MINNEAPOLIS, MN, May 25, 2011 – HR Examiner today announced that Sales Management Strategist, Lee Salz has been named to its Top 25 Online Influencers in Talent Management for 2011. According to HR Examiner, the list has been developed systematically based on reach, resonance and relevance. Based on the criteria, Lee Salz ranked 14^th on the list.

“I’m honored and humbled by the recognition by HR Examiner. It is a privilege to assist companies in developing high performance sales teams through hiring the right sales people, effectively onboarding them into the sales roles and aligning their activities with business objectives,” said Lee Salz – a leading sales management strategist.

He is the Founder and CEO of Sales Architects, The Revenue Accelerator and Business Expert Webinars. He has authored three books including the award-winning book Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager. He is also the host of the podcast series the Sales Management Minute.

HRExaminer.com is a magazine focused on the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. 

About Sales Architects

Sales Architects is a leading sales management strategy firm specializing in helping companies build scalable, high-performance sales organizations through hiring the right sales people, onboarding them effectively and efficiently, and aligning their sales activities with business objectives using its sales architecture™ methodology. Learn more at SalesArchitects.net.

About The Revenue Accelerator

The Revenue Accelerator™ is designed to help sales leaders quickly and effectively onboard their new hire sales people. A blend between onboarding technology and learning management system, The Revenue Accelerator™ provides sales people with the structure they need to use their skills in the sales role for the company. Designed to reduce ramp-up time and improve sales performance, The Revenue Accelerator™ can be used by companies of any size, in any industry. Learn more at TheRevenueAccelerator.com.

About Business Expert Webinars

Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of live and on-demand virtual business training that is economical, efficient and effective. BEW connects business thought leaders with their target audiences to teach skills designed to enhance job performance. The program offers content for anyone and everyone in the business setting. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

# # #

Contact:

Sharon P. Salz

Sales Architects | The Revenue Accelerator | Business Expert Webinars

Executive Vice President

9784 Troy Lane, Minneapolis, MN 55311

763.416.4328

spsalz@salesarchitects.net

“Every day, Business Expert Webinars adds new courses. However, we recognize that it is challenging for our partners to keep up with these additions. Our Webinar Notification System provides our partners with the ability to set preferences for their topics of interest so they receive email notifications when new courses are added. We are excited about this enhancement as a means to help our partners further succeed in reselling our courses, said Lee B. Salz, Founder and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.”

The Business Expert Webinars Partner Program is designed for associations, website portals and media groups who attract business professionals and desire new revenue streams. BEW provides partners with all of the tools they need to private-label the program as their own. There is no cost to become a partner.

To learn more about the Business Expert Webinars Partner Program, visit www.BusinessExpertWebinars.com/partnerprogram.

About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of live and on-demand virtual business training that is economical, efficient and effective. BEW connects business thought leaders with their target audiences to teach skills designed to enhance job performance. The program offers content for anyone and everyone in the business setting. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

# # #

Contact:
Lee B. Salz
Business Expert Webinars
Chief Executive Officer
9784 Troy Lane, Minneapolis, MN 55311
763.416.4321
lsalz@BusinessExpertWebinars.com
]]> http://lbsalz.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/business-expert-webinars-launches-webinar-notification-system/feed/ 0 Lee Salz http://lbsalz.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/business-experts-collaborate-to-help-small-businesses-adapt-and-thrive/ http://lbsalz.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/business-experts-collaborate-to-help-small-businesses-adapt-and-thrive/#comments Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:12:40 +0000 Lee Salz http://lbsalz.wordpress.com/?p=171 Continue reading →]]> MINNEAPOLIS – August 12, 2010 – Business Expert Webinars (BEW), the leading provider of virtual business training, announced the publishing of their latest book: Business Expert Guide to Small Business Success. Twenty-one business thought leaders collaborated to develop this book intended for small business owners and operators. Published by Business Expert Publishing, the book publishing arm of Business Expert Webinars, this book presents actionable ideas addressing the critical areas plaguing small businesses.

“As a small business owner, your employees look to you to come up with all of the answers. Many have found that the ‘idea-well’ has run dry and are looking for new, innovative ways to increase revenue, improve morale, or drive profits. The twenty-one business thought leaders who contributed to this book share secrets that can have an immediate impact for small business owners,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.”

The collaboration authors and topics addressed in this book include:

• Strategic Business Plan Design and Implementation by John W. Myrna
• Pricing for Profitability – Are You Priced Right? by Sarah Day
• Managing Cash Flow – Avoiding the Financial Pitfalls by Paul Pershes
• Strategic Decision-Making – The Essential Leadership Skill by Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
• Leadership – Leadership Keys that Drive Business by Harlan Goerger
• Hiring Sales People – A Grounded Approach to Hiring Sales Stars by Danita Bye
• Sales Compensation Plan Design – Compensate to Motivate Your Sales Team by Lee B. Salz
• Networking Best Practices – Face to Face – Belly to Belly by Cindy Cohen
• Sales Intelligence Secrets – Know More Selling by Sam Richter
• Lead Generation – Techniques to Increase Your Sales Pipeline by Drew Stevens, Ph.D.
• Business Development – The Dynamics of Great Business Development by Richard Norris
• Buying Process Design – Four Simple Steps that Make Sales and Loyal Customers by Harlan Goerger
• Telephonic Selling – How to be an 800-Pound Gorilla on the Phone by Bill Guertin
• Negotiation – Stealth Negotiating in Small Business by Andy Miller
• Virtual Presentations – Jumpstart Your Online Presentation Skills by Roger Courville
• Employee Engagement – Your X-Factor for Success by Hillary Feder
• Invest In Yourself – To Build a Stronger Business You Must also Build a Stronger You by Jeb Blount
• Stress and Health Management – Keeping Yourself Mentally and Physically Healthy by Dave Hubbard
• Employee Development – Effectively Developing Employee Talent by Tim Hagen
• Six Sigma – Are Lean and Six Sigma Right for My Business? by Gary Gack
• Sarbanes-Oxley and Compliance – Leveraging Best Practices to Combat Fraud by Peg Jackson, DPA, CPCU
• Employee Dispute Resolution – Making the Best Out of a Bad Situation by Mic Puklich

