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kraut mobs vs paid workshops
This is something that’s been on my mind a lot. I’m still figuring out how to articulate it, so I’ll just lay it out as clearly as I can.
Many of us (if not all?!) fermenters work from passion and enthusiasm, which is a gift—but it also creates its own challenges.
Right now, I focus on in-person workshops about fermented vegetables. I also sell fermented vegetables at markets as a way to promote those workshops. But the balance isn’t working smoothly. Producing for the market takes a lot of time (and wrist pain), while I need my limited working hours for the sales and marketing required to actually fill my workshops.
So it functions, but it’s not yet sustainable or well balanced.
I’m trying to figure out how to restructure this so I can attract more people to my workshops and build a system that is more aligned with how I want to work and earn.
Through this membership, I was introduced to kraut mobs, which I found absolutely brilliant and very close to my heart.
It made me wonder: could I organise a few kraut mobs per year as a way to promote my paid workshops?
My challenge is that I tend to overgive and overdeliver… how do I design kraut mobs in a way that feels generous and valuable, but still clearly functions as a bridge into my paid workshops?
Or am I overcomplicating this and is it actually just fear talking?
I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this.
admin1 Comment-
Hi Celine
I’d love to hear what other members think about this but one of the things I was hoping to achieve through the Kraut Mobs initiative was that they would be a ‘gateway’ for members to reach new audiences and, afterwards, ‘upsell’ other workshops to participants from the Kraut Mobs, who had caught the fermentation bug.
Our local Kraut Mob is on June 12th, which I’m co-hosting with @karen-black and the plan is that it will boost Karen’s confidence to host further workshops and give her a ready made audience that might be interested in more indepth learning. Check in with Karen later in the month to see how it went from that perspective. Our event will be about 1.5 hours, fun and light no in depth fermentation talk but obviously explaining how sauerkraut works. A few cabbages (people will be bringing knives and chopping boards), a big bowl (or a few bowls) and folks bring their own jars. They’ll go away with instructions for their first jar and hopefully, a hunger to learn more!Here’s more background info on the kraut mobs: https://thefermentationhub.com/kraut-mobs/
And here’s info on how we running ours: https://thefermentationhub.com/kraut-mobs-templates/In the end we charged £25 per person as this is what the venue wanted so that it was consistent with other workshops there. I would normally charge £60 per person for a fully fledged fermentation workshop (About 3 hours).
The other gateway to new workshop customers that I found useful was hosting small low-key ‘Gut Health Seminars’ – a talk and taste looking more holistically at gut health plus how fermentation fits into that. So I made bite sized samples of easy gut friendly food and talked through how it is easier than you think to incorporate 30 different plant based foods in a week into your diet. I also talked about stress and sleep etc. I charged £25/head (too low in hindsight) but it made a decent profit and I gained new customers both for my products and for workshops. I would host about 20 people at each event in a local coffee shop and they took money at the bar in exchange.
If I had carried on doing this I would have joined forces with a nutritionist and made a bigger event out of it.
Happy to jump on a call if that helps.
I personally think your biggest obstacle for you right now is self belief and confidence. You have everything else totally nailed!
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