[OWA #4] - Step Three - Test Your Idea with a Workshop

Greetings fellow entrepreneurs:

This is the fourth podcast in a five part series entitled One Workshop Away. I am breaking down one of the simplest models to leverage the digital economy.

Enjoy!

Introduction

Step Three of our One Workshop Away model is to test the economic viability of your idea with a workshop. This is the step that defines our model.

The biggest reason for using a workshop is to quickly validate an idea before creating a single digital asset. How many people waste time, six months a year, learning complicated software, building elaborate funnels and trainings, a website, logo, marketing campaigns, content, so on and so forth?

Before doing any of that, you want to know if your audience wants the solution that you have to offer. Inside our book, One Workshop Away, we provide you with a 30-day roadmap where you complete all three steps including the delivery of a paid workshop in 30 days.

You're going to save months of time, headaches, wrong turns and money.

Micro Workshops

Now, let me say something about micro workshops.

We suggest that you create a micro workshop. A micro workshop is what you can teach in one hour with another half hour for Q&A. A regular workshop is anywhere from 2 to 8 hours of content.

A micro workshop takes less time to create since the content and technology are much simpler.

Having said that, I have had students in my workshops who wanted to start out with a regular workshop, like 4 hours of training. They wanted to be able to charge or teach more.

This is fine.

Everything we teach in the One Workshop Away model can be adjusted for regular workshops by adding more time.

Micro Workshops Solve a Small Problem

I use the term micro workshop because I want to remove the notion of complexity from your mind.

This is not something that's going to take you weeks create. You're building something very simple and specific. You're solving one small problem for your audience, which forms part of your larger signature solution.

As you go through the Know Yourself and Know Your Audience exercises, you will be separating out little problems that you can solve or goals you can help people achieve based on your unique set of skills and experience.

The biggest mistake with micro workshops is that people try to teach too much. Just pick one hot topic that your audience wants to solve. It should be a semi difficult task that your audience would love to cross off their list.

Remember, what is second nature to you or easy for you, is difficult for other people. Thus, there is value in shortcutting the learning curve for people. You've already done the legwork, you’ve synthesized the information, you've categorized it, and you’ve put it together in an orderly fashion.

So you want something simple:

1. How to optimize an Instagram profile for sales?

2. The anatomy of a high converting email.

3. How to bake your first loaf of sourdough bread?

Again, this is where your personal and your audience work from Steps One and Two come into play. You should have a list of problems or goals with which your audience struggles.

How to Validate an Idea

Validating your idea is straightforward.

You send out a post or an email to your contacts, whether they're your followers on social media or a group or forum, or an email list.

And the message is simple.

I'm thinking about doing a micro workshop on [the following topic] to [help you solve this problem or reach this goal]. It'll be this amount [$19, 29, 49]. Comment below and I'll send you the details.

That's it.

That's your promotion. You want people to raise their hand from your group, from your contacts, and you want people them to signal that they're interested.

In our One Workshop Away book, as well as in the last post in this series, we break down the mechanics for creating and delivering a paid workshop. If you want more details, go to the next post in this series, or inside our book.

We state the price upfront because we want to filter out the free seekers. We want people to know that it's a paid workshop.

Summarizing Our Model

Our model isn’t very complicated.

1. Step One is you create an inventory of your skills, hobbies, interests, passions and abilities.

2. Step Two is to match that with the needs of the different audiences that you want to serve.

3. Step Three is to test the best ideas by getting folks to sign up, then delivering on your paid workshop.

As we mentioned at the start of this podcast series, the One Workshop Away model removes the complexity of having to build out elaborate funnels, training programs, websites, logos, content and marketing materials. In addition, it places the focus of your digital enterprise on you and your skill set.

There's no competition for You, Inc.

That’s it for this week’s episode. Next week I’ll complete the One Workshop Away podcast series by telling you what happens after you’ve delivered a successful workshop.

The impact on you will amaze you. Hope to see you then.

Here’s to your success.

Gustavo