To learn more about this book, visit www.BusinessExpertGuide-SmallBusinessSuccess.com

About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of live and on-demand virtual business training that is economical, efficient and effective. BEW connects business thought leaders with their target audiences to teach skills designed to enhance job performance. BEW offers content for anyone and everyone in the business setting. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

Contact:
Lee B. Salz
Business Expert Webinars
Chief Executive Officer
9784 Troy Lane, Minneapolis, MN 55311
763.416.4321
lsalz@BusinessExpertWebinars.com

# # #

Not all webinars are free, but not all are saleable. Watch this episode to learn what makes people willing to pay for your webinars. Intrigued by webinars? Visit StopSpeakingforFree.com to learn more. And, save 20% on my book “Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars” with this: 497f0391

I wish I were. This was a real deal and not the first time that I’ve been asked to do something similar to this. After just writing the book Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars, it would have been a complete contradiction of my message to take on this gig. Living in Minnesota, I’m constantly reminded that people die of exposure. And, speaking only for exposure could kill your business.

Are there times when you should speak for free? Absolutely! However, it needs to be on your terms. You need to look at the opportunity and evaluate what the speaking gig can yield in future earnings.

Some questions to consider…

• Is this audience your target market?
• How many attendees are expected to attend the event?
• Will you receive an attendee contact list so you can follow-up?
• Can you sell products in the back of the room?
• Are there other ways that the conference can promote you and your firm?

 In the last few years, I’ve spoken with hundreds of speakers and the major challenge they face is that they do not have a strategy addressing when they speak for-free versus when the dollars need to be placed on the table. Speakers work so hard to develop wonderful content, but quickly give it away to any requestor with fingers crossed … hoping that there will be future income that will result from the event. Not having a clearly defined strategy for when you speak for-free versus for-fee is the number one killer of a speaker’s business.

Take a look at your content and determine which components are best used to build your brand in the marketplace and grow your contact list. And, identify which content is your highest value offering that requires a significant ROI for you to provide it to someone.

It won’t take you long to develop your strategy, but it could be the best few minutes you invest in your business this year.

Visit StopSpeakingforFree.com to learn more.

Right now, in pre-release, you can buy the book for 45% off!

1. Rehearse ONCE. Assuming that you’ve been preparing all along for the webinar, you only need one run-through today. This will keep your nerves in check, but not make your presentation sound canned. Relax! You will be great!

2. Print the show. You never know when your Internet connection can go awry. Having your presentation printed allows you to continue your delivery even if the Internet isn’t cooperating. Keep it by your side during the webinar. Boy scout motto…Be Prepared!

3. Prepare for the silent audience. Many people don’t like to ask questions – even in a webinar environment. Prepare mock questions that enhance the teachings of your webinar. Pose them as if an audience member asked the questions. Of course, these questions should be easy for you to compose a strong response. (Note. It’s a best practice to develop these long before the day of the webinar, but many don’t…so it’s on the game day checklist.)

4. Leave me alone. Many speakers work out of their homes which means at any given moment, the doorbell may ring…making you look unprofessional during your webinar. Put a sign on your front door during your webinar asking people not to disturb you…and a time when they should return.

5. No woofs or meows. Building off the prior point, you can’t afford to have background noise or distractions during your webinar. Sequester yourself in a room where you won’t hear the dogs and cats. We love our pets, but since they didn’t pay to attend, they can’t participate in the webinar.

6. One call only. If you have call-waiting, be sure to disable it when you dial-in to your webinar. As you know, if you get other calls, it may cause an interruption in the audio portion of your webinar. And, if you have a second phone line, take the phone off the hook.

7. No PDA. Blackberries and other PDAs can cause interference in the phone and distract you when presenting. As much as it hurts, turn the PDA off during the webinar.

8. Grab a drink. Have a glass (or bottle) of water by your side just in case you need to quench your thirst during your webinar. Since your voice is your primary presentation tool, it needs to be kept in prime shape.

9. Take a potty break. Just before your webinar, take a trip to the bathroom. Once the adrenaline starts to flow…well, you get the picture.

10. Close applications on your PC. Webinar technology can be burdensome on your PC. Close all non-essential applications during your webinar for best PC performance. Open windows and programs slow down your PC. You need optimum PC performance when using webinar technology.

11. Landlines only. Cell and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones do not offer the same sound quality as the old-fashioned, landline phone. Poor audio in your webinar will get you blasted by your audience…and can ruin the recording.

12. Arrive early. Login to your webinar at least 15-minutes in advance. If nothing else, you will have peace of mind that you are there and ready to go.

What are your webinar game day preparation tips? Add them as comments to this blog.

Many speakers go back and forth between free and for-fee with the same (or similar) content while promoting both types to their email database and clients. Today, the webinar is free… Tomorrow, it’s $100… And the day after, it’s free again… The result of this approach is resentment from your database.

Thus, speakers need to define the content that they will use for marketing purposes (i.e., to build their email database) versus when they are providing pure training. If it’s a marketing event, it’s expected to be free. If it’s training, people will readily pay to participate. Thus, not all content is saleable in a webinar environment. Below is a table which contrasts free and for-fee.

