Evan Carmichael breaks down three ways to fill your entrepreneurship workshops: partner with schools and community groups using targeted contact lists, pitch journalists with the social impact angle, and publish YouTube videos and blog posts to build credibility and attract people organically.
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How to market your workshops. If you're an entrepreneur and you're selling workshops and you want people to know about it, you want people to call you up and say, "Come into my school, my store, my business," whatever it is, to learn about your workshops, then today I'm going to give you 3 strategies on how to promote those workshops. And it comes on the back of a question from one of my readers, Preacher J. Preacher J, he wrote in to say that he's marketing his workshops, trying to teach young people how to be entrepreneurs, and he's focusing on students, and he's trying to figure out how do I get the word out about my workshops. So Preacher J, here is my 3-step strategy for how to promote your workshops. The first one is partnerships. Okay, if you want to go out and promote your workshops, you have to find people who are willing to Showcase them. So in your case, it may be schools, it may be colleges, it may be groups. You can look them up online, you can go to networking events, you can see where these people are hanging out and contact them. If you are just trying to build up a list, one of my favorite resources is a website called Jigsaw. It's jigsaw.com. I'm not affiliated with it, but I love the service where you can find names of people, phone numbers, email addresses. It costs you about a dollar per lead, and you can reach out to them. And say, "Hey, here's what I'm doing." And make sure you're reaching out to them with something special, something memorable, something different, because they're getting pitched a lot by people just like you. So you have to have a different angle. When you're telling me about your workshops, just like you did in your email, you gotta tell me what's different about it. Teaching students to be entrepreneurs? It's a great message, but it's not powerful enough. Why? What's the, what's the reason behind this? What do you stand for? Is it to get kids off the street? Is it to Teach people that there's another way. It's not just going to work for a big company. You can start your own thing. You have to have some passion here because again, these people are being pitched all the time by people just like you. And to get them to pay attention to you, you have to have a message that is worth spreading. So work on that message and start building your list and reaching out to people. Okay, that's your first step. The second step is getting the media. Okay, if you are a workshop leader, you're a thought leader. You have something to say, you have a powerful opinion, and you should be an expert. And as entrepreneurs, we should all be experts at what we do. So what I want you to do is start building up a list of media people who are targeting your area. I don't know if you're looking at just doing it in your city, in your state, you're trying to go nationwide, whatever it is, wherever you're trying to start, build up a media list. And give them something worth talking about. Again, this ties to why do people need your workshop. Is it that students are struggling and they're on the street and this is a way for them to get off of it? Is it that young people want to be entrepreneurs but they don't have enough training in the schools? Like, what is it? What, what is the reason why I need to sign up for your workshop? I shouldn't have to ask you this question. It should be in your messaging. You send an email to somebody, it should be apparent what it is that you do. The benefit, why I want to connect with you. Okay, media are always looking for stories, so if you can create a great story with a hook that promotes you, it's not a sales pitch, but it showcases your expertise, it starts to build awareness. And people who are reading that will see your name, will see your website, will say, "I need to have that in my school or my college or my university," and they'll contact you. It's such a great way to reach people because it's not you screaming, it's somebody talking on your behalf, right? If a newspaper publishes you, it's them saying, hey, this is a credible person, this is somebody who you should listen to, and it dramatically increases the chances of people noticing you. And it's not that hard to reach out to the media and get published. The media are looking for stories constantly. They're constantly looking for experts to give them content. That's their job, is to find great content. You're making their job easier. So build your list of reporters and start reaching out. The third thing I would do is I would start recording the workshops or recording your message and get it up online. Make YouTube videos, even if it's something simple just like I'm doing right now. You talk in front of a camera. It's not even you doing your workshop. It's just you in front of a camera talking. To start building momentum. One, it'll make you a better speaker. The more practice you have, the more you go through the exercise, the better you're going to become. But two, it'll help start building a movement. You want people spreading your stuff. You want people talking about you. I've gotten gigs with big companies from my videos because they see my passion for entrepreneurs. And it could be me helping them explain how to market to entrepreneurs. It could be me helping them with a program. It could be me doing a workshop, facilitation, creating content for them. Whatever it is, I've gotten tons of opportunities from the content I produce, a lot of it through the videos or through the blog posts that I put up. You need to showcase your expertise, and it'll also help give you a sense of what kind of content is sticking with people. Right, you can tell on your videos how many views they have, how many comments they have, are people liking it, are people sharing it. That can form a great content base to make your workshops even better. But the main goal here is getting your message out. So for anybody who's promoting a workshop or anybody who's trying to showcase themselves as a thought leader, if it's workshops, if it's seminars, if it's books, if it's being on a radio show, if it's doing anything where you are a thought leader, then follow that process. One, again, reach out to potential partners, people who can promote you, people who can bring you in and showcase you. Number 2: Make sure that you are out there talking to the media. Create a list, reach out to them on a regular basis, give them value. Don't sell them, give them value. Make them want to talk about you because you're giving them a great story with a great hook. And number 3: Start recording yourself. Create a YouTube channel, start building momentum, start building some traction. Become a better speaker because you're practicing more. Those 3 steps have worked for me, have worked for tons of other experts, and I know they're going to work for you. Believe. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It always makes me want to do more, and I'd love to hear what you have to think. You have a question about your business, leave it below. I'll make a video response. You have a different comment about this video in particular, leave it below. I love seeing those come in. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.
