Category — Ask

In a recent webinar, Tim P. asked, “Surely if your content is compelling enough you CAN grab 100% of your listener’s attention?”

Tim, I LOVE the question.

Here’s my experience… some will no matter what you do, and some won’t…no matter what you do.

I recently got an email from an instructional designer from a major university in the U.S. who said, “Wow!  I couldn’t attend the live event so I just watched the recording..and you kept my attention all the way through!  That’s hard to do!”

As much as I’d like to pat my own back (I won’t – it’d give me arm cramps), the reality is that audiences are multitasking even in in-person presentations.  Blackberries, iPhones, web connections everywhere…you get the idea.

I think what we should do is assume we have partial attention and plan/design/deliver for it.

CAN it be done?  Yes.

Can it be done every time with every member of your audience?

Not likely.

Assume partial attention.

In a recent webinar Caroline P. asked,

“We are thinking of running a webinar offering tips on effective weight management with an option to invest in product and webinar support ongoing.  Is this too salesy?”

Caroline,

In a study in early 2008 by Marketing Sherpa the number one reason why people leave webinars early is “content not as advertised.”

The lesson here is this:  it’s completely okay to do anything you want in a webinar.  The question is, I believe, are you transparent so potential attendees can make a value judgment for themselves?

Here’s what to do:

One, remember that web conferencing is a tool, not a format (like a telephone).  It’s not the “webinar” that’s at issue, it’s the content and context.

Two, consider telling invitees up front – previous to the webinar.  If you’re going to offer educational content, that’s great (and it’s a great hook if you’re really delivering value).

KEY (AND THIS IS SO BIG I PUT IT IN ALL CAPS):  You’ll earn more trust if you present the solution to a problem (in your case, weight management) than if you jump right to your solution.  People ‘get’ that you’ve got products or services.  Earn their trust by giving them something of value (a solution/knowledge/skills) that works whether or not they choose your service.  (And who do people buy from?  People and companies they trust.)

Three, consider also telling attendees, once they’ve shown up, again.  Don’t assume they remember what you said in an invitation.

What I’ve seen work quite well is to begin the webinar with a welcome script that notes something like, “At the end of the educational portion of our presentation today we will spend about 10 minutes sharing a few of the benefits of <our company/product/service>.  For those who would like to stay on, we’d be delighted to answer any questions you might have.”

AND…if you use the above opening, make sure your presentation is a little shorter so you can also get in your ‘about us’ stuff before the end of the allotted time.  For instance, if you’ve said it’ll be a one hour webinar (meaning that’s what they’ve planned for), make sure you keep to that time including your ‘about us’ piece.

Web conferencing/webinars are a tool.  “Salesy” is a function of communication, not the tool.  Communicate with integrity and webinars can be a great place to build interest and action for your business.

In a recent webinar James H. asked an astute question…

What is your best approach to overcoming questions that you can’t answer?

James, you didn’t indicate whether or not you have all audio lines open, so let me address this three ways.

If you have all audio lines open (such as in a smaller event), you’ll need to handle these much like you would in person.

1.  Confess you don’t know it.  Don’t bluff.  I generally think people can tell if you’re bluffing, and you’ll miss a real opportunity to…
2.  Earn trust and goodwill by offering to help them get the answer.

Nobody knows everything, but people respect honesty and helpfulness.  Get their contact information if you’re not sure if you have it already (private chat works nicely!), and outshine the competition by showing a little love.

If you do not have all audio lines open (and the question came through the question manager), you’ve got a couple options.

1.  Address the person by first name and let them know you saw their question.  Make the same commitment as above.
2.  Skip it.  Generally people understand if you don’t get to all questions during an event.  Imagine an in-person seminar when thirty hands go up and you’ve only got time for four questions…same kind of thing here.

A thought on this second point:  if you have a larger event, be sure to let the audience know you won’t be able to get to all questions and that you’ll do your best.  Remember they may not be able to “look around the virtual room” to realize they’re in a large crowd.

Best:  tell them that you’ll make sure to get to all questions in a follow up.  Worst:  telling them you’ll follow up if you don’t.