Copyright 2010 - "Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars"

This is just one of the concepts that are fleshed-out in my soon-to-be-published book “Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars.” Stay tuned!

Training budgets have been slashed in many companies as a means to restore profitability. Yet, study after study shows a direct correlation between the commitment companies make to the skill development of its employees and a healthy bottom line. Virtual business training has become recognized as an efficient, cost-effective way for companies to develop the skills of their employees.

“Business Expert Webinars OnDemand provides an opportunity to conveniently learn from our business thought leaders including award-winning speakers, best-selling authors, and business gurus. By offering both live and recorded virtual business training, it is now easier for business leaders to use our courses to increase employee job proficiency,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.

A common shortcoming of many on-demand programs is that they do not provide a means to communicate with the presenter. Business Expert Webinars OnDemand includes an email chat function so that participants can ask questions of the speaker to ensure they learn the presented concepts.

To review the Business Expert Webinars OnDemand library, visit www.BusinessExpertWebinars.com/ondemand.
 

About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of virtual business training. BEW connects business thought leaders with their target audiences to teach skills designed to enhance job performance. BEW offers content for anyone and everyone in the business setting. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

Contact:
Lee B. Salz
Business Expert Webinars
Chief Executive Officer
9784 Troy Lane, Minneapolis, MN 55311
763.416.4321
lsalz@BusinessExpertWebinars.com

Monday, January 25, 2010 – 1pm Eastern Time

Click HERE to register for this virtual meeting.

This presentation is being recorded in Flash, but will only be distributed to those who have registered.

Don’t miss this session… exciting announcements coming!

If you are currently a speaker or affiliate partner, join us to learn success secrets…

If you are considering participating with BEW, join us to learn more about the opportunity…

In this webinar, you will learn how to:

• Get the most out of your relationship with BEW
• Reach the 3 prospective registrant types and what makes them buy
• Assess your BEW Expert Profile to ensure it hits the mark
• Leverage the webinar registration hot zone
• Use articles to generate more registrants
• Select the most saleable content within your area of expertise
• Use the BEW promotional tools easily and effectively
• Work with Business Expert Publishing…a unique book publishing model
• Leverage the BEW Corporate Training Program as a new revenue stream
• Take advantage of our soon-to-be released BEW OnDemand program
• and much, much more!

Register Now!

1. Per Connection vs. Per Person. One negative about AFWs is that you have no control over who is watching the webinar. There is nothing that prevents someone from putting the webinar on a projector, the phone on conference, and inviting the 10-person sales team to participate. Keep this in mind when you set your pricing. In this instance, a $100 webinar is only $10 per person. Since you can’t control access, don’t discourage it. Price your webinar so that you account for this dynamic.

2. Value. If you price too low, prospects will not see that your AFW has value. Develop a price that is in line with the value of your time and the results your teachings will provide. Remember, this is a webinar, not a tele-seminar so you can easily justify a higher price point.

3. Recording. If you include a recording of your webinar with the registration fee, you can command a higher fee as this allows them to watch your webinar again. If this was a seminar, they wouldn’t have that opportunity.

4. Early registration. Since most registrants enroll within 48 hours of the webinar, you may want to drive the behavior of enrolling early. You can offer a discount for signing-up early (i.e. 2 days before the webinar, you save 10%.)

5. Group registration. You’d love to have as many people as possible enroll for your webinar. To encourage multiple registrations from a group, you can offer a discount for multiple registrants. (i.e. Enroll 3 employees and save 15%.)

6. Giveaways. Another factor to consider when setting your price is what you are including in the registration fee. For example, if you are including a 15-minute consult and your billable rate is $200/hour. This has a $50 value.

7. Credits. If you pursue the option of providing Continuing Education Units (CEUs) or some other type of credit for your AFW, you can justify a higher price point.

You always want to sound eloquent and professional when you communicate.  But umms and uhhs keep on sneaking into your speech!  Nothing can kill your perceived confidence and credibility like non-words.  Non-words such as ah, like, you know, so, and umm make you sound unprepared and unprofessional.  To eliminate the use of non-words, take the following steps.

1. Pause and breathe.  Whenever you tend to use a non-word, pause and breathe instead.  This will calm you down and give you time to consider what you will say next instead of the non-word.
2. Make eye contact.  After you’ve paused, look at someone and direct your next statement to them.  Focusing your attention on one person will help your speech be focused too. 
3. Practice with a friend or colleague.  If you are still having trouble eliminating non-words, try having a friend or colleague clap each time you say a non-word.  This will make you aware of how often you use non-words, and will help you realize when you need to take more pauses.

To make sure non-words will no longer undermine your credibility, you need to pause, breathe, and make eye-contact.  These steps will help you eliminate those non-words!

Make Every Presentation Great,

Sheri Jeavons
Virtual Communications Coach

About Power Presentations
Power Presentations, Inc. specializes in presentation and communication skills training for both live and virtual communications. From the accomplished executive to a first time presenter, Power Presentations, Inc. will empower you to look and sound dynamic. Its TOP Mastery™ Programs and Products include classroom training, personalized coaching, webinars, virtual coaching, DVDs and books, all designed to take you to the TOP of your game. Visit www.Power-Presentations.com for more information.

Think about the last 3 – 6 months. When prospects/clients have called you requesting assistance, what were they asking of you? Can you identify a theme (or themes) in the problems they were experiencing? If so, those themes can help direct you in the ecourses to design as it tells you two things.

1. There is a current problem for which people are seeking a solution.

2. Prospects and clients recognize you as someone who has a way to resolve it. (credibility) 

Two of the key factors to driving registrations in your webinars…

1. The issue that you resolve must be both urgent AND important. (a page from Dr. Stephen Covey)

2. You have to be recognized as having the experience and expertise in solving that issue for countless others over the years.

