How to Lead Client Retreats for Your Signature Program

In this episode of the Holistic Millionaire Podcast, Shelley Riutta explores the transformative power of adding retreats to a signature program, sharing insights from her years of experience leading in-person and virtual retreats. As she prepares for an upcoming retreat with the Holistic Business School, she reflects on the impact retreats have on client growth, community connection, and deepening transformation. Shelley discusses how she transitioned from quarterly in-person retreats to a fully online format, later reintroducing live retreats as an optional bonus. She also highlights the flexibility of structuring retreats to fit different business models while ensuring programs remain sustainable and accessible. Whether in person or virtual, Shelley emphasizes that the retreat experience can be replicated in powerful ways, offering participants profound breakthroughs and invaluable peer connections.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why retreats amplify transformation in a signature program
• How to decide if in-person or virtual retreats are right for your business
• Ways to structure retreats for maximum impact
• The power of peer connections and divine orchestration in live events
• How to build flexibility into your retreat model for long-term sustainability

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Shelley Riutta on Instagram 

Rise of the Holistic Millionaire Facebook Group

Holistic Millionaire Podcast

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

Shelley Riutta (00:00.812)

Welcome back to the Holistic Millionaire Podcast. So excited to connect with you. So excited about the topic that we're going to be going over, which is how to add retreats to your signature program. This is such a great topic and it is so timely because I'm recording this on Friday and on Monday, we have our

client retreat for the holistic business school. So it's such good timing to kind of be in the energy of leading a retreat so I can talk about it. And I was also reflecting on me adding retreats to our signature programs over the year. So I'm going to give you a little bit of backstory of my journey with adding retreats to signature programs and also just how to add them to your signature program.

a little bit over, we're going to be talking about the format of how you can structure retreats to give you some ideas of what you can do for your own. So let's dive in. So for me, I'll just give you a little bit of backstory on adding retreats to my signature programs. Over the years in my first holistic business and this holistic business, the Holistic Business School, I've been leading in-person retreats.

Transformational workshops, all of it. So I am already have been a super fan of in-person transformational events and retreats. So it's something I already had been doing leading, you know, one day retreats and workshops, two day, three day and five days. So I already was on board with that. My first signature program.

was virtual. was completely online and I wanted to do that. And I am a big fan and I'm going to talk about how we currently do retreats in the Holistic Business School now. But I do love signature programs, a majority of the delivery to be virtual because we are, you know, I love the flexibility of doing an online signature program. It's easy for people around the world to access and participate in that. So

Shelley Riutta (02:09.87)

I am a big fan of just an online signature program. That being said, so I did the life purpose mentoring program and then one of my next signature programs was the divine goddess platinum program. And in that program, we did have live retreats. And, so I loved that. I loved adding it. made it super powerful. So when you're adding a signature program or

when you're adding retreats to your signature program. Some of the factors that you want to consider is, as you're filling your signature program, are your clients, are they local or are they geographically from around the world, different parts of the United States? So you want to factor that in when adding in-person retreats.

So for me, at that time in that program, a lot of my clients were local. It was very easy for them to come to an in-person retreat. And so that's why I loved adding that. So over the years in the signature programs that we've offered, we've had different constellations, different structures of retreats. For a very long time in the holistic business school,

The holistic business school used to be a year long. It's now a six month program. So it used to be a year long and we actually had in-person retreats every quarter. So people would fly across the country, drive, and we would be in the room together every quarter. And I loved that. It was super, super powerful.

The power of meeting in person is it helps people go deeper with what you're teaching in the signature program. It helps to deepen the connections of the people in your signature program with each other. And the power of in-person retreats too is so much happens. I call it divine orchestration. It could be when the participants are walking together. So,

Shelley Riutta (04:17.59)

Where we're having the event in Florida, we have a beautiful walking trail in back of the hotel. And I know a lot of times people will go on walks together in the morning or at lunch or in the evening. And there's so much happening in those conversations, right? Or during lunch, or when we go out for dinner and when we do different activities, there's so much power in those short conversations or even long conversations.

or that divine orchestration where people's team has been trying to get something through to them and it gets like power, there's a power packed infusion of those messages and guidance and just little things that happen that actually make a big difference. Finally, there's like a breakthrough and illumination based on a conversation.

