Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Welcome to Biz Talk, where we break down what actually is working in business growth today. I'm your host, Ryan Herpin. And today joining me is Jeff Brandeis, a motivational keynote speaker, presentation professional and performance expert, and Author with over 25 years of senior leadership experience, including VP of Sales and VP of Solution Design roles. Jeff helps leaders and sales teams communicate with clarity and confidence and those really high stakes moments turning presentations, webinars and and executive briefings into revenue driving assets. Today, we're starting with a problem that many business leaders face and even myself. Once upon a time. It's webinars that look successful on paper, but don't really move the revenue needle. This segment is ideally going to focus on shifting from attendance based thinking to engagement driven execution. Jeff, welcome to Biz Talk. I'm glad to have you here.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Hey, Ryan, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here as well. Thank you.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: You know, and I really want to start this off in a way, you know, like stepping into what really turns webinars into sales engines, not just calendar events. Right. And I want to reframe this a little bit for our audience so we can kind of find that point of relation. But the problem facing many in this audience, I'm sure, is that webinars generate signups, but very rarely they don't turn into sales. And it often feels like a lot more effort with very little payoff. So in this segment, I really hope that we can reframe webinars as revenue tools that really succeed through engagement structure and intention, not just volume. So to dive right in and to get right to the point, I've got a pretty loaded question for you and it, it's going to be a great way to dive into this. But why do so many webinars look successful on paper but fail to generate real business results?
[00:02:20] Speaker A: I think there's a great question, Ryan. I think there's several reasons that go into that. It's not just one. You know, you mentioned earlier that there's typically a lot of signups and the question I would typically ask someone from a leader perspective or whoever's driving the webinar. So what happens after that sign up?
Okay. And then some. A lot of them tell me nothing and you know, they just get to the webinar and they expect everyone that signed up to show up. But you know, you have to be able to, you know, lead them to the pasture, lead them to really to the event. So that's could be a combination of some reminder emails. I always recommend a little video as well, to go along with that email, just to kind of get people in tune to really what's going to happen during that webinar and why they should really attend and make it a priority on their calendar versus just having it, you know, part of one, two, three or four different events that's on someone's calendar. And then they prioritize it and they signed up for it, but they don't really remember why. Okay. And so to me, that's one of the major reasons of why people are not successful with webinars is they need to, you know, warm them up. Because nine out of 10 times, I bet you that it's the first time they're interacting with you more than likely, right? You probably, you might have done a LinkedIn post for a webinar or you did a cold email to them and they don't know you at all.
So, you know, if you want to begin to earn that quote trust factor that you also talked about, you got to be able to warm them up a little bit. So I'll kind of see if you have any questions from there before I go go further on that topic, that.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Question, you know, I think you really addressed a really good point because, you know, a webinar might be a few months out, even depending on what it is, you know, the scope of it and really the engagement you're trying to drive. You know, if it just, you strike a little bit of interest, you know, from maybe a little bit of advertise, whatever it is, and there's no communication in between, you're missing out on the potential to drive that excitement, the anticipation to where people are more likely to show up. I, I know even myself with my business, if I fail to really close the gap or at least keep people lifted up or focused on in the interim, I cannot expect a really good turnout for things. It's just like leading up to a keynote if you're actually setting it up yourself.
You've got to be able to drive engagement all the way through. So it turns into butts and seats, so to say, right? But, you know, that's definitely highlighting a big problem in the way that we do this. But what are some of the other biggest mistakes leaders make when designing webinars meant to sew?
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Part of it is, yes, it's the setup of getting them there, the process of making sure they do show up. And then when they actually, you know, the webinar begins, okay.
It really begins with, okay, how you actually begin it, how you get the people to be engaged, get them interested right off the bat. And going back to one of the biggest challenge that people have is they sought their webinar and. Yeah. Hi, I'm Jeff. Welcome to my webinar today. And, you know, great to see everyone here, which is fine, but then they just kind of dive right into content.
It's content, content, content.
