The 3 Key Differences Between a Free and Paid Workshop
If you have been thinking about doing workshops for your health coaching business, you may have wondered if you should offer them for free or if you should charge a fee.
There are two amazing ways to use workshops in your coaching business. The first way is to share the content free of charge with the intention of 1) growing your email list and 2) building a relationship with the workshop attendees.
In the category of email list builders, workshops are definitely more time and effort than something like a PDF guide, but the results can be significantly better.
The second way to use workshops in your coaching business, and what we will going over today, is to charge for the workshop. Paid workshops are a great way to give your followers a low-cost way to work with you, (which can definitely be part of the nurturing process and relationship building that is needed to help them get more comfortable with a higher investment down the road), and it’s a great way to give your revenue a boost anytime you want.
So, you may be wondering what the difference is between a free workshop and a paid workshop. For the most part, they are the same but there are three key differences that set them apart to make them charge-worthy.
Here are the 3 key differences between a free and paid workshop:
#1) Add a layer of on-the-spot coaching while going through the workshop
This is a huge-value add in the eyes of your paid workshop attendees. Having the ability to ask you questions and get immediate feedback will be extremely valuable to those in attendance.
We know that for some coaches imagining themselves doing on-the-spot coaching sounds very scary but it’s not as scary as you may think. Here’s a few parameters to make this part of your workshop doable for even a brand new coach.
- Ask your attendees to keep their questions specific to your workshop topic that way your conversation doesn’t go off the rails and you won’t lose track of time.
- If someone asks you a question that is either way too much to answer in the moment or is completely off topic all you have to say is, “That’s more than I can answer during this workshop but if you email me I’ll be happy to help.”
- Rest assured you do not need to answer every single question during the breakout on-the-spot coaching sessions during the workshop. You won’t want to lose the workshop momentum that you’ve created so 1-2 short Q&A / Coaching sessions during the workshop is perfect.
#2) Complete the workshop workbook with your attendees during your time together (these can be called implementation breaks)
Working through the workshop workbook with your attendees will be extremely valuable to them because they’ll have a topic specific manual when they are finished with your paid workshop.
Some people have a hard time paying attention to a speaker while simultaneously taking notes or filling in a workbook. That’s why stopping every 10 minutes or so to help them get caught up with the workbook keeps everyone successfully completing your workshop. It also allows you to market the workshop in a way that tells your paying clients that they are going to walk away with a completed workbook for future reference.
#3) A free workshop is typically 1 hour in length, but a paid workshop should run anywhere between 2-3 hours.
The expansion of any workshop material from 1 hour to 2 or 3 hours is 100% the difference in implementation time and on-the-spot coaching. Anyone paying for a workshop (live training), is going to have a level of expectation that their questions will be answered and they’ll walk away with a step-by-step implementation plan related to the workshop topic.
One way to do this is to extend the Q&A time at the end. This part of your workshop goes above and beyond what you would offer in a free workshop and guarantees that no question goes unanswered. The magical part about leaving added time at the end to answer every question is that your audience will get a deeper feel for your abilities as a coach and will move them much further along in the customer journey toward a larger investment into one of your higher paid programs.
The added Q&A time plus the implementation time to complete the workbook will offer a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning.
A few final paid workshop guidelines –
- Paid workshops like what we’ve discussed today would range anywhere between $27 – $57 per enrollment
- There won’t be a program sales pitch at the end of this workshop but you can feel free to follow up with each registrant with an email sequence leading them to your next most appropriate offer
- Once you run this workshop in a live format it’s easy to then make the recording available on your website as an evergreen offer.
If you’ve been considering offering paid workshops to add to your offerings, the ideas we shared today should help you get off to a great start!
Save your spot for Karen’s upcoming free workshop on November 2nd.
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