I'm a thrifty person; I hate paying full-price unless I really have to. So, in my pursuit of saving money, let me offer you some training-budget saving tips, as well.

Tip 1: Pilots

If there is a topic in which you are interested, look around to see if a reputable company is offering a pilot workshop on that topic. While pilots may not be completely polished, they are usually far less expensive than the normal tuition will be.

In our case, The Bob Pike Group is premiering Business Presentation Skills in Minneapolis for those who may make a few presentations a year and would like to know how to do different types of presentations well. The course is being offered June 1-3 for only $295 instead of the regular tuition which will be $1595. That's over 82 percent savings. Pretty good! For more information on that premier, click here.

Tip 2: Early Bird Discounts

Most of you probably already know about early bird discounts for workshops and conferences. In our case, most of the early bird discounts for our fall conference have passed; however, you can still get discounts if you register for the preconference and the conference. Just give us a call at 800-383-9210 or 952-829-1954 if you're international. Many of our pre-conferences are only offered once a year, although we still have our evergreen Train-the-Trainer Boot Camp offered then, as well as teacher options.

Many times workshops and conferences will have discount policies that encourage multiple people to sign up at once. In our case, this year, we have the Buy One-Get One 30% off which is pretty good. It's probably something we won't offer again next year. So take advantage of it this year by signing up two people for one workshop or signing yourself up for two different workshops. Sorry, the discount does not work on the annual conference.

Tip 4: Nominations/Presentations/Scholarships

Many times conferences will offer special financial breaks for those who win awards or who are accepted to make presentations-meaning, you may get free registration. This goes for many industry conferences. Some conferences may also have scholarships or registration-fee reductions for particular industries or circumstances. In our case, if you are nominated and win one of four of our Pike's Peak Awards, you get free registration for yourself (or whoever will be accepting the award) and 50% off for three additional registrants from the company represented. That's quite a savings! To nominate someone, including yourself, click here.

Many training companies are offering free webinars as a way of introducing people to their content. We are no different. The Bob Pike Group and Raptivity are sponsoring a free webinar on how to make webinars interesting and effective! The webinar, offered at 11 a.m. Pacific time will be held May 17, 2011, and will be a crash course in designing creative webinars and increasing retention and ultimately the transfer of learning. To more details or to register, click here.

To find out about more free webinars, check out the creative training networks on LinkedIn. You can sign up to have new webinar information emailed to you. TrainingIndustry.com and TrainingMagNetwork.com also email out a lot of invitations to free webinars.