And you know, honestly, I'm not there for content. I want to understand in the first minute or so why, why should I stay? Why, what's, what's, how is this going to benefit me in the long term? So give me some pearls of wisdom and get me excited about being here today as opposed to just diving right into my content and going to your PowerPoint slides and, and we've all heard the expression, I'm sure, death by PowerPoint. And I've been on many of those, you know, even today, just dives right into the PowerPoints and it's just like, okay, camera goes off, my phone rings, checking my emails, and you just zone out. So that opening. And I know we're going to dive into this a little deeper as we move along. I'm sure that first three minutes, five minutes is so key to keeping people engaged in your webinar to make them stay till the end.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: You know, I couldn't agree more. You know, I learned early on dealing with one of my mentors. He's a master communications coach. He explained, he expressed to me, as I dive into this, I've got to have a framework that drives engagement but gets buy in, right? And honestly, I love telling stories. I think of it as parables, ways to create, you know, that relationship to, to dive into a little bit who I am and, and give you areas to really relate to. But there's a framework that I was taught to use, and it's, you set up a problem, talk about a problem, and then you break it down into how it feels, why you need to solve it, and then you dive into the criteria itself.
And for me, that's been a really efficient and effective way to get that, that eagerness to continue to hear the message and not just dive out from it or zone out. Because we've all been a part of those webinars and meetings and presentations where it's just really dry and it's hard not to nod off. But the truth is, you know, that actually leads me to another good question. We can talk about mistakes and how some of those are rather big, but what are some of the other biggest mistakes leaders make when designing webinars that are meant for sales.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: You know, Ryan, it's a great question. And there's so much that goes into designing a webinar from the initial signup obviously to the webinar itself and then even what the follow up is. But let's just start with the initial signup and you know, people sign up for a webinar and then they may not hear from that person or from the webinar host or the content of the company and they just expect them to show up.
So after they show up, there has to be some warm up process that goes through the to get the people engaged, get them interested and remembering why they actually, you know, signed up for the webinar itself.
Nine out of ten times, my guess is they don't know you, they never heard of you. They have, they signed up, but you know, two weeks later they don't remember why they even signed up. And they got three or four things on their calendar for that same time slot. But if you're able to do a drip, an email drip, do a VSL visual sales letter video and kind of get them hyped a little bit more about the upcoming webinar that reminds them of why they showed up and just as importantly, or more importantly, what they're going to get out of the webinar, then it'll be fresh in the mind when the webinar actually shows up. And there's, I can. We'll go through all the aspects of things as well as we go through this. But, but that's one of the first things I always ask webinar presenters or the processes, what happens after they sign up.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: That's completely fair. And there's that process of keeping people engaged and just anticipating what's to come next.
How does audience engagement directly impact the trust and conversion after the webinar?
[00:09:49] Speaker A: The n Engage audience. Ryan will convert at a higher rate. I mean, when you think about that sentence, it just makes sense if, if you're engaging with your audience, you get them to be part of your webinar as it's not just a content of.
Okay, let me tell you all about this. Let me tell you how this is done. Let me tell you all this. And there's no engagement going on.
You're, you're losing them. They're gone in the first five minutes or less.
And to me, a webinar is twofold and one, it's for you to send your message, you have something that you're sharing. But the other aspect of a webinar, honestly is for you to get Information back from your audience, learn about them, learn what they're doing, ask them questions, and that way they are engaged. And then as you're going through your webinar, bit by pit, it will naturally get to the end to your call to action.
And that way it makes a much more engaging webinar. It's more involved, they feel better about being there. And at the end of the day, it's all about what your call to action is at the end to get them to move to your next step.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: You know, something that you really drove, at least you kind of drove a question. In my mind, you know, a lot of mistakes that I see that, you know, some people make when it comes to webinars is just. There's no warmup period. It's just dive right into the content itself, get right into the major points and go through data and things like that. What are some of the strategies you can really implement to create a structure that drives engagement, gets that real investment into diving into that criteria to where it really lands home?
[00:11:33] Speaker A: So we've all been attending webinars before, so we attend. And what we're looking for from the presenter are three. Three things. And I call them the three Cs. Okay?
We call it trust at the end of the day, right? But to earn that trust, they're judging you on your capability of what you're actually saying about that you can deliver that. It's key to them and it's important to them. The second C is the commitment. Are you committed to providing them everything that you're saying that you can provide, provide to them, and that you can actually be with them during that journey? Because you talked about earlier, you know, you're going from here, which is typically a pain point, and then you try and get them into a better position.
So are you committed to that process of getting them from their pain to being better at what they're doing today? And then the third bit, and you hit upon this earlier also, is there his character?
