SeminarSavvy.com

If you are a coach, consultant or expert who provides some type of service, an easy way to add value to your seminar is offering free consultations as part of your registration package or as a bonus to attendees. (And yes, it’s a great way to increase the perceived value of your offer when promoting information products, as well.)

You also can offer free critiques, audits, strategy sessions, etc. The goal, from a business perspective, is to open the door to a one-on-one conversation with your seminar attendees after your event. The theory is that seminar attendees will better understand what it is that you do, how you can help them, and why you’re the best man or woman for the job. In short, seminar attendees make highly qualified prospects. All you have to do is make the sale.

There’s just one little problem.

Most attendees do not ever take advantage of your gift.

Sometimes the problem is sheer laziness — it seems like too much hassle and work to make a phone call or fax in their bonus certificate.

Sometimes it’s busyness — a free consultation with you is not urgent, so it never makes it to the top of the to-do list.

Sometimes it’s even shyness of sorts — customers are too embarrassed to show you how poorly they are doing in your area of expertise. Rather than getting your help, they avoid your offer so they don’t have to face the reality of how much they have to learn and improve.

Then there’s the reason that I’ve naively overlooked in my own business: they think that you are going to spend the consultation time trying to sell your products or services. One of level, this seems logical, right? You offer free consultations so that you get the opportunity to sell. Therefore, it makes sense that customers will know that’s why you offered the gift.

Here’s where your attitude and intention make a big difference: Are you offering the free consultation only to sell? Or do you truly plan to deliver something of value, and then mention your products and services as a way to continue their education and growth?

I fall into the latter category, hence my blind spot to the objection that a customer pointed out to me yesterday.

As part of my home-study course, I offer a free critique to the seminar marketing materials you create by going through my course. My intent has always been to offer a bit of personal assistance in fine-tuning my customers’ seminar marketing copy.

Yesterday, at the end of a great critique, the seminar promoter made a confession: he hadn’t wanted to cash in his certificate because he suspected it would be a big pitch fest. He finally signed up, thinking that at the very least, he might get some ideas for selling services.

Instead, he received 3 pages of notes and suggestions for strengthening his marketing copy.

The lessons I learned, which I offer to you:

• Offer from a place of giving. Delivering value in a consultation is what will close the sale, not pressuring someone into buying. I’m pretty confident that if my customer needs help in the future with his seminar marketing, I’ll get a call.
• But don’t assume that your prospects and customers know that you’re not out just to make the sale. My customer even shared his ideas for how I should address this particular objection in my marketing materials.
• Remind customers that they can cash in their certificates. The reminder I sent is what finally promopted my customer to dig out his certificate and sign up for the critique.

To effectively use free consultations as a bonus to increase seminar value and registrations, think about all of the reasons prospects might be wary about accepting your offer of free help. And don’t forget to look at own experience — why haven’t you taken advantage of every offer for free help you’ve received? The more objections you address, the more people will accept your offer … and the more relationships you can develop.

When trying to identify a winning topic, most marketers and product-development experts will tell you to find a hungry crowd, discover what that crowd wants … and then deliver it.

Following this school of thought, you could pick any audience, find out what those folks want, then deliver a seminar, teleseminar or webinar to provide the information they are seeking.

But this approach overlooks a huge component in formula for success: YOU!

To understand why your passion is key to the success of your event, consider the fact that words make up a mere 7 percent of communication. The rest of the meaning is derived from nonverbal communication, such as body language and tone of voice. If you are not passionate about your training topic, your disinterest will shine through during your delivery.

Your lack of enthusiasm also spills over into your marketing materials. After 15 years in the marketing field, both leading projects and writing copy, I’ve seen firsthand how lack of interest leads to ho-hum marketing copy. To generate registrations, your copy must snap and pop, so that it grabs and holds your prospects’ attention. Likewise, if you’re using video or audio tools to promote your events, your lack of enthusiasm shines through, subtly communicating to prospects that your event is dull, not that great, and definitely not worth the investment of time and money.

Another reason to ensure you are passionate about the topic you choose: if you are successful, you will be delivering your training for a long time. Passion will sustain you over the long haul; a topic that bores you from the get-go will be torturous to deliver before long.

For the greatest success — at least, if you’re delivering the training yourself — do not search only for a hungry crowd. Instead, look for a hungry crowd with which you share a passion. Then develop the training programs they need and want. If the hungry crowd you already work with is craving a topic for which you have little interest for familiarity, find another speaker or trainer who has the experience and passion to deliver a knock-out presentation.

For example, my passion is promoting seminars. Although I’m often asked for advice in promoting trade shows, that’s not my passion or expertise. So I pass on serving that hungry crowd, knowing that there are other experts who are far better suited to take care of that niche. On the other hand, some members of my existing hungry crowd also need training on event management. Again, this is not my expertise. But because the topic is something my *existing* audience wants, event management training is something my company could provide if I brought in a trainer better suited to teach the course.

One note on the “find the hungry crowd” concept: You’ll often hear that you need to find a large crowd to justify the time you’ll spend developing a seminar, teleseminar or webinar. If people aren’t searching on your keywords, for example, there may not be a big enough audience to produce the revenue you want.

However, the size of your universe isn’t the most important factor to predicting the success of your event — the hunger of your crowd is. It’s far better to market to a smaller, tightly targeted crowd that’s starving for your training than a gigantic mass that’s merely looking for a snack.

This is, really, the definition of a niche — a small target group that has special requirements. The more tightly you can match your message to what they want, the greater success you’ll have filling your events.