Introduction

Let’s get you some bookings.

This’ll kickstart the revenue, sure – but more importantly it’ll start the cycle of improvement that’ll make your workshop absolutely killer.

Let’s get started:

Securing Bookings

Securing Bookings

• Online to offline
• Start low priced and bump each time
• How much you charge?

Secure first workshop

Now that you have the basic workshop in place we need some clients.

I’d recommend doing the first run as quickly as possible so that you can maintain momentum.

Do you have social media presence or an email list? Offer your workshop to them. It could be online and (for now) low price.

The main thing is to i) get the workshop ready and ii) begin to improve it. We do both by actually having to give the workshop!

This is why I recommend just finding the fastest way to deliver the workshop even if it’s to a small handful of people. It doesn’t matter. We just need to get started.

Online will generally be easier to organise too. You can use a fancy webinar package or honestly Google Meet is perfectly fine for smaller groups.

Online facilitation makes group work trickier. You need breakout rooms which, whilst doable, add layers of complexity. As such I’d recommend using individual exercises and then following up with having select participants tell you what they learned from the exercise.

Gather feedback and reviews

After your first workshop gathering up feedback is super important.

You want positive feedback to turn into testimonials for marketing your workshops. I use Senja to collect testimonials personally – it makes it a lot easier.

You also want negative feedback so you can make improvements. Hard, yes, but important. I’d recommend having some sort of survey you send participants after the event – a Google Form is sufficient.

If you want honest feedback make it anonymous. And actually ask for how you can improve – otherwise some people will just say “it was great” and nothing helpful!

Escalation

From your first workshop you can begin to escalate upwards.

Generally we’ll follow this pathway:

• small audiences to larger audiences
• online audiences to offline audiences
• low pay to high pay
• individual to companies

We don’t just try to pitch Fortune 500 companies straight away. Unless you are already a big name this will probably be a fool’s errand. Instead we work our way up the ladder.

We do this for a couple of reasons. The main one is that we need to build a track record – it’s harder to book doing a workshop for 250 people when you haven’t done one for 10 people yet.

But at the same time this is also great news for the more introverted. You can get used to each crowd size bit by bit.

This is precisely what I had to get through myself – initially even talking to 10 people was nerve-wracking. Do this a couple of times though and it becomes second nature.

You then do 50 or so participants. Again, first time: scary. After a few it’s easy.

Then 100, 200 etc.

Each level up is scary initially and then not a big deal once you are used to it!

Combining with content for outreach

Your confidence as a speaker and workshop facilitator will grow as you do more and more.

If you want a shortcut to this also do video content marketing – short, unedited videos are great for this.

Basically start talking about the topics you cover in your workshops in your short video content. Small snippets of content. This lets you practice delivery of core concepts even when not on stage. Practice makes perfect and content marketing gives you a reason to keep teaching!

If you do content marketing make sure to talk about your workshops.

This is how I get all my inbound bookings -just people reaching out and asking for training and workshops.

One note here: make sure to tidy up your LinkedIn. People will see your content elsewhere (X, TikTok, Youtube etc.) then come to check out your credentials on LinkedIn. Even if you don’t drive the traffic from LinkedIn the people hiring you for workshops will check you out there!

For outbound I’d also recommend LinkedIn. Specifically using automation via Meet Alfred or a similar tool. Filter for training, professional development and HR staff members at your target companies and use outreach to pitch your workshops. This becomes a lot easier once you have a track record of past companies who you’ve delivered workshops to.

What should you charge?

This is a big question with no one obvious answer.

Always start by asking their budget – if they give it to you happy days. You know how to price your workshop (as long as it makes financial sense to you). Ideally you want to get them to tell you their budget first.

Sometimes this isn’t an option and you need to work out pricing.

It’s going to depend on:

• your experience and reputation
• the niche you operate in and location
• the size of the company you are doing the workshop for
• how many attendees
• how customised the workshop is.

Lots of factors.

We can use a ChatGPT prompt to give us ballpark figures:

How much should I charge for a [x] hour workshop delivered to [y] people.
The client is a [company details]
The topic is [topic] and the client location is [location]

This will give you a very broad ball park such as this:

This is when working upwards from small to larger events comes into its own.

Basically for your first pitch come in low(ish). For instance with the information above I’d start at $1000 for the hour.

If they agree immediately, no questions asked then you’ve learned something: next time charge more! It was too cheap.

If the client agrees immediately great. I give the workshop, collect testimonials and reviews and find another client. This time I say $1500.

Still no hesitation? $2000 and so on.

Keep going until there’s push back at your initial pricing. That’s your price for this sort of client.

You can also short circuit this process by finding out what others in the industry charge. That’ll get you to the industry figure immediately!

Now you have enough to go ahead and find your first client and a rough plan of action for where to go to from there.

In the next Part we’ll cover the bit you might be dreading the most – the actual delivery!