Read Part 1 Here
As the song goes, ‘I did my best, but I guess my best wasn’t good enough.’ A week later, still nothing. I had to check whether the email really sent. To my surprise it was still there in my sent items.
What else could I do?
I decided to continue.
Forwarding emails to email lists.
Scavenging for more email addresses. Crawling my old emails, looking earnestly for email list gold.
Still nothing. No one had even registered, let alone paid.
At least I had tried, no one could fault me there.
One uneventful night, sitting on my bed, I heard the familiar text message sound of my blackberry phone. I was curious to know who could be texting me at night, so I reached out to grab my phone from the side stool.
As, I opened to see the message, I realised it was just an sms bank alert. I was a little concerned because I hadn’t used my account in a while. So, I was hoping I hadn’t been wrongly debited.
But when I looked closer I realised it was a credit alert. And when I peered at the amount, it was 5,000 naira. Who would send me 5000 naira, I wondered.
Then it clicked.
I screamed and I jumped out of my bed. I started jumping and praising God. I kept jumping, borderline hysterical and then the tears followed swiftly. I was now jumping, praising God and crying. Tears of utter joy, tears of endorsement from my God. I wept. I am not crying now, you are crying.
When I am calmed down, another reality dawned on me. The HR Bootcamp Seminar was real. Someone had paid and they must be served. We couldn’t host this entire seminar for an audience of 1.
No way.
I called my former colleague and friend Peter Adetunji. We brainstormed and he offered to help me by sourcing ‘2 young chaps’ as he called them to help me with marketing. They would focus on field marketing and professional study centres. They would distribute the flyers at places with footfall.
Then I went back to my emails.
I emailed the speakers and personal friends, enlisting them to forward the seminar details to anyone who would benefit. I noticed some forwarded to their own mailing lists and copied me.
My dad had already told me his admin manager would be attending, so I knew by now I had 2 guaranteed attendees😁.
I forwarded more emails to my former colleagues. I shared the flyer and landing page details on Facebook. I was on a rampage just sharing everywhere shareable.
The seminar was in less than 2 weeks.
I had another idea.
I would set a deadline. Registration would close at a date before the seminar day. I would email everyone again informing them that registration was closing and spaces were limited to the capacity of the hall.
This time, no more dilly dallying. I sent the email, fast.
Then the registrations started trickling in.
A few, everyday.
Still only 1 payment received.
I started preparing nonetheless. The registrations continued to drip in. The flyer had promised light refreshments would be served, so I sourced for snacks and drinks on a very tight budget.
Another payment finally came through. My heart gladdened. Then a few more payments came in. It felt surreal. I had started to record the payments and in just a few days about 15 payments had come in.
It felt good but not comfortable. I was indeed grateful for the handful of payments but anxious that a near empty hall will be disappointing to the few people in attendance.
I needed to get more confirmed attendees and the only assurance of attendance I had was the payments that came through.
The two young chaps introduced by Peter had started helping. I hadn’t met either of them in person. One of them was Lanre Yusuf. He was contemplating resigning his job and needed some help with his next steps. We exchanged a few emails, discussing his prospects. He was keen on spreading our gospel to his personal network, which included some students at a study center he attended. He updated me that on getting to one of the study centers, most of the people had already heard about the seminar. He was very optimistic that more people would register and asked if he could assist me on the event day. I gladly obliged. I emailed him to meet me early on the event day. I would need help with attendance registration.
It was a 4 days to the d-day. I decided to send a final reminder of the registration closing and had accepted my fate whatever it may be.
A few more registrations came in, then some more payments. I kept the payment log. The numbers were steadily rising and more than doubled up to about 35.
I decided to check out the venue again. Last minute checks to make sure everything was set.
It was the day of registration closing. My phone beeped with a credit alert. Then another one followed shortly. Then another one still. Till the wee hours of the morning, my phone kept beeping with credit alerts. I kept counting, all the way till 75.
75 people had paid to attend the HR Bootcamp Seminar. Thank you Jesus, it could only be you.
Continue Reading Part 3 Here
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