Do you have a great idea for a workshop that will serve others and grow your business?

There are solutions to all of these problems!  Sometimes, all you need is an outside perspective with the right experience in your niche market.

Having specifically served the local educational event market since 2007, Matthew Cook, owner of One Stop Seminars in Lake Villa, IL, has a unique insight into what makes an educational event a success, and what makes one a failure.  He has worked to help promote and advance local educational events in many different ways.  He has connected speakers with speaking engagements, and has worked to plan and arrange events.  Perhaps most importantly, Matthew has made solid connections with all the best local professionals and businesses serving the educational event market.

Specifically, One Stop Seminars consulting can assist you with the following:

• Titling your event to be attractive and successful
• Creating or reviewing event marketing materials
• Finding and the perfect venue
• Partnering you with the perfect speaker(s)
• Targeting your advertising to capture the right audience
• Directing you to other great local service providers that can help
• Maximizing your e-marketing efforts, including social media
• Minimizing your event costs, including venue, marketing, etc.
• Using “Power Partners” to drive your event success
• Finding sponsors and advertisers to share your cost burden
• Keeping you on schedule and on task for event success; accountability

But don’t take our word for it – contact Matthew today for a FREE one-hour consultation on your event idea!

Matthew is passionate about low-cost, low-time commitment educational opportunities.  The benefits of this type of education are many – both for the individuals in the local community and for the business, schools, non-profits, and other organizations that offer them.

One Stop Seminars owns and operates edvents.com, your one stop shop for local educational events.  The website edvents.com offers a unique advertising opportunity to providers of seminars, workshops, or other educational events in Chicagoland.  One Stop Seminars is also the LOCAL source for LOCAL speakers in Chicagoland.  Serving local speakers and local host groups or venues alike, One Stop Seminars is able to give everyone exactly what they need at a very low cost.

Because of the unique business model for this speakers bureau, One Stop Seminars can provide a speaker for any group at any budget level.

“What I love most about this speakers bureau is that we can provide guaranteed high quality speakers to libraries and large corporations alike,” says Matthew Cook, President of One Stop Seminars. “It fits perfectly into my passion for promoting local educational events.”

Most of One Stop Seminars speakers have signed on to a “No Advertising Guarantee,” which guarantees there will be no sales pitch in their presentation.

“When an organization works with One Stop Seminars to find speakers, we offload the painful parts of the process, by screening potential speakers against their specific desires,” says Matthew.  “Then we guarantee quality content without a sales pitch – and we do it all for free.  It’s really a no-brainer.”

There are no fees for a group or organization to use the speakers bureau to find a speaker.  All final scheduling and speaking fee negotiations take place between the host group and the speaker themselves.

One Stop Seminars also offers a speaker search service.  They will take requests for specific types of speakers (demographics, topics, locations, fees, etc) and go out and find local speakers that fit the bill.  A fee may be charged to the host group for this service.

About One Stop Seminars
Founded in 2004, One Stop Seminars was started by local entrepreneur Matthew Cook, who has a passion for promoting live, local education in the form educational events (or “edvents”). Over the past 5 years, One Stop Seminars has expanded from just a simple website that listed local educational events, to a company that now serves people and organizations involved in all aspects of local edvents.  The company plans to expand its service areas to cover more of Chicago’s suburbs in the near future.

Media Contact:
Matthew Cook
708-287-2037
www.edvents.com

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Need a Speaker? (pdf)

The No-Ad Guarantee (pdf)

Want to Speak to More Local Groups? (pdf)

1) Speakers and presenters of educational events

2) Providers of educational events such as libaries, park districts, chambers of commerce, and more

Naturally, a lot of people in group #1 would like to give their presentations or workshops to the organizations in group #2.  Likewise, a lot of organizations in group #2 are looking for new and exciting people from group #1 to present to their patrons.

I am proud to announce the One Stop Seminars Speaker’s Bureau, serving speakers and venues alike!

If you are a speaker or presenter with a great class, workshop, or presentation, and you’d like to offer it to through more outlets in the northern suburbs of Chicago, One Stop Seminars can help.

We have a simple, non-exclusive agreement.  We will promote you and your offerings to the local outlets that match your criteria, many of whom we already have working relationships with, and in return you will simply pay us a percentage of any fees you collect from relationships we establish for you.

Contact us today to learn more or sign up!

Just sign up with One Stop Seminars, and only pay if/when we register people for your event!  You only pay a percentage of the registration fees collected or a flat fee per registration, per our agreement.

After signing up with One Stop Seminars, you need to do nothing!  Just sit back, run your organization or business, and be prepared to deal with all of your new customers.

If One Stop Seminars doesn’t deliver, you pay nothing!

This is a true ZERO-RISK opportunity, but it won’t last forever.  Contact One Stop Seminars today to sign up before this unbelievable opportunity passes you by…

1. Visit OneStopSeminars.com daily
2. Subscribe to our E-mail newsletter: Subscribe
3. Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/onestopseminars
4. Become a fan on Facebook
5. Read this blog!
6. Call or e-mail me: 708-287-2037 or e-mail

1. Partner With Other Local Businesses

You are not alone.  There are businesses all around you who are looking for better ways to reach their clientele.  Whether you offer arts and crafts classes or small business seminars, there are many ways you can partner with others to the benefit of everyone – you, your partner, and your seminar students.