What is my. My integrity? What's my character? And can I have some fun with this? Can I have. Can I work with this person? Can I enjoy being part of his team or her team? And Those are the three Cs that earn trust. And that's what really the audience is looking for, you know, pure gold.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: That is some extreme wisdom. And that really only is gained through experience.
So to our audience, if you do not have a pen and pad, please grab that, because that is extremely important information to have. Could you briefly just say that the three C's one more time. So we are cat our audience can really capture it.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: One is the capability that you can deliver on what you're actually saying you can deliver.
Two is the commitment. Are you committed to this process through what you're talking about? The three is your character, your personal character that you're really at the end of the day is what they're going to buy. And those three Cs to me equal trust.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: That is powerful. I even had to write that stuff down myself because that's something that's easy to remember but could drive real success in those settings, you know. And when it comes to doing webinars, there's, there's definitely do's, don'ts, rights, wrongs. But no matter what it is you do, if you take it seriously, give it 100% effort and just think about what you'd be interested in, what would make you sit through it and want to engage, apply those types of things. You know, as I said before earlier in the segment, you know, we've both experienced some rather not so engaging or exciting presentations, webinars and such. Now to our audience, this is advice that will last a lifetime. It can be used constantly.
So don't go anywhere because coming up, we'll tackle why audiences disappear in the first five minutes and how to stop losing attention before the message even lands. We've talked a little bit about the three Cs, but we want to dive into this a little bit deeper so you have some practical things to really walk away with and remember it well.
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Welcome back. We are diving into a really exciting segment if you ask me. And again, I'm your host Ryan Herpin, and the conversation we are having today is with Jeff Brandeis. And honestly, so far this has been engaging for me because webinars are very important in what I do and so many of the people that I work with. But in this segment we're focusing on the critical opening moments of, of any webinar and why attention is either won or lost almost immediately.
So to kind of look at this problem from another lens. Right. You know, the problem facing a lot in our audience today, Jeff, is that attention. It really drops off almost instantly during that online presentation or webinar, whatever it is you have, and people tune out quickly. We know that we're in a generation where if we don't constantly have things to look at, our attention span seems to shrink. Right.
So in this segment, I really want your help to break down how execution is in the first five minutes determines the entire outcome. So to really go back into this headstrong and start immediately pulling some value out.
Why do most webinars lose their audience so quickly?
[00:16:41] Speaker A: There's so many reasons for that. But let me blow your mind first, Ryan, before I answer that question.
What percentage of the audiences you think you lose in the first five minutes?
[00:16:58] Speaker B: That's a good question.
I would probably err on the side of saying maybe 30% go up to like 78%. Oh, goodness, that's so much worse.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: It is so mind boggling of if you're not engaging or whether you're not doing something to get them involved within that first five minutes, they tune out and they turn off.
Some of the things that we do with our engaging webinar program is we work with presenters to begin to just welcome everyone in. We have some unique views of gallery that brings everyone around. I'm in the middle. They see themselves on the TV screen in zoom. It's a unique view. We begin to. Typically, most presenters ask where you're calling in from. Then you see the chat goes along, blah, blah, blah, and but the announcer or the presenter doesn't even say, hey, I see Ryan's calling in from Houston. I see Jeff coming in from Florida. I see, you know, Jaden's calling in from London. Okay. People like to hear their names. Okay. And if you just a simple thing like that just begins to get people to, oh, I heard my name, he called me.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Okay. And then the other thing that we do when with our program is we have the earth show up. Okay. So as when they start typing in New York, Houston, London, the globe begins to spin and people, it's more visual to be on screen to see where people are calling from. And then I would typically go, hey, this is great. We have a global audience. So thanks for joining us. John from wherever, London or Paris. Again, people's names begin to perk up their ears.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: The other thing like that, it's very intentional.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: It's very intentional. And you know, it's no different than in school. You Know, teacher calls your name, you, you perk up, you raise your hand or something like that.
It's the human nature. You know, our egos, we like to hear our names called.
So that's a simple thing to do, but most presenters don't do it.
And then they typically just go off, oh, let me share my slides. Okay, We've all been there.
And then they become like what I like to call a Brady Bunch, or they join the TV screen up on top. Those showing some age. Some of our listeners may not know what the Brady Bunch is all about.
You know, they created that zoom gallery view, you know, 25 years ago. But one of the things that I try to talk to presenters about and that we do is you're here.
