Welcome to episode twenty-four of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
Today we’re going to talk about how to handle hecklers.
First off, there is no one way to eliminate getting a heckler in your session. As with many subjects I chat about, this one has setup and things to consider.
Let’s go back to the beginning and think about the purpose of this webinar. If you need or want audience interaction, your audience will need to be able to use a chat function, and/or be able to unmute their mics at some point and be able to talk.
Most webinar and virtual meeting platforms allow you to turn these functions on and off. For instance, in zoom, you can mute your audience and either allow or not allow them to unmute.
So think about how you want this to happen during your session. There is a belief that charging for a session as opposed to free will eliminate this issue. I can tell you that if someone wants badly enough to harass you, they will find a way.
So now let’s prepare a bit. Assume that in any given session that you may have one or more hecklers- by the way, this assumption will save you embarrassment at some point and being ready for the “might happen” will serve you well.
Step one is to consider your familiarity with the webinar platform you are using. And along with that, are you using a moderator or not? Depending on the formality of your session and how many attendees you expect to have, you may want to have a moderator that is on your session if only to monitor chat and remove idiots, or if mics have been allowed to be unmuted and you get a vocal heckler, your moderator can pop them out of the session immediately without warning.
A lot also depends on the heckler and their goal. As The Webinar Guy team does hundreds of webinars each year, we’ve seen it all- or so we’d like to think! Sometimes you just have pushy, belligerent people that think for some reason your virtual meeting or training is their playground.
Just yesterday, I was doing one of my regular sales hosting sessions where we talk about lead generation. We always start with concepts and strategies on how to generate your own leads. One guy in chat just had to chime in, “Generate my own? I like working off a client list!”
Well, goodie for you! Give me a minute and we’ll talk about that. But why he thought he had to tell everyone that and what he thought he’d accomplish is beyond me. What it did do was eliminate him from my client’s prospective hire list. Any potential salesperson that jumps to conclusions and doesn’t listen has already put themselves at a disadvantage.
Forgive my self-promotion here, but I’m pretty good at what I do moderating and hosting. I’ve had webinar attendees put in chat, “He’s not really live, this is one of those canned webinars!” Imagine their surprise when I call them out!
Using a moderator can really help these kinds of situations. In both the examples above, I did not have a moderator. But my experience level, familiarity with zoom controls and the way I setup my screens allows ME to monitor things in my simpler webinars.
I want you now to consider your personality. How you handle various things will mirror your personality and your brand. Yeah back to your brand. How you handle hecklers reflects not only on you, but your brand or in our case the brands you represent!
Please allow me to take a moment to promote our sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com (yeah that’s me!). Our webinar and virtual meeting team will work with you to produce stellar events! From a few people on a book cover reveal to hundreds of attendees with breakout rooms, we’d love to discuss how to make your event amazing! Thanks!
Okay, I began this section talking about the goal of the heckler. So far, I’ve really just talked about people that don’t think before they type or talk, or think their opinion matters at a given point. I’ve had people whine about THEIR sound. THEY can’t see my video, When is the Q&A, and my most consistent favorite, “Will this be recorded for us to watch later?” Even though the sign up said it would be, we said it would be in the introduction, and there’s a banner at the bottom of the screen that says that- simply amazing.
My personality is one to take control of the situation, it’s what my clients pay me for, and eliminate, or mitigate the challenge.
On to the bad hecklers…The ones with the goal of embarrassing you, or “calling you out” or trying to damage your reputation.
Sorry if I’m pounding this, but having a moderator really helps. But as I said above, being ready for it and having a few strategies can help.
So again, ensure you know your webinar platform’s controls! Make sure you know how to mute them or remove and block them on the fly.
When someone is calling me or my client out, I realize the issue will be a reputation challenge, so I know to have something ready to speak to that. For example: one construction company I do regular informational webinars for- had a guy turn his mic on and before I could remove him (you’d be surprised what can happen in fifteen seconds!) he swore, used really offensive language and also called us out for poor quality, etc.
I removed him, apologized to the rest of the webinar audience, then having noted his name, I said, “Dang, Sure wish that Dan had gone to the Better Business Bureau site and looked up our A+ Rating. Too bad he also missed our more than 600 positive Google reviews!” Then I used other points in the session to refer back to his interruption. Everyone had a good laugh and didn’t lose one attendee.
On the fly sometimes you just need something snarky to say like, “I remember the last time MY breakfast upset my tummy.” Or “Geez, Larry must be Hangry!”
The biggest point is to acknowledge it, then move on. Most everyone in a webinar or virtual meeting understands this can happen and will overlook it. However, NOT handling it or handling it badly WILL affect your audience. KNOW your controls and how to remove and block.
Okay my really biggest point: Never, ever argue or get into a battle with the heckler. The sooner you can remove them from your session and move on, the better.
I’ve done hundreds of “Live” sessions where we’re in a hotel conference room or other large venue. Depending on the size of the conference, we’d usually have one of the production team ready to call for security. Tough to do with zoom.
This series is for smaller organizations and solopreneurs that may not be tech savvy, don’t know all the steps, or don’t WANT to know all the steps.
Over the series, I’m going to lead you through the significant decisions and capabilities you’ll need to “Zoom to Webinar Success!”
As always, if you need help now, don’t hesitate to reach out at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com
Thank you for watching! Would love to hear your questions and comments!
And if you’re listening to the Podcast audio, thanks for listening! Tell a friend!