For this post, I’m going to focus on some best practices for delivering workshops you’ve been hired to deliver for an organization or group. I promised to get this episode out to you when I did the original episode on workshops in October and here it is! These are best practices I’ve developed over time because they made sense or I suffered the consequences of not doing them and thus learned a valuable lesson. Practice is the operative word. Some of these I’ve adopted so recently that I will at times forget them. This is why I’ve created a checklist that I use and you can download and keep handy for when you’re engaged to do your next workshop. You can access the checklist at the bottom of this post. Let’s break this down in stages from when you are first contacted to what you can do in the days after you’ve delivered the workshop. Workshop discovery phase: from first communication to proposal submission Be professional and timely in all your communications with your contact for the organization. This impacts your credibility. You always want to make a good impression and protect your reputation as a professional. Give them reasons to rehire you and also promote you to other people they know who could potentially hire you. Provide any materials and resources on you and your business (CV, resume, brochures, web pages, LinkedIn profile) that will help them find out more about you. Likely, by the time you’ve been contacted they’ve already done their homework but making the offer to provide more information doesn’t hurt and may actually boost the likelihood that you get hired. They may not have seen your slick brochure. Schedule a meeting to discuss and uncover what all their needs are. You are an expert at what you do and you may see solutions and opportunities that the person or people working for the organization have not seen yet. It’s not uncommon that I might be contacted to deliver a team building workshop and I ultimately recommend they do my workshop on Your Stress Personalities instead. Don’t be afraid to recommend different or additional work that you can do for them if it’s in their best interest. Find out the number of participants who will be doing the workshop. For maximum effectiveness and engagement, I typically do not do workshops with any more than 20 people so I may need to do the same workshop for an organization more than once to accommodate the number of people they want to participate in the workshop. Find out the location where you’ll be delivering the workshop. It may be at their local office or you may need travel. If you need to travel a distance to deliver the workshop, that may incur added costs for gas, tolls, hotel stays and meals while you are traveling. Make sure there is an agreement on who is covering these costs along with how they will be covered. I’ve had some organizations take care of all of that ahead of time and others that asked me to submit receipts after the workshop was done and I had returned home. Traveling gets pricey so make sure this is clear before you commit. Inquire if they will need you to do additional tasks before or after you deliver the workshop. Depending on the time or complexity of the task it may incur an additional cost. Find out who is expected to print the materials, and provide flip charts, markers, or anything else you are going to need to do your thing. If they have that all covered, great! If not, add it as a line item to your proposal. Printing and flipcharts are not cheap. You don’t want to find out you didn’t make much money for the time invested because the materials ate up your compensation. Find out who is providing the food and beverages. Food and beverages are a must! Workshops go much more smoothly when beverages and snacks are provided. If it’s a full-day workshop, are participants expected to bring a lunch or is that being catered and by whom? Be clear if you are the one bringing these items in and add it as a line item to the proposal. More often th