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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
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