Jenna Rainey

CEO + ARTIST + EDUCATOR

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I’m Jenna Rainey. 

I'm an artist, self-taught designer, and multi-faceted creative entrepreneur who is hell-bent on teaching everyone how to find their inner creative voice.

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A highly creative nerd with a unique breed of humor and the proud earner of a self-bestowed award for being the world’s most curious and driven human.

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teaching a calligraphy workshop

Why Teach In-Person Workshops

Art Topics

8/12/2019

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Jenna 

Creative workshops are such a hit right now. It seems like everyone is looking for a way to spend their Saturday afternoon getting creative with friends, and I don't blame em! Since 2013, I've been teaching both my beginner modern calligraphy class and intro to floral watercolor class. These in-person workshops have taken me all over the country and world, from Singapore to Seattle, New York to Paris.

While these in-person workshops have made it a great way to travel and see the world, there are a few other reasons why you should teach in-person workshops:

 

Great source of additional income

When I first started my business, I was barely making any money. I was primarily working with custom wedding clients, when a local shop reached out and asked if I would teach some workshops at their space. I think my first ever workshop we charged $75 per person! That's laughable to me now, because it's incredibly time-consuming and the cost of my materials was barely made up for. But it was exciting!

Because the shop I partnered with had a great following, the class sold out! I had under 1,000 followers at the time, and they had somewhere around 20K. Over the last few years, I've taught thousands of students, raised my prices a few times, and have been able to make good revenue off of in-person workshops. In fact, in the first year of teaching, I would walk away most weekends with an additional $3,000! This was before my bigger following, before the book deals, and before I knew what I was doing. Were my workshops filled with great info, yes! Did my students walk away with high-quality supplies, absolutely! Did I have everything figured out before I ever taught a workshop…NO! But guess what? This additional source of income is what helped me sustain self-employment and grow my reputation and business as an artist!

 

Will help grow your audience

Like I mentioned above, when I started teaching in-person workshops, I didn't have anywhere close to the audience I have now! But what I did recognize was that in order to book sold-out workshops and grow my audience, I had to partner up with the right venues! The chances of me selling out a class where the venue wouldn't promote sign-ups, or only had 1,000 followers were much slimmer than if I had help in this area! Makes sense, right? It's so crucial that you think about this when partnering up with someone…what do they bring to the table? Do you need help filling the class? Etc.

Along with the venue, think about adding a hashtag for your workshops, and telling students to post to it! This also a great way to generate exposure from teaching classes! (Pssst, my workshop hashtag is #jennaraineyworkshop 🙂

 

Positions you as an expert in your industry

The first couple of years of teaching, I went HARD. I was teaching almost every weekend, two workshops a day. Which means 9 full hours the day of, but also promoting the class before, ordering supplies, packing kits, etc. I learned a lot in a very short amount of time about the medium I was teaching, and what questions people have about it. This helped me become a better teacher and listener, but also became a very reputable part of my reputation as an artist and was eventually what drew my publisher to me for my first book deal!

Teaching in-person workshops has really opened a lot of doors and opportunities for me and my business and could do the same for you! Are you a weaver? A designer? A health coach? LITERALLY anything! Education isn't going anywhere, it's only growing in popularity, and it could do some amazing things for you, your business and your family!

If you want to learn more about teaching workshops, check out my course Workshop Teacher Academy!

by Jenna Rainey 

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  1. Julianna says:

    Hello, My name is Jewels and I’m currently a stay at home mom to a beautiful bright girl. She will be entering kindergarten the beginning of next month leaving a whole bunch of time on my hands… lately I’ve been focusing on bringing a long time dream of mine to life – I’ve been debating on starting my own blog so I started meeting some woman that have made a career out of something they are extremely passionate about. While researching I came across your email and I’d love to get your honest opinion on my idea/plan.
    So, I have many skills and talents but the one I am most passionate and proud of is my sobriety and artistic talents. Through art, meditation and nature I have created a healthy balance which has been an extremely positive impact on my sober life. With the ever growing epidemic of addiction (primarily drug and alcohol abuse) I was thinking of creating a healthy, upbeat outlet for my fellow peers in sobriety. Art Therapy has been a major influence in both getting me to surrender as well as begin my journey into recovery. The classes/blog that Id like to pursue wouldn’t have to target just substance abuse recovery – it would also benefit gamblers, shop-aholics, over eaters, binge eaters, bulimics, anorexics and/or mental health candidates, etc. We all have the same common denominator so why not explore the wonderful of recovery through our artistic connections with the universe. My idea is that the classes would target Others like myself who find pleasure in drawing, painting (watercolor/acrylics), crafting, DIY’s, meditation yoga, nature, as well as living a sober life (or even others who are looking to get away from addiction but haven’t just yet)

    If you think this would be a good idea and you could help me bring this goal/dream of mine to life I would love nothing more than to hear from you and get your professional opinion and advice. Thank you so much for your time!
    I look forward to your response 🙂

    .::jewels::.

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