Skip to main content

Convincing Organization/Business/University Officials to Host Your Niche Training

One of the great benefits of being a niche publisher/author is your customers' recognition of you as the subject matter expert. This leads to more book sales and teaching and speaking opportunities. This year I am teaching a security course at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and several security seminars. The following is how I planned for and got the job of teaching at university and professional organization hosted venues.

This is a great way to gain instant credibility, earn an income and teach without having to worry about the administrative responsibilities. When sponsored, the space, advertising, registration, payment and graduation certificate requirements are already taken care of. You can also negotiate a good salary. I teach a 24 hour course over a few weeks and one of my books serves as the textbook. That adds up to a nice paycheck. The process is already institutionalized and all you have to do is show up; sort of.

The following is the proposal method I have taught to several colleagues. It is designed to help convince an organization to hire you to teach in your area of expertise. If you apply it well, it only goes to enforce that you are a subject matter expert, you’ve done the necessary research, there is a viable market, and they want to see you teach it.

Think of this from the sponsoring organization’s point of view. They need to answer the tough questions to provide funding and resources for your presentations:
1.  Who will take this course? Sponsors want to know how to reach their target audience. You’ve already done the market research, now you can demonstrate to them who the audience is and how to reach them.

2.  How many potential students will sign up? This is a tough question, but you can demonstrate an audience response by through book sales, how many people are in your newsletter, how many people read blogs you contribute to, and other statistics.

3.  What are the students willing to pay? This is a little easier to find with some basic research. What are others paying for the same information at similar venues.

4. Why should they take the course? Demonstrate how students need continuous learning credits, how they will get a unique edge, the new skill they will learn, how the training meets a requirement and etc.?

5. Will we recover our expenses and make a profit? This is an important question from the sponsor’s point of view. You can help them determine the return on investment by working out your salary, how much you will do to help advertise (tons), how many students you need for the course to be a “go”, and what materials each party is required to present.

It’s up to you to provide those answers. Don’t leave the marketing questions for them to figure out. Once you do the work and have a successful presentation, you can do much more with less investment. In my case, I’ve presented many times in the same venue. The university realized a profit and invite me back regularly. You can do the same. Oh yea, once successful, be sure to put that in your blog, website, and social network pages.



Jeffrey W. Bennett, ISP is the owner of Red Bike Publishing. Jeff is an accomplished writer of non-fiction books, novels and periodicals. He also owns Red bike Publishing. Published books include: "Get Rich in a Niche-Insider's Guide to Self Publishing in a Specialized Industry" and "Commitment-A Novel". Jeff is an expert in security and has written many security books including: "Insider's Guide to Security Clearances" and "DoD Security Clearances and Contracts Guidebook". See Red Bike Publishing for print copies of: Army Leadership The Ranger Handbook The Army Physical Readiness Manual Drill and Ceremonies The ITAR The NISPOM
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Reason to Self-Publish Two

Market Your Way-More and more publishing companies rely on the author to market books. Just look at the latest book covers and see which is larger the author's name or the book title? It's the author who sells books. As a niche professional, you have a built in market and your efforts can easily reach them. You know what works, so go to it. Many people are put off by marketing as I was when I first began. When a niche author serving in an industry with peer-customers, the last thing you want to do is bombard them with sales. Your role is the be the expert and provide answers. Cold calling is also not necessarily the answer in niche marketing. If you've developed a blog, newsletter or social media following, then you have your customer database. Your marketing efforts flow as you provide advice and answers to those following your posts, comments and articles. Many authors teach, speak, volunteer or are otherwise active in their professions. It's hard to remain o...
Post a Comment
Read more

There, In The Jungle...an excerpt from Commitment-A Novel

     The sun painted streaks of pale blue and yellow through the morning sky. Birds were awake, singing to anyone appreciative enough to listen. The moon was full and bright as it still sat high in the western sky.      John listened intently. He was used to the sounds of the jungle, something he would actually miss. Gone were the distractions of machines. However, he prayed that they would soon be getting back to the plane that would take them back to their world–civilization.      Suddenly he was aware of something new–silence. The singing had abruptly stopped, but why? Birds go silent as a survival instinct, he thought. He listened more intently, as the ground would be soft, muffling any footsteps.      There! In the brush – a slight movement. He focused his eyes to one side of the dark, heavily vegetated area hoping to catch something in his peripherals. Behind about fifty yards, vines and branches moved...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why authors might choose to work with a publisher instead of publishing themselves

  Why you might prefer to publish with another company instead of do it yourself. There are a lot of blog, newsletter, training and podcast information telling the good news about current publishing opportunities. Most tout the benefits of putting your own book on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). It is a great resource, but contrary to the popular discussion, it’s not the only option. It seems most information coming out seems to publisher shame anyone who does not “do it yourself”. It’s as if the expectation is to self publish and anyone who does not, is a publishing pariah. There are so many published articles describing benefits to putting your own content out though KDP, heck, even I do it. Most build entire businesses around the KDP instruction or consulting opportunities.   However, I’m more concerned with the author who just wants to write and publish their books without the hassle of the publishing business. The author who wants an outlet to make their book ava...
Post a Comment
Read more