What do Workshops, Webinars and Great Restaurants Have in Common?

One of the challenges I hear most when creating workshops and webinars is “Where do I start?” We come up with a great topic that meets the needs of our target audience (first major step), but we want to include everything we know from the last decade into that one workshop or webinar. It’s like a waiter placing the appetizer, the meal and the desert on the table all at once with the water, wine and coffee expecting you to down everything in one sitting!

I wanted to leave you with a few tips for getting started that will move you from feeling “overwhelm” and “frozen” to feeling more ease and flow:

  • Start Small – Start with designing a 1-2hr workshop first as it’s easier to pull a short 20-30 min talk from that than to start designing a ½ day or full day retreat.  The nice thing about taking a good chunk of a workshop to design is you can get all your content out there and organize it in a way that is logical, of high value and in digestible pieces.
  • Less is More – When you are designing your content, it’s better to cover 2 areas deeply in a 1 hr talk and highlight a few others at a high level than to cover 10 items at a high level. It’s like getting a taste of the appetizer, dinner and dessert when you really want to eat the dinner fully. Your audience will retain more and want to purchase from you when you give them something of real value (and nutrition!)
  • Run a Pilot – After you’ve designed that 2hr talk or extracted out that 30 min talk, run a pilot with a small group of people before mass marketing it.  This allows you to tweak the content/order of events and practice it live before delivering to a larger group.  It always helps to include some food in exchange for their time 🙂  Set expectations upfront that you would like their candid feedback and be sure attendees of your pilot are in your target market.
  • Let Go of the Results – Ahh…. This is the most challenging part.  We get so attached to our material (after all, it’s our baby) that it can impede our ability to deliver truly what our target market needs and/or wants.  They do know what’s best, so practice letting go of the outcome and stay open to their feedback.  When you stay completely open, you will end up in the end with an even better workshop/webinar that you may not have even imagined.
I hope you will approach designing your workshops/webinars like fine dining and savor every morsel! If you have any questions or are ready to turn your topic into a powerful workshop or webinar, check out Workshop and Webinar Success Training for more details.