“It is said that knowledge is power. If you subscribe to that philosophy, small business owners are about to have Superman strength. The Business Expert Webinars’ speaker team shares their keen insight for small businesses providing them with the knowledge they need to thrive,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.

The collaboration authors and topics addressed in this book include:
• Cindy Cohen – face to face networking
• Drew Stevens – lead generation strategy
• Sam Richter – web search secrets
• Richard Norris – business development  tactics
• Harlan Goerger – buying process facilitation and leadership
• Bill Guertin – sales
• Andy Miller – negotiation
• Roger Courville – delivering virtual presentations
• Lynne Jarman-Johnson –communication touch points
• Danita Bye – sales hiring
• Lee Salz – sales compensation
• John Myrna – business plan design and implementation
• Sarah Day – pricing for profitability
• Paul Pershes – managing cash flow
• Joseph Riggio – strategic decision making
• Hillary Feder – employee engagement
• Tim Hagen – employee development
• Mic Pucklich – keeping your company out of court – employee litigation
• Gary Gack – Six Sigma practices
• Peg Jackson – Sarbanes-Oxley/compliance
• Jeb Blount – investing in yourself
• Dave Hubbard – health/stress management for peak performance

The book will be published in Spring 2010.

About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of skill-based, business eLearning training programs. BEW helps speakers, consultants, and trainers monetize their expertise through eLearning. The BEW speakers are international business experts including best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus. With over 750 webinars delivered by over 150 speakers, BEW can help any business professional improve their skills. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

Contact:
Lee B. Salz
Business Expert Webinars
Chief Executive Officer
9784 Troy Lane, Minneapolis, MN 55311
763.416.4321
lsalz@BusinessExpertWebinars.com

# # #

At one end, there are those who know you so well that they are already in your database. Since the familiarity is so strong, the registrant conversion rate will be highest among this group.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have those who have never heard of you before. As you can imagine, this group is going to convert at a much lower rate than those in your database.

There is a third group of potential registrants for your AFBs that is often ignored. This is a group that is not in your database, but has had a taste of you and your expertise. These are the groups and associations where you’ve spoken before…maybe even for free. Fifty people attended your speech, received some great ideas, and are a great target for your AFBs.

Many conduct their in-person speaking engagement, but don’t leverage the additional revenue opportunities that the speech provides. You’ve reached a new prospective registrant group that should be turned into attendees. You did a great job and they want more of you… so give them the opportunity to do so!

How do you leverage this? Associations are always looking for two things… non-dues revenue and more services for the members. Your AFBs can satisfy both of those needs. Offer the association a commission for any seat they sell for your webinars. In turn, they are providing a new service to the members.

Note…Associations are often strapped for resources. You will need to provide them with the marketing materials they need to provide to their clients. The easier you make it for them, the more they will promote your event.

Associations are always on the lookout for two things… more services for their members and non-dues revenue. Your attendee-funded webinars satisfy both of these objectives.

Think of the associations where you have spoken … maybe even for free. The members have had a taste of you. They are a great potential source for registrations for your attendee-funded webinars. Offer the association a commission for the registrations they generate.

Another way to approach the association opportunity is to consider those in which you are already a member. As one who has paid dues, you may find them willing to promote your webinar to the other members.

Put yourself in the prospect’s seat for a moment. If you were considering investing in a webinar training course, what would be the most critical due diligence step? You would want to hear from others how great the presenter is, but you want specifics. You are looking for what was taught, why it was beneficial, and the results that the attendee received from putting the teachings into practice.

An example of an effective recommendation…

I had the opportunity to participate in John’s webinar on building a database and found the session to be tremendously informative. John presented a number of strategies and techniques that I was able to quickly put into practice. And, I was able to triple the size of my database in four weeks. He made learning online fund and engaging…I look forward to taking more courses with him.
-Bill Wilson, Executive Director, ABC Foundation

What made this an effective recommendation? First, the recommendation was very specific about the course that was taken. It summarized the information that was learned. Most importantly, it provided the results that the attendee received from participating in the session. In essence, it has everything that you would be looking for when evaluating a speaker and their webinar on LinkedIn.

Leverage Groups. One of the great benefits of social media platforms is the groups function. LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups as a free member. Joining is very easy…click a request to join and await the group owner’s approval. Getting results out of the group requires some sophistication in the approach.

The first step is to join groups that have the right people for what you teach. If you are delivering a webinar for small business owners, join groups that have small business owners as members. Using the search groups function, located at the top right of the web page, enter keywords that will help you identify groups to join. Once you enter the keywords, you will be provided with a list of groups presented by size with the largest ones showing first. Fifty groups may seem like a lot, but you will be surprised how quickly you use your slots.

The first temptation is to join the largest groups from the keywords that you’ve entered. The flaw with that approach is that you will quickly get lost. With 25,000 members in a group, it will be impossible to create an impact. Ideally, join groups that have between 1,000 and 5,000 members. At that size, the group has enough mass to justify your time investment, but is not so large that you can’t make yourself visible.

Having selected the group, the first temptation is to create a discussion and tell the group that you have a webinar coming up that they should attend. Do that and the group will blast you! First, the discussion area in a group is considered to be sacred. You will get blasted for creating a discussion to promote anything you do. Typically, people make that mistake once…just once. It is much more readily accepted if you use the news function in the group to link to the webinar registration page. This doesn’t mean that the discussion section should be ignored. There is a tremendous opportunity to creatively use discussions to send prospective attendees your way.

