I spent half my Saturday at a workshop yesterday. I won the ticket in a raffle so I showed up with an open mind and plenty of space in my notebook. 

The alarm bells started ringing after 30 minutes when we were hit with the first sales pitch. 

Our own introductions were given 5 minutes each, maximum (there were five of us attending). The person running the session then spent the next 30-40 minutes telling us part one of her own story.

Part one!

And so it continued. It was a 3.5 hour sales pitch. I took a few things from the session, especially towards the end, but most of it was filled with the sound of our presenter’s voice.

Which brings me to the title of this post. The labels you put onto your content and the experience you give to people who take time out of their weekend (my weekends are precious and not to be messed with – can you tell this??) has to do what it says on the tin as an absolute minimum.

The content in this one could have been delivered in under an hour as a webinar. Throw in some Q&A plus a (brief, interesting) sales pitch, promo or offer and I would have been content. 

Instead, it left me with a couple of uncomfortable feelings. 

Firstly, that I’d been sold to. For a long time during the weekend. My precious weekend. No-one likes this feeling, ever. 

Second, it made me highly unlikely to refer someone to this event as it didn’t live up to the billing of a workshop. I spoke twice, maybe 15 minutes total in 3.5 hours. The definition of a workshop is “a meeting at which a group of people engage in intensive discussion and activity on a particular subject or project”. This was not a workshop, it was a seminar/webinar.

Thirdly, I genuinely like the person who ran the session and know she can do so much better. I want the best for my contacts and connections. I want them to thrive and grow. This session could have been amazing but it wasn’t. 

Time to write my feedback email….