You're the center of attention. You're the, you're, you're the teacher, you're the centerpiece. You should have a view where you're on the left, your slides are on the right so that they always see you. You don't join your crowd.
Be front and center if at all possible, but within those first five minutes, ask another question.
Get people engaged. And if you have the ability, like what we do is get that question right up on the screen, get them to put ABCD or put a yes or no, and then have it begin to calculate right up on the screen. And that way you're learning a little bit more about your audience as well. And depending upon what your objective is or what you're trying to learn from them, it gives you a better sense of your audience.
And, you know, maybe if you're looking, I don't know, maybe you're, you're teaching about real estate and you wanted to, you know, you know, how many people are looking for second homes? Are you looking. You're an investor. Are you looking for condos or, you know, looking for apartment buildings? Okay. And then you ask that question early and you find out that 98% or 90% of your audience is looking for apartment buildings.
I mean, I even talk about my house, okay, because, you know, they're going to be. That's not what they're looking for. That's not what your audience is here for. So if you can ask questions and learn from your audience, it might just take you a totally little different way than what you thought you were going to talk about. But you're engaging your audience, and now you. They'll be more engaged because you know why they're here.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: I absolutely love that. That's, number one, extremely intelligent to.
It really drives the potential to Provide value. Because if they're there for a slightly different reason than what you completely intended, you still have the opportunity to pivot and to still provide value that can lead into revenue ultimately. So thinking about it, I mean, really keeping the, you know, the engagement alive is, it's just a strategy with, with a lot of intent behind it, right? So periodic questions and getting them involved, utilizing the polls and things like that to, to almost, it's, it's like you're creating a conversation that's not just one sided anymore. You're giving them periodic points to give feedback and to respond to what you're saying, you know. So one thing I am rather interested in is, you know, at the start of the, of the webinar, right, we've dove into it a little bit, but especially the fact that you told me the real statistics behind how many people lose engagement right there, they, they space off or they leave or whatever, what have you. How can leaders open with value instead of sounding like a lecture, right? So when they really start diving in. So it's not that lecture base, it's that, that like I said, kind of conversation setting, right? How can people really facilitate that?
[00:22:29] Speaker A: So the best many of these webinars today, they start with a how, okay, you kind of touched about this before, so I'm going to kind of rephrase this a little bit if you don't mind is, you know, how, how you do this, how you achieve this, how you go about doing things differently and that's not what they're really there for. So you want to gain that engagement that you just asked about. It's why, okay, why are they here? Why does this matter to them today?
Why is this going to make a difference in their career? Why is this going to impact their sales? Why is this going to change what they're going to do today to a better tomorrow? You got to hook them in that first five minutes, okay? And if you don't hook them, that's when they're gone.
So, you know, stick around to the end, folks, and we're going to provide you some free PDF or free something again, a little hook to entice them to the end so they know what they can expect.
You know, also of not only what I'm going to learn how to do things differently, but hey, I won't give something away at the end. You say to the end, okay, so it's, you know, it's that hook and you know, we all hate to be sold to, right? Okay, great point.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: By the way. As soon as someone feels like they're dealing with a salesman or they're stuck in a sales pitch, guard goes up, walls are created, and it becomes almost like a. A battle back and forth, you know, and you dress something that I find to be quite interesting. It's more incentive to stick around, you know, given the right incentive, if you understand the reason why, kind of, as you expressed, you can identify incentive that makes sense. Right. If people are there to really dig in, giving them, hey, you know, stay tuned. We've got, like, a free gift at the end. We can send you a book or, you know, a sheet to help you with xyz, you know, maybe even a structure, a process you can follow that'll make a difference immediately. But I am curious, have you seen a webinar fail or succeed purely based on just how they started?
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Definitely.
You know, the start is the most important part of your webinar. It's no different than the start of a race.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: Great point.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you. You can stumble, you know, in the beginning of the race, and you might have a time to recover and get people there, but really, at the end of the day, you know, if you can get off to a quick start, get them engaged, maintain that momentum. Okay. Because it's a webinar. Also comes down to your cadence. When, yes, it's your voice, it's your delivery, it's the information that you provide, it's the pausing, it's the reflection of your voice.
And, you know, sometimes people are afraid to get soft, but you want to get soft because you want people to lean in so that they can hear you a little bit better, as opposed to always talking loudly.
