Designing (and delivering!) your own workshops and teleclasses is a great way to leverage your time, build credibility with your target market and expand into teaching and facilitation — two gateway skills.

If you’ve never designed an educational program before, it may seem like a major undertaking. The truth is — it’s easy! And you can model your program on workshops and teleclass you’ve experienced. Then, put your flair and finesse into it as you go.

What’s the difference between workshops and teleclass?

A workshop is a live event held in person. 
A teleclassis a workshop held on a telephone bridgeline.

One of the downsides to workshops is that the room rental and refreshments can run you several hundred dollars. Also you’ll spend more time delivering the program because of drive time and minor room set up, hello’s and goodbyes. On the other hand, the live meet and greet may help you make a stronger impression, if you’re good at networking.

If you’re just getting started, consider the teleclass option — there’s no overhead and the phone provides a nice buffer between you and your audience, while it also allows people from all over the world to participate. FreeConferencePro.com is a great free telebridge service.

Whether you’re doing a workshop or teleclass, the content can be almost identical with the exception of some tweaks that need to be made for conducting group interaction and exercises over the phone.

Consider building into the price a little one on one time with you. Once your clients have a taste of your expertise and your coaching, they will want more.

Here are Karyn’s expert tips for designing your program:

Tip # 1
Design a topic and key points that help solve your target markets top challenges.

The best way to find out what they need is to ask. Do your research! Without research, you may put in a lot of effort but not attract pre-qualified leads to your event that lead to 1:1 coaching or other sales.

(If this does happen, don’t give up, just tweak the event!)

Tip # 2
Create an extraordinary lesson plan.

Outline what order that you’ll present each key point, exercises and other ways to illustrate and help your audience integrate the learning.

Tip # 3
PRACTICE!!!

Practice running through your program. Allow for Q&A, short side tracks, attendees’ enthusiasm! Be sure you have not planned too much for the time frame you have. Nothing aggravates attendees more that if you start late and end late.

Consider giving a pilot program for free or half price. Be clear with your audience that you’re doing this in order to get their feedback. People love to have an impact on your design. And, if you word it right — “I’m offering my list this special pilot price…” — they’ll feel they got a deal just for knowing you.

Use their feedback to tweak your program for your full price audience.

And here’s Karyn’s bonus tips!

Test your pricing.

The biggest mistake most new facilitators make is pricing their program too low. A higher value is often perceived when the price is higher. Check those scarcity beliefs if you’re undervaluing your expertise!

On the other hand, you must be sure that your topic is something that will draw for the price you set. This all comes back to Tip # 1 and the research you do about your target market’s top challenges and end goals. If you can help them solve problems, make more money, find more time or let go of hassles, they’ll value you and your program.

Handle learning expectations upfront.

Every adult comes with their own educational history, learning style and expectations. Sometimes it’s harder to satisfy adults. Ask them what they are hoping to get out of this class at the start. Then do your best to provide that.

Sometimes, you may need to say that there won’t be time to cover certain topics. That will help them feel heard and you can often guide them to other classes, products or 1:1 coaching to answer their inquiries. You’ll clear what is floating around in their heads so they can truly focus and everyone’s expectations will be met.

Get started now!

It’s too easy to put off starting your own workshop or teleclass month after month and even year after year. You lose out on a great revenue booster and your prospects miss out on a way to build a relationship with you that could lead to long term loyalty and great satisfaction.

This past weekend I was at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in Lyons, Colorado. The headliner was KT Tunstall — one of my faves. This particular lyric of hers came through in a new way for me:

You’ve got me wonderin’ why I am underneath this big ol’ sky stoppin’ the love from gettin’ in.

I got to thinking about coaches — my favorite people. They have so much to give and do so much good in the world. But often they forget to let the love in. Hey, I understand because I forget sometimes too!

So… kings and queens of empowerment, shuck the glass half empty story and get this — you are enough and there is enough! The Universe is pouring it’s abundance out to you. Open up to receive it.

Do visitors find what they’re looking for when they land on your site? Is your leads-list growing consistently to bring you a steady stream of ideal clients? Not yet? It’s time to get your website working for you!