Finally, repeat yourself.  Don’t assume people hear your instructions when you say them.  Example of a happy ending:  I recently had someone email me saying they’d asked a question during an event and I didn’t answer it (I got the sense that she was a little perturbed by that).  Never mind that there were 700 people on that event, and I DID mention more than once that it was a big event and I wouldn’t be able to get to everyone.  The good news is that she respond to my invitation to follow up after the fact with an email, and all’s well that ends well.

See the results as soon as you vote… and it really is only questions long.  THANK you!

Take the two question poll here

In a recent webinar I was speaking to a marketing audience about producing marketing webinars and the following question came in from Paula M.:

What if you work for a large organization like ours and use webinars to communicate messages and don’t have offers?

Paula, you don’t mention the type of audience or messages you’re speaking about, but let me make an educated guess that these are employees (versus the marketing audience we were generally speaking to for the DMA).

Let me be gentle with this next comment, but the truth is every one of us has “offers,” even if we don’t call it that.

Let me explain.

Unless 100% of your communication is compulsory (mandatory attendance), you have an audience who will engage more – or less – depending on how much they see relevance to their own wants and needs.  In the words I used in the webinar, “what’s in it for me?”

Here’s an example of a mundane scenario that could benefit by thinking this way:

Imagine you’re doing a training session rolling out a new medical benefits program.  What’s the typical presentation?  Data, data, data, data.  And what’s a common response.  Ho hum, and can I just know where to find the information when I need to find the information.

Now imagine delivering the communication in terms of benefits to the employee…not just the facts, but the “what’s in it for me?”

Rather than an invitation reading “medical benefits training” (the “what”), it might say something like “Learn three new ways to save time and money with the new benefits system” (the “why”).

And what about the content?  Might the employees give you more attention in you pointing out how much faster the new online reporting system or the places they can save money on (fill in the blank) with the new policy than a bunch of facts that might get lost in the busyness of life?

Let me be really clear…I’m NOT saying we abandon all facts, figures, and procedures.  What I AM saying is that people don’t need more noise in their lives, and what they pay attention to are things of self-interest.

So… what’s the offer?  Data?  Or a way to experience personal benefit?  (That’s a rhetorical question, BTW .  AND…if this is true for internal audiences (employees), how much more true is it true for external audiences?

An offer is others-centric.  What are you going to help them get?

From a recent webinar, Bryan L. asked, “Should the presenter deliver the audio standing up to help resonance rather than sitting?”

Bryan, I stand up.  I love the energy, and truth be told, if you were in my office you’d see me waving my arms and walking around.

Here are a few things to think about:

How much contact do you need with your web conferencing system via the computer?

I purposefully have simple slides with one idea each, so I don’t use, for instance, annotation tools except in rare circumstances (e.g., demonstrating them).

I also am platform-agnostic.  My company is purely in the education business and we don’t sell web/audio/video conferencing or services, so I’ve adapted to be prepared for whatever conferencing platform my client is providing.  This doesn’t mean I don’t tackle platform-specific tactics when I’m working with a client privately, but in a public webinar like the one you attended I plan content to be applicable to the most people in the audience, regardless of what conferencing solution they’re using.  Takeaway:  I don’t spend as much time using/demonstrating “hand-up” or other features that they may or may not have.

It also depends on the type of session you’re delivering.  A broader lead-generation webinar often doesn’t require the same hands-on types of exercises you might use in a training session where you’re teaching managers a new software application.

What’s your office setup?

Me, I walk away from the computer, come back, push the next slide button (frequently!), and then when I do need to do something hands-on, I sit down.  Then I’ll stand up again.  While I don’t have a raised surface in my office now, when I was at Microsoft I had one section of my cube desk raised so I could stand at it…it was the best setup I’ve had.  If you can do this, it might be the best of both worlds

Finally, if you do sit down, what’s your posture? A few tips:

Sit up straight. It’s basic, but it’s important to letting your lungs/diaphragm/voice do the best they can do.

