How to Help Others Help You Fill Your Workshops! (Part 1)

Imagine for a moment…

You host a top notch workshop that solves a specific problem for a specific group of people.  You educate, excite, inspire and motivate.  And what happens next???  Your grateful workshop graduates become ‘raving fans’ who go back home and tell tons of people how great your workshop was, and convince everyone in their social circle to sign up for your next course!

Or do they?

That would be nice. But the truth is, your happy grads might promote for you in the short term, but their vim and vigor will soon wear off as they re-enter their busy lives.

The other truth is that they’ll initially get a few of their friends and family to listen as they sing your praises – but listening and getting folks to sign up to attend your next workshop are two totally different things.

What if there were a way to LEVERAGE your raving fans, while upping their sales abilities, the results they get, and increasing the likelihood that they’ll promote for you over time? There is…

…and it’s called an AFFILIATE PROGRAM.

An Affiliate program is an intentional program, designed by you, to support and reward the happy graduates of your programs (a.k.a. your ‘raving fans’) to keep promoting for you over the long haul.  An Affiliate Program is so great because it is the only marketing program where you can control your costs and guarantee your profits. Why? Because you don’t pay anyone anything until a sale is made.  That means ZERO RISK to you!

Any effective Affiliate promotion has 3 main objectives:

Continuously recruit and entice individuals and companies to become your Affiliates.

TIP:  Officially ask your clients to be an Affiliate for you (get it in writing), and ask them when they are at the peak of their experience with you (i.e. at the end of your workshop or seminar)

Provide initial and ongoing training to help them improve their promotional abilities.

TIP:  Most people don’t have effective sales abilities. Support your affiliates to sell for you by giving them some simple tools.  Offer some phrases and language they might use when talking about your programs.  Give them some pre-done flyers or simple tickets to pass out with information on it.  Pre-write an email they can send out to their circle.

Provide ongoing motivation to keep promoting for you through a well designed reward system.

TIP:  Set up a well designed, well tracked reward system to keep your affiliates excited.  We’ll be talking about what kinds of rewards work and what kinds don’t in a future blog. (Hint: It is not always the best idea to motivate with money and discounts).

Even though Affiliate Programs seem simple at first glance, most workshop leaders don’t really understand the subtleties of making an Affiliate program work over time.

Keep checking back here as we’ll be revealing what works and what doesn’t.  In the mean time, sit down and start designing your official Affiliate Program, and start reaping the rewards of your raving fans.

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