Webinars are a way of life for many of us. Like many things in life, some are amazing, some, not so much.
For most of my adult life I’ve been in training & development and emcee’d or presented hundreds of seminars.
A recent experience with a client that had never done a #webinar/#virtualmeeting, put the entire development in my hands. From planning, to script writing, to- well every single element. It made me realize that there are others that may not be well prepared to host a meeting like this, so here we go.
I’ll be looking to cover every element of a great webinar from the first idea to the “day of”. I’d love comments and questions you might have!
Remember you can always catch up on all the episodes on TheWebinarGuy.com
I find it a fascinating thing how often in life, we forget where we are or what we’re truly doing. I’ll call it clueless. Yet that really doesn’t fit, because the virtual sessions I manage, moderate or host are with very bright and educated people. They are not clueless.
So to make my point, please forgive this next… Have you ever observed someone, say sitting on a park bench or at a food court, wherever. And Mindlessly, yeah we’ll go with mindlessly- they scratch this, or pick that, or well, ya know what I mean?
At first, we’re fascinated. Maybe grossed out, mostly surprised that someone would “do that” in public. I know that you and I have never done anything like that, but I digress.
In the last week, a speaker did a webinar on his phone. Not bad in and of itself, as it was on a holder. But during the session, he got a message, and we see this huge finger coming to the screen to clear it. Yeah. Twice.
Another phone user, a panelist that was walking around their office with their phone. When it was their turn, they stopped, said their piece. But then immediately started walking around again. Talk about distracting!
People in noisy places where you can barely hear them, or worse hear everything their co-worker is saying. Stupid things in backgrounds, and on and on.
But what to do?!
Let me step aside for a moment. I’m the webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me). When you decide to plan your webinar and are looking for speaker training, or what I call stage craft training, we have many resources and would love to help you! Reach out to: WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d love to work with you! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
So what to do?
First, I’m constantly amazed by people that seem to think its no big deal. I’m going to call it the Walmart generation. You know the people that just no longer care how they present themselves in public. The instances I just described aren’t that bad (yet?), but they point to a mindlessness of presentations.
Let’s talk about “Brand”. What IS a brand? Businesses spend billions each year defining, establishing, creating, marketing and protecting their brand. Then it comes to a webinar or other virtual event and, “meh, it’s no big deal.”
Your brand is everything, including the way you dress and present yourself. Including forgetting you are on camera and blowing your nose. Yeah, on camera. Unmuted. Honest.
The lady who sat sideways at her desk, but her top was caught on the desk and well, um.. let’s just say she was showing more than she intended. When I have to pause their video and interrupt, it’s embarrassing for all.
Maybe the word I was originally looking for was “unconscious”- not clueless.
I suppose the overarching point I’m trying to make is to approach your virtual summit or virtual event in a more conscious manner. Your role in the webinar or virtual meeting doesn’t matter. If you’ll be on camera, stop for a moment and think about how you are representing you and your brand.
This seems an obvious point. People still do get dressed up for going out, going to church, looking nice at a networking event, a date with a significant other; yet, the moment we get comfortable in front of a camera and no one else is in the room, we kinda forget ourselves.
So here’s a checklist for you to consider;
One: STOP and remember what you’re doing and say to yourself: I’m about to be on screen in front many people that will tell others about my webinar, or virtual meeting, or my role in it. Overall- how can I best prepare to be “present” in the webinar?
Two: What can I do with my background (or set) to best represent myself (and the brand). Are there dumb things in the background (Like that eighties hair-band poster with swimsuit models?). (That was last weeks winner.) And while we’re on this one, check your lighting to ensure its balanced! (Check webinar episodes seventeen, eighteen and nineteen for more on all these!)
Three: What wardrobe challenges might you have in that outfit? Take a moment to stand up, sit down, turn in your chair- whatever. Watch yourself in your camera to see what shows and might not work.
Four: Ambient Distractions. Really think about your space. Does your office face a windowed hallway where co-workers may wave as they pass and take your attention? (that one was last month). What if you’re facing outside and there’s construction next door, or the park, or… Please eliminate things that will take your eye focus off camera!
Five: On screen distractions. Whatever device you are using, do you have alerts of any kind turned on? An open browser window (even though hidden), that will ding, ping, or dong when you get a message or email? Any alarms that might go off while in session? Most likely your audience will be part of these interruptions.
Six: When we used to do in person seminars or conferences and we’re in a room of say two-hundred people. As the speaker you KNOW somebody always has their eyes on you. But some people are looking elsewhere. Well, in a screen presented zoom meeting or Demio presentation, remember that other than their own distractions, you are probably filling the screen. You are all they have to look at.
Seven: Silly things like, clean your glasses BEFORE you come on stage/screen. Make one last trip to mirror and make sure your buttons are buttoned (oh yeah and buttoned evenly). That your hair is behaving. Reminder here to turn your head to make sure that pesky cowlick is behaving. One last look behind you to hide thing that will show that you don’t want seen.
Eight: Mute your mic if you need to sneeze or cough? We all have it happen and I realize sometimes those sneezes come from nowhere. If REALLY sudden at least turn from the mic if you can. And if something is bugging you…
Rule Nine: Like you need to scratch your nose, or yell at your barking dog, excuse yourself for a second, turn off your camera and mic, adjust the blouse, blow your nose, whatever… take a moment to get composed and come back on with a smile and thank your audience for their grace in that moment.
Ten: be conscious. Stay conscious. Think like your Brand. Talk like your brand. Act like your brand. BE the brand.
Hopefully you enjoyed this food for thought.
—– —–
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
Remember you can always catch up on all the episodes on TheWebinarGuy.com
It was nineteen-twenty-six. A company was trying to figure out how to increase sales. Something we are all doing most every day. The company’s sales manager, Allan Odell came up with arguably, one of the best, and possibly most memorable marketing ideas of the era.
He was inspired by a string of signs leading to a service station in Illinois, each sign promoting a product or service available at the station.
A tweak here and there and the Burma Shave sign series was born and almost immediately the company saw a spike in sales.
If you’re not familiar with the Burma Shave Signs, do a search. A quick recap; They were “one line” signs in a series of signs, in sequence often found on fence posts along the road. Remember this was before the advent of interstate highway system and back roads kept speeds down a bit. Perfect for the time and conditions.
There were usually four or five signs about one hundred feet apart or so. Eventually more than seventy-five hundred sets were in forty-five states! And while they most often were about shaving, they also did some funny signs, and even “public service” signs that had nothing to do with shaving. But in keeping the style and brand common, you knew where they were from.
There are many lessons to learn here but first a quick work from our sponsor:
Yes, I’m the webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me). When you decide to plan your webinar and are looking for marketing ideas, we have many resources and would love to help you! Email me: WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d love to work with you! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
Stories like the Burma Shave Signs are fun, but there’s serious marketing stuff going on there. Let’s go back to the title of this episode: The Power Of A Series Of Webinars And Virtual Meetings.
I’d like to hope that I’m demonstrating this concept with this series of episodes on Zooming to Webinar Success.
Lets look at the lessons:
Lesson one: The signs were cohesive; they all pointed to the same goal, brand and purpose.
Lesson two: The signs were memorable. Each sign made you want to read the next one.
Lesson three: Related to that is that they encouraged people to talk about them. Almost like Super Bowl ads. Imagine them discussing them at work, “Hey did you see the new Burma Shave series on route forty-four?”
Lesson four: They were fun. I’m sure families traveling talked about those signs for miles.
Lesson five: They were long enough to create interest, but short enough not to bore.
Lesson six: They created desire. You were hoping to see another series and see what they’d come up with.
Lesson seven: No matter the content, like golden arches, it built brand awareness.
Lesson eight: The messages were perfect for the time period and conditions.
Lesson nine: Targeting; While they were really targeted to males that shaved, everyone enjoyed them! And when Jane told Sheila about the sign she’d seen, there was a subliminal message. I’m betting Sheila told her husband Mike at dinner that night, and well, that’s pretty good marketing.
Lesson ten: They are still talked about and used as a great example of how to create marketing -now nearly one hundred years later!
While I hope these “zooming to webinar success” episodes are still around one hundred years from now, I’d be really happy if just a few of you told someone else about our services!
Go back and look at the lessons;
They were cohesive, to the point and always on brand message
The signs were memorable.
They encouraged conversation.
They were fun.
Long enough to create interest, but short enough not to bore.
They created desire.
They built brand awareness.
The messages were perfect for the time period and conditions.
They were targeted.
And Longevity; They are still talked about and used as a great example of how to create marketing!
Now think of your next webinar, virtual summit, or virtual meeting. How many of those things can you capture in your marketing of the event? How many can you capture DURING your event?
