We are agents of change. We’re here to make a difference, but we’re also businesspeople. We want to offer our unique contribution in the world, touch lives AND live well.

To do that, we have to pay attention to our businesses, which means getting friendly with some important numbers.

So, today, I’m going to show you a simple yet powerful tool that will help you evaluate the success of your live events, large or small, and also help you predict the outcome of future events.

If you have not yet added live events to your marketing mix, stay tuned. This article may inspire you to consider it!

Per Head Average
The tool I’d like to share with you is your per head average (PHA). To show you how to calculate it, I’m going to walk you through an early live event of mine. Now, these results are pretty unheard of these days, so rather than thinking of them as benchmarks, think of them as numbers to strive for. (If you attend Event Profit Secrets in February, I’ll show you the steps to reach these heights.)

The story goes that early last year I had a live event with approximately180 buying units. A “buying unit” is an industry term for a person at the event who is eligible to buy. (Most attendees are a buying unit, but if a person’s spouse or assistant is there as a guest, the two of them would count as one.)

At the event, we did a million dollars in sales. That figure includes the upsells into other programs, the sales of products in the back of the room and the sales made by our select speakers.

To calculate my per head average, I divide the sales, that million dollars, by the 180 buying units, and get a per head average of $5,555.

Now, that doesn’t mean that everyone in the room invested $5,555; it means that if I put a “butt in the seat” — another industry term — that butt is worth an average of $5,555.

Like I said, that’s an extraordinary PHA, but we did even better at my last event in October of 2010, when we had 400 people, did 2.5 million in sales, for a per head average of $6,500!

How Knowing Your PHA Helps You
Knowing your PHA not only helps you evaluate the success of your event but it also helps you make sounder decisions on the front end of upcoming events. A few of these decisions include:

1. How much to invest in the event and on marketing. If you have a PHA of $1,500 and you expect 50 attendees at your upcoming event, you can roughly predict a $75,000 event. Now, you’re no longer in the dark while making decisions! You can avoid overspending, and cutting deeply into your profit, as well as underspending and diminishing the potential — and transformative power — of your event.

2. How much to charge people to attend. Knowing what a “butt in a seat” is worth to you helps you to evaluate the question, “Should I charge less and get more butts so I have a bigger back-end potential (no pun intended!), or stack my profits on the front end by charging more up front, have fewer butts in seats and, therefore, potentially less of a PHA at the event?”

Now for the kicker. If attendees don’t pay anything to attend your event, then you are presenting to a less invested audience. There is a direct correlation between the investment your audience makes to attend and the income potential of the event.

My favorite scenario is to lead a highly invested audience of people who love my work and have already shown me that by investing in themselves through my products and services prior to the event.

I’ll be teaching you those strategies and much more at Event Profit Secrets in February. Click here to learn how to put on magical events, big or small, that transform lives as well as your business and help you secure your entire yearly income in just one fabulous weekend!

Are you ready to have your own profitable events? Let us know below!