If a coffee shop owner and a former minister can make money by leading groups then, perhaps, so can you and I.  In the following success stories see if there’s a method you’d like to try. With the right approach people are happy to pay you for the opportunity to hone a skill they already have or to re-invent themselves. Perhaps you can re-invent yourself and gain more financial security and independence as you build a side or main business, teaching others what you know.

Why Teach Groups Rather Than Individuals?

Remember what Willie answered when asked why he robs banks? “Because that’s where the money is.” Learning by yourself isn’t as much fun as when in an actively engaged group.

Shared enjoyment reinforces an individual’s belief that they like the class and themselves while in it, research shows. That’s why people usually learn faster in experiential group learning.  Plus they bond with each other, admire you (the leader) – and are more likely to recommend the class to others. That’s a faster path to profitability.

Choose the Group Teaching Approach That Works for You

What skill can you teach others so they can secure more work from current clients and/or get to new clients – or launch into a new profession? Here are six extremely different (and profitable) kinds of group training:

1. Enable others to jumpstart a specific kind of business you know inside out. After many years as the owner of a popular coffee shop, Jake was restless for a change.  He almost became a customer service trainer for retailers because he loved teaching others. Then he realized he could show others the most efficient way to launch a coffee café. After working with a curriculum instructor he designed a set of six weekend long courses so that even those with a full-time work could be sufficiently prepared before they left their job.

Then Jake contacted several columnists and bloggers who covered food or small business and suggested that his unfolding story of changing how he worked might interest their readers. With their coverage plus referral from his café customers he filled his first class.  Now his class is filled by word of mouth.

2. Offer experts a new tool to sell to their customers. Beyond fixing furnaces, when HVAC contractors (a huge market) get trained as a group  – to sell and install whole home air cleaners, they have a new reason to call on customers.  In an upscale market. They can target homeowners with respiratory problems and those who’ve sealed their homes for energy-savings.  When group training includes practice in how describe the service to clients, by phone and in person plus a promo kit: “Breath Healthy Air at Home” of advertising templates and tips sheets for consumers, graduates of the training are ready to jumpstart their outreach – and make more money sooner.

3. Teach others to lead groups, using your content.  Therapists and life coaches who are fans of former Methodist minister Susan Page’s book, Why Talking is Not Enough, rave about it to their clients.  Susan offered them a way to make money by leading groups in learning the principles in her book.  For a fee, Susan provided a training manual. Thus she created a new profit center for herself plus a way to sell more books and build her fan base through her cadre of trained group leaders.

Artists, Jane Pollak and Rebecca Shapiro lead groups on how to turn their creative bent into a business.

Tongue Fu! author Sam Horn takes a different tack.  She personally trains and certifies groups of people to teach her content.  

Even if you aren’t a published author you could create a book based on your expertise and launch a similar train-the-group leader practice.  Create an online social network or group blog through which the graduates can stay in touch, compare stories, help each other hone their practice, refer others to the training and contribute suggestions for improving your training.  Of course, your book will be sold as part of the training. And you’ll reward contributing individuals with free eBooks from partnering authors with complementary expertise and with recognition in the book and in your future training.

4. Offer an intensive, group learning through projects experience. Once you’ve attracted a sizeable base of happy graduates and become more well-known for your work, you might launch a more in-depth opportunity for a group to learn together, as Seth Godin just did with his  crowdsourced alternative MBA program. In creating your steps to launch yours, read his innovative and efficient way to attract and organize participants in this experiential, project-based program.

5. Host an open-to-the-public seminar or series of seminars, using free social media tools like MeetUp (to announce the meeting details), Paypal (for payments). Although MeetUp is mainly used for enthusiasts who share an interest, many, like Edith Yeung are charging for meetings. For the niche market you seek to serve (the more narrow the more lucrative) you might lead a seminar and/or host other experts or panels to speak to your group’s specific interest.  Alternatively, you might post your class on Biznik (as a member) or Teachstreet.

6. Generate recurring revenue by providing follow-up opportunities

To deepen the loyalty and expertise in those you teach consider offering an ongoing program of learning.  That might include telebriefings that are recorded for member download, an annual gathering for graduates, a group blog, and contests for best suggestions for improvements. 

Create a community. Include online crowdsourcing features that enable those you’ve trained to get to know each other, share and compare their knowledge – and to be rewarded for their best contributions (as voted by co-members).

Rewards could include recognition on the site and giving credit to them, during future group training and in the educational materials.  Plus you may bundle gift packages for these highest-performing participants.  Since there are other experts and companies that want to reach the kind of people you teach, ask them for contributions to that gift package. Such contributions might include books, tapes, other products, one hour of individual coaching, etc.

Also offer special training for those who make the most valuable contributions to improving what you teach and/or who attract and lead the most groups.  Following the 80/20 Pareto Principle, your top 20 percent probably generate the most profits for you and for themselves.  I’m inclined to think it is actually your top five percent. 

Yet taking extraordinary care of all the people you’ve trained is not only the right thing to do, you never know which group leader will suddenly gets an insight that dramatically improves your training or has a group member who introduces your approach to a whole new niche market or attracts a media story that inspires new people to seek your training.

Ponder this:  In your industry or profession, what special skill could you teach that enables people to:

• stand out in their profession (job protection)

• differentiate their work from that of the competition

• enter a new market?

Are you interested in translating your expertise into group training as a new way to earn a living or to create a new profit center?  