• Recruit instructors for your seminars from within your local network.
• Split exclusive seminar topics with parter businesses, and cross-promote with them.
• Refer those businesses you really trust to your customers, and ask those businesses to do likewise.

2. Always Offer Both Head-Knowledge and Hands-On-Experience

It is often easy to get stuck in a rut, offering straight lectures or plain work groups.  But a balance between expertise sharing and hands-on work is always the best way to ensure student satisfaction.

If you’re stuck in the lecture rut…

• Recruit students to come up and role play relevant interpersonal transactions.
• Provide a worksheet for the students to fill out, and walk the room assisting them individually as necessary.
• Leave ample time for Q&A or group discussion — but be prepared to keep talking if no one else does so your students get the promised value.

If you’re stuck in the hands-on rut…

• Prepare a hand-out with facts, figures, history, or whatever else about the workshop that is applicable.
• Include a 15 minute “history of x” presentation in your class
• Invite experts who can share even more than you can to be guest instructors.

3. Price It Right

The wrong registration fees can really screw up your seminars.  If you price it too high, your turnout can suffer.  But if you price it too low, you can imply low value, and your turnout can suffer.  The key is to select a registration fee that fits your topic and your target audience.

• If your target audience is job seekers, don’t charge a fee.  Job seekers are often very motivated to follow up on opportunities such as your seminar.
• If your target audience is business or home owners, charge a registration fee.  The more affluent your target audience, the higher chance they will be looking for value… and no cost may imply to them no value.
• If your organization depends on gathering registration fees, than by all means collect a registration fee!  But still try to price it right per the two previous guidelines.

4. Provide Guidance for Next Steps

Don’t leave your students hanging!  Seminars are great for giving people a taste of a topic, whether it is an overview or an in depth look at a portion of the topic.  Either way, if your seminar was good, your students will want more.  Be prepared for this, and give guidance on the next steps.  Here are a few ideas on how you can provide next steps:

• Prepare a handout of resources and references that your students can take with them.
• Offer a free 30-minute consultation to anyone who attended your seminar and would like to explore your topic further.
• Provide links on your website, in the area that talks about your seminar, to other online resources.
• Have a “next steps” follow-on seminar scheduled and announce it at your first seminar.  Be sure to invite everyone to bring their friends!

• To market your products or services
• To generate revenue through registration fees
• To serve the community

While almost every seminar provider would probably claim a combination of these, there is usually ONE driver.

For example, Home Depot offers a class on how to tile your bathroom, and it is clearly intended as a marketing tool.  Get people in the door, and they’ll buy your stuff or your services.  Another example is the College of Lake County, which offers seminars to generate revenue and support their existence.

Either of these organizations could claimthat they are providing a service to the community, and rightfully so.  They are providing a service, but in neither case is it a purely sacrificial act of service.

Take the example of a library:  libraries offer classes mainly as community service.  They often do not charge fees, and don’t usually have anything else to sell students either.  But even a library has to show positive results in order to survive — they need to have people coming in to the library and using their services and they need a community that values their services.

The reasons for offering public seminars may vary from organization to organization, but there are two universal truths:

1. Every organization that offers a seminar has decided that it is important to do so for some reason.
2. Every organization that offers a seminar stands to benefit if more people know about and attend their event.

One Stop Seminars can help you spread the word about your seminars, classes, workshops, or other educational events, and drive more people to you.  And, we can do all of that for much less than traditional advertising!

If you are already advertising here in Lake County, you have done your homework and you have chosen to advertise in the channels that give you maximum exposure for your dollar.

So why should you consider advertising with One Stop Seminars?

1) Reach a New, Targeted Audience

One Stop Seminars is a brand new advertising channel, and a perfect complement to your current marketing plan.  How do I know?  I know because One Stop Seminars CREATED this advertising channel, and there is nothing else like it.

If you list your business with Yahoo Local, Google Maps, Merchant Circle, or any other online business directory, you’re reaching one audience = people who search for your BUSINESS.

With One Stop Seminars you could reach a whole new audience = people who search for your EXPERTISE!

Statistics say that 89% of people use the Internet to search for information.  How do you think most people search for information?

“Bob’s Fishing Store” or “best fishing in Lake County“

“Larry E. Law, Attorney” or “should I have a will?“

“Mary Money, CPA” or “small business finances“

“Fancy Name Crafts Store” or “scrapbooking class“

The answer is obvious.  But if your advertising consists entirely of general public ads and Internet business listings, how will people find you by your EXPERTISE?

To round out your local marketing plan, you need to offer a seminar, workshop, or class, and list it at One Stop Seminars – Lake County’s online directory of educational events.

2) Reduce Your Advertising Costs

You may not be looking for one more advertising channel to complement your existing, comprehensive marketing plan.  You may just be looking for a way to maximize your precious few advertising dollars.

