Workshops can be used in many ways to grow your business. They can be used as a marketing tool to attract new clients to your offerings and give them a taste of what products or services you provide. They can also be used to leverage your services by teaching more people the strategies that you would normally teach your clients one-on-one. But did you know that if you don't structure your workshops the right way, they can actually harm your business? Here is one mistake I see some workshop owners make:
Not charging enough. Hosting free workshop can be a way to expose potential clients to your message and your services. It can be your "free taste" so to speak. However, by making it completely free, you also devalue your services. Be very careful in how much you give away. You may be telling your potential clients that what you have to offer is not valuable enough to pay for.
Hosting a completely free workshop also tends to attract more of a general audience, rather than your ideal clients. In addition, you will also see more tire kickers. You will always have people who may be interested in learning what you have to say, but have no intention of ever doing business with you. Or if they do end up business with you, they may not be your ideal client and you may spend more time on them than they are worth. If you want to attract more of your ideal client, the people you want to work with, be selective.
Your no-show rate for free workshops is also higher. When you don't charge, your audience has no "skin in the game" and it is easier for them to cancel and not show up. If they have paid for the privilege of hearing your valuable content, they will think twice before they won't show up. After all, they want to make sure they get their money's worth. The result of this is that you will spend too much money on materials, hand outs and refreshments. You may even spend too much on your venue, if you are renting a larger room than you end up needing.
So what to do if you want to use your short workshop to attract new clients? Charge them! It doesn't have to be a large amount. Put a value on the content you will be teaching and price your workshop accordingly.
There are many ways you can attract your ideal clients, have them have some skin in the game and still give them a "free taste". Check them out in my follow up article "How To Charge For A Free Workshop on my Event Strategy Solutions blog.
Daphne Bousquet, CMP uses her 20+ years of event planning experience to create profitable event strategies and implementation for coaches, entrepreneurs, speakers and self employed professionals that want to grow their business with workshops and seminars. Go to www.eventstrategysolutions.com for more tips and information on attracting clients and profits with your own live event.
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