How to Start Creating Workshops, Courses and Programmes

Adding workshops, courses and programmes to your offers is a great way to introduce extra income to your holistic business and complement your 1:1 work.

They provide clients with alternative ways to experience your approach and can be a stepping stone for people who aren’t ready to commit to your higher-priced offers yet.

When you start developing any new offering - keep it simple! Start with the minimum viable product (MVP) and create your new workshop, course or programme with the basic features needed to get your clients results.

MVP comes from ‘The Lean Start-up’ by Eric Ries. The idea is, you start simple and move fast. This approach stops you from getting caught up trying to make everything perfect before you launch. If you’re waiting until everything’s perfect, it could take you years to get it ready.

A simple approach and providing the basic features do not mean you do a shabby job, it must work. You must meet client expectations as people have minimum standards and it will reflect badly on your brand if they aren’t met.

Advantages of the MVP Approach

• You’ll be able to produce your workshop, course or programme quickly as there will be fewer elements to create than the future versions.
• You’ll be able to test if there is a demand for it before you create a singing all dancing version. You don’t know if something will sell – even if clients say it’s something they’re interested in, they’re only really committed once they’ve paid you!
• You’ll avoid making significant investments of your time and money to find out it doesn’t work.
• The insights and feedback you gain from your first clients will help identify any improvements needed and get new ideas to create other offers for the future.

Beta Test

A beta test is where you create your basic workshop, course or programme and invite people to participate at a reduced price. You let them know it’s the first time you’re running it and part of the deal is for them to provide you with feedback.

You get the opportunity to make sure it works, is well received, to make any improvements needed and get testimonials to market your future offers.

Start Where You Are

When you design your offering, start with what you have available now. The technology, the skills and your knowledge and design it based on that. If you start thinking you must get a new qualification or learn how to use a new fancy technology before you do it, you will never get it finished!

7 Steps to Creating your MVP

1. Find your idea– what are you going to produce to solve a specific problem for your clients? Keep it simple to start with and look to solve one problem rather than throwing everything you know at it.
2. Outline it– keep it as simple as possible. Map out your idea and decide on the basic elements you need to produce. Write up an outline of what you want to do.
3. Validate it– offer it to your audience to find out if there is a need for it. Don’t take people’s word on it being a good idea, get them to sign up to a waiting list, or better still, pay to participate in the beta test.
4. Create it– take your outline and create the simplest version of your offering. You want to do as good a job as possible with what you have, keeping costs low. You can pay a graphic designer to create a masterpiece once you know it works.
5. Beta test it – run the first version and ask the participants for feedback and testimonials.
6. Update and adapt – make the changes to your offering and add any flourishes to help it become your full and finished offering.
7. Market and sell it – this is now a finished workshop, course, or programme that you can sell to clients to make an income from.

Once created, you will need to continue to market and sell your workshops, courses and programmes – they won’t just sell themselves because you’ve made them. But having options for your clients to work with you will provide you with additional income streams and help you to build a sustainable business.

If you want to create a workshop, course or programme for your holistic business, book a discovery call and find out how I can help you.