Webinars provide an excellent communication and sales tool. By presenting a webinar you can show examples and slides, while you talk about what the audience is seeing. It’s almost like being in front of an audience at a face-to-face event.
Webinars have become the industry standard for online presentations, particularly for sales presentations. They provide a rich means of demonstrating, as well as creating scarcity to increase sales. After all, the webinar is about to end, so you need to buy now!
But what about from the attendee’s view? How should you be watching webinars? After all, when you watch a webinar you are trading your time and attention to listen to
- more information
- more things that you are not doing already
- more that you “need” to be doing in your business.
So by the time the webinar is over you can be left feeling like – now what?
- You can either stop everything and take action on the topic of the webinar. Or
- You can put the webinar and its information and call to action on the back burner so that you can do what already needs to be done in your own business.
So what’s the solution? Schedule Webinar Watching
Of course this is not going to go over well with all of the marketers who are trying to sell you something by getting you on their “must watch” webinar. But this is YOUR business! You need to take the actions that will create profit for you – not for them.
[tbpspa]Keeping that in mind, here are three steps to follow:
1. Before signing up for a webinar, be sure you have the time to watch AND take action. There is no point in watching a one-hour webinar if you have an article due in 90 minutes. Neither will get your best effort.
2. Only watch webinars when it fits your schedule. Yes, that means that most of your viewing will not be “live”. You owe it to yourself to schedule your work first. Then if there is space in your schedule, you can work in a webinar replay.
3. When someone threatens that there will be no replay, then strongly consider whether or not you really need that information. If there is no replay, then there is a guarantee of an offer to purchase yet another product. Do you need the product?
The overriding concern for which webinars you watch must always be your business. If you find that you aren’t making a profit, it’s probably because your information pipeline only provides incoming information. Reverse the flow with webinars – and schedule your webinar watching.
It almost appears that you have been looking over my shoulder. I get so many offers to go to “Must Watch” webinars, everyday, that I end up wasting an hour on emails just trying to figure out what I might want to watch, what I can watch, and what I should run away from.
The problem is that there are four or five people I really enjoy learning from, but they all belong to the same affiliate programs, so they all hit me with the same “webinar” offers.
It has gotten to the point that if I think there is something I really need to know about, I ask my mentor. I trust her judgement and she understands where I am in my development.
Thank you for sharing, it just confirms my feeling that there is a webinar overload out there and we need to be very selective in how we spend our time when we’re online.
William – you are wise to listen to your mentor. She knows more about what you need right now, I’m sure.
May I also suggest a Webinar Diet? Don’t watch ANY webinars for a week – and see how much more you actually get done in your business. Knowing you and your skills, you already know enough to do what needs to be done. And I suspect you’ll find great results at the end of a week’s Webinar Diet.
A Webinar Diet! What a FANTASTIC idea – just as soon as I finish the telesummits I’ve signed up for! lol
I love learning but just don’t have the time to implement it all – and, to be honest, I’ve listened to so many – the information is getting to be the same but presented differently.
Webinar/Telecast Diet here I come!
Thanks for laying it out for me, Jeanette. I need to print out those 3 steps and post them on my computer where I’ll trip over it.
I enjoy watching webinars and listening to teleseminars. But there is only so much I can fit into my schedule. I end up wondering why I signed up in the first place.
I have learned to look for a replay so I can fit it in my schedule!
You’re so right on! If a webinar doesn’t have a replay, it’s not for me.
And I only schedule webinars that have something I’m immediately interested in. I figure if I need it in the future, the information will be available, and probably be updated by then. I’ve significantly narrowed the field of people I even listen to. My income continues to rise…
I miss seeing you. Maybe if I can ever get to Austin, we can schedule some fun time.
Jeanne – I love the fact that as you’ve narrowed who you listen to, your income rises. Great insight! I think you spend less time trying to reconcile what person A said with what person B is selling and person C is telling you to do. So you have more time to FOCUS on your business.
Thanks Jeanette for always putting out great business advice. Anyone who puts out a webinar without a free replay option is losing potential customers. We have a life too and a marketer can’t expect us to drop everything and be there.
I also have a problem with those marketers who spend half of the webinar selling me on their expertise. If you’ve put together a great product or service a or are just offering relevant information, I’m interested. But, please don’t make me wait, wait and wait some more to find out what it is. Please remember time is money – both for me and you the marketer.
I have to agree with you, Joyce. It’s one thing to mention why you’re qualified to teach this topic (many people on the webinar may not know you) but it’s another to brag on it. I’m thinking one slide pretty much says what you need to.
I’m also impatient with those who give their life history – and no play bar to fast forward through it.