How One Monthly Workshop Can Easily Fill Your Coaching Program Without the Hustle with Janelle Anderson

Kathi: Hi, everyone, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. Today I'm going to introduce you to a lady named Janelle Anderson. Janelle is my girlfriend, and she is a virtual events visionary. She helps coaches stop chasing clients and start filling their coaching programs with ease. With over 20 years of experience launching, leading, teaching and hosting events, and more than a decade in the coaching industry, Janelle has cracked the code on using simple, high-converting virtual workshops as a client enrollment system that actually works. Yes, it does. As a virtual event specialist, Janelle has helped countless coaches turn workshops and speaking opportunities into thriving, sustainable businesses without hustle, burnout or awkward selling. Janelle's approach replaces guesswork with clarity and turns visibility into real client momentum. You're going to love her. She's an ICF credentialed Professional Certified Coach, an eight-time international bestselling author, and an award-winning speaker. Her mission is simple and bold: more successful coaches equals more transformed lives. Get ready to meet Janelle.

Kathi: Hello. As promised, I'm here with Janelle. She is the virtual events visionary, now turned workshop queen. So welcome, Janelle.

Janelle: Thank you.

Kathi: I love people who have the expertise in leading events and creating events, and that's really why I wanted to have you on the show. So I'm so appreciative of you being here. And I know that you have a lot of gold information that our people who are listening can take away. And if you've ever thought of running any event or workshop, we've got the girl right here. So thank you. Yeah, the workshop queen now.

Janelle: I'm going to have to start wearing a little crown or something.

Kathi: I know, I know. It's good. So tell me about your journey. How did you turn into the workshop queen, by the way?

Janelle: It's kind of a windy road, but I started my coaching business 11 years ago, and I actually have done workshops from the beginning. I've done hundreds and hundreds of workshops. That was my go-to strategy when I started. I remember walking by the library thinking, oh, maybe I could do a workshop in the library. And I went in and asked them, and the head librarian was like, yes, and we'll even promote you. We'll put you on our calendar. We'll email our patrons. We'll put fliers out. And I was like, okay. And so it worked really well for me. I started doing them every month at a different local library, and then I rented a space of my own. I started building that following with these monthly workshops. And at the time my focus was on women, midlife women especially, and I was just doing one-on-one coaching at the time. And then of course, COVID hit and everybody went online. I was online anyway, but now I went totally online, and I had to pivot a little bit and learn a new strategy for promoting and even how you show up differently. So I've always done workshops. My problem was, over the years, that I didn't have a real good strategy. So I had to learn how to structure the workshop in such a way that it would lead people to an offer, and I could start making more money. I was making money, but it wasn't like a system. So I have now gotten to that place where it's a system. But anyway, I was doing the workshops, I was working with women, and it took a while for me to eventually evolve into coaching coaches around their business. I was working with my mentor, and he told me, you should be teaching people to do virtual events, because I was on his event team and I was doing events. And I'm like, huh, maybe. And by then I was working with business owners and entrepreneurs, and then gradually landed on coaches, because I thought, well, this really works well for me. It's a great model for coaches, especially early coaches who are trying to find those clients and always chasing them. It feels like you're chasing them and trying to find them on social media. And they'll always say, how do I find clients? And I say, well, that's the wrong question. The question is, how do I help my clients find me?

The question is, how do I help my clients find me?

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Kathi: Hey, that's a mic drop. All right. That's a mic drop. Did you hear that? How do I help my clients find me? Boom.

Janelle: And running the same workshop. Because I was doing random topics, just picking a topic out of the air, and it didn't really match anything I was doing. One of them was called How to Talk to Anyone, and I attracted a bunch of introverts who just wanted to learn how to carry on a conversation. A lot of good time, and the local paper sent a reporter and a photographer. It was a great time, but they weren't my audience. I didn't make any sales. So this is one workshop with one core topic, one message that leads people to the next step with you, and you refine it and test it. So then it becomes a system, and you run it regularly, every month, every couple of months, and then your clients are finding you.

