On occasion members who have connected through this community get to meet in-person. The last few days, @Jan Keck and I have been at the Applied Improv Network Global Conference 2023 in beautiful Vancouver. Jan is presenting a workshop, and performed some improv with the internationally renowned Colin Mochie of What's Your Line fame.

Discovering new clients doesn't always involve direct sales pitches. In fact, I've found that the best way to get new clients is not by trying hard to convince them. What does that mean? I've been working in the innovation business for 15 years. I know that it's crucial to keep making your product better by talking to customers regularly. For us who run workshops to help customers solve their problems, those problem-solving workshops are our products. So, to get new clients, I reach out to successful senior managers on LinkedIn, like C-Level, SVPs, and VPs. I ask if I can spend 15 minutes learning from them about how they solve problems inside their companies. If they agree, I curiously ask a lot of questions about their process. Why do I do this? - People like feeling important, like heroes. They like being asked for advice. So, I give them what they want, and that makes it more likely for them to say yes to my request. - Sometimes, they just tell me how they solve problems without asking me anything. That's okay - I still learn a lot. - Most times, they ask why I want to know. When I explain my approach, I often hear, "You didn't try to sell anything, but you've sold yourself perfectly." - Success! If you're interested in learning more, please feel free to ask below. PS: What's your approach to finding new clients?

One of the great things about what we do is you can do it as an employee or go out and become your own company. Whilst the later comes with amazing benefits there are a lot of areas that need to be considers… Like - What does it take to set myself up as a business or do I just contract in. - If I am setting myself up as a business am I a sole trader.. registering by business - Defining your purpose and setting clear goals yearly, quarterly - Defining your target customers, products, services and financials. Whilst this is a passion space for a lot of us, you still need to understand your revenue needs. - Branding and marketing - What do you need to set yourself up… physically, technology - Contracts for engagements - How to build a pipeline, managing you customer base Making sure you get work life balance! Would be interested in hearing and learning from each other on what made sense for you and what you would like to share with the rest of the community…

Hey community. As a fresh facilitator I struggle a lot with what is my exact offer and what are the benefits. It's strange because I have a bunch of workshops recipes but I struggle so much with what is my SPECIFIC offer to the market. The offer needs to be genuine and come from experience as well as fit the market but what market?! I've been getting a lot of compliments on my listening skills and my energy which is basically 50% of the workshop. But answering the question "what do they get out?" Is so daunting. Yeah they feel better but what do they get in their hands, what kind of practical thing will they have that will change their life just a little bit. I had a number of workshops on different topics (for free) and they were all successful. But now that Im becoming a professional my ADHD is going mad. I know fixing the offer is a manageable task but it's also easy to pull hair on it. If you go this far, could you please like this post, I'm trying to get to level 3 to unlock a course 🙏

Do any of you focus on UX consulting and run UX Workshops? If so i'd love to connect and share notes.