Live Meetings - Zoom Meetings, Webinars, "Fake Live" Webinars and more.

It’s not the thing, it’s the marketing of the thing.

Russell Brunson

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.

Seth Godin

Post the Covid meltdowns of 2020 – 2022, online events have become an extremely important part of business marketing and engaging with clients and prospects. Certainly, before then they were utilized by many. However, now they are an integral part of what every successful marketer accomplishes pretty much regardless of who their target audience may be—however old, young, tech savvy (or not), most everyone now has experience with the technology and the structures. Online events can come in all shapes and sizes. Still, there are definitely certain things to avoid and certain boxes to tick.?

Before getting too far into this subject I might add a couple of thoughts. If given a choice between getting people live in a room or online, whether that’s a dinner meeting, small meeting in your conference room, or a huge meeting in a convention center, I’ll always choose live and in person. As good as video online is now, it does not replace fully being face-to-face live with prospects or clients. However, online video is very good and if you manage the process properly can do a good job of making the sale and building relationship.

?I should start by saying that a successful online event should go beyond the classic webinar, which I like to refer to as death by PowerPoint. There are any number of successful companies (Jeff Bezos at Amazon being one) that ban PowerPoint altogether. Now, I can certainly concede that some visuals can be helpful, focusing on keeping things moving and making it entertaining. Ideally, you want to aim for a more engaging and exciting live event; something that is interactive for your clients and prospects.?

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

Walt Disney

Let’s use Zoom as an example because I was actually an early adopter of their platform—eagerly fleeing “GoTo Meeting.” COVID-19 has obviously thrust it into the limelight and the vast majority of businesses are now using it for events, interviews, meetings, and more.?

Of course, Zoom events are not the same as in-person live events, and I get a lot of people pointing that out to me. Some argue that live events are a mainstay in their marketing, and they would rather invest their time, money, and effort into them. I have already done the previous chapter on in-person live events and the many benefits they have. However, online events should not be seen as a lesser version of in-person events. They are different, with a different purpose, and often a different audience. Online events give you greater flexibility in many ways. Certainly, it’s a great platform for a 45-minute or 90-minute meeting. It can be a productive platform for making sales as long as the registration and pre-event and post-event follow up is properly managed.

The number one most important benefit is that you can hold a live online event from your home or office. Not only that, but those attending can also do the same. People are more likely to register for an event if they don’t have to travel or spend money to get there. Now, that doesn’t mean that they will show up. The lower the threshold to respond, the more you have to really work to get them to show up, or to turn them into a productive prospect regardless of their attendance. As I’ve mentioned before, clicking “attending” on Facebook, or clicking “accept” to an invitation in LinkedIn is not the same as a completed registration form, and certainly isn’t a reliable “registration to attend.”

Secondly, you are not as logistically challenged with an online event as you are with an in-person event. With an online event, you are not bound by any distance. People can join in from all over the country and even overseas. This can really help your business explode, especially if you don’t have the money, time, and resources to travel the country pitching to different people every week. After all, if you can’t make it to the people, give the people a way to come to you.?

Now, be sure to distinguish the various applications of this platform. If I’m going to have a two- or three-day client event, it won’t be online. It will be clients traveling to me, or wherever the event might be held. However, to create a series of 30-, 45-, or 60-minute free prospect meetings, they will be more likely to be held online rather than in person, even when holding regional meetings. If I’m going to go to Dallas, LA, New York, etc. for prospect events, then they likely will be full day or half day rather than asking people to drive across town for a short presentation.

With online meetings you may also use apps such as EverWebinar, which allows you to record a live event once and replay it as if it’s live and interactive over and over again. The video has a chat box to the side, allowing people to message and join in, even though you actually recorded the video days, weeks, or months ago. If you use these kinds of apps, you can insert fake question and answer sections, making it look as though you are taking live questions from the viewers. You can even add the option to make appointments or post offers to the side of the video. This is not so much about misleading your clients and prospects, but delivering a video event that feels fun, interactive, and live, even when it isn’t. However, you can also live-cast your event. This could be on Zoom, YouTube, Facebook, or even 10 to 20 platforms at once. Such live-casts expands your reach and gives you the opportunity to drive those viewers to a separate landing page to collect their information for follow up.?

Live interactive events can replicate dinner meetings, lunch meetings, and in-person events—if you do them correctly. It can also be nearly as effective at generating appointments as these in-person events. In fact, in the past, I have moved anyone who doesn’t have an appointment yet into a breakout room on Zoom, had someone make them an appointment, and then put them back into the main room again. In this respect, making appointments is as streamlined as face-to-face and as personal. The last time I used this method, I had a 100 per cent success rate at booking appointments.?

