Three Strategies for Using Workshops to Grow Your Business

by Kim Clausen and Jonathan Tessier

Workshops are a powerful tool for growing a coaching business. Used effectively, workshops can generate substantial additional income, establish you as a creditable expert in your market, attract more prospects into your business, and convert participants to clients. Plus you get the satisfaction of providing a valuable service that impacts the lives of those you serve.

Here are three powerful strategies that you can use to create, market and facilitate more impactful workshops:

Strategy #1 – Make Your Workshops Compelling

Learning should never be regarded as something that’s boring, agonizing, or tedious. What makes the idea of learning a turn-off for so many is their past experiences of being lectured to with no opportunity to participate. For learning to be effective, workshop participants need to be actively engaged in the learning process.

For example, at the beginning of any workshop, make sure to warm up your participants so they are receptive to learning. Preparing participants this way will establish positive feelings, generate interest, and get them primed for the learning that’s about to take place. The easiest way to prime your participants for learning is with an icebreaker activity that loosens up the participants and makes them feel comfortable.

Another strategy to make workshops compelling is to present new information to participants in a way that requires active involvement. Traditional techniques such as lecturing should only be used as a last resort – never your main vehicle for delivering content. Once new information has been presented, let participants reflect on, discuss, and actively experience what they are gaining.

And finally, participants need some time to reflect on their experiences from the workshop and apply what they have learned. Reviewing and then applying what has been learned is critical for long-term retention.

Strategy #2 – Market for Maximum Attendance

Once you have designed a compelling workshop, the next step is to get people to attend. Using proven marketing strategies to fill your workshops will give you a much higher attendance rate, greater client conversions, repeat customers, and lifelong friends! Here are a few tips for filling your workshops:

• Target your marketing: Typically, coaches struggle with filling their workshops because their marketing is random rather than targeted, with activities like posting fliers, running miscellaneous ads, and sending a single email to their potpourri list of contacts. In order to get the best results for your workshop, focus your efforts toward a specific market so that you can speak their language, get their attention, and deliver compelling workshops that meet their greatest needs.
• “Touch” frequently and regularly: The best way to have maximum attendance at your workshops is to start marketing early by “touching” (contacting) your prospects numerous times in advance, offering them free, value-added products and services about a related topic. For example, you could offer a special report, an article, an audio product or a teleseminar. The key is to send several messages, giving your prospect more opportunities to become familiar with you, like you, trust you, and be willing to invest in your workshop.
• Compel them to act: In today’s market of constant bombardment and media overload, it is more important than ever that your marketing efforts “rise above the noise” so you can be seen and heard, and capture the attention of your market. In order to effectively capture your market’s attention, create compelling offers with incentives, deadlines or bonuses.

Strategy #3: Deliver a Workshop That Makes an Impact

When facilitating a workshop or training program, the number one element for success is to make the learning experience be all about the learner. Facilitation is not about being the “sage on the stage,” but instead, about being simply a “guide on the side.” In workshops, effective facilitators manage the learning process as well as each and every learner within it, and create a setting where discussion, interaction, and learning can take place. The best news is that anyone can lead powerful workshops that produce positive results, once you’ve mastered some basic facilitation techniques.

Workshops are a powerful tool to grow a coaching business. Learning programs such as workshops, teletrainings and seminars allow you to reach your market with a valuable service that impacts both the lives of those you serve, and your bottom line.

Kim Clausen is the President of Ready2Go Marketing Solutions, Inc., a company that creates ready-made workshops, teleseminars, speeches and other materials that coaches can brand as their own to grow their business. Kim is a professionally-trained coach who has more than 20 years of marketing and business development experience. 

 
Jonathan Tessier, Senior Instructional Designer with Ready2Go Marketing Solutions, Inc., is a successful training manager, professional coach, and award-winning instructional designer with more than 10 years experience creating quality training programs. For more information about creating, marketing and facilitating workshops, call 303-465-0454 or visit www.Ready2GoMarketingSolutions.com and download our free training materials.