Finally we look at how we deliver events so good that we open up whole new revenue streams.

I’ll give you my basic processes to make sure your workshops are customised without taking hours of work each time you deliver.

Let’s get started:

Pre-event

Know your audience

Prior to the event you want to find out as much as humanly possible about your audience.

A basic way to do this is to ask the organiser - literally “who will be attending?”.

Get information about their seniority, function, levels of IT/AI literacy, what AI tools they already use. Anything that helps you tailor your material specifically to them.

The better way to do this is a survey. This is what I personally do and it works wonders.

It works better than asking the organiser because you’re getting the info directly from the attendees.

I did an event where the organiser told me that the level of AI usage was fairly high because they are a tech company. I sent a survey directly to the participants and found out that 15% of them hadn’t even used ChatGPT.

If I had listened to only the organiser I would have gone in at a more advanced level. And immediately lost 15% of my audience. Oops!

The question I ask are:

• do you use AI professionally, personally or for both

• what AI tool do you use professionally, choose all (from list)

• what’s your comfort level using AI professionally

• what’s your department/function (from a list I get from organiser)

• what are your concerns about using AI, choose all (from list)

I keep it short and sweet rather than bombard them with 20 questions. Too many questions and they won’t fill it in.

Tailoring the presentation

Depending on the agreed upon fee I may create the workshop from scratch. That’s just built into the price - the hours needed to research, create slides and make the content matches their needs perfectly.

For my basic workshop though the customisation is limited.

I’ll use:

• the niche / industry

• audience size

• questionnaire

To make changes to:

• my introduction (fully custom)

• RISEN example (to match niche)

• AI concerns that I tackle (based on questionnaire)

These changes don’t take too long after you’ve done a few workshops but mean you end up with a presentation that seems entirely custom made for them.

During the event

Once your preparation is done you’ve honestly done all the hard work. Preparation is 4/5th of the battle.

I’ve designed the workshop blueprint I gave you with natural switches between lecture and exercises. This alone will help carry you through and keep the energy up.

I can’t cover all of facilitation. It would be a whole book. Too much for even me.

So here are some things I’ve found helpful:

• buy a clicker. Don’t expect the venue to have one. Also bring whatever adapters you’ll need for hooking your laptop to a projector. And have a backup version of your slides on a USB and in your email. Assume nothing.

• you start with goodwill. It’s your job not to lose it. Do this by keeping the energy up and not droning on. Switch teaching formats regularly to keep them on their toes and the hour will be done before you know it.

• don’t read your notes. You can have presentation notes (my slides do) but they are there for emergencies only. Instead get in front of the lectern, in front of your laptop so you can engage with the audience directly. Don’t hide behind the screen - it immediately kills charisma.

• co-opt experts. Sometimes there will be a know it all or someone who genuinely knows more than you. They are sitting there thinking “I know this, this is my territory, why are they here telling me this?” Disarm this by bringing them in as a co-teacher. If someone asks you a very specific question say “amazing question and one that Michael is in a better position to answer than me. Michael what do you think?”

• your audience don’t know you are behind. Falling behind? Only you know that. No-one else knows your timings and content. Don’t speed up to catch up - you’ll lose people’s attention if you suddenly start sprinting through your slides. Instead cut sections, starting with your Q&As. It’s better to properly get through most of you material rather than rush all of your material.

• scale up your audiences. If the idea of talking in front of 100 people is terrifying: don’t. Talk in front of 10. Nail it. Then 25. Then 50. Then 100. Build it up, building comfort at each level. This will naturally fit with your expanding business thankfully- being asked to talk to larger and larger audiences each time.

After the event

Workshop done. Job’s done right?

Not quite!

We need to collect evidence about the event that we can present to our next clients.

Two main ways to do this: testimonial and survey.

First up, make sure to get feedback and a testimonial from your client after the event.

We use Senja (affiliate) to collect testimonials but a simple email (or even text!) is sufficient. Ideally you want text and a video testimonial. Getting video can be tricky so make sure you at least get text.

Use these testimonials in your future one-pagers and proposals. The more the better!

Second, send out a survey after the event. The main question we want to ask if their comfort with using AI professionally.

In the pre-event survey I ask people to rank their comfort on a 1-10 scale. I then ask the same after the event. The increase in their comfort is a quantifiable “bump” from the training you provided. Make sure to give the client this data - it’ll help them with their bosses. And use it in future proposals.

Continued work

Once you’ve delivered a one hour introduction to AI workshop at a company you’ve opened the door to more work.

This could be:

• additional workshops for leadership

• additional workshops for specific departments

• coaching

• advisor on retainer

• implementation work

You’ve already come in and shown your expertise so you become the natural next step for this sort of work. This is where the much chunkier contracts lie.