The main problem with online events, I would say, is the potential for a lack of engagement. If someone joins, and you can just see a black screen or a phone number where their face should be, there is a chance they aren’t really there for the entire event. Generally, with webinars, the attendees may be at their desk also checking email and having side conversations. They may be logged in on their mobile while driving, running errands, responding to texts, or even watching TV. They log in and their level of engagement is minimal. Comparing this to in-person events, if someone hops in a car and drives to come to the event, you know they are, at the very least, going to be engaged. With a webinar, you have to work harder to keep them tuned in. And again, this is why I prefer interactive Zoom meetings over traditional webinars. If you can get it so most of your attendees are live on video, showing their faces, you will see a lot better engagement. You can ask them questions, you can have chats, you can engage as you would face-to-face in person.

You can facilitate this by sending out reminders for the event during the build-up. The more you remind them, the more likely they are to remember and block out a time for it. Therefore, they will be free to hop on a webcam and get involved. If you fail to remind them, they may either fail to show up, or they will join the event but be busy doing other things and have their camera turned off. When you send out regular reminders, make it clear that one of the rules is they have to show up live on a laptop or tablet, rather than an iPhone. Tell them you want them live on video because it’s going to be an interactive event with lots of questions and talking. Make it sound like a fun event they want to be a part of, rather than a teacher telling their school kids off. Inject as much of your personality as you can.?

You can also feel free to remind people at the start of the online event itself. A simple: "Hey, everybody. Turn your video on. This is an interactive event,” often does wonders in that respect. Never be afraid to ask people to get involved; after all, they are there for an event. Establish your “classroom rules” at the start to ensure it runs smoothly. This could be:

1.?????Have your video turned on.

2.?????Have your mic muted unless you are speaking. (And of course, you can set it to mute everyone until they unmute.)

3.?????Sit at your desk (i.e., participating while multi-tasking, driving, etc. doesn’t work).

4.?????Interact! (Ask questions)

At least this way the attendees know what kind of event it is, and it will push them into engaging more. Trust us, you and the attendees get more out of the event this way. It’s a win-win.?

My newest book - Extraordinary Marketing for Financial Advisors is being released soon. If you'd like a pre-publication copy FREE - please contact us and we'll get it to you for feedback: 1-303-808-8719. (Don't make a note on this newsletter.). My my assistant Mindi a call.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You should also look to directly engage them and keep them involved in the event. The best way to do this is to research them before you actually go live. Know who they are, where they are from, and what they do. That way you can personalize the questions to specific people. That way, you aren’t asking embarrassing questions, but engaging them on an interesting subject and showing that you care. The more you do that, the more it feels like a natural in-person seminar. If you hold a seminar without researching people and talking to them personally, you are only getting a fraction of the results you should get.?

Keeping in mind that you’re collecting information about them ahead of the session (how large their firm is, their primary focus, etc.). With a relatively small group you can certainly look them up on LinkedIn and Google them ahead of time. And hopefully someone from your office has contacted them ahead of time. Last but not least you can (and should) send a more extensive questionnaire ahead of time that they are requested to return. I always attempt to learn as much as possible about each attendee before the event.

If you're teaching a seminar and you tend to talk to people personally, and engage them, and ask them questions, you have better results. Therefore, it's the same way at Zoom meeting or webinar. When I hear people say, "Well, the webinars don't work as well as live seminars,” I laugh. If you held a seminar, stood in front, and just lectured and you never engaged anybody, that wouldn't work either. So, the same rules apply with online events; although, many people fall into the trap of changing their style.?

?I had a client who was doing some really successful live in-person webinars at the start of the pandemic before he had somewhat of a COVID nightmare. However, rather than sitting back and admitting defeat or changing his gameplan completely, he merely pivoted to the online world and kept his success moving. Instead of live, engaging in-person webinars, he filmed a load of pretend live webinars online for his attendees. He made it look and feel like a live webinar, albeit without the personal interaction.?

Some people I see hold meetings with their clients once or twice per year… and that’s it. Compare that to me holding a meeting every single month that’s engaging and interactive, with me presenting individual topics. These are interesting topics and are relevant to our clients. Sometimes, I even do one per week on different topics. Topic A, Topic B, and Topic C might be specifically designed to get different clients to show up, appealing to a slightly different niche with each one, but ensuring most everyone has something they might be interested in attending every month.

This is much more effective and efficient. Anytime the market crashes or there is some other external event when you know a bunch of people are panicking, that’s obviously a good time to over communicate with your clients (rather than the usual for the industry of “duck & cover”).?

