JUMPSTART · Our free introduction workshop
The unfortunate reality is that if you've been following the traditional model of how people run their workshops, then you've been following a flawed and broken model. JUMPSTART gives you the playbook you've never been given.
The traditional model starts with you, the expert.
It tells you to pick a topic you know well, dump everything you know about it, cut it down, put it in order, and build your slides around the key points.
Add some discussion questions, a worksheet, maybe breakout rooms, and the model calls that a workshop.
And honestly, on the surface, it makes sense.
You're the expert, and you're the one who knows what they need to know.
Why wouldn't you spend the session sharing your expertise?
Here's what's broken about it.
Structured that way, you're the one driving the whole experience, and your audience is riding along.
Nobody learns to drive from the passenger seat — everybody knows you learn by doing.
Information alone is not transformational.
So this becomes a wrestling match between what's best for your audience and our own ego as experts.
Are we willing to put the ego aside and let the audience drive?
Letting them drive doesn't mean losing the room: you still shape the entire experience, the frameworks, the tools, what to do and how to do it.
So compare the outcomes. They leave with more information because you shared what you know, or they leave with a skill they can use now because you led them through earning it.
Which one would they take? Which one would you?
At Workshop Doctor, we start from a different place entirely...
The purpose of a workshop is to provide an experience that allows your audience to develop a skill that leads to a desired outcome.
JUMPSTART plans your introduction workshop from that purpose.
It comes down to an honest fork.
OPTION A
If the purpose of your workshop is to deliver information and materials for people to continue the work after they leave, then keep doing what you're doing. We're not for you.
OPTION B
If you want to lead your audience through an experience where they build the skill in the room, with you, then we can help you do that.
JUMPSTART was built for Option B. Keep reading if that's you.
Every workshop starts with some kind of plan.
What makes it the right one is what it's built on: three questions you answer before anything else gets designed.
Who exactly is it for?
Not a category. The specific person.
The role they hold, the situation they're in, the kind of pressure that drives them to look for a workshop in the first place. The signals you'd use to recognize them when you see one.
What problem are they walking in with?
Not the broad version most marketing runs on. The actual problem this audience has — narrow enough that your workshop can credibly solve it.
Vague problems can't be solved in a workshop. Narrow ones can.
What skill gets them to the outcome they came for?
Not what you want them to feel. Not what you want them to know.
The outcome is what solves their problem. The skill is how they get there: something they can pursue, produce, or demonstrate by the end of the session, that they didn't have when they walked in.
The thing that, once they have it, you can credibly say your workshop did its job.
Those three answers only work in that order, because each one decides the next.
Get narrow on who it's for and the problem gets sharper.
Get specific on the problem and the outcome they need becomes clear.
Get clear on the outcome, and the skill that produces it becomes obvious.
Once you know that skill, you know what every other decision in your workshop has to serve.
The activities you choose. The materials you build. The way the session moves.
That's what a directionally right plan looks like.
And it's the foundation everything else down-the-line gets built on.
Start with your introduction workshop.
It's the one that brings people into your paid offer, so it carries more weight than any other workshop you run.
If it only informs them, that's where the relationship stops.
In JUMPSTART, we build that foundational plan with you, step by step.
JUMPSTART is a live, virtual session, and it runs the way we're telling you a workshop should run.
You won't be watching a presentation about planning workshops. You'll be planning yours.
We work the three questions in order, together, and you leave with your answers committed and your plan finished.
Here's what that means, and it's the part most people skip past: a finished plan isn't information. It's implementation.
The traditional model gives away the information and charges for the implementation.
We'd rather show you what our help is like by helping you first.
You'll also see how a workshop runs when the room is built for it. You're in the seat, doing the work, on the same platform the workshops we build run on.
That's the whole session. You come in with the introduction workshop you want to build, and you leave with its foundation finished.
Plan one workshop this way with us, and you'll plan every workshop this way from here on.
JUMPSTART runs on Thursdays at 11:00 AM Eastern, and the session is 90 minutes.
The time doesn't change, so you'll always know when to be there.
The next room doesn't have a date yet. We open one as soon as enough hands are up.
Save your spot below and we'll email you the date the moment it's set — and if you leave a mobile number, we'll text you when it's set and again before it starts.
Workshop Doctor was founded by Dr. Jason Wright, a psychology professor who has spent 22 years studying how people actually learn — first as a coach, then in the college classroom.
He turned that experience, and his specialization in the psychology and science of learning, into the method behind everything we do.
He's in the room with you for JUMPSTART.
Plenty of people will hand you information and call it a workshop. What matters to us is whether you walk out able to do something you couldn't do before.
And if you want to see the method before you sign up for anything, it's published. Our Docs Hub has all of it, free.
You leave with your plan finished, and it's yours to build on however you want.
Here's our honest bet: once you've seen what a properly planned workshop does, you'll want the workshop itself built — and built to capture the people it's for.
That's CAPTURE.
It's a live, virtual event where you build your introduction workshop from start to finish and leave with it ready to run.
It has its own page, and you can read that whenever you want.
Nothing about JUMPSTART depends on CAPTURE.
Attend JUMPSTART for free
You've just read a page about how a workshop should be planned.
That's information, and you already know what we think information does on its own.
Information alone is not transformational.
A plan gets finished by doing the work, which is why we run JUMPSTART live instead of writing it down and sending it to you.
Until that happens, the next workshop you run gets built on whatever plan you already have.
If you want your audience building the skill in the room with you, that starts here.
Save your spot, bring the introduction workshop you want to build, and we'll finish its plan with you.