There are so many ways to engage your audience and create memorable content! I’d love to hear your ideas!
So back to the title; The Power Of A Series Of Webinars And Virtual Meetings.”
Now take all that and string together content that makes people want to come back for more. Don’t give it all away at once. You may wish to use a sequential series that for number two to make sense, someone has to be in on number one. Or like this series, it doesn’t matter which one you watch first, they are all relevant to “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
—– —–
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
Welcome to episode thirty-two of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
Today we’re going to talk about one of my most asked questions “How Long Should my Webinar Be? (As Robert Southey author of Goldilocks might’ve said “Just Right!”)”
As you already know (I HOPE you know by now!!), you can always catch up on the first thirty-one episodes hered on TheWebinarGuy.com- just hit the links to the right, or use the search bar!
Okay, maybe not every day, but almost every day, I get some version of the question, “How long should my webinar be?”
I’m sure you’ll not be surprised by my answer. “Long enough”! But as usual, let’s back up a bit.
Another thing I tell clients nearly every day is, “Begin with the end in mind”, made famous by Dr. Stephen Covey.
I can’t overemphasize how important planning is. It’s really the point of this entire series! And it follows that this single issue is a constant. Every week I get a message, “Are you available to host or moderate a webinar…(wait for it)… tomorrow?
Oh sure!
When you begin with the end in mind, you know WHY you’re having your webinar or virtual meeting! Back in episode twenty-seven, I asked you to consider WIIFM, or what’s in it for me, or more accurately for your audience (them). So that is one great goal, what IS in it for your audience?
But what is it YOU want out of it. The reasons that TheWebinarGuy’s clients have virtual summits, virtual meetings, hybrid events are as varied as the businesses they operate.
In episode four I talked about finding the purpose of your webinar. Then in five, the Overall strategy on what you’re trying to accomplish. So go listen to those think about the answers.
When an audience is being asked to absorb new information, you need to allow the information time to trickle in. We’ve all heard the “learning from a fire-hose” or similar statement. Try that in a webinar and you’ll lose your audience.
Generally speaking, my sweet spot is under twenty minutes. Why? That’s a great time length, where it’s long enough to impart the information, leave some time for Q&A and not leave everyone tired, bored or no longer on your webinar!
If you’ve been in sales, there’s a constant in how you think of prospects and sales. You may have heard the phrase, 10-6-4-1. You have to get ten prospects, talk to six, four will be interested and you’ll close one.
How did that information jump in here? Stay with me for a minute…
Like a Realtor would say, “location, location, location” we here at TheWebinarGuy.com say “Planning, planning & planning!”
We love to be on your team from the time you first think about doing a webinar!! Yes, I’m the webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me). When you decide to plan your first webinar or you’re looking to plan a larger, or multi-dimensional virtual summit, and think you need assistance, we have many resources and would love to help you! Hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d love to work with you! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
Back to the sales rule 10-6-4-1. Look it up on the internet and you’ll see different numbers, but they are all relevant to the point.
If you need ten sales from your webinar, you’ll need to fill one hundred seats. One mistake, in my experience, is when people try to have a webinar and try to get two hundred in their virtual sales meeting to get twenty sales right then.
That might work. And then they pack every single thing into that first webinar, then they are disappointed that the audience thins out early and the remaining thirty people don’t buy. Most often, they’ve been overwhelmed!
Here’s a solution; Plan that webinar to be the first part of the funnel. Get one hundred or two hundred in your webinar or virtual summit! But plan to give “Just Enough” information to your audience to get the right number to the next webinar. In other words, every virtual seminar is a break down to the next.
Why blow all your time and energy on an audience that isn’t going to buy. Here’s an example. We do a TON of bit coin, binance, and DeFi webinars for clients.
They’ll do fifteen minutes on what bit-coin is, and how it relates to ten minutes on how secure block-chain technology is. Then seven minutes on their platform and how great it is. We’re now over thirty minutes. And I sit and watch the participant list drop one by one. And they’ve not gotten to their CTA!
And God-forbid you have a boring speaker that drones on and on and those numbers drop like a rock!
What could they do? Start with a statement by your webinar moderator from TheWebinarGuy.com that this webinar is a bit advanced and for those that understand bit-coin, block chain and are ready for a better platform! (read: Manage expectations).
First touch on both what bit-coin is, then touch on block-chain, maybe two to three minutes tops. Mention another webinar you’ll be having later that is more in-depth on those things. Get those people in THAT webinar.
Now work on how your platform works and the benefits of using it. You can do a lot in the next five to seven minutes. Then do your Q&A. Five minutes tops. Then do your CTA. We’re around fifteen minutes and I assure you you’ll have better numbers. Make sense?
Your CTA IS a sign up offer (why not!?!), but now get those really interested into that next harder sales push webinar with some great offer. Say 5% sign up bonus for those that sign up now for the next webinar.
If you’re planning a sixty-minute webinar, or even anything over thirty-minutes- you better have five things:
Be an interesting speaker with Great Content
Solid webinar design and
Tight planning agenda run by professionals
Concise, meaningful Q&A
An interesting, well-crafted CTA
So what have we defined? A sort of sales funnel where we’ll try to peel off attendees that would be better served in a different webinar. Next, we’ll have planned content for the “real” audience and either close them with a call to action then, or, have a deeper, more detailed content webinar soon after.
This is related to sales, but it works for nearly everything. Need VoiceOver training? How about my webinar on that? But I’ll first make sure what phase of your career you’re at, “This webinar is for those that…”, then the call to action might be a three lesson course.
Selling a beauty regimen? Trying to solve racism, or hunger in your neighborhood? Helping people in some way?
Hope this helps you plan!!
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
I’m often asked, “When planning a #webinar or #virtualevent, what is the single most important factor I need to cover?” Well, here we go! If you are planning a #virtualsummit, or a simple #zoommeeting, I have the answer! The most important factor is…
I’ve discussed many things over the first thirty episodes! And quite frankly, most of them are really important! Stay tuned for a moment while I review…the last episode (thirty). I discussed the staffing needs larger webinars need and the bodies and capabilities to make sure you have covered for success. If you missed it, head to TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episode thirty.
Okay, so what IS the The Single Most Important Factor (to your webinar success)?
It’s you! I’ll bet you’re not even surprised! NO ONE else will care as much as you do your webinar, zoom meeting, or virtual event. No one else will have as much skin in the success or failure of the event as you will.
Any single one of the staffing needs I mentioned last episode, if done poorly, can certainly embarrass you.
Here at TheWebinarGuy.com we think we’ve seen it all. Expected speakers that don’t show up or misunderstood the time zone of the event. Bad connections, scammers that do stupid things in a public forum, really bad backgrounds, bad scripts, bad powerpoint decks, those that simply don’t even understand the interface and take no time to figure it out, poorly managed hand-off and more.
A step aside here. Actually, it’s a step up to my soap box. When asked to speak for an international conference because they’ve achieved some modicum of success, they may have been awarded a PhD in a field, published papers and more. Then this person comes onto a virtual webinar session where they are the featured speaker. Their screen comes on and they are still straightening their hair. They don’t know how to share their screen or know how to get PowerPoint into slide show mode. Oh, they’ll open it and start talking in edit mode where you can see all their notes and remnants of their desktop and more. Really?!
In my mind this is the Walmart version of presentations. It’s just way too casual! And I see it ALL THE TIME.
If you have no respect for yourself, at least have respect for those that have invited you to speak?! Makes me want to scream.
Sorry, I’ll step down for now. However, throughout the series, I’ve constantly pointed out the pitfalls that can occur while planning or holding a webinar.
How can you avoid these things? Well, partially, the answer is “good luck”.
One way is first to contact a company whose sole purpose is to produce an amazing webinar or virtual event for you.
Here at TheWebinarGuy.com we include all these points and work with your speakers and others to help ensure they are prepared and you look amazing!! Yes, I’m the webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me). When you decide to approach your first big webinar or you want to plan a large, multi-dimensional virtual summit, and think you need assistance, we have many resources and would love to help you! Hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d love to work with you! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
So how do you eliminate this?
Let’s go back to what we’ve identified as the “The Single Most Important Factor (to your webinar success)”
You.
One other thing I often see is that would-be presenters doing their first webinar, is that they think that pulling off a fantastic, memorable (for the right reasons) webinar or virtual summit is a walk in the park.
Its like they think, “Well, I’ve been on plenty of zoom sessions. It’s can’t be that hard!”
Well with that attitude it won’t be hard! It will likely be embarrassingly bad.
Most new clients are surprised by how may questions we ask. It’s because we know what’s all needed and we want your event to be stellar! And we try not to leave anything to chance!
Many times, in this series I ask you to stop and consider the depth of the subject we’re on. Not to take it lightly or pass over it entirely.