Well, why not have a group session? I can do 20 or 30 minutes on why investors who ride out highs and lows end up better in the long run, and I can give them the date, the stats, the hundred-year graph, and more. That is really engaging and relevant and interesting to them as individuals. The last thing you want to do when there is a crash or a problem is to dive under the table and never call your clients. In the midst of hardship is exactly when they need and want to hear from you. They should feel as though they can rely on you in the bad times as well as the good.?

They certainly need to hear “this too shall pass.”

You can then use all of these for referral events too, and you should. Most any event that you host for clients can be a “bring a friend or associate event”. You create a mechanism for their friend to register for the event or for your client to sponsor them. Create topics their friends are going to be just as excited about. Then you can market it just like a dinner meeting through social media, direct mail, TV, radio, a publicity tour, and more.

A friend of ours does big seminars where he would fill a ballroom for people who had recently declared bankruptcy. He claims the biggest worries when somebody has to file bankruptcy are: can I get a credit card, can I buy a car, and how do I fix my credit? Therefore, he would have a law firm, a car dealer, and a credit card company pitch him. Eventually, he went from showing up in each city and filling a ballroom to marketing through direct mail, to also including online forms. Through those three steps, his results remained identical with the exception of the car dealers he was working with (i.e., hard to let attendees sit in the new Mustang virtually).

They were getting the same results with promoting it by direct mail and putting them in a live video session, and then he shifted it to pretend live because he had an elaborate home studio where he could record an introduction with the same set. So, he could give an introduction and closing speech catered specifically to a certain location or group of people, then play the same pre-recorded even in between. So even though he is reusing content, he is still catering it to each individual geographic location.

Remember, the live online event can be the same audience as it would be at a luncheon or a dinner meeting. It can be referrals that your clients are bringing. It can be client engagement. It can also be like circle-of-influence type of group.?

On the subject of the circle of influence, this can work great in the online event setup. I have said it before in previous chapters, but people are generally not good at referring. They are not good at selling. And they certainly can’t do a good job of selling your business. But with online live events, all they have to do is bring along a friend or a family member or a colleague, and you can sell your own business directly to them. Or a CPA, attorney, or other professional can promote a free live event to their clients that allow them to refer their clients to you in a very non-threatening way.

An associate recently explained to me that he had a hundred clients, but there were 14 that really needed what I was doing. So, I told him to just schedule a free meeting for them and invite all one hundred but let me know which 14 really need what I am offering. I could just do a live Zoom meeting and do about 90 minutes on the desired topics that will appeal to those 14 people, making it fully interactive. This would give them a chance to ask any questions. Then I can get the details of the 14 people and market specifically to them moving forward.

This way he doesn’t have to try and “pitch my services” directly. I just provide a free training session. Those interested in the topic register and hopefully show up to participate. I now can follow up on those who showed interest and not worry about those who didn’t.

And again, don’t miss the point that being able to directly interact with individual people within the meeting is really valuable. The more interactive the better. The more personal the better.

The most important thing about any event, of course, is making sure it’s marketed to qualified people, and proactively setting the next step for follow up. As mentioned before, if at all possible, I’ll get follow up appointments before the actual event. At the least I want to get them scheduled during the event. You can do that with “breakout rooms” in an app like Zoom or by sharing a scheduling link during the event for them to put a time on your calendar.

Remember what I said at the beginning of this chapter: Death by PowerPoint is a real thing. If you are going to hold online events, you need to learn how to present one. Too many people set up a boring slideshow and just read the text from the page. If the attendees wanted to do that, they could have just read a blog or a book. They have come here for information, engagement, and entertainment.?

If you use slides, have the slides look bright and colorful. Include bullet points and then expand on them with your speech rather than reading the slides out word for word. Be interactive with the attendees. If you want a prime example of how to use slides, go back to any of Steve Jobs’ old presentations and look at how he used Keynote.?

Then and now, Apple presentations showed mastery of using visuals effectively while maintaining interest and attention. There weren’t three paragraphs to read on each slide. There were a few bullet points and then Jobs sold the rest with his engaging presentation. They used compelling graphics to hammer home a point, then Jobs explained it further. The slide should be like a guide or a reference, but the attendees should be getting the real value and information from your mouth in a way that keeps them engaged.?

Another great example can be seen by looking up an old Dan Kennedy “sales speech” online. He’d use an overhead, but flash it for a minute then covers it up. Show a bit. Intentionally skip pages, using a variety of engaging steps to keep you intrigued and wanting more.

When it comes to engaging an audience, you first have to know the audience, which is why I mentioned how important it is to research your attendees earlier. Tony Robbins, for example, was once invited to a Martial Arts School convention. Now as an aside, he’s a Black Belt with my martial arts teacher Jhoon Rhee. And with his background he should have known better; however, he clearly pictured the audience to be male MMA fighters and fans.