So getting off to that quick start, it just puts you into a better position to finish strong, have a higher conversion rate, and keep the other audience with you and not zoning out, because nowadays it's so easy to pick this thing up. Okay.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: And that's the truth.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: And get.
And get distracted. But if I'm engaged with you and I like what you're talking to me about, and I like what. That.
Why I'm here and how is this going to transform my business or me personally, I'll ignore that, but you got me hooked.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Exactly. And there's so.
There's so much power in the way that you communicate. Like. Like we spoke, you know, we got a chance to speak a little bit before we jumped into the show. And it's not always what you say, it's how you say it sometimes. And one thing I had to learn very quickly is strategic pauses.
Giving the audience a chance to digest, to raise the seriousness, to raise the reflection of the conversation and pauses really helped do that. It was hard at first. It felt very awkward until I realized the benefit in it and I felt it even myself, listening to my mentor talk.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: It's like, whoa.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Changed everything. Now to our audience. Up next, we'll zoom out and talk strategy why webinars should be treated as a long term business asset, not just a marketing tactic. So stretch out, grab coffee, popcorn, whatever it is you got to do. Tune in for this next segment. You don't want to miss it.
Foreign.
Welcome back to Biz Talk. As we move forward, we're reframing how leaders think about webinars not as just one off marketing events, but as a strat, you know, strategic tool that supports authority, positioning, and growth.
You know, we're here still with Jeff, and the conversation he's bringing to the table is extremely powerful. So like I said in the previous segment, if you don't have a pad and pen, you really should do that because there's the stuff that I'm even having to write down during this interview. So for this segment, I want to dive into the problem again and look at this from a lens that a lot of us can relate, including myself. You know, the problem facing many in the audience, including me once upon a time, is that webinars feel very different, disconnected from being long term, you know, growth goals. And it often seems like, you know, each one starts from scratch. In this segment, I really want to reframe, you know, how webinars can be treated as scalable assets to the business. So, Jeff, thank you for being here with us today. I'm excited to dive into this topic with you.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: My pleasure. Again, Ryan, I've had a lot of fun so far. Let's continue.
Good, good.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: So diving right back in, another loaded question.
Why do leaders underestimate the strategic value of webinars?
[00:28:30] Speaker A: Most leaders look for that instantaneous gratification, for lack of a better phrase, the webinar ends. So how much revenue do we get?
Most leaders are revenue driven.
To me, that's only one aspect of, of a webinar strategy. Yes, I want closes on my webinar, but really, at the end of the day, and we touched upon this a little earlier, that you might have 100 signups. Okay. And maybe 20 show up to your webinar. Okay. What a lot of leaders miss is those at Evie.
They raise their hand.
They showed interest.
Something happened. Life happens. Okay? That's where your marketing needs to come in, okay, to keep them, to learn more about you and your company. Okay. And that's where that marketing drip has to come into play, where you follow up and you invite them to your next webinar. So it's not a one off, one time webinars and you're done based upon, you know, 20 people showed up and I got X number of sales. It's really, you now have a, a funnel that's building, you got females that you've captured, hopefully you got some emails as well and they, they agree to receive more information from you. So me, you know, I was part of a huge corporation and we did a ton of presentations and the biggest thing that you got to think about is building that funnel, building that big picture of getting more names captured, more emails captured and nurture them. So though you go back to those three C's one more time, they learn to begin to trust you because they see you more often. So, and then if you have the capabilities to do an on demand webinar, you do an on demand webinar because maybe, you know, eight, eight o' clock at night is better time for them to watch your webinar versus the two 2pm when it was live. So there's lots of different strategies that you should be looking at when you're holding a webinar.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: You know, I really like that because the way you framed it, it looks like webinars can be a major part of the broader growth and branding strategy. By creating that funnel, which I've never thought of it like that before, you were gathering good information, you're gauging the interest level, especially on the criteria, service, product, whatever it is that you offer.
I find that to be a really useful use of time and resources, honestly. But you know what separates those one off webinars from a repeatable system?
[00:31:16] Speaker A: It's the cadence, you know, no different than a, a sales process. You have, okay, you know, you have funnels, you got different things, you have an intake, you got a presentation, you got the clothes, you got the contract, you got all those things. So you have a, you have a process in place. You know, you build a webinar process, you build a repeatable webinar. And yes, I mean honestly, you can keep the same, 80% of your content can be exactly the same as the previous.