This is another of those times. It is YOUR name or YOUR brand. How do you want to be perceived? How do you want it treated? This is one of those crossing line decisions we make in life. We can cheap it out and hope for the best or decide today that you’ll put in the work to produce the most noteworthy, fun, engaging, interactive and maybe more- webinar possible.
THAT is why you are the most important “The Single Most Important Factor (to your webinar success)”
YOU will set the standard that all the participants producing your webinar will follow. The standard of excellence on the script, the slides, backgrounds, production values and more. Its. ALL. On. You!
That everyone on your team gets that standard is the hurdle you must cross! At TheWebinarGuy.com, we get it and can join you at that same standard!
—– —–
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
Welcome to an anniversary episode of sorts- Episode Thirty of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy. And a special shoutout to Jane Wing at JaneWing.com for our new podcast introduction!
Today we’re going to talk about “Planning your Big Webinar or Virtual Summit- Part two”
We’ll talk about the pieces parts you’ll need! Stay tuned…
In the last episode (twenty-nine) I started talking about producing larger webinars and how that might be defined. If you missed it, head to TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episode twenty-nine..
As I mentioned in that episode, here at TheWebinarGuy.com we’re often involved in large virtual events. These events can be “large” in different ways. What are those ways? It’s all about numbers. The number of speakers planned, the number of days it will span, the number of staff required to take care of myriad details and of course, the number of dollars you’ll spend to do any of that. ALL the numbers are related, btw.
I talked about overusing the word “multi” as I hit those numbers above, Multi-everything!
And I said that the webinar or virtual summit, or virtual event- whatever you want to call it, will be constrained by two significant factors. Audience and Budget.
Okay enough going back over the last episode, let’s move on, but first.
—-
Before we dig in too far a word from our webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me). When you decide to approach your first big webinar or you want to plan a large, multi-dimensional virtual summit, and think you need assistance, we have many resources and would love to help you! Hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d love to work with you! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
—-
So, define “Big” already, Grant!
Alrighty. Again, I define a BIG webinar or virtual event when it just flat can’t get done by you alone and likely not by two people. Can they be done, yikes, yes but not if you like to sleep!
What you might need; First take a real, honest, frank evaluation of what you can actually do on your own. Know what your gifts and capabilities are and make an honest assessment of whether that serves your virtual summit or event.
Now fill that in with those that can do other things around your gifts.
Let’s start at the beginning with marketing the event. Here we go…
Web designer/web master to post events. Will they need to integrate with platforms like EventBrite to post or zoom to create the event?
Social media posting: There’s a specialist in every field, and this is no different. You may need someone with knowledge of each platform for best practice and keyword usage and more. How often will they post. Are they paid ads? Is the budget made for that? Can that person or persons interact well with your speakers or their staff to market them into your event?
Script writing/editing: Maybe you’ve got a script and you just need someone to look at it for clarity, maybe it needs written from scratch. I get many scripts to record for clients that you can tell were written by the person that is the subject expert, so it’s really detailed and then at the same time, it steps right over the points the audience really needs to know!
Slide Deck creation/editing: Repeat the paragraph from above on script writing. I’ve gotten slide decks where the “expert” just flat skipped an important slide or two.
But the other problem with inexperienced slide deck creators is using all the cute bells and whistles that will ruin a professional presentation. We spend a lot of time normalizing animations, removing animations that aren’t needed and more. And we end up adding graphics that better explain processes or expressing the appropriate emotion for that point the speaker is making.
Back to Speakers: Who else is going to speak? Who will interact and help to manage them, their notes, their slides and as mentioned, possibly work with their staff?
Event coordination: Who is going to track all this and manage all these people?
Tech Coordinator: Who is responsible for set completion? If a simple virtual event, you may just use your room (see episode seventeen) what do you need to do to be ready? What about sound (mic, etc) and your speakers and camera (just go hit episodes fifteen through eighteen!). Oh yeah, make sure your computer is ready as well as your internet connection too.
Software: Do you have someone to check your computer and KNOW that all your software is working and will play nice on presentation day. By the way, a word of caution on “updating your software because the publisher said it was a new version that can run faster and jump higher. Just last month we had to roll back three of our packages to the point where they would play nice. I’ll just say it will be a while before I upgrade stuff that’s working.
Do you need programs like: OBS, WhatsApp, Skype, Discord, zoom or another platform installed and working?
WhatsApp, Skype and Discord are great for off platform communication for your team. Get everyone in a group!
Moderator(s): Depending on size, you may need one or two folks to monitor chat and the Q&A box, assign breakout rooms, setup and show polls, remove trollers (episode twenty-three, twenty-four and twenty-six).
Host: Usually one host is sufficient, but if you’re doing sections, you may want a different host for each section. Maybe you’re doing a session for say Spanish speaking attendees and having a host that speaks whatever language or that looks like them, might matter!
Finally: POST Webinar: Who all from the list above is needed for follow-up, sending thank you notes, follow-up social posts and other web related activities? You just had a great webinar, don’t let the energy die now!!!
It IS a LOT to consider, and I think I hit most of it! So what is a BIG webinar? I think I was on a team of eight recently- that I knew of!
But with the help of TheWebinarTeam at TheWebinarGuy.com, we’re ready to jump in where YOU need us!
—– —–
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
Welcome to episode twenty-nine of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
Today we’re going to talk about “Planning your Big Webinar or Virtual Summit”.
We’ll talk about some of the pitfalls and advantages! Stay tuned…
In the last episode (twenty-eight) I talked a bit more about promoting webinars and virtual meetings. If you missed it, head to TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episode twenty- eight.
Here at TheWebinarGuy.com we’re often involved in large virtual events. These events can be “large” in different ways. What are those ways? And how does this play into your planning and budget? Stay tuned because in this episode, twenty-nine, we’ll discuss some of the many ways that larger virtual summits and multi-day, multi-presenter, multi-EVERYTHING is different than “just doing” a simpler webinar.
Let’s start with defining what a “Large” virtual event looks like. Maybe an “official” definition from the web is in order: “Webinars provide attendees with a single session to attend, while virtual events offer flexibility in single or multi-session agendas that take place at different times or days” Okay, that helps, but…
Another definition suggests that the answer to virtual events is that they are multi-dimensional.
Where webinars go big on a single topic for whatever period of time, Virtual events can be just a few sessions on multiple subjects that are usually related in some way, to multi-day events with myriad speakers from all over the world, drawing a multi-national audience.
Sorry, I feel like I’m overusing “multi” but there just isn’t another word that works!
Okay back at it. So what DOES large mean? Add complexity and it gets “large” in every sense of the word from number of attendees to speakers to well, everything you can think of.
I’m going to suggest that the webinar or virtual summit, or virtual event- whatever you want to call it, is going to be constrained by two significant factors. Audience and Budget.
First, I’ve talked in multiple episodes about promotion and snagging audience and getting attendees to your virtual event. This is the first factor. It may be or seem obvious, but your ability to define your audience, market to them, get them to register and the million dollar part: Get them to attend- That is a huge challenge! (And then make them want to stick around!!)
The second part that I’ve really not gotten into in this series is defining your budget. Well, this is really the first factor, quite frankly. Because if you have enough budget, you can get audience!
—-AD START—
But before we dig in too far on that little gem, the budget, a word from our webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me). When you decide to approach your first big webinar or you want to plan a large, multi-dimensional virtual summit, and think you need assistance, we have many resources and would love to help you! Hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d love to work with you! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
—-AD END—
Okay, the 900# gorilla in the room: BUDGET. A standard conversation we often have with new or potential clients goes like this:
THEM: “How much does it cost for you to produce a webinar?”
TWG: “Here’s our standard list of fifteen questions we always ask to get started. One of the first is; Do you have a budget?”
THEM: “Yes, but…”
I can tell you that this conversation goes back and forth until there is an understanding that there is no “one size fits all” webinar or virtual meeting/event. And to help you, we really need a realistic budget. It saves our team AND the client both time and resources.
So my first advise here is: Get you or your current team serious about how much you can or will spend.
That said, a simpler, one day event could cost well, what all do you need done?
Marketing? Planning? List buying? And on and on. Again our simple “starter questionnaire” is around fifteen questions and our planning sheet has more than eighty things we consider when planning an event!
Some things to consider; is your event going to only be in your native tongue? Do you need moderators in other languages for that specific audience?
We were involved recently with a two-day multi-national event that started in India with speakers and moderators working in Hindi, then it flowed to Africa, Europe (switching to English), then into the Americas. Do you need interpreters? And more.
Are you doing social postings? Are awards involved? Breakout rooms? Casual networking rooms? Do you need someone to manage each breakout room? Will presenters help? How will you handle it when a speaker doesn’t show, or has connection issues?
