Introduction
In this guide we’re looking at how to run workshops.
If you currently leverage your expertise to produce content, build an audience, develop products and services then workshops are a no brainer addition.
Workshops pay extremely well, boost your reputation by working with big companies and allow you to secure your position as an industry expert.
Hate public speaking? Naturally an introvert? Me too. So I’ll be covering how to create and delivery high impact workshops even if its your greatest fear.
In this guide we’ll cover:
- Part 1: Why workshops?
- Part 2: What your workshop will be about
- Part 3: Building your workshop the right way
- Part 4: Securing bookings
- Part 5: Delivery without fear
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Let’s get started:
Why Workshops?
Summary
Why Workshops?
- Easy addition between Content Marketing and Service Offers. Workshops act as a natural bridge
- Fast cash, very low cost means high profit potential immediately.
- The ultimate authority builder. Become known as an expert in your niche to secure more business at a higher rate generally.
You know I’m all about adding varied income sources to your life and business.
With AI becoming more and more prevalent the future of work is uncertain.
Having multiple income streams helps diversify away the risk. If one source gets removed the others remain in play. So: get more income sources!
If you are already a creator, or have a business that is based on your personal expertise, then workshops are a fantastic addition.
Easy fit with content and services
If you create content (and you should!) to market yourself then workshops are a simple extension. You are basically packaging your “best of” up into a 1 hour workshop for people who haven’t necessarily digested everything you’ve written or recorded before.
It’s a natural next step.
This is even more powerful if what you offer are services. Your workshops immediately slot in as the opener to sell services. Sitting between your content and the sale.
Content → Workshop → Implementation
Content marketing gets you noticed and secures the workshop booking.
At the workshop you give them the good stuff, provide massive value, show them how to do it.
And then as an option you can offer implementation help via your services after the workshop. Sure you’ll be giving them the basics but remember that 1 hour isn’t very long!
We’ll talk about learning objectives in the next Part and I’ll be emphasising that you need to keep it light – 2-3 maximum learning points. It’s enough to give people a grounding but also opens up the sale of a service offer.
Money
One big reason for lots of business owners to deploy workshops is cash!
This is a crude one but it’s very true.
You can make good money delivering workshops and presentations. Basically businesses and organisations will pay good money to have an expert come in and teach a specific subject.
Your rate will depend on:
- the topic and niche
- the audience size
- your experience and confidence asking for a high rate!
As a base level I charge £1000 ($1250) for a one hour workshop session in London. That’s minimum – for a small group.
That’s a pre-prepared session so requires very little customisation or preparation upfront. I rock up, deliver the session, and pocket £1000+ in an hour. Again that’s the lowest base rate.
You can (and probably will) charge a lot more when the group size is larger or as soon as the workshop requires customisation beforehand.
To get a better idea head to perplexity.ai (not ChatGPT because this is a research task and Perplexity will give better results).
Use this prompt and turn on Pro mode. On a free plan you get a few free Pro uses per day.
What is the rate for a workshop speaker in [location] in the [niche] field for [customer type]This will pull up some more specific data about your particular circumstances.
As a business owner, the financial upside of workshops is tough to ignore. Workshops allow you to get paid extremely well for sharing your expertise. When you factor in the relatively low overhead involved, the profit margins on workshops can be outstanding.
But whilst it’s a good reason it’s not the main reason!
Expert Authority
Being known in your niche is super powerful. I believethis, not money, is the biggest play with workshops.
It’s also (incidentally) a major counter to being replaced by AI. I covered that in detail in my Playbook on Personal Branding.
By delivering workshops you strengthen your position of expert authority. You are, in a very real way, in a powerful position. The more people’s attention you can hold the more power you exert. It’s crude but true.
You become worth listening to. People will pay to hear what you have to say.
That’s an extremely strong social signal to other people operating in the market.
For example once I did a workshop with a Geneva based WHO affiliated NGO the doors for other NGO work open up.
After working recently with a top 10 company in the Forbes Cloud 100 that opens other doors for corporate work.
It all reinforces your position in the industry. Not only for workshops but for building your brand, selling products, acquiring clients, raising funds and more.
This is more important than the cash you acquire from the workshop itself because it pushes your overall rate up. Your time becomes more and more valuable as more people want access to what you know.
So whilst the short term cash is great it’s the longer term reputation boost that is truly valuable here.
In this guide
In the next 4 Parts I’ll be walking your through exactly how to build an income from workshops. As always, leveraging AI to aid us and speed deployment.
- Part 1: Why workshops?
- Part 2: What your workshop will be about
- Part 3: Building your workshop the right way
- Part 4: Securing bookings
- Part 5: Delivery without fear
Next up we’ll lock down what your workshop will be on. We’ll key in on a simple 1 hour workshop on one topic that will become your highly marketable calling card.
We’ll then structure the workshop using a technique that’s helped me hugely. The key is NOT to write the slides until the end. I’ll walk you through stp by step and we’ll use ChatGPT to assist us along the way.
Once we have our marketable workshop ready we’ll begin to pick up some gigs. We won’t go straight to the top but instead will work our way up the ladder so that you refine the workshop, build in confidence and know that you are providing mad value.
Finally we’ll cover the actual facilitation and delivery of workshops. I’ll show you how I overcame my fear of public speaking to become (apparently!) quite good at it.