One of the ways I supplemented my pitifully small income from being a public school teacher for 30+ years was by teaching weekend seminars for line mechanics. (Took a 60% pay cut by leaving industrial maintenance to become a schoolteacher). Typically, a promoter would enroll 30 to 40 students for a 12-hour seminar, with classes on Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. The average course fee was $200.00 per student, so the promoter would gross $6,000.00 to $8,000.00 every weekend. His expenses were rent on a meeting room, a photocopied handout for each student, my fee of $100.00 per hour, plus expenses, either a plane ticket or mileage charge if I drove to the location, plus motel and meals. I would clear about $1,200.00 per weekend, and the promoter made a huge profit. I'd cover about 200 overhead projector slides on subjects like basic charging system maintenance and diagnosis, automotive computer theory and troubleshooting, or sometimes 4-wheel alignment or basic automatic transmission theory and diagnosis. The method of evaluating a student's progress was by giving a 25-question test at the beginning of the course, and the same one at the end, so a student could see what he'd learned by comparing scores. Most people showed at least a 25% improvement, and some did much better.
I'm not in favor of paid seminars for hobby-type folks. If I was interested in traveling all over the country as a teacher, there is still a huge amount of this type of business available. Let me assure everybody that if I participate in some type of group training, my services will be as a volunteer, not as a paid consultant. I'm supposed to be retired, although I'm busier now than I ever was when I was "working for a living"!
Jerry