How will you introduce speakers? Will you use a host? An introduction video (cartooned intros are fun!)?
What will you do to keep the event fun, interesting and keep people from becoming fatigued during a five hour event?
Do you have systems in place already to assist with any of this, or does it all need produced for you?
How will you measure ROI? What will you do as follow up with speakers and attendees? What marketing data do you expect back and how will you use it? Will you be paying speakers or are they speaking pro-bono for some exposure? How will you handle that?
What polls will you plan to capture marketing data?
How are you going to present or push your brand? How far can your stray from your brand story, and serve the webinar topic. OR… How far can you push the webinar topics and speakers and stay on point with your brand?
Just like going out to dinner, or virtually any purchase you make, adding complexity, creating videos, hiring a band to play, and all that I’ve mentioned to this point adds to your budget.
These things also add to audience experience and their want to stay around.
The bottom line, and I’ve mentioned this often in previous episodes: Focus on what you and your attendees want from a virtual event!
What do you want to achieve with your event? What “End result” are you looking for? (Episodes four and five).
And what do your attendees hope to gain? Have you thought of that (Look for the WIIFM episode twenty-seven).
I’ve often mentioned the webinar planning sheet we use (that you can request on our website: TheWebinarGuy.com) that grows almost daily as we add things that we take for granted, that you shouldn’t.
Best of luck in planning your “Large” event!
—– —–
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
Thank you for watching! Would love to hear your questions and comments! Don’t forget to tell a friend or two! And if you’re listening to the Podcast audio, thanks for listening!
Welcome to episode twenty-eight of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
Today we’re going to talk about “Where DO I promote my webinar?!”
How do I start might be the subtitle! Stay tuned…
In the last episode (twenty-seven) I talked about WIFFM and why it was important. If you missed it, head to TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episode twenty-seven.
Today we’ll discuss some of the many ways you can market your webinar, virtual learning or virtual training event, and your virtual summit. Will this be an exhaustive list? No it won’t. In fact, I’m tossing in a bit of a twist. But I want the thinking or strategy behind this to be what is learned, not necessarily to use this tactic to do that.
In our current world, being “followed” or “liked” is the thing (social media wise!). I think the first most important thing to know is the makeup of your current “following”.
How many people are in your influence circle? Ten? Ten Thousand? Not only is there a huge difference in those numbers, but there’s also a huge difference in the way you market and approach that difference.
I’ve touched on the subject in several past episodes, by the way- take a gander at episodes eight, nine and eleven. Episode seven was even more specific, where “Filing the seats” was the title. Valuable to catch up on if needed, but I didn’t go deep on purpose. I want to add on today.
Let’s assume you’ve listened to Episode seven, so you know most of the options. Above I alluded to whether you have fewer followers or small audience capture, or a larger following. And for no reason other than normal marketing and sales numbers, let’s call that number five hundred.
—-AD—
But before we dig in too far, a word from our webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me). When you decide to approach your first webinar, and think you need marketing assistance, we have many resources and would love to help you! Hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d love to work with you! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
This episode I’ll concentrate on those of you with fewer than five hundred in your sphere of influence. Here’s the first problem with that number. Most of us have that many in our sphere with just business and social contacts, not even trying for reach or growth. But it’s likely you’re not maximizing that number or just not realized it’s that big.
We’ve all heard the saying that “Content is King”. Yup sure is. High quality content where your audience wants more of your stuff is crucial! So how do you build your audience for better promotion?
The topic on this episode is “Where do I promote your Webinar?” Start with what you have where you are. But I think you need to start six months or more before your event. Why? Social credibility is all about people seeing, sharing and yes, liking your content. Six months gives you the space to start posting content that engages people to follow you.
On Facebook you have so many friends and so many followers. Yeah, kinda weird but people that aren’t your “Friends” do follow what you post. Instagram is even more that way. Then we have Tik-Tok, YouTube, WhatsApp, WeChat, and even more. And that’s only the top six! If your content is more business oriented, add LinkedIn to your list.
Many of us are on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and maybe TikTok and Twitter and even Reddit. There is no shortage of places to waste your time and efforts.
Why do I say that? Learning the nuances of every platform can drive you nuts and waste time. So Don’t. For this first effort, concentrate on the place or places you already have the most traction. Again, I’ll swing towards Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
You’ll want to get people having conversations. So, posting what you had for dinner or your baby blowing bubbles isn’t what we’re going for here.
Posting a great quote, or sharing another post isn’t going to cut it either. Start with a piece of advice. Show people something and ask a question (start the conversation).
Here’s the simplest rule for ANY platform; Get Engagement and don’t take people off THAT platform. Engagement is people commenting on your content, sharing your content, their friends commenting on their comments, and their friends sharing your content.
That engagement is the path to people following you. You can look at stats and ask people to “follow you” and such.
So technically we’re not yet promoting your webinar. What we’re doing is establishing social credibility. Once you are known for “X”, people start asking you for advice and/or you’re seen as the expert. Having your closest twenty friends on a webinar is great, especially for practice, but you’ll likely not be able to build a business model around that. You need twenty, one-hundred twenty, FIVE-hundred twenty and more in your sphere of influence, just to get some traction. Trust me, you want more.
Remember you’ll likely never get all five hundred twenty on a webinar. If you do, call me and I’ll take some advice from you!
It IS a numbers game, but the credibility factor is HUGE!
Your plan for today is to do an inventory of the platforms you’re on, where you have the largest reach and plan to start there, building credibility!
So did I answer the question of “where to promote your webinar, or virtual meeting?” Not in the literal sense, but hopefully in a way to help you plan on approach.
So what do we know now that we didn’t earlier? Don’t drive people from the platform(s) you’re using.
That social credibility and being seen as THE expert is crucial to success! Take time to build that when you’re looking for zooming to YOUR webinar success!
—– —–
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
Welcome to episode twenty-seven of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
Today we’re going to talk about WIIFM!
What’s WIIFM? Stay tuned…
In the last episode (twenty-six) I talked about using polls and chat interaction in your webinars and virtual meetings or presentations. If you missed it, head to TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episode twenty-six.
So, what is WIIFM? We ALL suffer from WIIFM now and then. At least from the side effects of not knowing what it is and how it affects all we do.
If you’ve been around business or marketing very long, you already know what it is, if not, WIIFM is an acronym for “What’s In It For Me!?”
What’s In It For Me strikes at the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs! Maybe not literally, but wanting to know how something will benefit us is so very deeply rooted we may not even give it conscious thought.
We are always looking for things that are pleasurable, make our lives easier, that are fun, taste good, earn us more money and so on. Remember in this instance we are on the subject of holding webinars, on-line meetings, virtual summits, self-improvement workshops, virtual master classes, virtual podcasts, and so on.
So What IS in it for me? Well, define first define “me”. Because you first need to know what is in it for you.
WHY go to all the work of assembling a webinar, writing the script, creating a powerpoint deck, planning, scheduling, finding a moderator and/or host. Planning and creating all the collateral where needed and more!
By the way, as an aside that list is woefully short of what’s really needed. Our webcast and podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! (Yeah, that’s me), has a free PDF with the steps needed to cover when you want to get all the details right. More than eighty items to consider. Want a copy? Hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! I’d love to send you a copy! Thanks for listening to my commercial!
Back to the subject; Why would you go to all that work? What is in it for YOU!? You should know the answer. “Just deciding” to do a webinar or virtual event is fine but know why you’re doing it!
Why do I do these videos and podcasts? Yes, I’m a bit altruistic and want you to have great webinars and I hope this series helps you. But let’s be frank; I want your business! I want you to look at all those details and think, “I just want The Webinar Team to do it! Yeah, I’m contacting The Webinar Guy!
I’m in this to gain customers plain and simple.
Why do YOU want to have a webinar? What’s in it for YOU. If you’re not real sure, maybe go hit TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episodes four and five. I talk about Purpose and strategy.
Okay, after you figure that out, you better know “What’s in it for ME”- your audience- or “What’s in it for them?” Why would they bother to take part of their day to listen to you? What’s your expertise? What will you offer? What will they gain?
To drive your webinar attendance you must be able to answer that question. Why would someone care?!
I’ve presented or hosted webinars, such as; employment webinars where interested candidates find out about a company and why they’d want to work there.
For a trucking industry consulting company, why drivers would want to become owners instead of just being drivers (it’s to build wealth).
For a consultant on relationships: How to manage a relationship with a narcissist. If you’re in that type relationship, you need her workshop!
Several for the elder care market, where one client helps current communities manage them better and another on helping those communities help their elder members build memories.
A client that is treating Bi-Polar disorder with laughter, trying to help others with the same challenge.