Kathi: Nice, nice. So the testing of the system is always the thing. And actually, I love the library thing. I spoke in libraries for many years, and they actually pay you and promote you. It's pretty amazing.

Janelle: Yeah, they didn't pay me, but I did get clients.

Kathi: So you got paid in a better way, actually. Because I was doing workshops and not getting clients, but getting paid by the library.

Janelle: Oh, yeah.

Kathi: I think you had the better end of that one. But how do you do the testing? If people were starting out and they have to select their one topic for the one perfect client, how does that go? How does that work?

Janelle: Well, you start with the offer. What is it you're going to offer? What is that next step you want them to step into? So you have that nailed down and clear, and it could be a coaching program. A lot of my clients are still doing one-on-one coaching. So we work on that first. What does that program look like? And it needs to be not just sessions. Coaches try to sell sessions. People don't buy coaching sessions. They buy results and transformation. And so a lot of coaches are so focused on the coaching sessions themselves and talking about how that works, and it doesn't sell. So we put together a package, a program that takes their clients from where they are now to where they want to be. The coaching sessions are the center of it, but there are other things that make it a program that shows people, this is the result you're going to get. And it has to, of course, speak to their core problem, whatever problem they want solved. So we do that first. And once we figure out what that looks like, then we plan the content for the workshop so that it naturally leads to that offer and it makes total sense. Your workshop content is actually seeding your offer all the way through. It's really meant to take people by the hand and lead them step by step to this next thing that they can do that's going to really give them results. So you have to know what that is. And then you go back through and plan out the content, which makes it much easier to plan the content, and you don't need a lot of content. I tell people, think of your workshop as an appetizer. Don't give them the full buffet.

People don't buy coaching sessions. They buy results and transformation.

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Kathi: That's always the kicker. It's like, how much do you tell them and how much do you hold back?

Janelle: Yeah.

Kathi: Maybe give them the potatoes.

Janelle: Yeah. Give them a taste of what you do. And when you're not giving a lot of content, that leaves you lots of space for interaction, for them to maybe do a little exercise, for them to come up and be coached by you. You leave so much more room for that interaction and that connection to happen, which is going to be better for you than a ton of content. If you're interacting with them and bringing them into it and they're asking questions, they're connecting with you. It's building trust, and people buy when they trust. So then you don't need to have a bunch of content. And it's magical. You can actually transform people's lives inside your workshop, even if they don't become your client. I've seen this happen over and over again, which makes it super fun and very powerful.

Think of your workshop as an appetizer. Don't give them the full buffet.

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Kathi: Which is interesting. How do they transform if they don't have a lot of meat? So how does that all happen? That's magical.

Janelle: Yeah, there's a delicate balance between having content and giving value with your content, and leaving that space for people to interact, because people learn better when they actually take a piece of content and do something with it in some way. Whether it's, okay, I'm going to give you a journal prompt on this. Let's take five minutes, we'll put some music on. And then they come back from that, and you're like, what was that? What came out of that? And let them share. And then go to the next point and teach a little bit, and then have something else for them to do. And then they're going to remember it, they're going to internalize it, they're going to take your content and make it their own, instead of just listening to information. People actually don't want information. They want transformation.

People actually don't want information. They want transformation.

Kathi: And that's another mic drop. Another one. You're just full of them. I love them.

Janelle: Yes.

Kathi: I love that. Well, talk to me about a story of one of your coaches, or just one of your most memorable experiences that you've had with one of your clients.