Put your feet flat on the floor – apart. Don’t cross your legs…it contributes to a constricting “closed” posture and generally tightens you up.

Breathe. As I often quip, we can’t change the voices we were born with, but we can change how well we use what we were born with.  See this post for more on this and a few other pre-conference tips.

Want optimum energy?  Stand up when you present at webinars.

For many of us who live around technology it’s sometimes easy to forget that not everybody has “all the goodies.”  It wasn’t that long ago when a prospective customer mentioned to me that she still had people dialing in on rotary phones.

So this recent question from Mandy R. in Australia is yet another good reminder: 

“What do you recommend for slow internet connections & low technology delegates?”

Mandy,

Rule number one is always, “know your audience.”  Congratulations, you passed the test!

There are two key questions you should explore.  One, what technology/ies should you look for?  Two, what do you do once you’re “in the room”? (Or, if the technology has already been chosen for you, you’re going to focus on the second.)

Technology choices

I don’t recommend specific technologies in a broad, sweeping way.  That doesn’t mean I won’t help a client do an deep-dive needs analysis, develop and RFP, and shorten their search list, but there are too many factors that go into a relationship for me to say “this is best” or “this isn’t.”  For instance, to many, a great account relationship or billing terms or something else is a driver in making a choice that goes beyond technology.

Bandwidth is certainly still a challenge for many.  BIG recommendation:  I’d plan for the person in the audience with the worst connectivity.  It’s the safe shot.  Mary, you didn’t mention whether you have internal or external audiences (e.g., employee training or prospect/customer webinars), but I’d remember that “less, working” is much better than “more, but doesn’t always work.”  Remember, too, that how well the internet works itself is a variable – and one you have no way of predicting (I’ll spare you the gory details, but trust me).

Things to consider:  What is the bandwidth for a connection?  Does it adapt to the connection speed of the participant?  Does bandwidth/throughput change if the size of the audience changes?  How does use of audio (voice over IP) or video affect it?  Is there an option to have participants dial in on a telephone bridge if they’re experiencing difficulty?

Usability choices

“Low technology delegates” are common, and it’s easy to forget to look at things through their eyes.  Seriously, a poll is OBVIOUS to you, but is it to them?  I still present at webinars where, when a poll is presented to the audience, some attendees type their answer into the questions panel.

Things to consider:  This is a huge, huge subject.  My recommendation is to, as best you can, put yourself in the shoes of your invitee and literally walk through the experience click by click by click.  What do they see in an invitation?  On the registration page?  Is it obvious how to join? How to install a plug-in/add-on if necessary?  Where to find the volume control or “hand up” button?

One quick side note:  every week I see webinar producers using tools that are wrong for the job.  More specifically, they use a conferencing platform designed for meetings to deliver a broader webinar presentation or training session.  The problem is that the little differences in how those are configured make a big difference in usability.  Recommendation:  don’t be penny-wise and pound foolish.  Get the right tools for the job…especially if you need to help our your “low technology delegates.”

Mandy, it’s a long blog post, but it’s a short answer to an important subject.  Thanks for a good question.  Knowing how to ask the right question is half the battle, and I think you’re going to do well.

Another good question from a recent webinar:  Arpad P. asked

What if your content is experiential..how can you get that across?

Arpad, I think it depends on “experiential.”

The medium affects how the communication happens, right?  It affects how we communicate to our audience and vice versa.  And frankly, some experiences don’t translate well into webinars.

The most obvious failure would be any form of tactile manipulation.  You can’t take a motor apart and put it back together online.

But you might be able to teach some of the concepts about taking it apart and reassembling it.

You could break the audience up into smaller discussion groups, give them each a problem, and ask them to come back to share their ideas.

Here are (briefly) the five steps I recommend:

1.  Get clear on your goal/outcomes

2.  Think through the communications and behaviors you’d normally walk your audience through and evaluate your tradeoffs

3.  Design an initial map/design of those communications and behaviors to the web conferencing solution tools/options you have (or are considering sourcing)

4.  Develop your content (storyboards, graphics, et al)

5.  Implement and evaluate

Note that depending on the scope of your project or presentation, evaluation might be as simple as an end-of-event survey or as complex as an organizational return-on-investment analysis.