The big picture reason to join a group is to position you as an expert with your target audience. How do you do that? First, participate in discussions related to your expertise. Share your pearls with the group on subjects that help to position your expertise. Since LinkedIn does not have a spell or grammar check function, compose your responses in Microsoft Word and proof them there. You can then copy and paste the response into LinkedIn.

Second, create discussions that position you as an expert. If you are in a sales management group and you are teaching a webinar on designing sales compensation programs, create a discussion that asks the group to share their sales compensation secrets. When group members respond to your discussion, you can do two things…invite them to join your network and invite them to your webinar.

The goal is to use discussions to get your target audience to be impressed and intrigued with your philosophy… Guess where they go when that happens? They click your name and visit your profile page to learn more about you. Now, you can see why your bio, photo, and recommendations are so important.

Another component of your strategy may be to create your own group…very easy to do as a free member on LinkedIn. However, it is much more challenging to get your target audience to join and return frequently. Remember, they only have 50 groups that they can join too… It is recommended that you implement the aforementioned strategy before considering creating a group so you can develop a following. Creating a group solely to drive attendance in your webinars is not the best use of your time.

Another tool to use is the news function of the group. The news section is populated by copying and pasting a URL to a newsworthy item. It is used for articles, but it is also used to promote events. When you paste a URL when creating a news entry, you have the ability to enter a title, brief description, and source of the news. After clicking submit, the entry appears in the news section of the group…and is available for comment.

Part of your social media strategy to drive webinar registrants should be publishing articles you’ve written on related subject matter in the news section of your LinkedIn groups. This is also the place to appropriately link to your upcoming webinar events. Considering what was shared earlier about the timeline people buy webinar seats, wait until the week of the webinar to create the news item. Another faux pas made in LinkedIn groups is adding an entry in the news group more than once. Enter the event once, but at the best time to convert registrants.

The first step is to select a primary platform for your campaign. Two of the largest players are Facebook and LinkedIn. However, they are not competitors in the traditional sense of the word. These two social networking platforms have evolved into having two very different audiences. LinkedIn has become the leader in business networking while Facebook is much more recognized for social communication. For example, it is rare that someone shares family information on LinkedIn and Facebook members become angered by the promotion of business-related functions.

With attendee-funded webinars that are focused on business training, your best time investment is LinkedIn which offers a number of opportunities to reach potential registrants. The campaign that we share with you will not only help drive registrants, but it will help you build your brand in the marketplace. While the focus of this chapter is LinkedIn, the concepts are applicable with other social media platforms as well.

Your Bio.  As a LinkedIn member, you are provided with a profile page. The core of your LinkedIn profile is your bio. While the overall page is a credibility tool, the prospective registrant evaluation process focuses first on the bio of the presenter.

When someone comes across your webinar on LinkedIn, they are immediately going to visit your LinkedIn profile. They will be looking at your expertise on the subject matter that you are teaching with the question in mind of why they should learn from you. What makes you a leading expert on this subject?

One of the challenges with developing your bio is that you may have multiple areas of expertise. This makes weaving a coherent story together for your bio challenging. The key is to make sure your bio clearly positions your expertise for the business prospects you desire. It is very common that a bio becomes an information buffet with no clear message. Bottom-line, if your bio does not clearly position you as an expert, you will not be successful generating registrants through this medium.

Along with your bio, visitors will see your photo, if you have provided one. Give careful consideration for the photo that you use on your profile page. If you want people to take you seriously as an expert, make sure your photo comes across that way. Don’t use a personal webcam picture; spend the $50 to get a professional business photo taken, if you don’t already have one. Consider this, you want people to invest in your webinar, but if you haven’t made that small investment, what message do you think is conveyed?

A great way to add value to your event – making it easier to convince registrants that your webinar is worth the investment of time and money – is to offer a free bonus. As an expert, the best type of bonus you can offer is something that relates to your webinar topic. Examples include reports you’ve written, audio programs you’ve recorded, or software programs you’ve developed.

If you offer coaching or consulting services, consider offering 30-days of email or phone coaching, a one-time 30-minute free consultation, or a free audit or critique. Not only with your free gift add further proof of your expertise, it may also open the door to a continued relationship.

In this post, I’ll share techniques to select a term that people are actually searching on. This way you can not only get top rankings, but you can get top rankings on terms that people are actually searching on.

I use a tool called WordTracker (www.wordtracker.com).

Once you are in Wordtracker use the “Keyword Researcher” tool. Simply add the root word or words that are appropriate for your topic. For example if you speak on negotiation related topics you could go to WordTracker and enter “negotiation” as your seed word.

You would get back a list like this:

This list shows you the exact terms that people are searching on the include the word negotiation.  The numbers on the right indicate the number of searches. So the term at the top gets 309 and the term in 3rd place gets 70. I don’t concern myself with the details of the numbers I simple focus on the relationship. In this case #1 “sales negotiation skills” gets about 4.5 times the number of searches as #3 “negation skills” and “negotiation skills” get about twice what “negotiation techniques” gets.

Armed with this information you can title your webinar something that includes a term that people are actually searching on.

We can see that a lot of people search on the term “sales negotiation training”. You could name your webinar “Sales Negotiation Training for Sales Professionals”.

The way Business Expert Webinars has configured their database the webinar title is used in the “Title Tag” of the webpage so this will automatically get you started on the right path with your SEO.

One more thing, you would also do well to add the term in the title a few more times in the descriptive content about your webinar.

This is a very brief overview and there are many elements that effect top rankings, most notably the competitiveness of the term. It is often best to select a term that is less competitive so you can actually obtain the top rankings.