Will you “simply” train groups and possibly certify graduates? 

Will you offer them a manual or learning kit or ongoing in-person and online training?

Will you foster a community around the work as a way of improving your content and enabling people to learn from each other?

Are you already leading groups, using your content or others?  I’d love to hear about your experience. 

What methods you are using to attract, train, recruit and reward new group members? 

What do you offer for free and how do you charge?

I’d love to learn from you and to share what you’ve discovered.

That’s what Loopt founder, Sam Ashton did at the huge Consumer Electronics Show.  How?  Like his contacts he used Loopt to make his whereabouts known. Find friends out shopping on a nearby street or out dining at a restaurant in the same neighborhood. 

Willing to lose locational privacy to find selected friends or colleagues? Increasingly people are –and this may be somewhat age-related.  Brave ones like Ben Hoffman, are using it to find a date. Younger people may be more comfortable with such location-based sensing “convenience.”  

(How much latitude do you want to give your friends? What if some acquaintances find they’ve been left out?)  Swarming to meet spontaneously or meeting up at the last minute is more the rage. And, as neuroscientists have discovered in observing modern taxi drivers, repeated use of GPS map devices is re-wiring our brains. Adding “social location-aware” apps to a phone will expand those brain changes in literally how we see and respond to what is around us. Who knows? You might meet up to go photowalking together.

Your hobby or work expertise or belief may be unusual, yet it’s likely that people near you share your interest. Or they may just want to have fun. How can you find those kindred spirits? By hosting an ever-better MeetUp.

Also consider start a MeetUp to create a profit center for yourself. Or to hone a skill or support a cause.

What’s a MeetUp? Let masterful Lee LeFever quickly show you.Imagine making money by making others happier. See a large one to get ideas.

• Perhaps, like Liz Ryan, you’ve built a successful online business out of serving clusters of local constituencies. Using MeetUp you can offer your people a new service. Face-to-face gatherings. Through your MeetUp, individuals can chat with people they’ve met online.

• They can meet regularly in some format that they collectively choose, with your leadership. Suggest formats such a mastermind or other kind of mutual support group, cross-consulting or speaker series.

• Forge an alliance of your local MeetUp chapters.  Get ideas from how other alliances work. Recruit and reward local organizers who host “our” gatherings.

• Let each “chapter” decide whether they want their MeetUps to be free or for-fee or a mix of both. Should your local leaders be paid or share in the revenue raised through a speaker series or set of seminars?

• Get input from your host leaders by arranging regular conference calls with them via a free service such as Skype or FreeConferenceCall. In true Me2We fashion you can facilitate their sharing of ideas for MeetUp formats and topics. Explore how these phone seminars and in-person meetings can complement the online offering that you, like Liz Ryan, offer your clients.

• Take a look at an online, for-profit model (in which I participate) that also supports face-to-face gatherings that are organized and hosted by members – biznik.

• Or start or join a MeetUp of your peers. I belong to the Bay Area Reporters and Journalists organized by Susan Kuchinskas.

Why explore these ideas?

Because, if your expertise or experience matches the interest of a distinct niche market, then the approach outlined in this post enables you to enlarge your circle of friends and/or make money in supporting others’ strong needs or interests.

Edith Yeung landed in the U.S. from Hong Kong and has not stopped for breath since she arrived. She’s living her version of the Asian American dream, extremely inter-connected (Asian) and self-reliant (American). She’s crafted several ways to find mentors and colleagues and to encourage other young Asian immigrants to do the same. After finding success as a high tech executive in Silicon Valley, she left corporate life, moved to a lively neighborhood in S.F., volunteered to lead several local support groups, some for entrepreneurs and is laying the ground work with a partner to launch a new venture. Edith and her partner have spent several months creating the systems to make every part of their business run smoothly.

This “go slow to go fast” approach has enabled Edith and her partner to confirm that they:
• do share common values
• can work together in ways that play to their strengths,
• can recognize tasks they can sub-contract out and to whom

Also, if you want to create a close-knit community around your work, cause or personal interest, hear Edith (on this podcast) describe the format she uses for the mutual-support meetings she leads. Each month she attracts a crowd of around 100. Then discover more ways to host lively meetings of people who share your interests.

Meet people who share your interests and you’re bound to become friends with some. Want to meet other Shih Tzus owners? Find a fellow hiker, skier, cyclist, kayaker or climber? Get a pick-up basketball game wherever you are? Start a team? Eat raw food?

Organize a speaker series, and charge attendees? Ask for a donation? Recruit a co-sponsoring organization to attract more attendees? Get a free web site and/or social network site where your new group can also gather online? Or provide the event calender others use to find meetings? Attract media coverage?

Jump on a growing trend. Use extremely user-friendly online services (many are free) to enable people with passionate, shared interests or needs to actually meet in person. Quickly, in some cases. Facilitating face-to-face meetings is one social media trend that continues to grow in popularity while others are beginning to wilt. An Italian comic-turned-blogger/activist (tenth most linked-to blog in the world) created “V-day”, a populist movement via the meetings he organized.

Want to be the popular Connector to arrange gatherings with people who share your interest who live near you? Find a free meeting place, announce your meetings and invite others to come – even charge for attendance, as Edith Yeung does, keeping her overhead next to nil, using PayPal. You can do it all at MeetUp. Next step? Learn from other meeting organizers. Then start an alliance of local groups.

Hear how to enlarge your circle of friends and more in this lively interview with MeetUp’s Andres Glusman.