***Public or In-House

When you are delivering seminars and workshops as part of a bigger plan: either to market your business and attract clients or to become a professional speaker, sometimes it feels like you need to market your marketing.

There are two main divisions of seminars, public and in-house.

Public

A public seminar is the most common of seminars! A public gathering of any size (3 to 3,000+) given in a public location such as a hotel or conference centre. It may also take place in a church basement, a local gymnasium, business meeting room, library or any other room where you can set up chairs for an audience to take part.This seminar is open to anyone who is willing to pay to attend the session. All are welcomed, no matter what the subject matter.

This seminar is usually on a general topic, such as management, communication or selling skills. At times, the topic is more focused to a specific target audience such as sales people, managers or leaders.

Though a fee is often in order to attend, some are presented for free.  The profit from these seminars may be directly linked to the products and services sold at the “back of the room.”

The challenges for a public seminar are that often you need to book the venue and do all of the promotions. Look for opportunities to partner with other businesses to promote the event.

In-House

In-House seminars are known by many other names including On-Site, Corporate, Internal or Closed seminars.

This seminar is sponsored by one organization – a non-profit group, a professional association, a corporation and is closed to the public. Members of the sponsoring group or business are requested to attend since the benefits of the seminar are focused on their specific needs.

A closed gathering of any size (5 to 1,000+) presented in a conference centre, hotel, company boardroom, corporate off- site location or any site designated by the sponsoring organization. The sponsor usually pays the seminar leader his/her daily fee or a fee per attendee.

This seminar is usually on a more specific topic, as per the needs of the organization such as: selling skills for a single company, office management for chiropractors or doctors, leadership skills for middle managers.

There is little or no “back of the room” sales. There is also little or no financial risk for these seminars since the sponsor will pay a flat fee and take care of promoting and filling the seats.

You may find a mix of these preferable as you grow.