagined a weathered, slightly bent old lady who had been taught how to make baskets by hand by her grandmother eons ago and was passionate about sharing this gift with younger generations in the hopes that the craft would carry on for many, many years to come. The reality? The teacher of my basket weaving workshop was a 30-something, muslin dress wearing, mother of two who within 10 minutes of the workshop commencing confided in the 5 eager individuals who had showed up to learn the art of basket weaving, that she had been weaving baskets for a little under six months and taught herself on YouTube. While she was an expert by no means in the art of basket weaving, she did have passion & ambition which I'd argue counts for something. She also apparently has a knack for business because she made $300+ in three hours minus the cost of some raffia.

A Lesson In Value

The biggest lesson I learned from my basket weaving workshop experience was a lesson in value. These days everyone claims to be an expert in something (just take a look at any LinkedIn profile), but experience and knowledge don't matter if you're unable to provide value to your customers. On the flip-side, you don't have to be an expert in something to recognize what an audience wants and figure out how to give it to them. Here's an example: I have a friend who made six figures in two months by organizing a virtual event for calligraphy. *Spoiler alert* she doesn't know how to write calligraphy. She identified a niche (calligraphy) on Instagram that had a decent engaged community, with passionate experts eager to share their knowledge (micro-influencers). She connected with the experts, had them put together the content they'd teach, and then used their networks to cross-promote the event. She took a percentage of each ticket sold and on the day of the virtual event her only job was to start the video conference.

She successfully organized a virtual masterclass event with no overhead and made money doing it not because she was an expert, but because she recognized the needs of an audience and provided the value they wanted.

Summary

At the end of the day, while the basket weaving class wasn't exactly what I had expected, what I gained from the experience was worth the cost. I got to spend three hours with 5 lovely ladies. I got this post out of it. Oh, and all members of my immediate family will now be getting handwoven, one-of-a-kind, made-with-love, teeny tiny baskets for Christmas. Now that's what I call value.