Jumpstart Your Online Business with a Workshop

Create a Simple Revenue-Generating Offer That Leads to Your Core Offer

When you think about everything you eventually want in your online business, it can get complicated quickly. You may want a website, lead generator, email nurture sequence, entry-level offers, core offer, premium services, online courses, community, and more.

But you don’t have to build all of that before you start doing business. In fact, I recommend starting much smaller. Build one useful client experience. Launch it. Learn from it. Then build the next version of your business. For many experienced professionals, a live workshop is an excellent place to start.

Why Start with a Workshop?

A workshop gives you a relatively simple way to turn part of your expertise into an offer people can experience. If you have already developed a Transformation Framework, think of that framework as the repeatable process you use to help clients move from where they are now toward where they want to be. Choose a meaningful subset, or splinter, of the framework: perhaps one step, or a small combination of steps, that can help someone achieve a specific result.

To create any offer, combine that splinter with a delivery format:

Framework Splinter (What) + Live Workshop (How) = Your Workshop Offer

A good workshop should help participants make real progress on something that matters to them, while naturally showing them that there is more they could accomplish by continuing to work with you.

A workshop is much more than a presentation. It delivers an actual client experience of working with you to create a specific result.

A Workshop Does Several Jobs at Once

There are several reasons I like workshops as an early offer.

First, you get to teach something you already know. For experienced professionals, delivering a live presentation or facilitating a discussion is often much easier than spending weeks or months producing a polished online course.

Second, you can help participants solve a focused problem or achieve a meaningful result. They experience your expertise rather than simply reading about it on your website.

Third, they get a live experience of working with you.

That can be especially important if your eventual core offer involves coaching, consulting, advising, or training. Asking someone who barely knows you to immediately schedule a sales conversation can be a big step. Attending a workshop is a much lower-risk way for them to experience how you think, teach, and interact.

A workshop can also help you generate early revenue and, perhaps most importantly, get real market feedback. You learn by operating the business, not just planning it.

What questions do participants ask? Where do they struggle? What resonates? Does the piece of your framework you selected actually address something they want?

Free or Paid?

A free workshop can attract more registrations and help you build your email list. The tradeoff is that many people who register for something free may never attend.

A paid workshop may have fewer people signing up, but  typically creates a more commitment. Even a modest financial investment signals that someone has more than casual interest in solving the problem.

But this doesn’t have to be an either/or decision. One approach is to offer a free General Admission ticket for attending the workshop live, perhaps with limited replay access, and then offer a VIP upgrade. The VIP version might include unlimited replay access, additional training, worksheets, group coaching, or a private consultation.

That gives people a low-risk way to enter while also giving those who want more support an opportunity to invest.

Build Only What You Need

Once you have designed the workshop, you can move into the Build phase. For a basic free workshop, you need relatively few online assets:

• An event registration page
• A confirmation page
• A registration confirmation email
• Event reminder emails
• The live event itself
• A replay and follow-up process

Adding a paid VIP option requires a few more pieces, such as an upsell page, checkout, purchase confirmation, and an online product where VIP participants can access their additional resources and replays.

Yes, there are details involved. But compare this with trying to build your entire online business before you launch anything. You are building one complete client experience, not your entire future business.

Launch, Learn, and Improve

Once the pieces are ready, launch the workshop. Promote it through your existing network, referrals, email list, social media, direct outreach, speaking, or whatever channels you currently have available.

Then pay attention. How many people registered? How many attended? Did you attract the people you intended to attract? What questions did they ask? What worked well? What needs improvement?

And at the end of the workshop, give participants an opportunity to continue the journey.

That might simply be an invitation to have a one-on-one conversation about their situation and determine whether your core offer is an appropriate next step. Then follow up.

This is where the Iterate part of the process begins.

Use what you learned to improve the workshop, your messaging, your offer, and eventually the next version of your business. You don’t have to design and build your entire online business before you start.

Design one valuable client experience, a live workshop. Build it. Launch it. Learn from it. Then improve it with intention.

This is one of the easiest ways to get started.