Operate like you are running a for profit public training company. Go after the business or go out of business.

1. Become a master of marketing rather than a manager of cancellation policies
2. Under promise and over deliver
3. Hire professional copywriters, graphic artists, and web masters to get your message across
4. Develop a logo
5. Use titles that accurately depict course content
6. Use lots of copy with lots of headlines
7. Spell out the benefits - performance improvement expectations
8. Create professional brochures that are downloadable as PDF files from your website. They can also be attached to targeted client emails
9. Be rigorous about looking for follow on learning/consulting opportunities and follow through to land the engagement. Set yourself up to be a helpful resource focused on delivering results. Put a system in place to ensure this occurs
10. Publish lots of testimonials - specific examples of successful application
11. Publish a list of locations and dates where your employees can learn and adhere to them. Do not cancel
12. Make registration really easy and convenient
13. Market other training programs during each session. Increase awareness
14. Keep your email signature file current with upcoming events and new product announcements
15. Include your web address, phone number, email on everything you produce
16. Display related books, videos, tapes, articles, and class brochures at the back of the room to promote your library, and upcoming events and services
17. Learn how to deliver relevant verbal examples that are discreet marketing plugs for other events, and services
18. Use multiple mediums to communicate your events and services to your clients - postcards, fax, email, brochure, posters, phone, etc. Email announcements only, are: cheap, lazy, too easy to delete, too easy to send out with incomplete information and mistakes, not very visually compelling
19. Break content into multiple sessions to enable follow on work, reinforcement, and accommodate time constraints
20. Develop a database of clients
21. Offer "free" value added products to the first 10 who enroll
22. Attend public seminars to get marketing ideas
23. Collect training literature and do a review to glean new ideas

Change is continuous in training organizations. Managers come and go. Strategy shifts. Out source. In source. It is very easy to forget the basics of marketing while all of this is going on. Yet, consistent good marketing can secure your future. Be careful not to neglect it. You don't have to invent everything. Leverage the successful basics from public seminar companies.

©2002 The Opportunity Thinker.

Lynda Curtin is an expert ideation facilitator, professional speaker, trainer and author in the fields of business creativity, marketing and speaking. To book Lynda for your event call 818-507-6055 or email info@LyndaCurtin.com For more information on her programs go to www.LyndaCurtin.com