And I really think we as women that we learn through conversation, through collaboration, through brainstorming together. I think those conversations are critical. So that's why when we're teaching our clients in the holistic business school, you know, about delivering their signature program, because a lot of times people, many people out there are teaching, you know, just give people.

curriculum, record it, they can just get the transformation and you're not in the room or you're not around, know, all the things that is powerful about delivering content and curriculum and transformation and it is true. I am a big fan of that. People in our Signature Program are listening to the personal growth and transformation calls. They're listening to a morning meditation that I recorded and evening meditation. So these are powerful things that

you know, every single day people will make a comment about something that they listened to in our curriculum that made a difference. And I'm like, that is amazing. I recorded it once and it continues to add transformation to the people in the holistic business school. So I am a super fan of that. And the other thing that we do in the holistic business school that I'm a super fan of is we have lots of deep dives.

Shelley Riutta (06:32.586)

in sessions where people were there longer than just an hour. So what we ended up doing, because we, in fall of 2019, I went completely online with the Holistic Business School. We stopped doing our quarterly in-person retreats and we went completely online. And I said, I want to deliver it online. But what we ended up adding into it is the quarterly deep dives.

those sessions that replicated the in-person retreats because I knew being together, not just for an hour, but for, you know, five to eight hours together is so powerful and transformative. So I said to myself, how can we replicate the in-person retreat experience and do it online? And the great thing about it is you can. Like,

Every single time we do a deep dive, feels like it goes deeper and deeper and the transformation is more and more powerful. That's the power of setting intentions and also the intention of I want to replicate the power of an in-person retreat and I want to do it virtually. So that being said, I want to circle back to leading an in-person retreat.

So what we ended up doing in the holistic business school is I said, you know what? I want to add in-person retreats back in. But what I'm doing is I'm adding them back in as a bonus. They're above and beyond what we're doing. Everything, you know, in the holistic business school, people can receive and, you know, get the power of the transformation virtually. They don't have to be in person.

but I wanted to add them in as a bonus. The other thing that I did is I added them in where there's no set amount that I'm doing. I could do one bonus retreat a year. I could do two. I could do three. There's no particular structure to our bonus retreats that we've added in.

Shelley Riutta (08:47.404)

And I love that flexibility because sometimes it's just like, we just need one for the year or we need two, we need three. In the visionary builder level of the holistic business school, we do tend to do a cadence of twice a year for our retreats for that level. But then again, in that level, I have flexibility with that too. So something to keep in mind.

with adding retreats to your signature program, you may want to do. part of what informed that as well is we don't know if there is going to be another pandemic. There is a likelihood or a chance of that. So I want your business model to be completely able to be delivered online. And if

For whatever reason, let's say you have a retreat in your signature program and you're not able to do that in person, you can easily switch it to online and have an equally as powerful experience doing that. So I wanted to just kind of give you the lay of the land of how to think about in-person retreats in your signature program. Now I'm going to just talk about some different variations of how I have...

clients to add retreats into their signature program. Let's say you have a six month signature program. You could do a retreat, deeper dive at the first six months. But the other thing though is we teach rolling enrollment. So some people, might be the start of their six months. might be people are in their fourth month or their fifth month. But if you're doing, some of you are still doing like

You know, my program starts January or starts in July. If you're doing that, you can do a retreat at the beginning. And when we used to do, we didn't do rolling enrollment for a long time. It was like the program, the Holistic Business School started every October, like a new group of people would come in. Or let's say the Divine Goddess Platinum program. Initially, that was start, you know, start date of January, you know, ending in June and July.

Shelley Riutta (11:09.3)

If you have a program that is still structured like that, I do recommend that you do a retreat close to the beginning. So the first one to two, maybe three months, the beginning. The reason for that is the in-person retreat can just bond people so powerfully. So then when they're meeting online after that, that connection is exponential.

So if you're looking at the cadence of when to put a signature program, or not a signature program, a retreat into your signature program, I would recommend doing it at the beginning if you are not doing rolling enrollment. If you're doing rolling enrollment, then you want to take a look at, like for us, oftentimes we're doing our one in Florida in February, and then we're doing the one in Madison in June and July.