Websites don’t work alone. Traffic must be driven to them. Visitors find you through visibility builders — networking, public speaking, group work, blogs, social networking, articles posted in journals or directories and incoming links. If your market is unique enough or what you’re offering is in high demand, search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click methods may send lots of visitors to you.

Ongoing visibility building puts you in contact with thousands of people in your niche market. If your message is compelling, some of those people will visit your site.

Be ready for them! Design your website to:
- Raise awareness about your offerings.
- Engender trust through credibility.
- And, sell your products and coaching programs.

Most people will need to know a bit about you before they buy from you. But you don’t have time to build a private relationship with everyone initially. Your website can be like a virtual reception line keeping connections warm and growing.

Five Keys to Websites that Turn Prospects Into Clients

Rate your website on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 is best) on each of the five keys.

1. Is it obvious on your home page WHO the site is for?
Generic life coaching sites don’t convert prospects into clients. STAND OUT in the crowd! Attract your clients through distinction:
- Your style, skills and expertise.
- Your highly valuable and relevant offers.
- How you bring results to your niche market’s top challenges and end goals.

2. How well does your website showcase your brand?
Prominently display your brand on every page. You company name/logo + your professional headshot + your name + your headline, tag line or Unique Benefit Statement = your authentic brand. Once they feel you have solutions for them, ultimately, it’s you they want — your time, your expertise and your support. People buy what they relate to.

3. Is your website easy to navigate?
Do visitors know what you want them to do? Take them on a journey. And remember, they won’t stay if the site is confusing, overwhelming or bland. Make your site easy to navigate with streamlined text that is compelling to your market.

Your Website’s Prime Directive: Capture visitors’ contact info before they leave your site!

4. Does your website capture qualified leads?
Is your freebie something your niche market wants? Move their eyes to your freebie first. If your freebie (a free ezine, assessment, report, ecourse, podcast, video, etc.) is something other than your ezine, give them your ezine subscription too, so you can continue to build awareness about you as you build trust through valuable articles. Those leads include your future clients. Take good care of them. Stay in touch.

5. Does your website have a clear call to action?
Are you asking clients to buy from you? Whether you want them to sign up for your ezine, fill out your contact form, sign up for a teleseminar or buy your ebook — make sure you call them to action.

A call to action implies something positive will happen if they respond immediately! Give them something very valuable up front and lead them to the next step with you.

Engage them on your contact page. Create a web form with a few specific questions that your target market WANTS to answer, that are related to your value proposition. Ask for their name, phone and email address too. Then when you call to follow up, you’ll have a framework for your conversation.

Does the idea of selling your life coaching to clients push all your taboo buttons? Are you procrastinating on writing compelling content for your home page or creating a sales page for your new product? Do fears about marketing get in the way of letting your market know about you and therefore become a barrier to having paying clients?

Believe me, at some time everyone struggles with the idea of marketing. Here’s what permanently flipped that for me…

1. I realized that my pain about marketing comes from the way I think about it, not the act of marketing itself.

2. When I empowered myself to think positively about marketing, not only did the challenge become a game, but also, I attracted clients easily and that was really fun!

What a surprise… Prosperity thinking works, even when it’s applied to marketing!

As life coaches, we are all about helping people reframe limiting beliefs and take the high road through personal growth. Well folks, it’s time to walk the talk. Let your negativity about marketing dissolve away. Reframe the way you think about it so that you attract your ideal clients without the pain!

So how do you shift to a more powerful mindset about marketing?

1. Redefine marketing.

Marketing, or client attraction, is a continuous authentic process to build a relationship of trust and loyalty with individuals in your niche market. That’s all it is! Building trusting relationships.

2. Believe that you are in the right place at the right time.

Remember, you were called to this field of life coaching! Do you really think you’d be called if there was no one “out there” to receive your valuable coaching? No way! Your clients are waiting for you. Count on it! You’re primary job is to make it easy for them to find you. And then, once they hire you, you have the honor
of being their life coach and helping them succeed!

3. Act as if your clients are waiting for you.

TAKE THE 90 DAY CHALLENGE: Use these three steps above to continually reframe your thinking about marketing over the next 90 days. Your pain around marketing will become a distant memory.