Want to Start Hosting Workshops? Here’s My Advice!
Helping entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses achieve their goals has been at the heart of my own entrepreneurship journey since the start. This year one of my goals was to take this to the next level by reaching more entrepreneurs - a lot more!
To do that, I needed to think beyond the one-to-one consulting sessions I was already offering and find ways to share the skills that I’ve developed with people on a slightly larger scale. The answer for me was to host a series of workshops that would give people a substantive skill, lesson or framework to help them overcome their challenges.
With hosting over a dozen workshops and events behind me only this year, I’m looking back at the lessons I’ve learned to share my best advice for anyone thinking about hosting a workshop of their own.
Here are my top tips to ensure your attendees get a valuable experience, and your business benefits too.
Plan a Series of Workshops
The first workshop you host will likely be the most difficult, so if you’re going to make the effort, you might as well give yourself the opportunity to expand your impact.
But of course, there’s more to it than just hosting multiple workshops for the sake of efficiency.
Before you host your first workshop, decide what audience you want to target, and consider what you could teach them in a series. This was actually an important lesson that I learned in hindsight; initially I planned a series of workshops targeting different audiences, which made it more difficult for me to develop ongoing relationships, required me to start from scratch with marketing each time, and prevented me from offering packages for multiple workshops.
To make it easier to build a following, plan each topic to ensure there’s continuity, and space each one out to ensure you’re not over saturating your marketing.
Create a Consistent Style
Your in-person workshops should be a reflection of your personal brand, and just as in the digital sphere, it’s important to be unique and consistent in order to stand out from the crowd and become memorable.
Whatever format you choose for your workshops, stick with it (unless of course it doesn’t go over as well as you’d like). If what you’re doing resonates with people and they decide to come back, you have an opportunity to build loyalty over time.
My workshop style is always consistent in a few ways: there’s always a hands-on component to enable people to implement their knowledge right away, there’s always a networking component, and my visuals or slide decks always have a consistent brand style.
Develop Substantive Content
There’s nothing more disappointing than taking the time to attend a workshop or event only to be met with fluff or self-promotion. Workshops should always offer real, valuable content that people can use in a meaningful way.
Start by thinking about what you really want people to walk away with, and build upon that. You should go beyond the surface and offer the same kind of useful insight you would offer to an individual paying customer, even if you’re offering your workshop for free.
Not only will this give people useful knowledge, it will give them a positive impression of you and your business.
Nail Your x
One of the tricky parts of hosting workshops is to strike the right balance between providing your attendees with knowledge that’s useful on it’s own, and finding a way to make it worth your while. If everyone walks away without a clue what your business can do for them, you’ll probably find hosting workshops to be a waste of your time and energy!
You want to educate people about who you are and what you do so that if the time comes when they need a product or service like yours, they’ll come to you first. Keep it short and sweet, but don’t neglect to briefly introduce yourself and business right from the get go. People want to know that they’re learning from a credible source, so don’t be shy about mentioning your credentials or highlighting how you’ve helped other businesses succeed.
Set a Realistic Budget for Time and Money
Unless you’re at a stage in your career where people are willing to pay top dollar to hear you speak, there’s a good chance that hosting workshops isn’t going to be a big money maker–even if you are charging a fee to attend. In some cases, it could actually end up costing you money, so you need to be clear on what the marketing value is to you.
Before you embark on this mission, make a list of the costs involved and determine whether it’s within your budget. Is there a venue fee? Do you need to provide snacks and refreshments? Will you be investing money into marketing or advertising?
Next, consider whether you can budget for the time involved in the whole process.
I certainly made the rookie mistake of underestimating just how much time I would need to put into planning, developing content and promoting each workshop. If you don’t have any help with marketing, it can be a lot to take on.
One really helpful solution is to find a partner for your workshops to reduce the burden of costs, planning and promotion - whether it’s a location partner, a snack sponsor or a brand that can help with co-marketing, collaborating can have a lot of benefits and can help ensure your event is a success.
Make an Effort to Build Relationships
There are two key reasons why people go to workshops. The first is to learn about the topic, and the second is to connect with others in their field. This is why it’s so important to leave time for networking at the end of your workshops.
I typically plan to stick around after a workshop for at least an hour, and I try to connect with each person individually. This also leaves time for people to chat amongst themselves–you may even want to give people a prompt to get the conversation going.
If possible, collect emails from all attendees so you can follow up to invite them to future workshops or otherwise keep them in the loop.
With a year of workshops behind me, and so many lessons learned, there’s one thing that stands out: you’re never done learning. There is always opportunity to improve your offering, become more efficient with your time or optimize your marketing. But no matter where you’re at, those real-life human connections are valuable in so many ways.
Will I continue hosting workshops? Absolutely! If there’s a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let me know and I may just make it the subject of a future workshop.
Marielle Reussink
Founder of The Emms, Marketing Professional, Entrepreneur & Advisor to Start-ups