In Start Your Own Information Marketing Business, the staff at Entrepreneur Bookstore and writer Robert Skrob explain how to start and run a successful information marketing business. In this edited excerpt, the authors reveal five of the best ways you can create teleseminars that really connect with your audience.
Presentation skills are critical to producing an engaging and interesting teleseminar that gets people to show up and to want more. Here's how you can make your teleseminars entertaining to your attendees:
1. Deliver great content. This is the most important presentation skill. In your marketing, you promised you were going to solve a problem for your customers. Deliver exactly what you promised and maybe even a little bit more. During your teleseminars, demonstrate to your attendees that you're helping them solve their problem in a unique way that's easy for them to implement. Below are five keys to ensure you'll do just that.
- Focus on specifics. The goal is to provide very clear, specific tactics and information that folks can immediately implement. If you're interviewing an expert and he says, "Well, you have to do X, Y, Z . . .," respond with "Exactly how do you do X, Y, Z?" You not only want to tell listeners what to do but how to do it so they can implement what you promised they'd be able to implement.
- Keep it relevant. Don't go off on tangents and talk about things that aren't related. Focus your attention and your guest's attention on exactly what you promised you'd deliver.
- Make it easy to apply. Make your content easy to implement so your attendees get the results you promised. You might even want to emphasize a particular item by saying, "This is something you're going to want to write down." You may want to list these items in a quick-start guide and, at the end of the call, wrap up with a quick summary: "These are the three things we talked about today. To solve the X, Y, Z problem, these are the five steps. Let me recap them for you.
- Be practical. Keep your information as simple to learn and as easy for them to implement as possible. Let attendees know the content you're delivering doesn't require any specialized or technical know-how, or if it does require specialized or technical know-how, then consider providing a bonus program or track to help them catch up.
- Make it memorable. You want your training to really sink in. One of the best ways to make a lasting impression is through storytelling. Quick stories about how you got started, or about how a person you know learned the material, or about how some celebrity or a famous brand is implementing what you're teaching--those little stories are important to help illustrate what you're trying to impart to your listeners.
2. Grab their attention. You want to start your teleseminar with something dramatic--a question like "Are you frustrated with the results you're getting from your marketing?" or "Are you scared to death about having your teen driving?" Use something dramatic that starts the program off with a bang. The goal is to grip the audience immediately, capture their attention, and get them focused on what you have to deliver.
Next, hit them with the big promise. For instance, if you begin with the question "Is your teen ready to drive in traffic?" follow it up immediately with the big promise: "Well, if not, in this program, we're going to teach you and your teen how your teen can drive safely. Your son or daughter will be confident and ready for any situation he or she might encounter out on the road." It's a big promise to say that teen drivers are going to be ready for any situation they find out on the road, but that's the promise that's important and relevant to these buyers.
The third attention grabber is the brief story. This story introduces a character who has a problem you can solve. In a teen driving teleseminar, you might say, "My daughter was crying and frustrated because she veered off the road and was afraid to try driving again. We taught her a few simple skills that I'm going to teach you in this program, and now she's excited to drive. Not only that, she's confident enough to drive her little brother to his baseball practices so my wife doesn't have to do it all the time." This simple story provides a bit of drama and human interest.
3. Illustrate your points with stories and examples. As you go through your teaching elements, whenever possible, use case stories to explain them. It's as simple as telling how someone else implemented what you are trying to teach. "Sally faced this same problem. Here is the solution she implemented, and here's what happened as a result. Her life is so much better now because . . ." Telling a story gives you compelling content that will really excite and engage your listeners.
4. Use teasers. Finally, at the end of your program, you should have teasers for the next program. For instance, if you're doing a teleseminar on navigating traffic with defensive driving skills, you could promote the upcoming module: "Next time in our teleseminar series, we've got honing your skills in parking lots and driving in reverse … ." It's your responsibility to make your teleseminars interesting enough that listeners want to show up on the next call. You not only need to deliver excellent content, but you need to deliver it in a way that's compelling and fun.