Well guess what – One Stop Seminars is STILL perfect for you!

Seminars can be very inexpensive to run, and advertising with One Stop Seminars costs much less than with any of the traditional advertising channels.

More importantly, advertising with One Stop Seminars can be much more effective than traditional advertising.  Most types of advertising are INTRUSIONS on what people are trying to do.  In fact, too much advertising in newspapers, on roadways, or on websites, and people can react very negatively!

At One Stop Seminars, there are no banner ads or pop-up windows… just valuable content (YOUR EVENT LISTINGS).  People visit One Stop Seminars INTENTIONALLY to browse or search the local educational options available, whether they want to start a business or make a scrapbook.

Plus, you are effectively pooling resources with all the other businesses and organizations listing events with One Stop Seminars.  We then work throughout Lake County to make sure people know about this great, free, local resource.

1. Teach What You Know

Share your expertise and you’ll become known as an expert!  It sounds simple because it is.  If you own or manage an organization, you are an expert.  You’ve got a unique perspective, and by sharing it honestly you can build relationships that last with your customers or clients.

2. Use What You Have

For many organizations, seminars are almost free to set up.  Many organizations already have a physical location with some type of meeting or conference room.  They also have full-time employees who can spend a little time setting up.  Finally, they have the experts (owners / managers) who can lead a seminar.  One other thing that most organizations have is a network of other professionals that can be tapped to instruct a seminar.  To maximize your seminar ROI, maximize your use of what you already have.

3. Make It Valuable

Your little venture into seminars will crash and burn quickly if your seminars are not perceived as valuable.  I don’t mean having a drawing for an iPod!  What you want is for the students at your first seminar to find it so great that they don’t just want to come back, they NEED to come back, and they want to bring all of their friends!  Evaluate your seminar content for truly helpful, valuable information.

4. Market Your Seminar

To use your seminars as marketing, you need people who are NOT already your customers to find them.  Seminars for just your own customers can also be a great thing… just don’t fool yourself into thinking you are marketing.  Your seminars can be the differentiating point between you and everyone else who offers the same service or product as you.  As I said before, use what you have – network, email, have an employee post items online, and utilize as many low-cost advertising methods as you can find.

5. Follow Up With Everyone

Don’t leave people hanging!  Gather info from all seminar attendees – registration cards, a raffle drawing, a survey, or whatever – and then follow-up.  Send them a postcard thanking them for attending.  Send them a special, seminar attendee only, coupon or gift card.  You gave them a valuable seminar, now follow through and prove that YOU and your organization are what is truly valuable to them.

1. Send or read e-mail (91%)
2. Use a search engine to find information (89%)
3. Search for a map or driving directions (86%)
4. Look for info on a hobby or interest (83%)
5. Look for information about a service or product they are thinking of buying. (81%)

Where do you think “Look at advertising” or “Click on banner ads” falls on the list?

Of course, that is a rhetorical question.

1st Moral of the Story: Traditional online advertising (banner ads, pop-up windows, etc) is an INTRUSION on what your potential customers want to do online.

Statistics vary depending on a number of factors, but the average click-through-rate (percentage of impressions that result in ad clicks) for banner advertisements is approximately 0.2%. For every 500 people who view a banner ad online, just one person will click on it.

Is there a better way?

The good news is that there IS a better way, and it can be found by taking another look at the top 5 things people do online.

2nd Moral of the Story: To best leverage the Internet, you must be easy to find online.

That may sound trite, but it’s not – it’s a fundamental shift in understanding. Banner advertisements do nothing to make the you easier to find when the customer is searching.

But “brick and mortar” businesses don’t just want to be found online. They (you?) want to be found online by local people — people who could actually visit their location.

The good news is that there are ways to make your organization easier to find online for a LOCAL audience.

* Get Listed in Online Business Directories If you have a local business or organization, find local business listings and make sure you’re listed there. And whether you’re local or not, get listed in every national business directory you can find. If someone comes across your business and decides to Google it, you gain credibility if your business is listed in multiple places.

* Participate in Relevant Online Communities Join any online communities dedicated to your industry. Participate in professional organizations that have high-traffic websites and listings of participating businesses. Be active in any local organizations with high-traffic websites, if possible.

But let’s take one more look at the top 5 things people do online. Do you see a common thread? I’ll give you a hint: People don’t usually search the Internet for a local store.

3rd Moral of the Story: The best way to be easy to find online is to make your services and/or expertise easy to find!

If Bob is thinking about tiling his bathroom floor, he doesn’t search the Internet for tile stores — he searches for “How to tile a bathroom floor.” If Mary wants to learn new scrapbooking techniques, she doesn’t search the Internet for scrapbooking stores — she searches for “New scrapbooking techniques.” If Sally wants to learn about the changes in the tax code for 2009, she doesn’t search the Internet for local accountants or banks — she searches for “Changes to the tax code for 2009.”

Unless you are offering something ONLINE that is answering (or promising to answer) the questions that your customers are asking, you are not using the Internet effectively!!