Notes for owners · Digital marketing
Webinars and workshops as a client-finding route for a small firm
How a small professional firm runs one narrow webinar or workshop, collects questions at registration and follows up on those questions rather than on attendance alone.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
Rules for this trade differ by state and professional body, and they change. Check the current position with your own council or adviser before you act on anything here.
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A small firm can find clients through a webinar or workshop if it picks one narrow topic and asks each person for their own question at registration. It then follows up on those questions, not on who turned up. Attendance numbers look good but tell you little. A written question tells you what the person needs, which is the start of a conversation you can actually have.
Why does a narrow topic work better?
Because a broad one attracts people who are only browsing. "Exporting from India" draws students, hobbyists and everyone with a vague idea. "The paperwork a small garment maker should have ready before the first export shipment" draws a handful of people who are about to do exactly that.
Choose the topic from a question you have been asked three times in the past few months. If you cannot remember a question that repeats, look at your enquiry sheet or your sent mail. A repeated question is demand you did not have to guess at.
The title should describe the problem in the buyer's words and name who it is for. Skip clever names. A title that says "A one-hour session for garment makers on the papers to have ready before a first export shipment" says everything.
What do you ask at registration?
Keep the form short, but ask for the one thing that matters most. Four fields do the work:
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Name and mobile number | So you can reply, and so the follow-up can be a call |
| For the joining link | |
| "What is the one question you hope this session answers?" | The key field: it shows need and gives you something to answer |
| "Where are you in the process?" with three choices | Sorts people into those who are thinking, those who are preparing and those who are already stuck |
State plainly on the form that you will contact them about the session and the question, and nothing else, unless they say otherwise. Get consent properly for anything beyond that, and check the rules that apply to you with your own adviser.
For example: an export documentation consultant in Tiruppur
This is an invented case. A two-person consultancy in Tiruppur helps knitwear units prepare papers for their first shipments abroad. The owner runs a forty-minute session titled "Before the first shipment: five documents a garment maker should have ready", with a registration form that asks for a question.
Thirty-one people register and nineteen attend. The owner sends all thirty-one the same thank-you email, with the recording and a line saying "contact us for services", and two weeks of silence follow. Then the owner reads the registration questions again. Eight are specific, such as how to handle a buyer who wants to pay in instalments. The owner calls those eight one by one, opens with their own question and a plain answer, and offers a short call to go through their case. Three book it. The list worked only once the owner used what people had written. Even so, the session cost two days of preparation for three calls booked, and none had signed by the end of the month.
The owner also learns a limit. Two of the eight questions are about duties and rules that differ by product and change over time. Those are not answered on the call; the callers are pointed to the authority and their own adviser, and offered to help collect the papers.
How do you run the session itself?
Teach, don't pitch. Spend most of the time answering the topic properly. Stop for questions. Use the registration questions: read out a few and answer them, which makes the audience feel heard and shows you did your homework.
In the last five minutes, tell the room what you do and how to reach you, once. Offer a next step that suits those still undecided, such as a call to look at their situation. If you offer a diagnostic or similar paid first step, say what it is and what it costs. Keep the explanation general and avoid advising any one person on screen, particularly in regulated areas, where rules differ by state and body and change, so check what you can say with your own adviser.
Technical matters can ruin a small session, so do a dry run with a friend the day before. Check the sound, the screen share and the way people ask questions.
What does follow-up look like?
Follow up on the question, not on the event. Sort the list into three groups:
- Wrote a specific question and attended. Call them. Open with their question.
- Wrote a specific question and did not attend. Send the recording with the answer to their question typed out, and offer a call.
- Left the question blank. Send one email with the recording and a link to a relevant page. Do not call.
Log each response and each outcome on the same sheet. Judge the whole exercise on conversations that led to a paid piece of work, not on registrations.
When should a small firm not run one?
Skip it if you have no one to follow up. A webinar creates a burst of warm names; if nobody calls them soon, the warmth fades. Also skip it if your clients are people who never attend such things, such as owners who prefer a visit, or if you cannot speak on a narrow topic for forty minutes without notes. Compare it with the other options in webinars, email and educational content: which one fits a small sales team.
Choose the topic from your own inbox
Look through your enquiries. Pick the question that has come up three times. Write the title in the buyer's words, draft the four-field form and set a date you can keep. Other posts for firms sit in the professional services hub. If you want help with the planning and promotion, webinar content and promotion is the service, and tell us what you need is where we start.
