From my May 2014 UK Business Trip, this is Edward Zia (me) with the 4Networking Director Stefan Thomas. This guy helps organize 5000+ events per year and it’s done with brilliant, quality, process and thought!
It is one lovely Friday night as I write this post, and I am with my lovely better half Jude. Tomorrow, I am very proud to be supporting her in her FIRST WORKSHOP EVER.
Yes, this is her first move onto the big stage with the workshop she is running titled “The Awesome Happiness and Marketing Forum”. It’s Free Half Day Workshop designed to help people and of course showcase her natural Business and Happiness Mentoring Ability.
What I found quite interesting about this experience was I remembered, how hard it is actually when you do workshops for the first time! I have been running decent ones for about 3 years now and they are old hat to me. But for poor Jude, it has been quite a tough on for her. The reality when it comes to workshops is that there is just much to do – and if you miss just one thing, you can really take damage on the event.
Off the top of my head after drinking a glass of wine, here is some key things that have to happen, You have to create the concept, Get a Flyer Written Up, Print it, Workout the Booking Engine, Get People to book in, Keep begging people to book in, Book in the venue, Give money to the venue, Collect money / do it for free, Build the presentation, Set up the Projector….
And it goes on! I think there would be at least 50 to 100 things that need to be done well for an event to go beautifully, smoothly and nicely on time. In looking back and if you are say about to do your first workshop, watching Jude go through all the emotions is making me think about my first time in this regard.
My advice for starting out is that you start with a really small event. You maybe invite more friends and just do little things and get better, scale up, do more and take baby steps in improving your skills over time. These days I can do Seminars with a bit of a stretch and workshops very easily – but like driving a car, I have been doing it for a very long time! Also, put some careful thought and consideration into the concept you are going to run with. What are you going to teach? What kind of impact are you going to make? What can do you to make it a compelling experience that everyone wants to go too?
Questions, Questions, Questions and I trust this helps! Workshops rock, they are brilliant – but for your first one, please take your time and get into it slowly.
Wish Jude luck for tomorrow and keep up the fine work awesome friends! Edward Zia – Marketing Mentor who loves Workshops!
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