At the start of almost every public web conference, webinar, or webcast you will hear a voice welcoming you, giving some basic information about how to interact with the audience console and introducing the speakers. This voice almost always belongs to an employee of the vendor supplying the web conferencing software. They do it day after day, for dozens or hundreds of clients. And they are almost always TERRIBLE!
As a professional speaker and trainer of speakers, I shudder at the damage these people do before the first presenter ever has a chance to start talking and before the first slide is shown. It's not unrecoverable and most audience members don't really consciously note it or remember it, but it's real damage nonetheless. Your audience members are leery of spending their valuable time on your webinar. They are making decisions every second as to whether they should stay with you or sign off to do something else. They are juggling their attention between your webcast, their email, random Blackberry messages, people coming into their office, and a desire for a fresh cup of coffee. They are not bought in to your message and not sure whether they should trust you. Pretty daunting uphill battle for you, isn't it? So what is your opening salvo in this war? What is the first thing they hear? Typically it is a bored voice, unnamed, with poor diction, obviously reading from a script that ungrammatically mashes the title of your presentation, Mad Libs style, into a slot where it doesn’t fit. Then they proceed to give instructions for everything that might possibly happen anywhere during the proceedings, including listing full 10-digit telephone numbers for calling tech support. Oy. Do you think TV tapings set up their audiences with warm-up acts like that?
Do yourself a favor. Get ahold of the intro script from the vendor. Yes, they will give it to you. Edit it to remove ALL extraneous filler, welcomes from the vendor, and instructions that don't pertain to your meeting or that you can give later in the event when they are needed. Change the sentence announcing what the event is so it sounds conversational (usually this means NOT using the formal title you promoted the event under in the invitations). If you have somebody on your staff who speaks well on the telephone, get THEM to read the intro and do not rely on the "highly professional trained staff" the vendor offers. If you aren't sure about any of this, hire me to do it for you. I'll do just that one tiny portion of work for you as a one-off for a ridiculously low rate. Just to get you started on the right foot. You'll get something that sounds like a human being talking to your audience and primes them for a quality event. Give your presenters a break... they have a tough enough act as it is.
I'm offering this as a loss leader. Maybe you'll like what I can do for your webinars and find that I'm easy to work with and know what I'm talking about. I have other associated services. You can take me up on this and walk, or ask me to help out in a few other areas. Unlike most web conference service companies, Webinar Success never ties you to a bundled package of contracted services. Everything is a la carte and you pay only for what you need. Services are covered on the website of course. But this is a special mini-service I decided to offer just to rub the vendors' noses in how poorly they are assisting their clients. Let's at least get your event started on an up note.