And so, so you want to, so for us, it's about six months. So if you're having rolling enrollment, chances are, as people are going through, let's say a six month program that they will have access to coming to one of your retreats. So let's talk about like the structure of the retreat. So one of the things as I'm planning a retreat, I like to look at

the client journey. What are the, what's the curriculum? What are the key things that are moving the needle for the transformation for your clients? So for us, we have in the holistic business school, historically, we've had five different areas that are curriculum circles around with the new journey that

the new client journey that I'm bringing everyone on is it's the holistic millionaire roadmap. So it's helping everyone scale to a million dollars. So it's just like, what are the content pieces? What are the things that people need to be focused on in order to move the needle to scale their business joyfully and sustainably to a million dollars?

Shelley Riutta (13:24.928)

So we have a new roadmap that I will be introducing at this retreat. So if you want to look at the client journey, and a lot of times we are reinforcing what we're teaching in our signature program curriculum. There's one thing to kind of learn it online, implement it online, but to go deeper in the retreat is really powerful.

The other thing that you want to remember with your signature program content is repetition is key. A lot of times people will be like, I taught that once and so everyone learned it and we need to move on and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Oftentimes people need the repetition of hearing the information again and again, going deeper with different exercises around the same concept.

be powerful and help them bring it in deeper. When I look back and I review curriculum for changes we're making in the curriculum in the holistic business school or preparing for a retreat, we have a folder in our Google Drive with every retreat we've ever led and I see the handouts, I see the agenda of what we've done. So often it is

going deeper with concepts that are just for us teaching business building. A lot of the things that we're teaching are evergreen, meaning they're core concepts that need to be integrated and mastered in every business to create that success, traction, and momentum. The other thing that I look at is what is

Where are the sticking points? Where are people getting stuck in the signature program? Oftentimes when you tune into your signature program, oftentimes clients will be going through something similar at the same time. It's almost like the group is, you know, going on a journey together. And so there's certain themes that you'll find in your group that you want to tap into at your retreat. So it could be they're struggling with,

Shelley Riutta (15:39.694)

self care or they're struggling with, you know, implementing a key thing that's going to lead to the transformation that there may be procrastinating on it, or there's some, confusion about it. So what are the themes that, so you want to tune into before you lead a retreat, you know, what do I need to cover?

That's a reinforcement of the curriculum in the signature program that needs to be reinforced to make sure everyone is getting to where they need to with the signature programs. That's one, the first dimension of that. The second thing is what are the themes that I need to address? Where are the sticking points? Where is there friction? Where are people struggling that we need to go deeper on? Oftentimes too, I will come up with a theme

for the retreat. So the theme for this retreat is wealth building for women. So it's a great, so the theme helps you organize what you're doing as well, right? It's gonna be focused more on, you know, looking at their relationship with money. We have a guest speaker that's an amazing member of the Holistic Business School. And so...

That is something too. The theme informs what you're going to be going over in the retreat as well. The other thing that I do too, so we have one group that is on Monday and Tuesday and another group on Thursday and Friday. Oftentimes in that first day, I have the agenda for the first day and the second day, but oftentimes the energy is starting to move already in the first day. And so there might be more themes or things emerging.

that we need to go over. So a lot of times I have the agenda, but I am adding things. I'm switching out handouts. So I might, I was even thinking about that this morning. One of my dreams is to have a printer to print new handouts because things are coming through oftentimes, different handouts, different concepts, different things that I want to teach about.

Shelley Riutta (17:58.882)

So I want to create a handout on the fly. The hotel we're going to actually has a printer. So it's fairly easy to do it at the hotel. But it's really ideally would be great to have a printer right there. I'll give an example. was at Dr. Joe Dispenza retreat. This was about a year ago in Marco Island. And I was telling our clients this because I'm like, this is what you want to envision.

for your team, for your creative process, for tapping into your holistic mystic is we were actually doing a meditation, a walking meditation on the beach. And it was called Walking with the Mystic, I think. The next day he came into the session, he's like, you know what? I listened to that meditation and it's outdated. So I re-recorded it real time.