For more tips and tricks you can use to increase the quantity and quality of your web traffic and maximize your website conversions visit www.EdTaylor.com

If you were to ask those same one hundred people if they felt business training is delivered for free, ninety-nine percent (there’s always one hold out) would respond that they expect to pay for training. It is rare that you find free training. Our society expects to pay for education.

What happens when you put these together…webinars as training sessions? The polled group becomes confused as these two entities have not often been thought of in combination. Once upon a time, chocolate and peanut butter were not thought of as being good together, but we all love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups®. There was a time not long ago where baseball purists could never imagine inter-league play (the two leagues play against each other during the regular season), but it happened and became an accepted part of baseball.

When you look at webinars and training, they converge under the umbrella of eLearning. eLearning is a hot topic today because training dollars have been squeezed due to the tough economy. Truth be told, training dollars are tight under any economic conditions. As soon as the topic of budgeting is brought up, the training dollars are the quickest to get slashed.

What does this tell you as a speaker or consultant? People are accustomed to paying for training, but you have to help them see that your webinar is a training course. When you write the copy for the webinar description, you need to balance your writing style between fluffy copywriting and dry business writing…and it’s a delicate balance. If you are fluffy, the event will look like an infomercial and no one buys. If you are dry, the event won’t have enough sizzle to sell.

Further compounding this issue is when speakers deliver free and for-fee webinars as part of their business. Their clientele becomes confused and, often times, resentful when the for-fee ones are promoted to them. As a deliverer of webinars, you need to consider where eLearning fits into your business model. If you want to deliver free webinars as a database builder or to drive client loyalty, don’t confuse your clients by occasionally offering paid ones. If you elect to install eLearning into your business, stay the course. Make eLearning a methodology for delivering your training programs…and those are never free!

Attendee Experience

Technology requirements. Some webinar technology platforms require the user to download software to participate in the webinar. This could be troublesome. Companies have grown tired of users downloading software on their work PC, calling their help desk for assistance, and driving  help desk costs through the roof. To address this issue, most companies have locked down the desktop for their users and don’t allow them to download software onto their PC. Thus, if you are using a platform that requires a software installation to participate, you may have some issues with those who cannot install the plug-in. Guess who takes the hit if they can’t get into your webinar. 

There are webinar providers who do not require the participants to download or install software. Some require the presenter to install the application, but the users do not. They just need to access the Internet.

When analyzing this decision point, the key is to find out the impact of the technology provider’s approach on you and the participants. If you elect to use a company that does not require you or the participants to download software, you may find that you cannot use “build slides” in PowerPoint or that you cannot share your desktop with the participants to show them a website.

Another consideration for you with respect to technology is compatibility. Does it work for both a PC and Mac. You may have attendees trying to participate using their Mac, but don’t have the same experience as those on a PC. Als0, what version of PowerPoint does the technology support?

Don’t take their word for this… Request a license to try the platform with some colleagues to perform your due diligence. If you elect to use a provider that requires a software download, ask for references for other presenters that have used the platform and inquire about their experiences with this aspect.

Polling. Polling is a function in webinar technology that allows you to ask the group multiple choice or yes/no questions, have them respond to it online, and share the statistical results with the group. This is a great technique to make your webinar interactive. However, not all webinar technology providers offer this service. Those that do usually include it in their service package. You should not pay additionally for it. If you aren’t going to employ this technology, don’t add it to your consideration scope when selecting a provider.

Handouts. Often times when presenting a webinar, you will want to disseminate electronic materials to the participants. These may be worksheets, white papers, or even a copy of your PowerPoint presentation. Some webinar providers have the ability to disseminate the materials for you automatically. Again, this is a consideration if you plan to offer handouts and don’t have an easy way to distribute them yourself.

Customer service. Without fail, you will always have at least one person that has a technology issue in the webinar. Often times, the issue is on their end, but they expect your help. A very important consideration is the handling of your customer service. Yes, this is your event and it is your customer service. When attendees have an issue, how does the provider handle it? How many customer service people do they have? How do the attendees access the customer service team?

You will also want to inquire about the level of technical knowledge of the customer service department as the questions that come to them will be broad-based. They will get everything from how do I click on a link to issues from installing ActiveX.

Surveys. When the webinar concludes, it is important that you have a means to solicit attendee feedback through a survey. Be sure to review the questions asked on the  provider’s standard survey so that you are are gathering meaningful information. Ideally, you want to be able to create your own questions for the survey, but the provider may charge you for this service.

Webinar Management

Registration. To facilitate attendees joining your webinar, you need a means to register them. Most of the webinar providers offer a means to handle this for you. However, not all of them offer a means to process payment. The registration should include their system sending reminders to the participants to attend the event. As part of your due diligence, you should go through the registration process to analyze the user experience. Remember, this is your show!

Payment processing. Since the attendee pays for admission to the webinar, you need a means to process the credit card payment. If you don’t have your own shopping cart, you may want to consider opening an account with a group like PayPal to process payment. However, you will need a process to communicate payment to initiate the registration.

Another option is to select a webinar provider who offers both registration and credit card processing. This adds cost to what you pay for their services, but is easily offset by the lack of administrative work that falls on you to handle this. This decision point takes many of the webinar providers out of the game as they provide the registration and technology, but not credit card processing.

Recording capability. While your live, for-fee webinar provides an outstanding revenue opportunity for you, it also yields another one. The recorded event becomes a saleable product for you … a nice, passive revenue stream. Not all webinar providers can record the audio and slides together. Some that do, charge an additional fee for it, while others do not. Some providers only offer the audio recording which is not as saleable as the one with the slides. In today’s marketplace, you should be able to find a provider that includes a Flash recording of the webinar included in your price.