You tweak the title, you change up a little bit of the content and you know, those that didn't show up the last time, they have no clues. It's the same webinar. But people will get used to having your webinar on, let's say the first Wednesday of every month at 2 o' clock or two weeks later on a Thursday at 1 o'. Clock. So typically a webinar, I would pick different time frames and different days of the week, but I would be able to also have them on a consistent basis. It's not once a year, it's not twice a year. You gotta build a cadence because you want to get the word out there. You want to get people used to seeing you and hearing you. So building a webinar platform process, you're spending the time and the money to do it. And if you're not engaging your audience, quite honestly, you're throwing money down the drain.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: You know, thinking about it, it sounds like a very underutilized resource for like professional services. Especially if you're really trying to drive sales and to bring in new clients and customers.
It sounds like a tool that really should be used. You could go around your local, you know, your local town, city, what have you, or all over online. I mean, social media is such a major part of a lot of businesses nowadays. You could be presenting, hey, free webinar on XYZ topic and that can really drive some of that interest into what you do. You know, a lot of people are looking for services and products in a market that is very well overdriven by many people that just want to try to get out there, try to present. So a lot of people had a lot of marketing dollars to spend. So it's whoever shows up the most, the loudest and the first tend to be the ones that people go with. So maybe some effort applied into getting out there yourself.
Getting people interested in just being a part of a free webinar can really drive that initial few years of success in a business. As a consultant, I know the first two years are, well, detrimental to the life of the business altogether. Most businesses fail and I haven't truly thought of using webinars as a new form funnel for even newer businesses trying to launch. I think that's a great way, a great tool to utilize, you know. And now I'm kind of curious. Can you share a moment where like a mindset, mindset shift such as what I just had has produced stronger results.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: So yes, definitely have. And think about this as well.
If you're having five one to one presentations.
So I'm spending five hours conceivably talking to each person.
Now, if I was able to get all those five people onto one webinar, and now I'm able To sell. Instead of one to one, I'm selling the one to many.
That's a much more efficient use of my time.
Maybe you won't get all five, maybe you get three. But still a more efficient use of my time.
It's one of those things that you think about as well as what's more valuable. What's the most valuable thing we all have?
It's our time, okay? So using our time wisely makes a tremendous shift in our business, in our culture, and obviously in our own everyday life so that we're being more productive. So it's one of those things that if I can sell to or present to 1 to 5, it's much better. And then if my next call to action is have a one to one, that's fine. My next call to action is to purchase. Hey, maybe I'll get three of them to buy. So that's, that's a mind shift. We've seen lots of examples through our customers, our clients that have gone from a one to one scenario now taking on webinars, and now they're seeing a 30, 32% spike in sales because they're more productive. And there it's, it's a better environment and they're, it's, you know, honestly, the clients don't mind it one I owe to being part of a webinar. They feel like they're not a one to one. I'm gonna get pressured at the end of this to go make a sale. Right.
So it puts a lot of the attendees more at ease as well when, when they're with other people as, as well.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: That's really fair. And it definitely sinks in in that way, you know, with our audience.
I want to ask, where can they find you? If they're engaging in this conversation now, they're curious and want to dive in more and learn from an expert like yourself and work with your business. How can they get in touch with you or your team and start exploring this?
[00:36:24] Speaker A: The first place they can go to learn a little bit more about us is go to engagingwebinars.com learn a little bit more about presentations and be able to really understand. In fact, there's a free guide for those of you who are here today. You can go obviously download that and give you some tips on how to do some more engaging webinars. And then if you'd like to book a call and just kind of, let's, let's kind of see where you're at, what's going on.
Go to speakwithjeff.com. so that'll take you directly to my calendar.
And I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm more here to, let's say, let me understand more what's going on in your business. What are you doing today?
And, you know, what kind of value can I add? I'll go back to the three C's one more time. What I want to do is earn your trust and be able to see what we can do to help you get into a better state as you move forward.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: You know, thank you so much for sharing that with our audience. There's a lot of value in seeking out experts that have been there, done that, they have failed a lot so they can be successful. You know, something that I've learned in the world of business and trying to be a successful entrepreneur is it comes with a whole lot of mistakes.
And mistakes can be a great teacher. But one way to circumvent that and to avoid years of potential problems is to find someone like yourself that can part that knowledge and can give that experience and help you curve the mistakes that you would otherwise make.
