How to Run Seminars and Workshops, 4th Edition

Chapter 1Creating a Seminar Business

When I first wrote this book, I was a senior trainer for Xerox Corporation. In that capacity, I felt I had created a program that taught individuals everything they needed to know about corporate training. In fact, that might have been the case for a corporate trainer whose audiences came from within the corporation. However, it has now been over 25 years since I left Xerox to open my own training business. In those years I have certainly learned one simple fact about how to run seminars and workshops. If you can't populate a room with participants, you don't stay in business.

In the following chapters you will learn everything you need to know about how to grab an audience and take them for one terrific ride. In this chapter you will learn how to run a seminar business. Every speaking professional has his or her own way of doing things, and I'm a creature of habit as well. My goal is to provide you with choices and opinions that go along with those choices and then ultimately equip you with enough knowledge to let you decide how to run your own seminar business.

Branding Yourself

Before we start working on putting participants into the seats, referred to as “populating the room,” you must figure out what these participants are coming to hear. The concept of branding yourself sounds a little rough, but not to worry. It isn't as bad as it sounds. You see, rarely are you the only person on the face of the earth who will be talking about the ...