What it was, in fact, was mostly traditional school owners—many of them there with their families including fairly young kids. With a complete audience mismatch, he used foul language and sexual gestures in the presentation, to the point that a number of the families simply walked out. His presentation and his audience were a mismatch; therefore, his presentation failed and, in fact, did the opposite of what he was hoping to accomplish.?

Research your audience, find out what interests them, what makes them laugh, and what shocks them—then deliver it in a way they will enjoy.?

Many advisors have materials that are provided by their companies. A lot of times they will have presentation material for you, including a huge PowerPoint full of stuff like graphs. The advantage of that material is that it’s already been approved by compliance. The disadvantage is mostly they’ve been written by attorneys and others who don’t know or don’t care how to sell.?

Mostly, while obviously insuring compliance, don’t expect materials like that to help you make the sale. You can take a few of those pieces and sometimes they are helpful and mean well, but it’s not really what you mostly want in a webinar.?

And again, it isn’t the most engaging thing in the world. Going from slide to slide, talking, and talking, and talking, is a one-way ticket to sleepy attendees. Rule number one is never read the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint should be there as a visual tool for your attendees, not for you to read.?

Once you have designed this really engaging online event, you have sourced attendees, you have clients bringing their friends, and the whole thing goes well… that is just the start!?

Remember, and I know I sound a bit like a “broken record”, but really you have to make the appointments and follow up on them, otherwise it’s all for nothing. As with in-person events, you should be requesting appointments at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of an online event. In fact, you should be sending out reminders and prompts about appointments before the event even takes place. And you should have someone on the phone to attendees pre-qualifying and setting appointments ahead of time.

Do not make the biggest mistake in online events… saying something like this at the end: "Oh, if everybody really likes this and think it resonates with you, give me a call."

Most of the people will forget to call or follow up with you, thus meaning you miss out on numerous potential new clients you could have had.?

It’s also a mistake to say something like: "And if you'd like to do this, click the button and set the appointment."

When people realize you are winding down to a close, they drop off or stop concentrating. It’s that human impulse to have one eye on the door when home time is approaching. It’s far better to sort the appointments during the event itself. Sending them one by one to your assistant in another Zoom room and have them schedule an appointment there. I am not exaggerating when I say you could get close to 100 per cent appointment rates from that.?

Failing that, you can even go through it as a group during the meeting.?

"Now, Lynn, your appointment is Monday. Joe, your appointment is Tuesday. Sue, I don't have a time yet. Would this time or this time be better? Bill, would this time or this time be good?"?

"Okay, and I know you have an appointment. You have an appointment. You have an appointment. Bill, I already talked to you, but Sue, let's just schedule a time. Are you better during the day or the evening?"

You can just go through and make it right there in front of everybody, and then write it all down. This serves as a kind of social proof and, in our experience, it works really well. Of course, this works better for certain group sizes. If you have 200 people, you might use up your whole event time going through it one by one. In which case, you can have an assistant help you out in a separate Zoom room.?

Finally, I want to briefly talk about content. What should be included in the online event? The mission should be to tell rather than to teach. Always keep the end in mind. Basically, tell them what to do but don’t tell them how to do it. The end goal is to always get an appointment. If Bill comes to your event and you explain how important this thing is, he will likely then want an appointment so he can find out how to do the thing. After all, you aren’t offering a click here and buy now subscription box. So, you have to really drive to an appointment and close the client—making sure that the end goal of getting an appointment is in mind and everything is only designed to get you that new client.

Remember…

1.?????Whenever possible, run online meeting as close to possible as you’d run a live meeting.??Be interactive.???Have your audience engaged and on video.??Ask questions and address individuals as much as you can.

2.?????It does you no good for people to show up without knowing who they are and having an ability to proactively follow-up.???

3.?????Make sure there’s always a registration page where you capture at least name, email, and phone number.??An excuse to collect mailing address and, using that address to follow-up is essential.

4.?????Contact qualified registrants before and after the meeting to schedule an appointment.

5.?????Use every mechanism possible to follow-up with registrants:??Direct Mail, Email, Text, Broadcast Voicemail, Re-Targeting, and live outbound phone calls.

6.?????You want to tell participants what to do, not how to do it.

7.?????Participants should end the meeting with a positive feeling for you.??That’s much more important than the actual content.

8.?????Don’t rely on them scheduling their own appointment or, calling you.??Always follow-up and attempt to schedule follow-up with attendees AND No-Shows before and after the meeting.

My newest book - Extraordinary Marketing for Financial Advisors is being released soon. If you'd like a pre-publication copy FREE - please contact us and we'll get it to you for feedback: 1-303-808-8719. (Don't make a note on this newsletter.). My my assistant Mindi a call.