So to our audience, it's very important that you understand that there is no one size fits all. But there is always a way to make things better, to improve your skills and to invest in your own capabilities.
So as something I try to tell my clients, my mentees, it's even if I'm not the right expert for you, there is an expert out there that can help you. And if you really care about time, as Jeff brought up, you know, time being the hottest commodity for all of us, it's the one thing that we all have in common 24 hours in a day, you don't know how much of it you really get, so you don't want to waste it. So circumvent that time, circumvent those trials, tribulations, and find someone that can really help. So coming up next, we are going to be addressing the tension everyone feels. How to sell through webinars. Without sounding salesy or forced. I think this right here is a really big problem that even I need to still improve on. So once again, stretch out, grab coffee, do what you got to do. Don't miss this next segment.
Foreign.
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Glad to have you back once again. I'm your host, Ryan Herpin. And as we close today's episode, we are addressing one of the biggest challenges leaders face when it comes to any kind of presentation or outreach, especially webinars. And it's how to drive sales while still delivering genuine value and trust. Once again, that problem that I see and I've experienced myself even, is when delivering some kind of presentation or webinar or speech even regarding my business, it can feel very sales pitchy and it sometimes gets rather awkward and it often feels like value and revenue are at odds, honestly. And this final segment, you know, I really want to show how trust first delivers, you know, naturally, more results and leads to action. So, Jeff, it's such a pleasure to have you here with us. You've been giving us incredible content so far and great value to our audience. I want to keep diving into this, so thank you again for being here.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: Hey, my pleasure, Ryan. I'm having a great time, so thank you again for having me.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: So once again, I'm sure, as you noticed so far, I like to start this segment with a really loaded question to start picking that wisdom of yours. And I want to start it with this. You know, why do audiences shut down the moment something feels like a sales pitch?
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Well, we talked about this a little bit earlier also. No one likes to be sold to. Okay. They want to feel like they're making the decision or you taking them on a natural path to where you want to take them to.
That's part of it is going back to three C's and the trust. But one part that we haven't really spoken about, Ryan, is my journey as a webinar host. What's my story?
Open up. Become vulnerable to your audience. Tell them a story of what happened to you and why you are on this mission to, for me, create more engaging presentations for people. And I'll open up right here with.
You know, I did a presentation a number of years ago and we were on the break and excuse me for putting it this way, when I went to the men's room and there were other guys that were in the inner room and they didn't realize I had walked in and they basically just, I heard them talking of guy.
This guy sounds like it's like pain trying. He's so boring. It's just, like, unbelievable. Okay, I can't wait to. This is over.
And it was a punch in the gut. I mean, it really was. And, yeah, I couldn't do too much to change what I was going to do the. In the second half of my. The presentation, because the company wanted me to do things in a certain way. But for me, it hit home.
And it's one of the things that you always try to do as a manager, or I used to try to be as a manager, is what would I want to be able to feel if I was on the other side of the desk, treat me the way I want to be treated. And that's how I started going on to this presentation route. And obviously, Zoom Covid hit, and then all presentations changed significantly because we all went to this virtual world. That's where I kind of came up with, we have an app that plugs into Zoom that helps create a more engaging webinar.
And that was my mission. And so many of us today, when I ask about what your conversion rate is or how many people showed up, you know, what were your sales? No one knows.
And that's a scary, very scary thing. When I ask, you know, what's your conversion rate? I don't know how many people showed up? Well, I think, you know, I had. I don't know how many people registered. I don't know.
So be being able to build that trust in different ways and being vulnerable, and you take them along your journey of why you did what you did. I created this app to create a more engaging presentation. My mission now is to help you not have the issues that I had to. That I overcame. Okay. So you can have a higher conversion rate in your webinars there. They sign up for a reason, and you need to be able to explain to them why you're doing what you're doing, why this benefits them, and why this is going to help them. Because the hardest thing to do in life.
And I used to ask my sales team this question, what do we sell?
Oh, we sell time. We sell conversions, we sell peaceful, we sell return on investment.
You know what? Yes, it's all true. But at the end of the day, it's one word. And I won't put you on the spot to ask you what this one word is, Ryan. So to me, it's one world, one word called change.
If you can't have someone understand why they need to change what they're doing today to do something different tomorrow, they won't do it. They've been doing it for five years, they're doing it for 10 years or 20 years. So opening up and yeah, I was doing presentations for five, 10 years.
