Offering workshops, seminars and other group coaching programmes are a great way to connect with many potential clients at once. This format gives you the opportunity to build rapport with a wider community and offer a service which may be more affordable than one-to-one coaching.
Online vs. Offline
Hosting online can be a great route if you’re just getting started. It’s a great way to introduce yourself as a coach and demonstrate your ability to facilitate a group workshop. At times it may feel more like you’re presenting as it can be challenging to get people fully engaged, it’s therefore a good idea to design a workshop which has relevant examples built in and introduces people to some exercises they can do on their own.
Platforms such as Zoom, Whereby and Google Meet offer affordable options to host many people virtually. As you get more experienced hosting online you can leverage tools like breakout rooms in Zoom to introduce new ways of driving engagement. Breakout rooms and similar features, enable you to split the workshop into smaller rooms so people can do peer work. These tools expand the possibilities for your online group coaching workshops and keep people fully engaged.
Although there are many benefits to hosting workshops online, you’ll need to facilitate the sessions well if you are to maintain the energy and attention throughout.
Hosting In-person (or offline) is a more intimate and personal experience. Meeting people face to face is the ultimate opportunity to build deep rapport and create a powerful experience, which can be difficult to fully match online.
In-person workshops give you more opportunity to leverage the energy, ideas and input from the group. In-person group coaching exercises may produce better outcomes, as you have the complete focus and presence of those who attend. You can also use the group to match accountability partners, and the in-person format helps meet the collective need for human connection.
Unlike online, the barrier to hosting an in-person workshop is a little higher as you’ll need to find a suitable venue and be covered with public liability insurance. Do some research or seek professional advice to ensure you've taken care of the essentials.
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Marketing your group coaching workshop
Whether you’re hosting online or in-person these are some options you may want to explore to promote your group coaching workshop for free.
- Leverage your own network
- Facebook Events
- Facebook Groups
- LinkedIn Groups
- Meetup.com
- Eventbrite
- Slack Communities
- Co-working Communities like WeWork
Beyond the free options, you may want to learn more about how pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can help drive interest and signups to your coaching workshop. You can choose to promote onto social media platforms, search engines or both. As there are highly effective targeting options, you get to promote your workshop to the demographics of the people you wish to work with and only pay if they click through. You can learn much more about PPC advertising online to get started.
What’s next?
As a coach you’ll need to be nurturing prospective clients through leveraging your network, hosting discovery sessions and with ongoing outreach. By hosting group workshops, you can ensure your sales pipeline is always filled with new leads ready to engage in your more intensive or long term coaching engagements.
After each workshop you host you should send a follow up to all those who attended so they’re fully aware of all the services you offer. Within Practice, you can create specific coaching products with unique links to upsell to the participants of your group workshops.
At Practice, we’ve created the essential tools you need to operate your coaching business. Our platform gives you powerful tools and takes care of the scheduling, client management, forms, invoicing and so much more. To learn more click here.
