Making money from training

Digital_Guy

I have a tonne of experience in a fairly specialised area that is in extremely high demand worldwide. When it comes to training in this area (for people looking to learn the skills), there are a lot of online providers across various websites, Udemy, and other areas. You can take a basic online course for free, or a paid course for anything from €29 as a once-off, to in-depth subscription courses available for upwards of €1k/month.

For in-person training though, here in Ireland there are just a handful of providers, even fewer with the required knowledge and experience - and so I see an opportunity. My idea is for quite intensive training with a small group of people in each workshop (max 5), where they get lots of attention and guidance in addition to expert hands-on training, for a fee of say around €250 per person for a session that lasts for around 3.5 hours.

This is of course around €1,250 for 3.5 hours work, plus preparation and research beforehand (which would not take that much time).

Seems a bit too easy...is it?! Obviously you have to be able to attract people to the training, but that can certainly be done, especially when you are limiting class sizes. I have also just seen a company in the US offering a 3 day training course (all day training) in the same sector with max 25 participants for $2,500 per person. So that company will make over $62k in THREE DAYS, if they fill all spaces which I am sure they will.

Again...is it a bit too easy...am I missing something?

mikeoneilly

Could you be a little more specific about the type of training?

Digital_Guy

mikeoneilly wrote: »

Could you be a little more specific about the type of training?

Sure - it is in the area of digital marketing, specifically geared towards SMEs and how they can get more traffic, leads, customers and sales from their website.

Stheno

Digital_Guy wrote: »

Sure - it is in the area of digital marketing, specifically geared towards SMEs and how they can get more traffic, leads, customers and sales from their website.

Is it certified by an accrediting organisation?

Digital_Guy

Stheno wrote: »

Is it certified by an accrediting organisation?

Nope, but there are none as such - there are some organisations out there but there are few areas where experience and knowledge trump certifications more than digital marketing.

ironclaw

Suppose it comes down to your target audience. I know a few firms that are pretty strict about who comes in the door, there needs to be a track record and some form of formal accreditation behind them. Now, that doesn't always translate to a good experience and I've sat through many a talk which I'm sure cost a company thousands. Abstracting a little, getting time with a one man show would be easy enough from a timetabling perspective but the same couldn't be said for the head of marketing of a mid sized firm. But to combat that, you can do a 1:1 rate for them and a seminar for a group of 5 to 10 like you said.

Have you experience in the the training sector and crowd dynamics? I know some trainers and they have the personality of a frog, no offence! Others are incredibly charismatic but then go too far and become that greasy used car salesman. Its a thin line and something that develops over time. I know my sales pitch and methods have evolved over the years but they are far from perfect and I know there are still prospects I'll lose before talking to them.

We had a similar imitative where we reached out to the local business chambers and offered a 'drop in' service at their next event. It never materialized but that was partly our fault as we just grew tired of chasing them up, but could be a good avenue to gauge interest. I've lost count of the great, free opportunities we offered businesses and they just had no interest for whatever reason, usually, and I'm being frank, it was pure laziness on their part. They were happy with where they were or with a free course or thought they knew it all, no matter the data we threw at them to the contrary.

Great money to be made, but the two hurdles will be marketing yourself and the expense of running an event. You could explore those systems where you take a call for a certain price per minute, I believe we discussed that on another thread?

Digital_Guy

ironclaw wrote: »

Suppose it comes down to your target audience. I know a few firms that are pretty strict about who comes in the door, there needs to be a track record and some form of formal accreditation behind them. Now, that doesn't always translate to a good experience and I've sat through many a talk which I'm sure cost a company thousands. Abstracting a little, getting time with a one man show would be easy enough from a timetabling perspective but the same couldn't be said for the head of marketing of a mid sized firm. But to combat that, you can do a 1:1 rate for them and a seminar for a group of 5 to 10 like you said.

Have you experience in the the training sector and crowd dynamics? I know some trainers and they have the personality of a frog, no offence! Others are incredibly charismatic but then go too far and become that greasy used car salesman. Its a thin line and something that develops over time. I know my sales pitch and methods have evolved over the years but they are far from perfect and I know there are still prospects I'll lose before talking to them.

We had a similar imitative where we reached out to the local business chambers and offered a 'drop in' service at their next event. It never materialized but that was partly our fault as we just grew tired of chasing them up, but could be a good avenue to gauge interest. I've lost count of the great, free opportunities we offered businesses and they just had no interest for whatever reason, usually, and I'm being frank, it was pure laziness on their part. They were happy with where they were or with a free course or thought they knew it all, no matter the data we threw at them to the contrary.