MANY companies that want you to invest in their bitcoin operation!
I host, present or moderate several hundred webinars each year. There are several common threads; Helping people, selling people, developing authority and trust, generating leads, broadening your current audience and more.
When you know why you are doing your webinar and you can really define “What’s in it for THEM”, you’ll be way down the road on your marketing, your scripts will be better, you’ll have better engagement and the audience you draw will be more open to your message!
What’s in it for me? My goal is more clients and broadening how many people know about the services The Webinar Guy.com offers and sell those services.
What’s in it for you? I want you to hold amazing webinars and have massive success!
So what do we know now that we didn’t earlier? There are two “me’s” for lack of better definition. What’s in it for me as the presenter, speaker, consultant, etc. And the “What’s in it for me” that is really “them”, your audience. Take time to define those for zooming to YOUR webinar success!
—– —–
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!” If you have a subject you’d like me to cover, please subscribe, then drop me a note or comment.
Welcome to episode twenty-six of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
Today we’re going to talk about doing polls during your webinar or virtual presentation.
In the last two episodes I talked about how to best handle hecklers. In the last, episode twenty-five specifically “to mute or not to mute.” If you missed it, head to TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episode twenty-five.
It’s hard to believe I’m at episode twenty-six! Slowly, but surely, I’m working through TheWebinarGuy’s Webinar prep sheet. There are more than eighty considerations included! If you’d like a copy, hit my website and sign up for my newsletter list, or drop me an email on the address on the screen. We’ll make sure you get a copy!
Okay, the point here is that I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface on webinar or virtual meeting preparation.
On that prep sheet, (currently item #93 in the growing list) is the question of if you are including polls in your virtual presentation.
So let’s look at the question of WHY you’d do a poll.
But let’s take a step back from that.
What are you doing? Are planning a webinar, virtual presentation, virtual summit, meeting, etc.? What’s the goal of the session? I have a previous episode on that, by the way
Depending on the platform, or the type of session you’re planning, you may or may not be able to do a poll.
Let’s say we can do a poll to simplify things for this episode.
So WHY you’d do a poll covers two essential topics:
The first is getting audience engagement or interaction.
Second, get information that may/not be important to your presentation or business goals.
In my mind, the most attractive thing is to get audience engagement.
You’re a great speaker. You’ve got great content. But it’s also great to have more interaction, more engagement.
Adding a poll early can add interest to your presentation. There are literally no limits to polls, but a warning here. Use them judiciously. Going overboard will also wear out your audience. I’m not sure there is a “right number” to do, just use them for real purposes.
Tell your audience the purpose of your poll to help them engage. Say we’re doing a webinar on bitcoin or cryptocurrency. I do many of these for clients in foreign countries. And say we’re trying to determine the demographics of our audience.
So I’d tell the audience, “We’d like to know more about your crypto interest. We’re going do a simple poll to find out.”
That poll might include:
One client recently had nearly one-hundred attendees on their last webinar.
Most were invited to attend, so my client knew who they were for the most part-probably had their email.
So how could you use that data? I’d be immediately reaching out to the last two groups to get them on our platform. Then to those that have been investing, but have less than stellar results, and I’d leave the last group for later follow up.
Based on the results of that survey (during the webinar), the next part of my presentation might jump to a part of the script that concentrates on the goals of the client, in this case the newer users.
I could follow up that poll with one immediately after and ask, “For those of you who are considering investing…” and get more definition on prospects.
There are just so may ways to use polls. I hope you can see that when you get information, you also get engagement. You could poll for fun too. But keep the fun related to the subject. Just polling my cryptocurrency audience on who’s ever blown up a balloon would be both irrelevant and confusing to the audience. Yeah, I know that was a stretch, but you get the point!
Another way to do an informal poll is to just have people react in the chat box if you’ve set it to be available. Questions here can be, “Drop your location in the chat box!”, “If you’re brand new to cryptocurrency, type your name”, “Do you send emails to your partners?” and other ways to just get people involved. Again, back to subject matter and what you’re trying to accomplish.
I want to do a poll right now! Let’s use the comment box if you would. If you like these videos and podcasts, thank our podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! Yeah, that’s me, drop in a comment!
Knowing how to setup polls and getting them right are really critical for professional webinar management. When you begin to plan an all-day event, a virtual summit, or your first webinar and want to get all the details right, hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d be honored to work with you! Thanks!
I’ll be doing more on these and different subjects, so please subscribe and tell a friend or two! And if you have a subject you’d like me to cover, let me know!
—– —–
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!”
Welcome to episode twenty-five 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 Muting your guests.
Last episode I talked about how to best handle hecklers, those people that think YOUR webinar or meeting is their place to grind an axe with you or your organization or are just plain rude. If you missed it, head to TheWebinarGuy.com and look for episode twenty-four.
In that episode, I mentioned muting your audience as one strategy to abate hecklers. In zoom, you can hold a webinar, an event, or a simpler meeting. In a webinar, your audience is not visible (no video), there is no way for them to talk, essentially, they can only listen to your presentation. And there are times you may need that option.
An event is a whole different animal, so we’ll ignore that as the vast majority of my clients are holding simple meetings.
So, we’ll talk about the Zoom platform meeting format. Other platforms have similar options, but we’ll stay with Zoom.
First log into Zoom in a browser and look at your SETTINGS menu.
Then look for: “Schedule a Meeting settings”. Then look for the setting,
Mute all participants when they join a meeting.
This allows you toAutomatically mute all participants when they join the meeting. The host controls whether participants can unmute themselves.
You can also set this when youschedule a meeting, in the meeting scheduler, under the “Options” section, you may select the box to, “Mute participants on entry”. But understand that this does not keep them from Un-Muting themselves!
Note that for some options you need to have the latest software version installed on your device.
Next, (back to the browser account) in the:
“In Meeting (Advanced)” settings and look for: Request permission to unmute
Zoom says: “Select this option in the scheduler to request permission to unmute meeting participants and webinar panelists. Permissions, once given, will apply in all meetings scheduled by the same person.”
Again, be sure to understand these settings and what they do- how they act. I mentioned last episode having a guy unmute and spew a verbal attack at my client a while back. This was because I’d allowed participants to unmute themselves. There are more scenarios here than I can explain but…
How about a quick commercial for our podcast sponsor, TheWebinarGuy.com! Yeah, that’s me! Knowing these settings and getting them right are really critical for professional webinar management. When you begin to plan an all-day event, a virtual summit, or your first webinar and want to get all the details right, hit me at WebinarPro@TheWebinarGuy.com, or visit our website (TheWebinarGuy.com) and use contact form! We’d be honored to work with you! Thanks!
So why mute your audience? Most of you listening have been on a virtual call, right? And the doorbell rings. Or somebody’s smoke alarm is chirping every sixty seconds! Would you please change your battery!?!? But they don’t even hear it anymore! The dog barks, the parakeet squawks, kids, clueless teens and more. MUTE them!!
Most of the sessions we run, we mute people on entry. We normally start sessions (Think start letting people in) five minutes ahead. Nearly every, single, session, SOMEBODY has to unmute to say hi! Ask if they can be heard and so on. Despite the fact that the slide being shown asks people to stay muted.
Some people’s kids abhor silence.
Once in a meeting, say -some or all of your audience has unmuted. At the bottom of the participants list is a “Mute All” button. When you click that, you have the choice for Zoom to mute all current and NEW participants. Here’s the thing to double check: There is another checkbox that says “Allow Participants to unmute themselves.”
If you leave that on, muting your audience can be irrelevant as they can unmute at any time.
If you click that off and your audience clicks their mic to unmute, they’ll get a message that the host isn’t allowing them to unmute.
Then, as the host, look for the three-dot ellipsis to the right of “Mute All.” There, you’ll note that “Allow Participants to unmute themselves” is NOT currently checked.
Re-check this box at any time and now participants can unmute themselves. Say you’re now ready for Q&A for example.
After the debacle above with Mr. Important acting like a donkey’s rear, I allow the audience to unmute and chat, and answer a question or two at the beginning of the meeting to get involvement going. Then I tell them I’m muting mics for all the reasons above.
So, while I’m talking, I’ll have no interruptions. Yes, That Guy could still honk off at the beginning of the session, but I’m more casual and able to mute quickly at that point then when I’m in the middle of my scripted presentation.
Again, there are many strategies for muting and not. The type of presentation you’re doing may require your audience to unmute to answer questions or be involved in a discussion.
However, I strongly advise that you have something on the screen that suggests people stay muted when not speaking for the reasons previously stated. You’d think people would know by now, but I can assure you from the hundreds of webinars I personally manage every year, that people forget to mute, and some are clueless.