Janelle: Well, I love to tell this one story now. She didn't become a client, but I tell this story to demonstrate this idea of interacting with them and bringing them into the event with you, and how it can transform a life and bring you clients. So I was doing a three-day event on storytelling, and halfway through the second day this woman came on camera who had been totally silent, off camera, the whole time. We were talking about finding your own story and how to share your story, and she comes on camera and she says, I don't have a story. And she looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. You could tell she'd had a hard life. Now, I could have just said, oh, go back to the worksheet and work on it a little bit. I could have taken her back to content. But I realized this was a moment. Somebody needed to be seen and heard and validated and have space held for her. So I took the time, and I asked her, tell us a little bit about your life. And she starts telling the story about being homeless, living in her car for several months. I don't remember how long it was. And how she somehow clawed her way out of that, had found a job, and was now living in a home. And I'm like, you have a story! And everybody in the room was just crying, and I'm like, do you see the effect your story is having on people? You can totally impact people's lives. So the rest of the event she came on camera, she was lighting up, she was smiling. And at the end of it, she announced to everybody, I'm going to start a coaching business. And she did not become my client. She couldn't jump into my program yet. This was a couple of years ago. A few months ago, I'm on Facebook, and I see a post from the same woman announcing she was launching her coaching business. And I actually have a call with her scheduled, because I want to find out what happened, because she's out there, and I'm like, oh my gosh. And so what hit me was this: in that moment in that workshop, I gave her some space. I let her be valued and seen and heard, and it changed her life. Now, she didn't become my client, but in that event, I don't know, three or four people did step into my program. So they were watching that and feeling that. So that's just a great example of what I'm talking about. When you infuse that kind of stuff into your workshops, it's a game changer for sure. And then it comes back, I think, to interaction: giving them the space to do something interactive, and then, what do you think? What's coming up for you? What insights did you get out of that? You can put them in breakout rooms for a few minutes to share with each other. That's always good. You can do impromptu things. Just make it fun and interesting. A lot of times coaches are like, I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do in my workshop. And so when we're planning it out, we have three of what I call content blocks, which are just stepping stones to that offer as far as what you're going to talk about. And usually it should be something that helps them overcome a false belief they have around whatever your topic is. And then we build into those blocks. Okay, what are you going to do here? You're going to tell a story. That's always good too. Are you going to have them do a little exercise? Are you going to do a demo or a hot-seat kind of demonstration? So you plan that in, and that way it's just baked into your workshop. Sometimes people are nervous about that interaction. What if they ask me a question I don't know the answer to? That's a big one. I'm afraid to go off script. I have one client who was very stuck to her script. She was doing workshops and she was reading her script, and she was not connecting with her audience at all. And I said, you need to just throw that script away and trust yourself. You know this stuff. It oozes out of you in conversation. Just trust yourself. So she finally did, and she said, oh my gosh, it's so much fun now. And they're interacting with me, and I don't need my script, and they're stepping into my program. So it's just trusting yourself. If you don't know the answer to something, you don't know the answer. You can just say, hey, I really don't know. Does anybody else in here know? It's so funny. I just did a workshop earlier today, and there was something I didn't know, and three of the women figured it out. They all collaborated and figured out the answer. My girls are so smart. I love that. It's trust. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be the be-all. It's not going to take away from your authority to let other people in the room have a say or have some kind of input, because they know stuff too. You have to trust that these people are experts and they're smart.

Kathi: Yeah, I think oftentimes we get stuck in that. We're impersonating, trying to be who we think we're supposed to be.

Janelle: Yeah. And people love authenticity anyway. They love it better if you're just real. Just be you. And I like to think of it as, I'm having a conversation with a group of amazing people, and I can learn from them too.

Kathi: Yeah. Well, you get a lot done. I've been watching you, and you do so much, and I really respect what you do. How do you stay organized? What's your favorite organizing tactic to keep yourself in line?

Janelle: I've really had to work on this, because I'm not naturally all that organized. If you saw my desk right now, you'd be like, oh my gosh. But I have developed some systems. I use Google Drive a lot, and Dropbox, for storing things. This is something I've just discovered recently: in your Gmail, you have the taskbar over there.

Kathi: Yeah.

Janelle: I use that all the time. Instead of writing it on paper, I'm like, oh, I'll just put it in. I look at it every day. And man, I tell you, that has been huge. You can put a time on it. I can put details, like a link in there. Like right now, I have to go fill out a summit form. Well, it's right there. I just go get it. That's been huge for me.

Kathi: Love Google Tasks. And you can take that email and turn it into a task as well.

