Anyone Doing Workshops To Get Clients?

The key is good promotion, to the right people. Good luck.

Workshops are great, even if you're teaching people the skill you make money from, the increase in indirect business is huge!!!

Hi Packerfan,

I worked with a seminar company as a pitchman for a couple of months before I ventured out on my own to start up a training company. So speaking to generate leads and close sales is kinda my thing.

Now I want to confess that I've stopped doing these workshops for about a year now because I did not make enough profits to put food on the table.

For this I have my marketing skills and work ethic to blame.

I was doing okay in the seminar company I worked for - converting at 36-45% for a $200 -$400 2 day seminar prog. Then I got promoted to Head Direct Sales, then I got cocky and quit without learning to market...

I converted at 20 - 33% for my personal business teaching people to speak in public with charisma and persuasion.

I stumbled at the part where I need to put bums in the seat for me to sell to.

It's just like having a list of 10 people and 3 people buys... not exactly an open the champagne pay day.

But knowing what I know now, I want to share with you some tips so you will have more success than me.

1. Speak for "free" at any opportunity. There is no such thing as overexposure. Title of Trump's book.
2. Always collect names / sales / recordings when you speak. That's why the "" around the free...
3. Let your free talks and training lead to a low ticket seminar that is run by your company. Your room, your rules.
4. If you really can't get permission to sell during your talk, have brochures that sell and display them in the room.
5. Have a free offer on the brochure so they have to pick up one.
6. Talk about the free offer during your training
7. Always have something to offer your free audience - webinar, seminar, teleseminar DL etc
8. Have a clear structure to your presentations so you can do testing.
9. Follow Frank Kern's sales pages to model flow if you can story tell.
10. Always have an assistant with you to handle sign ups while you answer questions after the talks.
11. Get your assistant to take pics of you speaking and audience reactions for your marketing material / blog updates / list updates (here's what u missed...)

You can look for me if you have any questions you need help with


Perry Lai

Here is my top tip for getting local clients from a seminar, just doing this once can give you a stream of new business that can provide a fantastic income.

First of all you need to find one potential partner (does not even have to be a client) that is in the professional service industry like an accountant (CPA), lawyer, financial services etc.

Your partner/client needs to be established with a list of their own clients.

You approach your client with an offer to run an inexpensive marketing campaign to bring in new business this campaign will do 4 things for them:

1. Get them back in front of their clients
2. Attract new clients
3. Add value for their clients
4. Introduce new ideas and update the clients on the company.

Most professionals are always looking for ways to interact more with their clients (or should be!), and are more than happy to put on a presentation.

So if for example you went with an accountant and they hosted a presentation you would have them book the venue and mail their clients an email you have written for them, the name of the presentation needs to be something that peaks the interest of the client base.
So for small businesses, something like "10 Ways to Get More New Business Than You Can Handle In 2011". Sponsored by (Name of Accountant).

I would also tell them that although I would charge for the marketing I would waver my speaking fee! (you could do it all for free)

I tend to focus on social media because most businesses don't get it!

When you are speaking you are perceived as the expert, you also have the expert status thrust upon you because they all trust the company that has sponsored the event.

Once you have done one of these it's easy to get other people in the audience to book you to speak in front of their clients, kind of self perpetuating lead generation.

Hope this helps.

John

Packerfan,

Was just thinking... Why give away the whole enchilada, when you can make money after?

Why not focus on one thing, say, for example, Facebook? Explain that you do a number of things on the internet, but today because of time issues, you will only cover one thing.

On the other hand, if you want to explain all the other stuff, it will open up a lot of questions... which, in turn, can be exactly what you're hoping for?

In any case, bravo!

Hi,

I have a different thought process on this.
Mainly because I just finished talking with my coach Michael Hiles about doing the same thing last night..

Because you are going to step into a seminar capacity which is also where I flourish. It would make a lot of sense if you had an actual case study showing what you offer works.

To get that case study it is really quite simple. You contact a business and present yourself as someone who "has a strategy that could help local businesses.but you are not sure" You are wanting to test it out and are wondering if they would mind answering a few questions....so you maybe ask them what is your average regarding their CPC.

Ask them pointed questions that puts the ball in their court but not really. You know the answer already. This will do 2 things allow for the businessman to feel like the champ because you have asked and anyone who has built a business will commonly say I took this company from nothing to this" kind of deal.

2 If they can't answer what their cost per customer is they have just shown you that you nor they would benefit from going any further. If they don't know there is nothing you can benchmark against. If they do then you have a ready made answer without asking them to do anything yet.

So you can ask more pointed questions such as....what is your advertising method-yellow pages,tv ad etc. What you are doing all the while they start talking is getting them to sell themselves on your service and formulating a pinpointed strategy that will be nothing but benefit to this person and business..

Then once you have that down you have an open door the customer is warmed up and you can present your thought out solution. You say"because I am new at this I wanted to test this out on someone that would benefit if you allow me to document the success of this strategy with you as an example I will do it pro bono.-Would you say no? of course not.

Once you do what your solution presented you have a documented case study that will carry heavy weight when doing a seminar it proves what you are speaking on is not coming out of your hat and that it works.

Of course this is just my opinion I am not telling you what to do but when you think about it it makes a lot of sense.
Cheers
-Will

The workshops are all about the execution, even if one person shows up they could still have a positive viral impact. Which of course works both ways, but once you get that negative feedback it can be hard to establish credibility again, which in turn makes the workshop much less marketable.