As I mentioned last episode (twenty-four), having a moderator to manage your session also serves this greatly!
I hope this helps you consider your muting options for your virtual meetings or virtual summit. And as always, TheWebinarGuy.com is here to help!
—– —–
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!”
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!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy. Welcome to episode twenty-three of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
In case you’re catching up, the last three episodes (twenty, twenty-one and twenty-two) had to do with presenting content via some choice on slide decks (PowerPoint, Prezi, Canva, etc) and the importance of script writing.
So what to do with this episode, twenty-three?
Since we’ve been covering content, let’s talk about the ubiquitous Q&A session, often held at the end for obvious reasons.
You know what you want to say and based on episode number twenty-two, you may have even written and practiced a script to ensure you are actually saying it.
But as you know, no matter how well we prepare, our guests will always think of something to ask. Usually.
Maybe they didn’t pay attention during part of your webinar or virtual meeting. They got a phone call and couldn’t watch for a bit. Yes, I’ve gotten questions that cover those situations. I love it when people ask in the chat feature and others answer the question for you!
Just as likely, especially due to the complexity of a given subject, it’s possible that one explanation just wasn’t enough. Maybe they just didn’t get it!
Pay attention to this! We often think we nailed something when talking about it- due to our familiarity with the subject, but some stares, furrowed brows or tilted heads may say otherwise.
Why pay attention? If you do many of the same webinars and continually see the same questions pop up, it’s time to modify your presentation. For some reason, your audiences just aren’t getting it.
This is what makes using a script on a zoom webinar tough. You’re so concentrating on the content that you can’t “read” the audience like you can when you’re live on stage. So also take that into consideration. And even if you don’t use a script, the people’s images may be so small as to not be able to track that well anyhow. To me, it’s one of the greatest drawbacks to virtual events.
What’s the answer there? I know in many of the sessions I do, we just tell people to enter their questions in the chat or (Q&A function of some of the webinar platforms) and tell them we’ll wait until the Q&A part to answer. Or we tell them to NOT enter the questions, just to hold them till the end. Then either way, we stay on-task and on-script until the end.
This option also has the added benefit of you answering the question before it’s offered. That happens too.
First considerations: If you have someone like a professional from TheWebinarGuy.com team moderating your webinar and gathering the questions, (and knowing in advance what’s coming) possibly telling attendees “We’ll get to that” or answering simple questions you’ve approved- that helps simplify your webinar. The point here is that a moderator can help you a lot on this.
If you’re running solo, or you don’t have a moderator, tell people that you’re running a “one man show” and can’t monitor the chat and you can’t track questions. Then don’t!
Let’s say you’ve presented your information and we’re now to the actual Q&A. Now that we’re there, let’s back up. This requires planning.
First of all, limit the time for Q&A. Tell people ahead that you’re limiting the Q&A to five minutes, or ten, or whatever. This helps your audience know what to expect. If you followed the advice from the last episode, you should know how long your presentation is within just a few minutes and plan accordingly. So if you have a twenty minute or so presentation, then plan a ten minute or so Q&A and tell people at the start that “Today’s webinar/presentation/training/whatever will be about thirty minutes- THEN STICK TO THAT. But what if people are really engaged and asking great questions? Your call, but it’s “Entertainment Law” to get off stage with the audience wanting more! Suggest they enroll again for the next one- offer a deal! If it’s a series, consider telling people, “Sorry we’re out of time, but we’ll answer more of these: On our blog; Our social media feed, or possibly (not recommended) at the beginning of the next session.
Now that you’ve managed that expectation, one choice is to just wing it. You start reading through chat and take the questions as they come. But another reason to use a moderator is while questions are being asked, they can also organize them and even collapse multiple similar questions into one better question instead of you parsing out answers as you read them- that can get repetitive.
Your moderator can also ignore repetitive, ignorant, or otherwise bothersome questions-because your moderator isn’t trying to read them ‘live’.
Answer questions concisely. Don’t blather on. This is another thing to practice! Keep your eye on the clock!!!
—-By the way, a quick commercial from our current sponsor TheWebinarGuy.com (me). I’ve mentioned utilizing a moderator or session manager several times in this post. Your moderator can also be your tech person, or depending on the complexity of the session, ONLY moderate chat and NOT do any of the tech. Whatever mode you choose, contact our team at the TheWebinarGuy.com and let’s chat about your needs and how we can help you manage your webinar, virtual summit, training sessions, product launches and more! Thanks!
Ok, so what happens if you get to Q&A and you get crickets? NO ONE has put a question in chat? They’re silently staring at you. There are no questions!
That does happen. I do many repetitive sessions for clients and two times in a row won’t get a single question. The next session, with the exact same content, I might get ten- You just don’t know.
First, if you feel it’s needed, have a handful of “canned” questions for your moderator to toss at you. “This is from a recent email…” might be a way to handle it. This may help get the Q&A going.
But if you feel you’ve done your job, people are smiling and nodding, thank them for their attention, announce any follow-up sessions, offers, etc, and get off the call!!
If you sit there, like you’re not gonna end the call until you get to answer a question, it’s just really bad theater. It sucks all the energy you’ve built -out of your webinar session. Honestly, give it ten, twenty seconds, then end the call.
If you can, record the call! For example, zoom sends you a transcript of the chat function. It will help you later to look at that and see what you may have missed.
I hope this has helped you think about how to better manage your Question & Answer period!
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!”
Hey, I’m Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy. Welcome to episode 22 of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Just wrapped up two episodes on slide decks and proper use. And I touched on script writing and using a script when doing your webinar, zoom meeting or other virtual meetup.
For a bit of background, I’ve been on stage since I was five years old. That was my first vocal solo! Ah, the memories! (Not really, that was WELL over twenty minutes ago!) Since somewhere in my thirties, I’ve not only sung professionally, I’ve been a keynote speaker and also worked as a trainer in corporations on everything from IT to soft skills to corporate turn-around management to helping entrepreneurs with “How to start a business”.
Over thousands of presentations, I’ve come to know what works- and what doesn’t!
And not in the list above, I’ve also held seminars (Ya know-the old kind where people actually came to a hotel conference room?? In Person!!??) I’ve trained many individuals on using slide decks from the podium, speaking skills, stage craft, or stage management, how to use equipment and more. I’ve even trained National Speakers Association candidates.
Sorry for the personal commercial, but I think it’s important that if someone is spewing advice, you know if they are qualified to do so. I’ll let you judge.
So all that said, I want to revisit a few points from my last episode, twenty-one;
Writing a script will be the lead on this episode, but will rehash the why.
Why write a script? Many/most(?) experts in a field can talk about their given area of expertise at the drop of a hat (and quite frankly for too dang long!) . On TheWebinarGuy.com website, look at the “fantastic-scripts-matter” page (https:// TheWebinarGuy.com/fantastic-scripts-matter). We have a couple quotes attributed to Mark Twain and Woodrow Wilson. Both quotes have to do with preparation.
Mark Twain’s is: “I … never could make a good impromptu speech without several hours to prepare it.” I’ll let you go find the other {WINK}. In fact, this page speaks to many of the things I’ve been saying about scripts, but I’ll take it here a bit differently.
First, that preparation could be practicing your presentation many times to get the flow, check equipment and so on.
But in my mind, KNOWING what you’re going to say and practicing saying it that way is KEY to a great presentation. I’d think that the purpose of any presentation is to get your audience to engage somehow. -Buy something, volunteer, etc.
Having your sequence right, the verbiage right…ALL that to me is critical.
Here’s what I’ve done. I mentioned in the last episode that while you could write a script then the create the slides to support your talk, or switch that, creating the slides first (this happens often with highly technical subjects where certain images must be displayed in a given order to explain a subject). I do a bit of both. Once I have my deck created (PowerPoint, Prezi, Canva, etc) I then hone in my script. At every point, I want to make sure both are working together.
Here’s my secret. I practice both until no real improvements are left to make. Then I begin to use my slides as prompts for me.
By now I know what I want to say and the slides prompt me to say that. As I practice this sequence I glance less and less at the script knowing those critical points are on a slide.
By the way, a short commercial for our sponsor, which is still me, TheWebinarGuy.com; if you’d like help writing your script, or would like presentation coaching, hit our site and send us a contact form. We’d love to help YOU zoom to webinar success!!
Thanks!
Using an outline; this strategy is like using an outline to guide you through your presentation.
After practicing, you’ll notice you’re using your script less and less. And by the way, earlier I mentioned “practicing until no real improvements are left to make”- learn when to stop “improving” your presentation.
Even when writing these pod-video cast scripts I tweak a few times, but I also notice a point of going beyond tweaking and sometimes it breaks the flow of what I was trying to accomplish.