And then we were going to do the meditation that night again. Isn't that amazing? Talk about keeping current, you know, with the information, with the things that you're teaching at your retreats. That's a perfect example. So circling back, having a printer on hand would be really, you know, you know, or a whole recording studio, his audio team was with him to help him do that too. So that's something that kind of

think of as you're leading retreats is having that flexibility to have your agenda, but be inspired getting those downloads. I'm just getting those downloads all the time. Every day in the holistic business school, I'm always adding new things. We're having a deep dive, two different deep dives in March. So that just came through the other day. So having the reinforcement of the curriculum.

What are the themes and then what are the downloads that come at the retreat and having the flexibility? I remember one of my team members years ago, we were leading the retreat in Florida and they came up to me on the break and they're like, on the agenda, you were going to be teaching this in the afternoon, but you just dove into it this morning.

Shelley Riutta (20:13.568)

And I just told them, I'm like, that is going to happen all the time. This is like a rough roadmap of what we are going to be doing and very likely will not go according to the agenda. informing your team member of your style will be helpful. Some people roll with that and they totally get it. Again, being a visionary leader, being a mystic, this is just how you operate.

And this can be a great thing when you're onboarding team members, because sometimes people will think you're scattered or things are changing too much. And it's like, no, you're changing to adapt to what is needed. And team members that have a hard time with that probably shouldn't be on your team. They need to really get what you're doing and understand it.

The interesting thing is you have to have people on your team member that are not wired that way. So a lot of times they're going to be like, what is going on? you need to educate them and they need to be cool with that. Does that make sense? Okay. So leading a retreat. So adding retreats into your signature program. I'm a super fan. I'm going to just share a little bit with leading the online retreats.

So like I said, we do retreats every quarter. we do in.

In-person ones, obviously we're doing, you know, we do one to two a year, but every quarter we are having deep dives. So we might have two or we might have one. Typically it's two. We have a cadence of doing one retreat the second month of the quarter. That's a more personal growth and transformation. And then we do another retreat in the third month that is more business building. That being said.

Shelley Riutta (22:10.434)

We change it up. It's not always that cadence, but typically we're doing, we don't do a deep dive the first month, but we do the second and the third. So that's something that I recommend that if you aren't in a position or you're just like, Shelley, I don't want to lead in person retreats. know, I just want to do it virtually. It's a time and season in my life where I just want to have, you know, where I'm not traveling. I want to be at home. I...

want to just lead my business from my home or I want that, you know, location freedom where I'm traveling around and just delivering, you know, my signature program from wherever I am. So that is amazing too. So if you want to add virtual retreats to get the power of in-person retreats, but not the travel, you are structuring them typically that length.

And really the design of what you would do in person, you are replicating. So you are replicating all the dimensions that create the power and the transformation. Case in point, for example, we typically do a breathwork session after lunch. We do that in our in-person retreats. That's been just every transformational workshop I lead. That has been the cadence. So I do that in our online virtual retreats as well. So there's certain.

structures that I'm just keeping, whether I'm doing it in person or whether I'm doing it online. And there's certain things that I just do only in person and only online. So, but just something to think about that the beauty of this is you can deliver powerful transformation virtually in a virtual retreat.

So I am going to get going here. hope you have an amazing rest of your day. I'm super excited that we dove deep into this, you know, and as you can tell, I'm super jazzed. I love retreats. I love online retreats. I love in-person retreats. We're doing another Costa Rica retreat in the end of April, beginning of May.

Shelley Riutta (24:19.886)

We're also planning a retreat to Sweden of all places. I just actually got my hair done the other day and the woman was telling me she had traveled to Sweden exactly to the town that we were planning a leading retreat. So I took that as a sign to, you know, get moving with the plans for that. So I will keep you posted. So sending you big love, have an amazing rest of your day. If you want to find out about the holistic business school,

want to talk to one of our team members, all you need to do is go to the Holistic Business School, holisticbusinessschool.com and just click on programs. And then there is a link to just schedule with like a short 15 minute call with one of our team members. So sending you big love, have an amazing rest of your day.