Janelle: Yeah.

Kathi: So robust and so cool. And once you figure out that you could put hyperlinks in tasks.

Janelle: Yeah, I know. It's changed my life. So that's been a big one. And of course my calendar. I live by that. And I also like to use Asana for task management, with my VAs especially. I use it mostly for JV promotions, for some reason. Google is fine for to-dos, and then I use Asana for that.

Kathi: Yeah, I think for collaboration. I use Trello, which is the Asana equivalent, and that way you can have the team in there with all your other details. They don't need to know your day to day. They have to fill out the summit form, right? In fact, that's what we just did. We're promoting each other. We put it in there so somebody else knows what they're doing and they can do it. Yes, delegate. Delegate, delegate. So what do you think, if someone's just starting out? What would you suggest to them? An hour, a day, two days? What do you say for just starting out presenting?

Janelle: Oh, presenting?

Kathi: Or doing a workshop type of thing, or training?

Janelle: Oh, yeah. So, I know that's hard. Well, there's so much to it. Now that I've gone deep into just workshops, it's amazing to me how much there is to it. But I don't like to overwhelm people either. And I always say, yes, we want to work on your workshop and get it to where it's really converting well. But don't wait. You can't wait until it's there before you do it, because you can't make it perfect without doing it. So just go start doing some workshops and don't worry about it. If you have two people in the room, okay, do the workshop, because you will learn more from doing it. And then you can go back and look at how that went. What landed? What didn't? Watch the recording. Have somebody give you feedback. Look at your registration numbers. Did I promote it well enough? So that's how you tweak it; you systemize the whole thing. And that's a step a lot of people don't do. They do a workshop and they're like, oh, that wasn't very good. So they throw it out and start all over and create a whole new workshop. I used to do that.

You can't make it perfect without doing it.

Kathi: Well, we're creators. That's the whole problem: to rein ourselves in. I am a reformed squirrel chaser. I'm going to stop chasing squirrels and stick to the script, or stick to one thing. But that's what we do as entrepreneurs. We love to create. But I think it's great advice to stick to the one and fine-tune it, analyze it.

Janelle: If you're going to do a workshop, let's say you've got a workshop next week, what is the result you want from that workshop? First of all, what do you want people to step into with you? Is it a course? Is it a coaching program? What is that thing you want to offer? Do you want to offer a discovery call so you can then offer a coaching program? Decide that first. And then you need to know your audience. You need to know what it is that they want. And if you don't have that dialed in, start talking to people who are in your audience and find out, around your topic. This is another big deal that people struggle with: getting that topic dialed in to one thing. I call this the one thing principle. When you're teaching, back to the appetizer idea, in a workshop you've got to keep it focused on just one thing. Don't try to teach five different things. Don't try to teach your whole process or your whole method. Just pick out one piece of it, maybe the very first step of it, that would give them a chance to get some aha's around this. It's more about them being aware of what it is that you do and them being aware of how they need it. So you need to get it focused down to one small little thing, and then, like I said, you can spend an hour, an hour and a half with them doing all kinds of really cool things around that one thing. And then plan it out and go out there and say, hey, I'm doing this workshop. Throw it on social media. If you have a list, email your list. If you have some friends who could email for you, and just see what happens. That's how I used to approach my workshops. Let me put this out there and just see what happens. Don't be afraid to test it. Don't be afraid for it to not be perfect. And then you'll refine it. It'll change, it'll evolve, because you're going to learn every time you do it what worked, what didn't, what attracted people, what didn't attract people. And eventually you'll have an asset. It becomes an asset for your business, because it makes you money.

Kathi: And that's the point of being in business: making the money, not just speaking to speak.

Janelle: Yeah. And there are actually several, I should count how many, advantages to just jumping in and doing a workshop, even if it's not perfect. One of them is that it will build your audience, because you're going to have people register. Two, it's going to give you visibility, because you're going to put it out there somewhere and people start hearing about you. And three, it allows you to have time to connect with these people who show up, in real time, not just seeing your posts or your video, but actually in the room with you. And this is so valuable to people. They love that. They'll tell me that all the time: I followed you, I've been on your email list, and now I'm in the room with you. It's really cool. So those three benefits are worth it every time, whether it turned out well or not. You're still gaining ground.