Great money to be made, but the two hurdles will be marketing yourself and the expense of running an event. You could explore those systems where you take a call for a certain price per minute, I believe we discussed that on another thread?

Thanks ironclaw. What I am talking about here is offsite training (in the conference area of a hotel for example), as opposed to onsite training with a business. Both are options though in theory!

I don't have huge experience in training but I do know that any training I have done, whether it's one-to-one or with a group, has been very positively received. I have gotten good feedback over the years around my ability to explain complex concepts and theories simply, and so on. So all good there. Plus I wouldn't be selling anything in the training really.

Yes that's an option too and the phone / conference call option could be much better in terms of being able to do it from anywhere - that's much more attractive than being tied to a physical location you would also have to pay to rent out for a few hours, etc. Could work nicely doing an online workshop with 3 or 4 people..

I was also thinking of offering the workshop to some 'beta testers' for free or at 50% off in order to get feedback / reviews to start. Then potentially work with web / marketing agencies on a revenue share model where they refer clients to the workshop in exchange for a revenue %.

Axwell

Digital_Guy wrote: »

My idea is for quite intensive training with a small group of people in each workshop (max 5), where they get lots of attention and guidance in addition to expert hands-on training, for a fee of say around €250 per person for a session that lasts for around 3.5 hours.

With 5 people and only 3.5 hours how much attention is a person really going to get towards their needs and questions? If it is training you are going to have to go over content that is aimed at everyone and then at best answer questions after each section or at the end. You will also have people at varying levels of ability and some will be struggling with what you give them while others will want something more advanced. Do you plan to take all comers or are you going to only aim at beginners or those with experience as again with only 3.5 hours I dont think you can cater for both and have everyone happy.

SMEs, especially if its a sole trader will be looking for value for their money and I think €250 for a session of 3.5hrs sharing with a few other people will be a tough sell. As IronClaw pointed out he had trouble converting people to turn up when they were offering advice for free.

Digital_Guy

Axwell wrote: »

With 5 people and only 3.5 hours how much attention is a person really going to get towards their needs and questions? If it is training you are going to have to go over content that is aimed at everyone and then at best answer questions after each section or at the end. You will also have people at varying levels of ability and some will be struggling with what you give them while others will want something more advanced. Do you plan to take all comers or are you going to only aim at beginners or those with experience as again with only 3.5 hours I dont think you can cater for both and have everyone happy.

SMEs, especially if its a sole trader will be looking for value for their money and I think €250 for a session of 3.5hrs sharing with a few other people will be a tough sell. As IronClaw pointed out he had trouble converting people to turn up when they were offering advice for free.

Well I was originally thinking of €195 for 4 people over 3.5-4 hours, so that's more like what I'd probably go with. You could definitely get into the detail with 4 people and in fact that would be the plan anyway - we would take one of the participant's website as a case study for particular section of the training, work on it, then take another person's site and use it when working through another section.

So it would be very interactive and hands-on, which is what people need anyway - the practical application of knowledge. I also haven't seen any training offerings for any fewer than 10 people! There is one with a max of 10 offering what looks to be a 5.5 hour training for €160/per person, and you can imagine how attentive you could be with 10 people - not very!

I am sure their's is very much a Powerpoint and answer questions if possible training - mine is the opposite. All about being hands-on, focusing on the individual participants and showing not telling, so that we are all learning together.

On ironclaw's free offer, I am sure it would have been an excellent and invaluable training, but I think offering it for free is actually part of the reason why they maybe didn't take up the offer. So foolish and short-sighted but I think people place less value on 'free' - if they are paying for it they pay closer attention, are more invested in it and then if they have a budget for it they can say 'oh well let's do this one, we have the budget so we should go and do it'. So it focuses them more as opposed to something that costs nothing they can do whenever...and which of course which they end up never doing.

Maybe not but if you are paying for anything you are going to be more invested in it. Better to offer something for free as an on-ramp to something paid. For example, offer a free course and then market your premium course to your subscribers. That is actually something I am looking to do, especially as it is obviously way more scalable and should attract repeat business - and then it could be turned into a live training later on.

PARlance

Are we talking Inbound Marketing, CTA's, Chatbots etc here and is it focused solely on their website?

Any particular niche or specific sectors with the SME market?

Digital_Guy

PARlance wrote: »

Are we talking Inbound Marketing, CTA's, Chatbots etc here and is it focused solely on their website?

Any particular niche or specific sectors with the SME market?

Hi PARlance, the training would be SEO, but it would bring in elements from other areas of digital marketing here and there - Google AdWords / paid search, social media, conversion optimisation, etc. But the end goal is to help people understand SEO to drive more traffic and sales from their website and overall online presence.

