The Funny Thing about Free Training

Following on from my post earlier this week on what I thought about free consultations, I thought I'd share a conversation I had with a client recently about how funny (peculiar) people can be when they book onto free training events.  Here are some of our shared musings:

• They book quickly to reserve a place, even if they have no intention of coming along.
• They don't read the emails which ask what they most want to learn (and then say the training didn't meet expectations on the feedback form)
• They attend 'advanced' workshops and expect to be taught the basics (and then say the training didn't meet expectations on the feedback form)
• They complain about the strangest things - parking facilities, other delegates, the room temperature, the refreshments ..... (and then say the training didn't meet expectations on the feedback form)
• If it's raining/snowing/sunny on the day, they decide not to turn up (and then ask when you're running the next one!)

I wonder how these same delegates would behave if they were required to pay to attend....

What's your experience of offering free training events?  Please share by commenting below, and if you enjoyed reading this post, a re-tweet would be lovely!

Comments

[LouiseBJ]

Hi Marian, glad you liked the post & thanks for commenting - always great to know people enjoy reading what I blog!

It's good to look back and find a funny side to an experience you'd rather not go through again :)

As to being concise - it seems the longer I spend on Twitter, the shorter my blog posts become .....

[Marian Hobson]

Louise,

Thanks for your excellent example of how to blog. Short, concise, and like this one TOTALLY hilarious:)!

Marian

[LouiseBJ]

Great to hear from you Debbie!

I tend to use taster events as a way of growing my list of people who may be interested in what I do, further down the line. To be fair I have got business following on from talks & workshops - perhaps when people realise I'm not so scary after all!

I like your idea of setting your prospective delegates a pre-workshop assignment - and have found it does reduce no shows.

Let me know how you get on!