Training for speakers. Every webinar technology has its nuances. Whether you have done webinars before or this is your first venture, another consideration is the training for the speaker on the use of the technology. During your session is the wrong time to find out that you don’t know how to use the functionality. Some providers have recorded tutorials while others conduct live one-on-one sessions for the presenter. Based on your webinar and technology comfort, select a provider who positions you for success in the webinar. If you need more hand-holding, pick the provider who offers the one-on-one training.

Telephonic needs. One of the big drivers that affects pricing is how you handle the audio portion of the webinar. Using an 800 number is the most expensive way to go. It’s much more economical for you to offer the webinar using a toll call. There was a time when long distance charges were an important consideration, but not so much the case anymore. If your attendee prospect is dialing in from work, they aren’t affected by long distance charges. If they are dialing in from home, most people have fixed long distance packages so it’s also inconsequential. Consider this, if you offer toll free calls when your attendees don’t see value in it, you are losing as much as $10.00 per head from your bottom line for a one hour webinar.

Even more economical is to offer the audio through the speakers on attendee’s computer. If you go this route, you need to offer a telephonic solution as well since not everyone has speakers on their PC. Two considerations when using PC speakers for the audio are that the sound quality is affected by their Internet connection speed and, if you plan to have two-way interaction in the webinar, it is not possible for these attendees. For attendees in other countries, Skype is a great option as long as you inform the attendee that their bandwidth will affect the audio.

Event staffing. On the day of the webinar, most speakers want to concentrate the delivery of their training, not deal with event management issues. Having a hosted event means that you have a staff person in your webinar who introduces you, manages the time, and manages the audience questions.

If you have an assistant who can do this for you, it makes economic sense to go that route. If not, you may want to consider selecting a provider who has an operator that can handle those functions for you.

Pricing strategy. Based on the services you need from the webinar provider, you can negotiate pricing structures in multiple ways. There are some providers that offer a monthly subscription rate for a certain number of webinar seats. Some of the larger players offer this service as a means to upsell you to larger packages.

There are others that charge a fee per participant. Some providers have a minimum charge for each webinar. Some also charge a webinar seat for the presenter as well. This is a worthwhile option if you structure the relationship with the provider with no minimum charge as it takes the financial risk off of you.

Hope this was helpful… Next time, we’ll get into the due diligence for the user experience.

My practice area, BusinessExpertWebinars.com,  focuses on the global strategy in developing a for-fee webinar training program.

Jenny Hamby, SeminarMarketingPro.com, provides marketing strategies to successfully promote your webinar program.

Dan Janal, PRLeads.com, provides insight on how to get PR for your webinars.

Ed Taylor, EdTaylor.com, shares how to leverage the search engines for your webinars (SEO).

Sue Stoen, TheClarityQuotient.com, ensures your presentation is webinar friendly.

Ken Molay, TheWebinarBlog.com, teaches you effective speaking techniques for a webinar environment.

You can learn more about this practice at BusinessExpertWebinars.com/consulting.

However, when you use numbers in a title in a for-fee webinar, you can unknowingly turn off your registrant prospects. For example, if I told you that I was going to deliver a for-fee webinar titled “Ten Ways to Hire More Effectively,” how much depth would you expect? In a sixty minute webinar, how deep could I possibly go into the subject matter? If all I discussed in the webinar was these ten, I would spend six minutes on each technique. It sure doesn’t feel like you are going to be empowered from this event. It’s more like an information buffet. You’ll get a little of this…a little of that. While you will pay for a food buffet, you will probably not pay for an information one. Your registrant prospects are looking for education and training which means they expect narrow topics and deep knowledge transfer and actionable skills.

Another area where numbers are used haphazardly is in the bullet points of the webinar description. Often times, I read these descriptions and am reminded of Rodney Dangerfield in the Caddyshack scene where he’s in the pro shop. “I’ll take two of these, a half dozen of those, three of these. And, oh that hat…” Using numbers in your bullet points is very dangerous. If you sound like Rodney, you will be taken just as seriously. In one hour, there is only so much ground you can cover. Rather than try to overwhelm them with quantity, blow them away with quality. Tell them what you are going to tell them with an air of mystery and you’ll fill the proverbial room.

The for-fee webinar registrant conversion process is different than both seminars and free webinars. Most registrations take place inside 48 hours of your webinar. You read correctly… Why does this occur? With a seminar, the decision is made to register and the registrant immediately goes into Outlook and marks themselves “out-of-office” for that day. It’s etched in stone.

With for-fee webinars, the decision process is almost the complete opposite. The prospect reads your description and thinks, “Wow! This looks really interesting…and if I don’t have a meeting or a conference call at this time, I’m definitely going to attend.” Well, when do they know that their schedule is free? It’s usually the day before or day of your webinar. This is a very important point to remember when you design your marketing campaign. Marketing a for-fee webinar a month in advance is wasted motion.

To generate registrants for your for-fee webinars, you will need multiple communications to your database with a progressive sense of urgency to get them to register for your event.

Many confuse a bio as a statement of credentials, but it is a marketing tool. It’s not just any marketing tool. It is a key component of your registrant conversion strategy for your webinar.

Whether you are a consultant, speaker, or trainer, you need multiple bios for different purposes. The bio that you need for webinar conversion conveys your specific expertise on the subject matter you are presenting in a compelling fashion. Prospective buyers will analyze your bio as part of their due diligence in determining sign-up or not. As a registrant conversion tool, the bio will make or break your event.

When you write your bio for your webinar description, share it with colleagues and ask for their honest opinion to the following question…”If you were interested in training on this topic, would my bio lead you to take the training from me?” Any response other than a resounding “Yes!” should tell you that you have work to do.

Those who know you (a.k.a. those in your database) come to the table looking to learn something new from you. Since they are in your database, they have had some experience with you…which is how they got on your list.