Kathi: I think you're talking about in-person workshops as opposed to online workshops.

Janelle: I'm talking about online. I always talk about online, but in person too. There's a different promotion strategy for in person, and you have the added thing of finding a space and getting people there.

Kathi: All of that.

Janelle: All of that. But they're powerful, though.

Kathi: They are. That's great. Well, if you had to look back, what was your original career? What did you start out as, and how did you morph into doing this?

Janelle: I was a school teacher for 20-some years, elementary and middle school. The part I loved was being able to see the potential in my students and how different they all were. It was so fascinating to me. I loved it when they would finally catch on to something. And of course, in the school system, you have to teach to the curriculum, and they tried to fit everybody into the same mold, and that was frustrating. But I've always loved seeing potential in people. I can see it. It's one of my innate strengths, I guess. I see it and I'm like, oh, there it is. Let me pull it out so you can see it, and let's start doing these things so you can develop it. So I loved that. I loved being my own boss in my classroom, being able to organize it the way I wanted to. And I think I learned some of my organizational skills just from teaching. But one of the biggest things was being able to map out a learning plan. A lesson: you have to have an objective, and you have to teach a little content, and then you have to let them do something with it. And so I use that same thing now, because that's how people learn.

Kathi: Right, right.

Janelle: And I find it very fun to create what I call a little learning path: to take them from where they are, and slowly give them a little bit so they can get it and digest it and absorb it. I love to watch that process. So the teacher in me is still alive and well.

Kathi: Absolutely. I'm glad I asked that question, because I didn't realize that was your background. That makes total sense.

Janelle: Yeah, I have a degree in elementary ed. And then, this is so funny, my husband and I ran a roller skating rink for about three years.

Kathi: Wow!

Janelle: So I went from teaching to being a business owner and having no idea what we were doing. But again, I had these employees that I could teach and train and speak into.

Kathi: That was your juice.

Janelle: That was it.

Kathi: That's great. Oh, that's fantastic. As soon as you said that, I thought of my husband. He used to love to slow skate and skate backwards. He used to do that stuff.

Janelle: Oh, yeah. So funny.

Kathi: So funny. So if you could look back at your 18-year-old self and give her some inspiration and some tips, what would you tell her?

Janelle: Man, I'd tell her not to do a lot of things. I think probably one of the biggest things I would tell her is to really believe in herself, because I did not. And to speak up for herself, stand up for herself. I was very much a go-with-the-flow kind of girl. I didn't have a lot of confidence, and it got me into some relationships that were not good. And so if I could go back to being 18 and realize the things that I was good at naturally, like teaching, if I could have really focused in on that and developed the things that really lit me up, and understood what I could do with that, I could have done a lot more than what I did do. And just really value who I am, so that I could have avoided a lot of pain over many years, and probably been a lot further along than I am now. And even as a teacher, I played small. I stayed in very small schools, small little private schools, because I didn't think I was good enough to teach in the public school.

Kathi: Wow. And here you are, teaching the coach of coaches, girl.

Janelle: I know, I know. It's just crazy. And I didn't earn very much money, and that went on for years. And I'm like, oh my gosh, if I had just known all this stuff. But you can't go back. I decided in my late 50s, when I finally realized, okay, I've got to figure this out. Who am I really? And I had to deal with some past trauma from those relationships that had made me continue to feel insecure. And anyway, I came through that healing journey and came out of it like, oh, I'm pretty awesome. And I'm going to do all these things. I'm going to become a coach. And I decided at that point, instead of regretting, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that, look at all this time wasted. I started down that road, but then I decided, that's not going to get me anywhere. What do I want to do now for the rest of my life? Let me make this happen. Let me walk out my purpose from now on, because that's the only thing I could control. And I'm so glad I did that. We're talking probably 15 years ago now. And now I can look back and say, see, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm doing what I was called to do. I'm doing what I'm passionate about. I'm changing lives and impacting people. And I wrote some books, and I'm speaking and coaching and running workshops and events. I never would have thought I would have done this. When I was student teaching, in front of a classroom, I just wanted the floor to swallow me up, because I just froze.