Also try to write your script in one, uninterrupted session. I find that when I start now and wait until later to finish, I’ve lost that initial energy of what I was trying to say and sometimes find myself trying to recover that.
TIME your script! As a professional presenter, you should ALWAYS KNOW how long your presentation is. If you’re doing a webinar, virtual meeting or other online meet, recording a blog, and especially when presenting publicly, you need to KNOW how long you’re going. From my experience as a keynote speaker for many conferences, I can tell you that if they give you twenty minutes, or forty-five minutes- that’s really what they mean! They may have another session or lunch planned after you and you deciding to just go over because you think you’re all that…
Respect your limits. If there’s just NO WAY you can do your content in the time slot they have asked you to fill, tell them that! If you tell people your webinar will be around twenty minutes and at the twenty-eight minute mark there’s no indication you’re closing, unless you’re just an AMAZING speaker, you’ll lose audience! As you’re writing your script, you can use this link http://www.speechinminutes.com / (that I’ll also put in comments) to test your timing. It’s not perfect, but sure beats typing out a LONG script only to realize that you’re ten minutes over!!
Being “on time” and doing your job in the time allotted, will get return audience and return engagements!
So now you know why scripts are important. One more tip. You’ll be tempted to adlib and stray from your script when running live. Resist the temptation! You’ll do enough without trying, but the moment you decide to “toss in a freebie”, you also have the opportunity to go down the wrong path and then have to recover that.
Good luck with your scripts!
—
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!”
This is Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy. Welcome to episode 21 of “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
Last episode, twenty, I started talking about choosing and using software to create your slide deck. I mentioned some of the top platforms such as Prezi, Google Slides, Canva, Keynote, Microsoft PowerPoint and yes, there are more. Please go back and listen to episode twenty if you haven’t yet.
At the end, I sorta finished rant on keeping things simple and ended with Rule four. So onto Rule five!
Rule number five: NEVER, ever, ever… EVER read your slides.
Rule six, bullet points are good, paragraphs are bad. When I see paragraphs we know the speaker is likely going to read slides. One exception is when you must present legal or technical information and leave it on screen long enough for your audience to see/read. Back to rule 5; if you read the whole thing *unless required* is bad.
Think of it this way: Consider sitting through a 20 minute presentation where the slides are read verbatim. WHY do we need you?!
Okay, now that we’re past all THAT…
Generally speaking, a dark background with light text is preferred, especially when the presentation is longer, or when live is in a darker room. It reduces eye fatigue for your audience.
Use appropriate fonts (again, cute fonts are bad and sans-serif fonts are better in my opinion.
Next I’m going to talk about the way to think about your presentation. Some people write a script, hone that in, then create a slide deck. Some know the deck they want to create visually, then write a script. I do a hybrid of sorts.
“But Grant,” you say. “I KNOW my content! Why should I write a script?”
Because just like for this series, I don’t want to forget a point I need to make. I’m not saying you have to read it off a teleprompter (but you could), but writing it out and planning your presentation around that is just good practice. It helps you find the holes in logic, missed steps and more.
When you start putting your presentation together, here’s three questions to consider, beyond the rules above:
First, Just like Steven Covey’s Seven Habits; Begin with the end in mind! How do you want your audience to feel at the end/after your presentation or webinar?
Next question: Why should the audience care? If you’ve invited a built in social media audience, or promoted correctly, this is less an issue, but answer it. If your planned content can’t answer that, start over!
Finally, (and most importantly), what is it you want your audience to do at the end/after your presentation or webinar?
Buy? Sign up for something? Take some action? Your whole presentation has to be leading to this. If not you’re wandering around and your audience will also be lost.
Your points, slides, images— everything has to be working to your CTA. What’s a CTA? Your Call To Action! Click the button now! Join our expanded webinar! Call your mom! (Sorry, tossed that one in for free).
A lukewarm presentation with a lukewarm presenter and a lukewarm CTA will get you what kind of results? Well, IF your audience is still awake, or still on the zoom webinar or other virtual meeting, you’re going to have lukewarm response at best- likely you’ll have crickets.
If you need help with your presentation, need one evaluated, need training on slide decks or presentation skills, please hit TheWebinarGuy.com and use our contact form to request help!
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!”
This is Grant: My clients call me The Webinar Guy.
For the last few episodes, I’ve been covering many things to consider as you think about doing Webinars. Mainly your Recording environment- specifically web cams, lighting, and the “set” or space you record in.
So what’s next? Well, since it doesn’t matter, let’s cover something else that you should consider as you plan; How you’ll present.
Well, duh, Grant. I’m gonna talk for 10 minutes or an hour, etc. Don’t need no nothin’ else! (Got it!)
There are several modes to use and that is the first. Let’s call that a casual presentation. In this mode, you are the focused speaker and ONLY you will be on-screen, present your information and that will pretty much be it. You may or may not do Q&A, but the point here is, that this is a solo project all the way.
If you need assistance with the tech, or want a hose to introduce or other guests, you’ll still need to plan how—Who will do what. Will you manage this yourself? Have a moderator (We call a moderator the person doing the tech side; pulling levers, pushing buttons, monitoring chat, etc.
Will you need and emcee or host? Think your favorite awards show. Say Billy Crystal and the OSCARs. I may have just dated myself, but you get the point!
BTW, The Webinar Team at The Webinar Guy.com can help with both the tech and the host roles if needed. So if you are ready to start your next webinar or virtual meeting, but don’t want to do the tech, or need a host, hit our contact form!
Next might be a slightly more formal setting. Say in this one, you’ll be using a slide deck to help disseminate the information. BTW, using slide decks is planned for further exploration in an upcoming episode! In this case you’ll want to know how to be on the screen at the same time as your presentation. This can be done a few different ways. Again, our Webinar Team can help you with both creating your deck and how to manage the tech.
I suppose there are even other ways to manage your information, but these two are certainly the most popular. I’ve also seen presenters start live, then show a video they’ve recorded elsewhere at another time. While this can work, it can come across as canned.
So far we’re assuming you’re the only one presenting. What if you’re interviewing someone, and they are using a slide deck?
Now you need to be on top of your tech game! Managing others AND doing your presentation can be really challenging.
Our advice is to practice with those that will be in your webinar before the actual live event. If your other guests aren’t available, then lean on a few friends and ask at least two or three others to join you so you can manage them in and out of the session as well as needing to hide video, spotlighting the speaker and more.
Also get very familiar with the platform you’re going to use such as Zoom, GoToMeeting, GoogleMeets, WebinarJam, WebEx, LiveStream, AirMeets and more.
They are all slightly different and some have really cool features that you may/not use, so choose wisely. A search will get you more information than you can possibly use, nd like all software platforms, they are all adding features all the time.
So we’ve covered “Going Solo”, the easiest way to go with ONLY you on the webinar or meeting and not using any slide deck.
Then about you presenting on the screen, but you’re still the only one presenting- and you’re going to add the element of a slide deck. Still pretty easy on a scale of difficulty.
The moment we add more guests and presenters, like I pointed out above, it gets more problematic. And the more guest speakers you ad…
Now you’re not only adding complexity to the meeting itself, but now your managing others and them actually showing up for your virtual meeting and preparing for if they do not!
If you are planning a virtual summit with many speakers at different times, and you can add the exponential issue of doing over more than one day, we get pretty close to a TEN on the difficulty scale.
If this is your first webinar with many moving parts such as this, we strongly suggest getting professional help. Ummm, the webinar management kind. But some may think you require the other kind!
If you decide you need assistance with your virtual event, and you are considering using a friend to moderate, that says they’re happy to help, do a practice session! Realize that not everyone has more than thirty years of stage, hosting and emcee experience, and knowing what to do if it goes south, how to handle hecklers and more… are all critical skills!
Tune it next week for using slide decks!
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!”
We are visual people. It’s built into our DNA. From the ability to judge danger in a natural habitat to feeling secure on a subway, our eyes and brains are built to constantly scan for input.
We also have the ability to listen and absorb more words than most people speak. If we’re native to the same language our speaker is using, our brains often also guess what the next word or phrase is going to be.
The point is that our brain gets bored and starts finding things to pick on. Namely your background.
When you’re planning a webinar, one of the considerations (beyond your mic and camera) is the visual environment you’re presenting to the world! Grant Holmes, The Webinar Guy, talks about it in his podcast episode #17, “Managing your Visual Space.” While not the client space he mentions in the podcast, the image above is a representation of the challenge he talks about there. Two things that should jump out immediately are 1) messy shelves; 2) horrible lighting.
It is 2022, right?
