How to Create a Workshop in 10 Easy Steps: Part One
Learning how to create a workshop is a great way to attract new students, expand your existing students' education, develop your expertise in a specialty niche, and generate a little additional income. Plus, it'll look great on your teacher or coach resume.
But what do you need to host your first workshop? How do workshops differ from a standard class? How do you set up the space? Will you hold your workshop online or in a local studio? (Hint: you should probably host it at our cowork space in Lagos!) What does the flow of the workshop look like? And how do you get participants excited about it?
Hosting your first workshop can be nerve-wracking, and indeed, a workshop takes a different type of planning, marketing, and execution to a regular class.
In part one of our ultimate guide to hosting a workshop, we're going to look at how to:
Plan a successful workshop
Pick a theme for your workshop
Define your audience
And decide on the format your workshop will take
Whether you are hosting your first workshop, or you've hosted many and are looking for ideas to change things up a little, let's dive into our guide to hosting a successful workshop that every teacher needs.
What's the difference between a workshop and a class?
Primarily, workshops differ from classes because in workshops, the teacher usually will focus on developing an enhanced understanding of a particular topic for the attendee by teaching theory.
Or, to look at it a different way, in regular classes, we encourage students to learn from our teaching. Whereas in workshops, we encourage students to discuss topics openly, ask questions, and observe and assess each other.
The final reason is that workshops are generally much longer than classes and some will allow the time for the instructor to spend individual time with each attendee, rather than dividing their time between the group.
What’s the difference between a workshop and a masterclass?
You may have heard the term 'masterclass' which is becoming a lot more popular and wonder what it means and what the difference is between a masterclass and a workshop.
Simply, at workshops, attendees achieve their learning objectives through lecture, discussion, and practice. Masterclasses focus more on practice, with detailed instruction.
Planning a Successful Workshop
As Abraham Lincoln once said; "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I'll spend the first four sharpening the axe". You probably don't need an axe for your workshop idea, however, the success of your workshop rests on your planning, and the earlier you start planning, the easier your life will be.
What are the goals for your workshop?
So, you want to run your own workshop. But why? I mean, really why?
It's important to get your purpose clear. It's common for teachers to simply want to be teaching, however, without a specific goal in mind, your workshop will lack direction, clarity and efficiency.
Ask yourself the following questions. Be honest, pick as many as you need, and there are no wrong answers!
Do you want to increase sign-ups to your regular classes?
Or attract people to join up to your membership or subscription package?
Do you want to expand your influence in the local community?
Maybe you want to become known as a teacher who has a specialist niche?
Or maybe you just need to earn some extra money? (This is absolutely fine, by the way!)
If you get clear on your purpose, it will help guide you in deciding on a workshop topic and setting up a great workshop.
What does a successful workshop mean to you?
It's unusual for teachers to set key performance indicators, as they are called in the business world, but setting specific and tangible targets are necessary to measure your progress, ensure you are focussing on the right things, and recording your experiences so your next workshop can learn from your first.
These can be anything that you decide are important. Some examples might include:
Financial. You could set your goals as breaking even (meaning you cover your costs), or a certain amount of profit.
A fixed outcome for the customers / students.
Maybe you want to gather 5 testimonials from your students for a new website (extremely important for new teachers, by the way!)
Or develop some new partnerships with locals in the community or with local businesses?
The key with any goal like this, or key performance indicator, is that the targets you pick are measurable, achievable, and tangible.
Pick a number. For example, you could say you want 5 testimonials, or create partnerships with 3 local businesses. 'Some testimonials' is not good enough because you can't gauge success on that.
And then, after you've hosted your workshop, you can gauge what worked, what didn't, and what you can improve for next time.
Pick the Theme for your Workshop
Workshop topic ideas
To start, you need to define what it is you want to teach. This will be the starting point for everything else. First, think about the broad topic which you are passionate about, and that you have enough experience and knowledge in that you can comfortably teach others about it.
When you are choosing your broad topic, there are a few things you want to consider. Check that there is existing audience demand, and this is especially valid if you are holding your workshop in-person. A great example of a company hosting educational workshops on purpose-driven entrepreneurship is IMPCTDRVN, who regularly host workshops at our cowork space in Lagos.
Personal interest or passion is essential. Your enthusiasm is one of the greatest assets you have when hosting a workshop. Don't purely pick a topic that you think will make money. Students love teachers who love what they are teaching.
Maybe you've spotted an opportunity or a need amongst your students or the local community. This is a superb way to choose topics and generate workshop ideas. A workshop is a business, and the goal of any business is to solve a problem or a need for its customer.