With this group, you can get away with mediocre copy and generate some registrants. They don’t read it as closely as they buy because they like your approach. This is not an endorsement for poor copy, but rather a fact that some people will buy if they’ve had a positive first experience with you. They simply want new content from you.

Those who don’t know you are much more challenging to convert in for-fee webinars. They will heavily scrutinize your webinar description…and everything counts. Typos, grammatical errors, and poor formatting will send these prospects running…away from you.

This group also needs to be sold on your expertise. Despite how much you know, you always have hundreds, if not thousands, of competitors. This group asks themselves the fundamental question…”Why should I learn this subject matter from this expert?”

A relevant bio and testimonials are critical in your quest to convert this prospect type. By relevant, I mean that your bio and testimonials should reinforce your expertise to the prospective registrant. The more specific the testimonials to what you are teaching, the more successful you will be in the conversion process.

Here is what they say to themselves…

“I’m in business to business sales, this is a general prospecting webinar and not applicable to me. I won’t sign up.”

“I’m in consumer sales, this is a general prospecting webinar and not applicable to me. I won’t sign up.”

“I sell services, this is a general prospecting webinar and not applicable to me. I won’t sign up.”

“I sell products, this is a general prospecting webinar and not applicable to me. I won’t sign up.”

And on and on… This is one of the biggest speaker/audience disconnects. You feel your content is applicable for all, but the buyer is looking for specificity. If they don’t think your for-fee webinar is an exact match to their needs, they won’t sign up.

The good news for you is that you can create multiple for-fee webinars to accommodate for the different audiences with very little content development. And, you will find your conversion rate for each one is stronger as a result of the targeted approach.

The initial thought is a webinar for small business owners on profitability. However, small business is a huge category covering hundreds of business segments. Thus, the reader of this broad description will immediately think that some portion of the content of the webinar is not for their use and may not sign-up. Any time a reader can derive that the content is not applicable, you have a high risk of failing to convert them.

A more effective approach is to consider audience segmentation. What if you had a webinar for small business owners in manufacturing…and another for the service industry, etc. The more focused your positioning strategy for the target buying audience, the more effective you will be in converting attendees in the for-fee webinar.

Even if what you teach is identical in these webinars, your conversion rate will be higher when you are more focused by audience segment. Hopefully, for your sake, the content is very similar in the webinars. As a speaker, it allows you to offer multiple revenue generating webinars with little content design work. A winning proposition!

A thought to keep in mind… The marketing net for webinar buyers is finite. Thinking that you will have more attendees by being broad doesn’t expand the net…it only expands the holes and you end up with fewer attendees. The key is to be laser focused on your positioning so your target buyer says, “Wow! This is designed exactly for me!”

This discussion isn’t limited to webinars. It is the age-old question of marketing and sales. Why would you buy something that you can get for free?  You wouldn’t! People will pay when they perceive value. So often, people have experienced a bait and switch in webinars where they’ve been told that they will learn something and hear nothing, but an infomercial. Trust has certainly been compromised by this phenomenon…and trust is one of the key factors that affects the sale of webinar seats.

The key is to position your for-fee webinars as eLearning training programs. Don’t expect people to pay to hear your research findings, whimsical musings of mistakes companies have made, or a pitch for your book. However, people are conditioned to pay for training. It is not expected that training is delivered free. When you deliver for-fee webinars, you are merely using webinar technology to deliver your trainings. Keep that in mind and you will always be onboard with the for-fee model.

To resolve the trust concern, you can offer a money back guarantee for any attendee who is not satisfied with the event.

Don’t confuse the issue. If you want to conduct a webinar to promote book sales, offer it for free and use it as a database building exercise. If you want to move to the “for-fee” space, and your book is ten chapters long, you have an opportunity to create 10 different webinars. You can create a webinar based on each chapter and use the event to do a deep dive on the content. Now your webinar is a training event…and people will pay for training.

The webinar description should be focused on communicating with the target buyer of the webinar, not the attendee. For example, if you teach sales, don’t expect sales people to pay to learn your stuff. It’s not going to happen. Instead, focus on the sales managers and business owners who need to get their sales people trained so they sell more.

Remember this, employees rarely invest in improving themselves. It’s unfortunate, but true. They see it as the company’s responsibility to train them and help them improve their job proficiency. If you focus your webinar description strategy on your target buyer, you are best positioned for success.

1. If the target buyer for the webinar read the title, would they know that this event is designed for them?

If you use cutesy expressions that are not easily recognized by the buyer, they won’t realize you are trying to communicate with them. If you use your own jargon, they will also be lost. We see this a lot with speakers where they have a branding that they’ve created that they want to use in the title. However, when converting attendees from the general public (a.k.a. those who do not know you) the strategy fails since they aren’t familiar with your branding.

2. Would the target buyer be compelled to read the description?

This is the delicate balance of being catchy, yet educational. If you are too fluffy, you can turn off the prospect. If you are too dry, they will not be compelled to read the description.

3. Is the title SEO-friendly?

Think about the problem you are solving in the webinar. When people search for information on this issue, what terms do they use? Not sure, use the Keyword Tool in Google. It will help you to identify the words your prospects are using to research this issue. You will want to use the most relevant term in your title. This strategy will help bring more visibility to the event as the search engines will associate your training with these keywords.

As you perform this analysis, hopefully a trend exposes itself. This should allow you to design a training webinar on that content…and you know that there is an audience for it since you are getting inquiries related to this subject.

The key word is relevance which is a blend between importance and urgency (a page out of Stephen Covey). Importance doesn’t sell by itself. You need urgency tied to it to generate attendees in your for-fee webinars.