How Can You Promote Your Business Through Workshops?
This month in the blog we’ve been looking at how best to show what’s different about your business. In part one we considered why you need to stand out from the busy market place and you can read that blog again here, if you need a reminder. In the next blog I wrote about the importance of putting some ‘You’ into what you do, to show how your business is different and better than your competitors.
You know now that as a coach, consultant or trainer, your clients are buying you – and your time, expertise and experience. This means that one of the best ways you can promote your business is by showing people exactly what you can do – by sharing your time, expertise and experience with a group of potential clients. At Appletree, we know that running workshops and seminars is one of the most effective marketing tools that we use. But you have to do it properly, so here are a few tips to help you get the most from these events:
- Find the right audience. The majority of our clients are small businesses, so we only speak to those people. We’re often asked to run events for groups like the FSB (Federation of Small Businesses), the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) who run events for independant consultants and the PSA (Professional Speaking Association.) These organisations all work with our target audience and can help us to reach them.
- Share your expertise. Running a workshop is not about standing there and bragging about how great you are, or about trying to sell something to the audience. We have a simple 9 stage Marketing Planning process and we frequently use this as the basis for our workshops. We give the delegates a handout to write all over and take them through the 9 stages. By the end of the event, they have a plan that they can take away and put into practice, without any further help from us.
- Keep in touch. The work doesn’t stop when you leave the room. We always invite delegates to sign up to our newsletter, Scribbles (which you can find here) so that we can keep in touch with them. If we’ve had more in depth conversations with anyone, we connect with them on LinkedIn. And then we ask the organisers if they would like us to deliver another workshop for them. They always say yes!
If you’re looking for a new or better to promote your business, find new clients and show the world what’s different about your service business, you really should consider running some workshops. If you’re not sure how to do this, do get in touch with us and we’ll give you some free advice to get you started. Call us on 01635 578 500 or click here to email us.