Stheno

Digital_Guy wrote: »

Well I was originally thinking of €195 for 4 people over 3.5-4 hours, so that's more like what I'd probably go with. You could definitely get into the detail with 4 people and in fact that would be the plan anyway - we would take one of the participant's website as a case study for particular section of the training, work on it, then take another person's site and use it when working through another section.

I've worked in a niche area of IT and still do as a trainer, 1 persons particular issue alone could take an hour and if you are marketing your course as tailored to specific issues, that could then lead to three people out of four feeling others have dominated the course.

So it would be very interactive and hands-on, which is what people need anyway - the practical application of knowledge. I also haven't seen any training offerings for any fewer than 10 people! There is one with a max of 10 offering what looks to be a 5.5 hour training for €160/per person, and you can imagine how attentive you could be with 10 people - not very!

Very interactive and hands on for the one person in four/five to whom you are paying attention/discussing. Have you thought about the negatives of using different parties in a course as a practical example? You're essentially critiquing them in public, it's a fairly poor approach as it leads to people taking offense if they don't agree.

I am sure their's is very much a Powerpoint and answer questions if possible training - mine is the opposite. All about being hands-on, focusing on the individual participants and showing not telling, so that we are all learning together.

Yours is not much different, if I were you I'd look to develop niche modules and develop course offerings around those modules, with industry proven examples, not critiques of different people from different organisations, attending a course to learn tbh.

Digital_Guy wrote: »

Hi PARlance, the training would be SEO, but it would bring in elements from other areas of digital marketing here and there - Google AdWords / paid search, social media, conversion optimisation, etc. But the end goal is to help people understand SEO to drive more traffic and sales from their website and overall online presence.

As someone with an interest in the area, I can't see how three or four hours with this intense focus you offer would give me more than a vague insight into what you are talking about, I'd prefer to invest in 2-3 days part or full time, with backup credentials that would give me confidence in the person/organisation delivering the training.

As a trainer, I know that people investing in niche training want more than just a powerpoint etc.

I also develop courses, and for every hour of a course that I deliver, it takes at least three to six hours to develop meaningful content at a generic level, and then adaption to specific audiences, which you need to consider.

Also in terms of your earlier statement that no certification is available, that's incorrect https://www.google.ie/?gws_rd=ssl#q=certified+digital+marketing+courses&* so you are competing in a fairly saturated market.

What would be your USP?

Mine is that I can give you an overview and address issues in your organisation in 3.5 hours, I certainly couldn't do it for multiple organisations in that time and don't try to.

Digital_Guy

Stheno wrote: »

I've worked in a niche area of IT and still do as a trainer, 1 persons particular issue alone could take an hour and if you are marketing your course as tailored to specific issues, that could then lead to three people out of four feeling others have dominated the course.


Very interactive and hands on for the one person in four/five to whom you are paying attention/discussing. Have you thought about the negatives of using different parties in a course as a practical example? You're essentially critiquing them in public, it's a fairly poor approach as it leads to people taking offense if they don't agree.



Yours is not much different, if I were you I'd look to develop niche modules and develop course offerings around those modules, with industry proven examples, not critiques of different people from different organisations, attending a course to learn tbh.






As someone with an interest in the area, I can't see how three or four hours with this intense focus you offer would give me more than a vague insight into what you are talking about, I'd prefer to invest in 2-3 days part or full time, with backup credentials that would give me confidence in the person/organisation delivering the training.

As a trainer, I know that people investing in niche training want more than just a powerpoint etc.

I also develop courses, and for every hour of a course that I deliver, it takes at least three to six hours to develop meaningful content at a generic level, and then adaption to specific audiences, which you need to consider.

Also in terms of your earlier statement that no certification is available, that's incorrect https://www.google.ie/?gws_rd=ssl#q=certified+digital+marketing+courses&* so you are competing in a fairly saturated market.

What would be your USP?

Mine is that I can give you an overview and address issues in your organisation in 3.5 hours, I certainly couldn't do it for multiple organisations in that time and don't try to.

I haven't given much detail on the proposed training but thinking of it now I do agree you would need to make it pretty specific to fit all the content into a 3 or 4 hour session.

I mean there is no official accreditation in the same way there is in say accountancy or engineering or law - all those companies you quoted are for-profit companies with their own versions of 'certifications'. You could create your own certification around say Instagram and it could be out of date by the time you print out your certificates when they bring out a new feature the following day.

It's all about practical knowledge and experience in this area and being able to show what you've done in applying your knowledge and skills.

Anyway, I've decided to pursue the online model as it's far more scalable needless to say