Finally, one thought on “evaluating your tradeoffs.”  It’s most common for people to instantly get what they “lose” relative to presenting in person, but there are also many gains that go beyond just saving a plane ticket.  It’s not a ‘right or wrong,’ but because nothing is ever perfect, you’re always weight cost-benefit.  Just don’t sell yourself short by not fully evaluating all your tradeoffs.

In a recent webinar (web seminar!) I spoke at, Nicole S. asked,

“Do you differ a webinar from an online presentation?”

Fair question, Nicole.

The bad news is that often words get muddy in terms of how they’re used day to day by people.  Here’s how I’d make the distinction:

A webinar – web seminar – is one of those really muddy words that people have used to mean anything audio/video on the web, live or on-demand.

To me, the key here is “seminar,” which is historically an academic setting.  It’s educational.  Not to be too anal, but the word “educate” comes from the Latin meaning “to draw out.”  Any educator or trainer will tell you that you’ll be more effective in a live setting when you seek to interact and guide the learning process.  In other words, you don’t just talk AT people, you talk WITH them.

An online presentation arguably is just that.  Slideshare and related sites have become popular repositories for on demand versions, and every day people make presentations (online and off) for reasons other than educational (i.e., sales presentations, product demonstrations, etc.).

By my definition, an audio/video recording then might be an online presentation, but a webinar/web seminar would be a live activity.

In a recent webinar Worth asked the following question that we didn’t get to during the live session:

“Most of my webinars demos of software or websites.  How do you keep those lively?  It’s obviously easier to tell or show a narrative arc in PowerPoint.”

For those of you who might not be familiar with the term, ‘story arc’ refers to how a story unfolds from beginning to end.  I like the graphic representation of it you find here if you want to learn more about it.

Worth, if you are presentation-literate enough to be thinking about “narrative arcs,” you’re going to do just fine.  This means you have a level of awareness that will serve you well…you get the idea that one, you’re needing to lead someone from Point A to Point B and two, you realize there are points of tension and release.

If you’re using desktop sharing to demonstrate something, the downside might be that you don’t have those “anchor” or “roadsign” slides that clearly point out to the audience where they are on the journey… or do you?

There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.

In a software demo having a story arc means you want to have a clear outline of where you’re taking the audience.  Tell them what the primary learning objective, tell them how you’re going to take them there, remind them (verbally) along the way about where you’re at.  In other words, tell them where the “dots” are and then connect those dots.

Software demos have one typical characteristic that introduces a new challenge for you…audience size.  You will have to grow in your own skills to balance being interactive and answering questions while maintaining a flow that ultimately tells the story you want/need to tell.  How much you do this is an issue of judgment.

One thing I’d be aware of, in real time, is your audience.  Some people love free-flowing discussions, whereas others want you to get to the point.  The risk in more open-ended sessions is that someone might ask you to dive into detail that isn’t relevant for your whole audience.

Which, I might add, is the typical problem of software demos where someone is thinking about “showing features” rather than “telling a story.”  It’s easy for some demonstrators to get enamored with “oh, and there’s this other really cool thing” and lose sight of the meaning or solution that your audience cares about.  Remember, they don’t care about features…the features are a means to an end, a solution to a problem.  That’s where story is powerful.  That’s where Worth, thinking about “story arc,” is ahead of the curve.

How do you keep software demos lively?  The basics are the same as any other presentation… know your audience, understand the problem they’re trying to solve, state clearly what problem you’re solving for them (even if and especially if you don’t know them and their problems personally), and make sure to ask them questions to make sure you’re on track.

One other thought:  depending on the web conferencing solution you are using, you may find it useful to alternate back and forth between PowerPoint and live demonstration.  Some solutions let you do this a little more elegantly than others, but all are manageable with some practice.  This might help you visually support the key points or checkpoints you have as you take your audience from Point A to Point B, including providing natural breaks for questions.

Keep your software demos lively:  audience-focused, on mission, and interactive.