Webinars, virtual summits, zoom meetings and such have been around quite a while, and by now, you’d think presenters would assume you can see behind them. Maybe its why they use that “Palm tree” (free) zoom background, but we highly advise against using digital imagery, especially where the software takes it out. Too many challenges with the shape recognition. Watching this can become a game where we’re watching to see how often the ears, or fingers of a presenter gets cut off. Oh yeah! Was there a presentation to concentrate on?
A Consciously Designed Set
Virtually any newscast, panel discussion, sports talk show, etc. has a set, and thousands of dollars have gone in to the BRAND being represented. Your budget may vary, but your thought process should be the same. “What is my brand?” and how do I best represent it, on screen?
Take the image to the left compared to our first one at the top. It’s very simple, well lit and would show well in a webinar or virtual meeting!
Here’s another example of a simple, professional “set”. A few diplomas to prove expertise, but not overdone. A few things of interest, but not enough to be distracting. One slight nit to pick in this image is lighting. The subject in this case will appear a bit dull and without having glasses, might benefit from a ring light.
But when you look at what the laptop camera is going to see? Pretty good!
We can help with set design. Some options you can also use; Find an interior designer or local real estate “stager” that understand simple, positive space design. Remind them, you’re going for “your brand”, your colors, etc. Test the scene on your preferred platform such as Zoom, Webinar Jam, Webex, GotoMeeting, etc. See how the lighting works. The more “natural” you can get it, better. The less “tech driven”, better.
The minute that set lighting is considered, (the ability to create attractive depth or shadows, a well-lit face and so on, might not be in your stager’s arsenal. Reach out! We’ll help!
What about color & style?
We can help with that too. We have a team member that specializes in helping you choose colors (set and clothing) that will compliment your brand! Our specialist is also really good a choosing great outfits that will help you shine!
One Last “No-NO”!
This comes from the archives of “how much can we find wrong in one photo?”
Horrible lighting, looking down at the cameras, but the worst?
PLEASE do not attempt to present your virtual meeting, zoom conference, webinar or other summit on a tablet, laptop, or (shudder) a cell phone that is being “hand-held”!
You’d be stunned at how many micro movements you make, and every breath you take, every move you make, will hit the camera and cause jitters. The amount of movement will make someone in your session sea-sick! It’s bad enough that you attend a session like this, but if you’re the presenter? Please don’t! Your audience thanks you!!
For the last two episodes, we’ve covered two essential things:
Recording Equipment- specifically web cams or cameras and mics.
This episode I promised to cover lighting.
But I’m going to side-step that for a moment. Today, we’re going to discuss your “brand”. Think of any newscast you’ve watched. The late night shows. Talk shows, and sports talk discussions. They all have a “look” and purposefully designed set.
I bring this up because I want you to take a moment to think about the perception that your recording space will pass along about you and your brand- and its direct correlation to your product or service. I’ve a friend that does his video podcast from his recording booth. He’s a fellow voice artist, so that makes perfect sense.
A client serving the elder care market records from a nice- “just this side of plush” office. Classy, but not overly done. It looks like he is “successful“ but the office doesn’t look “ornate or costly”. In other words, successful here means that prospective clients would think he’s very capable, can be trusted with advising them on retirement plans and won’t be soaking them for dollars.
Perception is EVERYTHING here. Think hard about the surroundings you’re presenting while “on camera”.
A while back I was hired to evaluate an organizational specialist doing a webinar. She was suffering horrible results and wondered why.
Let’s start with the bookshelf behind her that looked like anything BUT being organized. Books were leaning every which way. Photos were badly displayed. And a couple weird things were on the shelf that the audience I’m sure spent more time wondering what “that” was, than on what she was saying. Even her hair was a bit tousled and messy. Remember we can listen to a LOT of words and if our minds are distracted visually, we’re not really listening. In fact you MUST understand we’re constantly forming opinions.
And in this case, almost nothing in the frame fit her “organized” brand. She was creating a disconnect and it’s my opinion that anytime the brain experiences disconnect, it does just that.
Oh, yeah. Did I mention she started late? Yeah. That.
All that said, think set up. Do you need to have others IN your recording space to record interviews? There is a great energy of having people “in your space” when interviewing, but not necessary! Frankly, this is a whole ‘nuther thing and well beyond this episode.
So let’s get back to “just you” and what you’re doing. My experience says that the less tech you can deal with, the better.
Try to eliminate using a green screen unless there’s a great reason to do so. Eliminate using the platform-provided backgrounds, you know the famous zoom palm tree island? Yeah, try NOT to use ANY.
“Natural environments” (you in your office, etc) are best in many ways. But be sure to eliminate the distractions. Heck, hire a real estate stager to help design your space if you lack design skills. But the important thing is to NOT step back and admire your set from across the room! Pull it up on camera and see how it looks there. What sticks out? What can be eliminated?
What do YOU look like? Take who you are to your best advantage.
Here’s a change I made. Last year, I started recording videos about getting started in the voice over business. Some of my early missives are quite humorous. I did them mostly in a black t-shirt. Okay, fair enough. A voice artist gets hired for his voice, not his camera presence.
But starting these podcast videos about successfully holding webinars (Zooming to webinar success), I knew my audience was different. First, if I flub a line in VO, I just re-record it. In some ways I get unlimited tries.
But being a live emcee or moderator doesn’t carry that same flexibility. I needed to pass along confidence in my delivery, my production values, and yes, put on a jacket.
I’m the same guy that did the videos in a t-shirt. No warp forward in skill, but I didn’t want ANY disconnect that I could eliminate. Suit coats are still the part and parcel of professionals. It makes a difference.
Take a piece of paper and describe your brand. Maybe you want to do webinars about Motorcycle insurance. Maybe wearing a biker vest and doing your webinar from your law office works.
After describing your brand, now think of your set design. Use the “record” feature on zoom or google meets, or whatever and record a few different looks and get feedback. And as always, The Webinar Team is well-versed in helping our customers design space and can help you evaluate yours!
Maybe next episode we’ll talk lighting.
Until then…
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!”
The number of expected attendees, length of the event, number of presenters and speakers, and the amount of time we have to plan- let’s just say the number of moving parts- all affect the planning. We’re not sure the ratio, but we often have four to five hours of planning before the webinar event is even produced! What we do know is that every single webinar is unique, brings its own challenges, and requires planning specifically for that event!
Zooming to Webinar Success with guest Deborah Gardner, cmp and a special announcement! E10
Two great reasons to watch the WHOLE episode. First is my special guest, Deborah Gardner (https://www.deborahgardner.com/) AND my special announcement about my new offering for #webinar success!
In E9 I talked more about filling the seats.
But for today’s episode- number 10- I’ve got two amazing things!! First is my guest, Deborah Gardner. Second is an announcement you’ll have to hang around for! I’m so pleased to have Deborah in this Super Special Episode! I had to chop down her bio, or we might have had another episode! Deborah Gardner is a swimming champion, author, consultant & competitive performance expert who is professionally trained to transform people that want less resistance and more momentum while working and living in the fast lane. Better known by many Fortune 500 companies as the Pit Bull in a Skirt, Deborah is a highly regarded and in-demand global keynote speaker that successfully brings an explosive high-energy, captivating, engaging and in your face sassy approach. Deborah owns several entrepreneurial businesses as a high-impact leader worldwide. Her laundry list of honors includes CNN’s Top 75 Keynote Speaker Worldwide, Meetings Today Magazine Top 20 Meetings Trendsetters, Smart Meetings Magazine’s Top 50 Smart Women Leaders, Meetings Mean Business Ambassador, Fabulous Arizona Magazine’s Fabulous People to Watch, crowned as Mrs. Arizona 2020/2021 and Mrs. America with the American Queen Organization 2021/202.
Learn more about Deborah at: DeborahGardner.com
Deborah is one of the most accomplished people I know and proud to call her friend! So what DO you do after lunch? Really too bad you’re not more motivated!
HISTORY Together: I’ve known you for around 18 years or so. you were referred to me when I was creating marketing and websites, and doing brand development. —Chat—
TODAY: Beyond the exhausting list above, what all are you doing today? (Maybe bring up Hosp Today last?) —Chat—
Five Tips on Interviewing: Using your Hospitality Today show as a reference, Hit me with your top five interviewing techniques or approaches. —Chat—
Being Competitive: Since we’ve been connected, you’ve come from a stance of competition; How does that resonate with you? (and/or why?) —Chat—
Your Turn: What do YOU want to talk about? —Chat—
ANNOUNCE: “The Webinar Guy” business and website. I’d like for you to kind of take a moment here to interview me on how I got to this point and what I’m doing. —Chat—
Next week, episode 11 and I’ll jump back into “Zooming to Webinar Success!”
I’d love to hear your questions and comments!
This series is for smaller organizations and soloprenuers 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 TheWebinarGuy.com