And for once I heard someone tell me that I was like dry paint. It was just so boring. And that caused me to make a change in my presentations. So you got to be able to convey why they need to change what they're doing today to do something better that will help them improve later on.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: You know, that that was almost a mic drop moment, if you ask me. You know, I've got to. I've got to bring up some of the absolute nuggets of wisdom that you placed in that. That really stuck with me. Number one vulnerability is relatability.
If you can present who you are and the vulnerable side of things and just the truth altogether, people can relate to that. They connect with it, they want to engage with it. That's just the reality of how we work. When we know someone has been through things similar to us, we want to dive in more. We want to seek to understand. But you're absolutely right that that thing we're selling is change. I was thinking impact is kind of the same thing. And I was going to, you know, in my mind, it's the same thing as change, essentially. Right.
But that's really important to understand because yes, you might be selling a product or service, but ultimately from 10,000ft, change is really what you're selling. You're just selling a specific way of that or specific criteria of it. Right. So. But you did mention something that I found to be interesting and I want to dive into a little bit more.
You talked about a natural kind of pathway. Right. For it to turn into sales. So I am kind of curious, how can content be structured so that the selling is along that natural path and doesn't feel like people are being sold too?
[00:46:55] Speaker A: That's the pathway of your presentation. That's where we work. We would work with you to really understand what your current presentation is like. Okay. And more than likely you're selling.
So we kind of make that transition to stop from the sales perspective and provide the information of why are they here, why are they. This will benefit them, what they will get out of doing by doing this. And then at the end of the day, the last thing is how they go about doing this. So it becomes a why, what and how sequencing of being able to walk them through a journey that will not feel salesy. I mean, the worst thing you want to do, really go through your presentation, go through a bunch of slides. I go okay. Hey, great, you know, now let me get to show you my offer. Okay, you now get everything I just described to you for X dollars. Sign here's a link in the chat and you can sign up. You know, hopefully you still have an audience by then but you know, if you don't, you know, being a little sarcastic here, but that's, you know, I've seen it happen where people just drop off and you know, by the time you get to your offer, they're gone because you haven't really laid a foundation.
It's like building the house. Your foundation comes first, you build the walls and then at the end the house is completed, you move in and.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: It'S like you're leading them down like a thought pathway. A thought, you know, it just, it makes sense because I mean there is, you know, logically, step by step where someone's mind needs to go to or you know, a change to make sense for it to be relevant in their setting in their lives and ultimately become that no brainer kind of feeling. Right. But if you don't go down the right thought pathway, it just doesn't really land home in the same way. And I find that to be extremely true. And I've experienced it myself. I've had to fail more times in the world of sales than I ever hoped to to learn what really works with people. In all honesty, my experience straightforward, you really broke it down into that vulnerability. Storytelling. I love to tell stories. I love to like parables. As I kind of mentioned before. I love making things relatable through. Well, giving you a brief story just as in it made me think of that. When you talked about being in the restroom and hearing that, that you telling that side of the story, I really felt like I'm super engaged in that because it gives me a lived experience that I can understand and relate to now. Jeff, this has been incredibly valuable. Once again, where can people follow your work and continue the conversation with you and your team?
[00:49:35] Speaker A: They're welcome to Visit engage your webinars.com and they're welcome to book a book a call with me if they go to www.speakwithjeff.com is has my calendar book some time and let's just learn a little bit more about each other. Build, build that little trust through the three C's. Let's just see where we go at that point in time.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: You know. Thank you so much Jeff for being here with us. This has been an exceptional interview, some great segments. I have a lot of takeaways from this conversation. And I think you laid a really good example of what it means to be engaging and what it really means to capitalize on the opportunity and drive somebody to that point of understanding and also potentially sales. Because now I'm thinking, man, I could use some help with my webinars and, and my approach. And it also, like you said before, impacts even keynote speaking. A lot of this I'm trying to think of how I can apply to my speaking engagements. But, you know, one thing I can say is I gotta thank you for bringing clarity to a space where many leaders do struggle. And today we got to cover engagement, execution, strategy and trust, you know, the real drivers behind webinars that, well, lead to conversions, you know, for everyone watching. Remember, if your message isn't landing, it's not about saying more, it's about saying it better.
Again, I'm Ryan Herpin, and this has been Biz Talk. We'll see you next time.
