7 Ways to Screw Up a Webinar
Have you ever hosted a webinar?
What are the main things that can go wrong?
- Many people sign up; no-one turns up
- You have a couple of people turning up and they leave right away. You think you did something wrong, then realize they got disconnected
- You forget to share your screen, so people can hear but don’t see anything. They try to tell you via chat box, but you’re so busy delivering your content that you ignore the comments and carry on… only to see one after the other leaving your webinar… so you feel silly
- You forget to press the start-recording button, and halfway through you realize you won’t have a recording! You pause your presentation to record and then lose track of where you were. Silence during the webinar…
- You start recording on GoToWebinar, but you are not aware that you need to make a change on the screen for the application to record your screen, so you end up recording only your voice…
- Everyone leaves when you make an offer for your product
- You are ready to answer questions but no-one asks anything, and after some silence, you abruptly end the webinar…
In case you were wondering, these things happened to me when I started hosting webinars.
But after a while, I learned from my mistakes and improved my webinars, and they are now at a very good level.
Some of our webinars are pure content, some are to promote our solutions, and my results are now better than what some of the online marketing veterans achieve.
Of course, with practice, I became pretty confident with webinars. In fact, I really enjoy doing them now.
Why I am sharing this?
Because now I FEEL SILLY AGAIN.
This time I’ve screwed up bigger than ever!
See, I’ve recently developed a Master Class on
Leverage the internet to drive big sales
I was really keen to share my insights with my followers. It was going to be a full content webinar, with a 5-minute soft pitch at the end…
… following the principle: Give Value First, Ask for Money Later!
The first-ever edition of this webinar took place on Wednesday morning.
Great start, good turnout…and my screen went black!
It remained black every time I tried to show my presentation on the full screen…
THEN attendees couldn’t hear me. At all!
I could see some comments and I thought people were thrilled with the content and were thanking me – which is what I would normally get these days…
… so I didn’t open the chat box to read any comments…
… until I asked the audience a question.
And then, when I checked the chat box … DISASTER!
They were telling me they couldn’t hear me.
I could not fix the issue, so I had to end the webinar.
The next session was scheduled for Wednesday evening.
Meanwhile, 25,000 people in Romania were out on the streets protesting to change the system, after a tragic accident in which 30 innocent youngsters were killed.
Affected by the situation and feeling confused, I postponed the webinar and hit the streets in support of my compatriots. (Even though I am British citizen, I was born in Romania.)
And it just so happens that I am in Bucharest right now!
Feeling bad about having to postpone, I emailed my list and got a surprisingly large number of supportive comments back.
Now, I still had to deliver the webinar…
… which was set for Thursday evening, right after the first day of the Build Your Sales Funnel Implementation Bootcamp.
I launched the GoToWebinar application and to my surprise, no-one showed up.
Hmmmm…
What to do?
5 minutes past, still no-one…
10 minutes past, one person…
I was disappointed of course, but I carried on. This person had made the effort to join, so I had to give her what I promised.
I was thinking I would record and share the recording – which is something I don’t do when delivering webinars that aren’t part of our programmes!
Halfway through though, I noticed people starting to join in.
I felt more confused – why would anyone join towards the end?
An hour into my webinar, I was answering questions from the few people who were with me, and I noticed loads more people joining.
I was even more confused by this point and I didn’t know what to do!
So I ended the webinar.
When I checked my calendar, DISASTER AGAIN!
I noticed that I had started an hour too early.
Can you believe I had 3 trial runs, and then no success in delivering this Master Class?
What would most people do in this situation?
Give up?
Not me though!!
I am more determined than ever to deliver this webinar properly!
So I did it again.
If you have read thus far, and you want to hear how to do it properly, watch the recording here.
PS: Fourth time lucky!