Imagine you had a program that generated over $150,000 a year. Let's also imagine that this program always had a waiting list and that clients loved it. Would you stop the program, or let it run? In 2006, we started the Protege Program and by 2009, it came to an abrupt halt. But was it abrupt? And why did it stop in the first place? These stories and more show up in the Psychotactics story. There's not a moment of boredom as we head into the roller coaster of 2009 and beyond. Where we explore the crazy world of workshops, this time outside the safety of California. It's one nutty, exciting ride. Buckle up, because it's action-packed and full of lessons for your own small business. http://www.psychotactics.com/stopped-protege/ Psychotactics Workshop Story: Part 2 “This transcript hasn’t been checked for typos, so you may well find some. If you do, let us know and we’ll be sure to fix them.”   It was February 2006 I’d just started a crazy venture called the Protege. Well it was crazy for me at least. I’d written a sales letter promising that I would teach six courses in one year. The courses were Article Writing, Copy Writing, Information Product Strategy, Website Strategy, Core Marketing Strategy and  PR (Public Relations). And no sooner than the Protege sessions started up when I had this idea of holding a workshop for the Proteges in California. There was only one problem This workshop was not part of what I’d promised. It was an extra workshop of five days. For the first three days we’d be working on Website Strategy and the next two days would be closed-door Protege sessions. So the problem that arose instantly was one of scheduling, money, effort and a few dozen assorted issues. For me it meant that I had to book a room somewhere in the U.S., book flights and do an entire workshop in slides in less than eight weeks. What’s more interesting is that the workshop didn’t exist. Notes didn’t exist and neither did the slides. This was compounded by a few interesting facts The Protege year was something that was just dreamed up in a salesletter. No material existed for any of the six courses (today they all exist in audio/text, but back then I was creating it as the courses rolled along). So I had this cute little challenge of hosting live teleclasses (training calls), creating content on the fly, managing a forum with 15 proteges and preparing for a workshop all at once. Admittedly those were problems that were pretty rough but that was the least of my problems I also had a bit of a mutiny on my hands. I hadn’t made the workshop a compulsory attendance issue (you could attend if you like to) but I sure stressed it was important. I also required each of the proteges to cough up an additional $500 for the workshop (it was just to cover the costs of the venue etc.) This additional payment didn’t go down well. What made it worse was they had to travel to Campbell, California, stay in a hotel and had all of this additional expenditure—not to mention they all had to take at least a week off from work. They were not happy in the least. It was almost like a bit of bait and switch. But in my mind it wasn’t bait and switch at all I really felt that those five days would be of immense help to the Proteges. For one there was the factor of learning in a compressed state (over five days). There was also the factor of connecting with each other because when people connect, they work better after the connection. To me it seemed quite sensible to have a meeting like this totally out of the blue (just kidding). But this sudden move kicked up a ton of dust and I then spent a fair bit of time on the phone, and via the forums and email sorting things out. Once things were sorted out the real work began We had to find a venue and get on with the job of getting the show on the road. Because Renuka’s sister, Audrey lived in Campbell, she did some scouting around for us and we soon located a meeting room at the adorable Pruneyard Plaza just 5 minutes