Brad Swineheart is the Vice President of Business Development for White Glove Workshops, a company that specializes in planning, managing, and marketing educational seminars for professionals in a variety of industries.
Today on Stay Paid, Brad discusses the important role seminars can play in growing a business, while offering tips to help you give better presentations.
Key Points:
- Seminars are a great way to establish expertise and win clients.
- In addition to being a great lead generation tool, educational seminars are a service to the community.
- To host an effective seminar, you need to connect emotionally with relevant messaging.
Q: Introduce yourself to our audience.
I come from a sales management background. My job was to keep salespeople in line.
I left a retail establishment with 600 employees to work in the basement of a financial firm with 12 salespeople. White Glove’s business model was unheard of, but what they provide to clients (as well as the end user) is amazing. That was what encouraged me to dive into this business and has pushed me into the position I’m in today.
Seminars are a way for businesses to gain credibility and make connections, which helps turn prospects into clients. You’re standing in front of a group of people who are eager to learn, and you’re educating them with relevant information.
White Glove’s system has taken the financial industry by storm. We modernized this old model of seminars, where the pain points included learning a topic, booking a venue, marketing the event, and hoping everything would work out. You had to worry whether anybody would show up, and whether your money would be wasted.
We wanted to come up with an irresistible offer. White Glove’s first thought was to step in and take on the risk for clients. The company gets paid based on performance rather than getting paid up front.
Professionals get into the business to work with clients and to provide a service—not to be event planners. Planning a seminar is a lot of work. We decided to take on all of that work so professionals could focus on doing what they do best. If you don’t pick up a client, we’ll give you another seminar for free.
On top of the benefit to the professionals we help, there’s another benefit in the thousands of attendees who get information from these seminars.
Q: How does the actual presentation planning work?
We will market the event with a certain topic. Then, the professional will come through with information they might already have on the topic. We’ll vet that information and make sure it’s consistent with our messaging. If they don’t have any information, we have people who can help them with planning the actual content of the presentation.
Q: What’s the number one reason why real estate agents don’t do seminars?
I think the biggest pain point for real estate agents is that seminars are just not in their culture. They have other approaches they’re used to. The biggest selling point for real estate agents is the credibility to be gained by standing in front of an audience and educating them on a topic. They don’t naturally understand how powerful that connection is.
Q: What would you advise new presenters who are getting ready to host their first seminar?
When you’re giving a seminar, there are a few things you have to nail:
- Create an emotional opening that gets the audience to engage.
- Talk about why you do what you do (rather than how).
- Don’t end on a Q&A—end with a reason for your attendees to schedule appointments.
Action Items:
- Look into hosting a seminar or educational workshop.
Learn more about White Glove:
Resources:
Soundcloud
iHeart Radio
Spotify
Spotify
