Workshops

Unlock Real Market Success for Your Continuing Education Programs

Are you ready to break free from outdated models and finally create upskilling programs that sell, scale, and serve real industry needs? This transformative 2-day workshop—rooted in experience, research, and practical frameworks —delivers the actionable strategies, tools, and mindset shifts that continuing education leaders and their teams need to thrive in today’s competitive workforce education market.

Who Should Attend?

Your whole team! The truth is, it takes an ecosystem within the university to successfully bring workforce education to life. Starting from the same understandings and foundations of product development for upskilling and workforce education helps to ensure a successful build, marketing, and sales process. 

• Continuing Education Leaders: Oversee certificate, micro-credential, or boot camp portfolios? Learn how to audit, reposition, and grow your offerings for true market fit.
• Marketing Leaders: Discover why some traditional higher ed marketing methods fail for upskilling—and how to reach the right B2B and B2C audiences
• Partnership Directors: Gain proven models for building industry association partnerships that expand reach, credibility, and revenue.Gain access to the tools to easily form these partnerships and make partnering a more seamless process.
• Content Developers & Instructional Designers: Learn and consider industry-aligned, and technology-integrated products that professionals and employers actually want.
• Academic Deans, Program Managers, and Faculty Champions: Understand the business realities and cultural shifts required to make continuing education a sustainable success.

Why This Workshop is Essential

1. Move Beyond the “Repackaged Course” Trap

• Learn why most university certificates and micro-credentials don’t sell—and how to avoid the costly mistakes of simply recycling degree content.
• Audit your current portfolio against 10 critical “product threats” and leave with a prioritized action plan for immediate improvement.
• Build Products That Industry Wants

2. Build Products That Industry Wants

• Shift from academic isolation to true industry partnership: discover how to integrate real employer needs, current technologies, and job-aligned skills into every offering.
• Understand the difference between professional development and professional advancement—and why this distinction is the foundation for pricing, marketing, and product design.

3. Harness Data That Drives Enrollment

• Go beyond labor statistics: learn how to conduct market research that actually informs product development, pricing, and positioning.
• Use actionable frameworks to identify your true competitors (hint: it’s not just other universities) and benchmark your offerings against industry alternatives.
• Receive market research and data on products from your current or proposed portfolio; work through the findings, data, and strategies in real-time.

4. Master B2B, B2C, and B2G Sales Strategies

• Uncover why most upskilling dollars come from employers—not individuals—and how to design micro-products and portfolios that fit real corporate training budgets and needs.
• Learn best practices for marketing and selling to organizations, not just individual learners.
• Learn what new tools and softwares are available for discovering the best sales and partnership opportunities.
• Gain real data on the best employer, association, and workforce development organization partnerships for your institution and products .

5. Implement with Confidence

• Leave with templates, audit tools, competitor analysis, and partnership evaluation matrices you can use immediately.
• Build an actionable roadmap to improve or begin a new continuing education product portfolio.

What You’ll Experience

• 70% Hands-On, 30% Instruction: Real exercises, product audits, and planning sessions.
• Honest, Data-Driven Assessment: Candid exploration of what’s working—and what’s not—in your current portfolio.
• Practical, Market-Tested Solutions: Every concept is paired with immediate action steps and real-world examples.

Key Outcomes

By the end of this workshop, you will:

• Recognize and fix the fundamental flaws in your current upskilling products.
• Design offerings that employers and professionals actually buy—with the right price, length, and content.
• Learn how to develop strategic industry partnerships that expand your reach and credibility.
• Implement data-driven product development and marketing practices that drive sustainable revenue.
• Access a toolkit of resources to support ongoing growth and innovation.