Workshops and seminars are among the best ways to grow your business.  Not only are you immediately positioned as an expert in your field but you are introduced to potential new clients at the same time.  Another major benefit is that you can get introduced to multiple new clients at once, allowing you to leverage your time.  Think about it.  You’re getting introduced to multiple new clients in the best possible way.  What could be better?

Taking full advantage of workshops and seminars requires some preparation.  It requires a few steps.  Can you hold a successful workshop without going through this process?  Of course.  But there are plenty of benefits to be had by taking some time on the front end to ensure you’re maximizing the benefits you could gain from the exercise.

First and foremost, select a topic that will sell.  Easier said than done.  Knowing what will sell is an intuition not everyone has.  Some people have a natural ability to identify what will sell and what won’t.  But a good place to start is to look at what’s selling already.  There are people and companies spending millions of dollars to see what people are looking for and there’s no reason you can’t use their research results yourself.
Look at the front covers of popular magazines in your area of expertise.  Trust me; whatever they have on their front cover is selling.  Visit popular websites in your field.  Again, the things they’re promoting on their homepage are definitely selling.  Visit an online article directory and use keywords to search for articles and then sort the results by most popular.  Go to Amazon and search for books the same way.  Sort the results by bestselling and see what books people are actually buying.

People who are interested in golf usually have more than one book about golf.  People who love dogs usually have dozens of things around their house that all have to do with dogs.  And people who are interested in internet marketing usually have plenty of literature to support their efforts.  Just because someone else has already addressed the topic you’d like to do yourself, doesn’t mean you can’t create a similar product.  When people have an interest, they’ll keep buying and buying and buying.

Once you have a few ideas for a topic that will sell, think about how you can incorporate the same theme into a workshop and begin developing the content.  In many cases, the online article directories are the best place to get free information.  You can go there, print up two dozen articles on the topic and organize the various tips and strategies into your own workshop content.  Using this strategy, you can quickly develop extensive content on virtually any topic imaginable.

The last step is to decide where you want to hold your workshop.  There are generally four great places to consider: community organizations like Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, municipal adult education programs, for-profit adult education centers like the Learning Annex and tradeshows or conferences.  In all of these cases, you can submit a proposal and get on the schedule quite easily and you don’t have to worry about marketing.  They’ll provide the audience.  All you have to do is show up.

Holding workshops and seminars is a brilliant way to grow your business.  Don’t overlook the opportunities available and don’t think you can’t do it yourself.  There is a lot more information about this topic on my website.  If you’re serious about the effort, I encourage you to take advantage of the resources available there.

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