And finally, you might choose a workshop based upon the timing of special events in your area. This is again a great way to choose. For example, there might be a surf competition in your local area and to coincide, you choose to run a 'yoga / massage / fitness for surfers' (or whatever you might be teaching) workshop.
Learning objectives
After choosing your broad topic, it's a good idea to develop specific learning objectives for the day. What do you want your students to learn or achieve at your workshop?
Workshops differ from group classes in that you want to deliver a tangible outcome for each student. They need to leave your workshop being able to do something they couldn't do when they arrived.
Define your Workshop Audience
Now that you’ve figured out what your workshop is going to be about, the next step in creating an incredible workshop is knowing your audience.
This doesn't have to mean you have a PhD in psychology and sociology—you just need to ask yourself a few simple questions: Who are the people who would benefit most from this workshop? What do they want? How can I help them?
Create a customer persona
It's a good idea to create a clear vision of exactly the type of students who you want to teach at your workshop. What is their problem that you're setting out to solve with your workshop? What else do they do or buy to solve this problem? What else are they interested in?
Can you make any generalization about their demographics? Are they more likely to be a particular age? Gender? The clearer you can get on who your customer is and where they already congregate, the easier it will be to find them when we create your marketing plan.
Decide on the Format your Workshop will take
Will you host your workshop in-person or online?
These days, one of the first questions to ask yourself is whether you want to host your workshop in person or online. There are, of course, pros and cons for each option.
Online workshops
The primary benefit to hosting your workshop online is the lack of the need for travel, both for teacher and the class. This opens up opportunities for a worldwide audience (albeit subject to timezones).
This also results in lower costs to run your workshop, and of course there are no costs for hiring a studio or other kind of event space, which is likely to result in more money for you once you account for all costs (although this isn't guaranteed).
A downside is that you will be at the mercy of technology, which can be temperamental and fail, so it's important to have reliable wi-fi, good quality equipment and probably a premium version of whichever software you choose to use (e.g., Zoom or Everwebinar).
While you can also film and record a full workshop on a cellphone, the quality will greatly improve if you have a video camera, microphone, audio interface and lighting equipment, and you can charge more money for your classes, so it can be a worthwhile investment.
Finally, you will need to consider who will moderate / manage the technology while you are teaching? It's very difficult to teach, interact with the students and moderate the technology all at once, so consider finding someone to help while you simply 'turn up and teach'.
In-person workshops
The biggest pro to consider for in-person teaching is simple. Interaction.
Teaching online simply cannot compete with live workshops if you are engaging with your students. The most effective workshops are about the participants and not the facilitator, and this comes from having discussions and not being lectured, and two-way communication is always easier in person.
While online workshops can initially appear to be more cost-effective and offer greater opportunities for profit, the increased interaction with students during in-person workshops increases the probability of their meeting their learning objectives. Therefore, customer satisfaction is often much higher from in-person training and will cause more word-of-mouth referrals, being better for business in the long run.
There are, of course, many questions to consider when deciding to do in-person training, not least, how to select a venue. Do you have access to a studio? Will the venue owner be happy for you to run your workshop there, or might it conflict with things they teach themselves?
Is there adequate transport to the venue? What's the parking situation? It's worth considering all the nitty gritty details at the beginning. This will hopefully minimize difficulties later.
Additional teachers / guest speakers
Next, we need to consider how we are going to take your students from point A to point B on their learning journey. Do you have all the resources, knowledge, and equipment necessary to take them on this journey and achieve these goals? Or will you need another teacher to share their relevant expertise?
Duration
How long will it take you to complete this learning journey for your student? To answer this question accurately, you need to know where they are currently at on their journey.
If you run an in-person workshop which lasts for more than a day, consider that your students might need to find accommodation and time off work, which can complicate matters and make it more difficult for students to attend.
Day / date / timezones
Another important consideration is when you will hold your workshop. Are your audience likely to have jobs where they'll work during office hours? Or will they have kids?
If you are hosting an online workshop, will your audience be in different time zones?
If it is your first workshop, it is best to minimise anything which might cause complications and difficulties for you.
Conclusion
We hope that this first part of our guide to creating an amazing workshop has been useful for you.
In part two, we'll look at how to:
Design the structure of your workshop
Create marketing, financial, and logistical plans for your workshop
Design your workshop venue
Deliver the workshop
We look forward to seeing you there!
Here at the Lagos Coworkers in old town Lagos, Portugal, our venue is available for private hire every weekend to host your very own workshop.
Prices start from €10 per hour, or €150 for the whole weekend.
Find out more information about hiring our venue for your workshop and start planning today!