Kathi: You're so good at what you do. So I applaud you.

Janelle: Thank you.

Kathi: I've always respected what you do, for sure. So I know you have something to offer. So let's talk about that: the goodie bag for the audience here that's listening.

Janelle: Yes. I don't remember what I told you I was going to offer, but I do have a downloadable guidebook called Workshops That Win Clients. And that follows my framework that I've developed called the CLIENTS Framework. It's an acronym, and each letter is a step in this process. So you can follow that and put together a workshop. But it also comes with a free ticket to my three-day event coming up soon. It'll be coming up soon no matter when this podcast drops. In those three days, we will go through that step by step, and over that time you'll actually create your workshop with me in that event. So it's an implementable thing. You walk away with your workshop mapped out and ready to go.

Kathi: Love it. Love it. And that's for creating a three-day workshop, or any kind of workshop?

Janelle: No, it's for what I call the client enrollment workshop, which is the one I've been talking about, that you refine and test and get to where you can run it every month. And it becomes that cash register for you. Basically, it becomes a system.

Kathi: I love it. Well, I looked in the show notes, and that is what you gave us a link for, so we'll drop the link down in the show notes so that you'll have it. And I highly recommend, if you want to do anything like this and land clients, do it through speaking, do it through workshops, and Janelle's the girl to learn from. That's why she's on the show today. Is there anything that we should have discussed, anything that I'm missing here in our conversation that you really wanted to talk about?

Janelle: I'm just thinking of what some of my clients run into, their challenges around this. One of them is just that, like I was talking about with me and my journey with no confidence: that piece of confidence. That place of, who would want to hear from me? Who would want to come to my workshop? Is anybody going to come? That's a big fear, and it's a big block for people. And it makes sense, right? Because if you put that out there, you're really putting yourself in a vulnerable place. I've had workshops where nobody came. I know what that feels like. And the thing is, with that, I just decided, okay, nobody came to that one. Let me look at why. Did I promote it well enough? One of them was in a library in an area that was rural; it wasn't my place, it wasn't my geographical area. But take that perspective of: I'm going to put myself out there, and then I'm going to learn from mistakes, or so-called failures. I'm going to look at what happens, what goes well, what doesn't go well, and I'm going to just keep improving it, because I want to be really good at this. And that's the only way you can get really good at it. So don't be afraid to step out there. Don't worry about how many people are going to come or what if nobody shows up. If nobody shows up, you can practice. If one person shows up, do your thing. Do the whole thing as if you had a room full of people.

Kathi: Yeah.

Janelle: And those people will start to manifest.

Kathi: Yeah, I agree. And half the time, when there are only a few people, it's actually better. You get better.

Janelle: Yes.

Kathi: Because it is more intimate, and you do start having discourse. You're a little bit more nervous because, oh, there are only a few people, and then you start talking to them and they start talking to you, and then it's a better thing.

Janelle: Yeah. Another way to think about that: if you're doing your first workshop, or your first few even, and there are only a few people in the room, that's good, because you're going to make mistakes and you're going to have hiccups, and you don't want that to happen in front of a hundred people.

Kathi: That's true. Well, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show. I know you're super busy getting ready for your workshop. Yeah, and I'm excited. I'm going to drop in and see you live in action at other times. So thank you, Janelle. And for all of you, below, make sure to download this. If you've even thought about doing a presentation and you want to land some clients, go ahead and download that book. It will help you. So until next week, you guys, if you like this, please comment. Please give me a thumbs up. The comments are the bomb. Share it with your friends. Make sure that you spread the love of the Organized and Energized podcast, because I love you, and I'm hoping that you love me back. So until next week, we'll see you then. Bye.