The Webinar Blog

Make Your Stories Authentic

My Twitter followers know I enjoy sharing professional banter with Brad Phillips, better known as @MrMediaTraining. He advises enterprise and political clients on how to present themselves in a media context (and these days, doesn't everything have the potential to show up in a media context?).

Today he posted research on how audiences respond positively to storytelling. As Brad says in the first words of his article, this is not new advice. Most presentation consultants try to increase their clients' use of engaging stories rather than dry factual recitation.

But I'm going to offer a cautionary counterpoint. Many sales and marketing professionals misuse the storytelling concept. They present a product's features, benefits, and applicability by creating a fictional use case and walking their audience through a story about people who never existed. The story is inauthentic. Audiences pick up on that and instead of becoming engaged, they tune out.

I trace this back to the popularity of "persona-based marketing," which has been used for decades. The idea is for marketing groups to sit down (often with their sales counterparts) and identify representative types of people who would be interested in the offered product or service. Each persona is labeled in terms of job functions, needs, priorities, and demographics. Then pitches can be crafted that address the unique combination of arguments that are likely to persuade that type of person to buy.

That's all fine and well. Personas can indeed be a valuable tool in the planning and creative process. The trouble comes when the marketer or sales person changes the focus from generic personas to specific persons. They craft a story that starts like this:

"Imagine Jane is a data entry clerk at your company. She is 23 and relatively inexperienced. She mostly uses her iPhone 6 to send communications with coworkers. Doug is a manager in the Accounts Receivable department. He is 52 and has been with the firm for more years than Jane has been alive. He is much more comfortable with email and his desktop computer. Jane encounters a problem with her TPS Report and needs to send an urgent message to Doug…"

What's the problem? I'm telling a story! My audience should be engaged, right?

Wrong. You have just made several errors. You introduced too much data, most of which is unimportant. Your audience is trying to guess which things they are going to need to remember later. Is it going to turn out that Jane's age is important? The make and model of her smartphone? Do they need to remember Doug by name or by position? It's like a mystery writer who throws pages of red herrings at the reader so they won't be able to pick up on whodunnit until later.

You have also signaled to your prospects that the usefulness and benefits of your product are dependent on a fictional case that you have clearly fabricated for the purposes of selling them. "Imagine" is a strong keyword that says "this doesn't really apply to you, but pretend that it did."

The way to make storytelling work is to make it feel real. You as the storyteller should have a personal connection to the people and situations you are bringing up so that you can help to communicate empathy. There are several ways to accomplish this. Consider these approaches:

"One of the customer success stories I love talking about is located right here in your part of the country. When I initially came in, I saw young data entry clerks having problems communicating with their older bosses…"

Or:

"You have young people working right here in your company who are straight out of college. How are your older managers doing at communicating with them? I would be amazed if you didn't have a horror story or two to share. I hear them all the time…"

Now you are acting as a bridge between the example and the prospect. Your personal relationship with the story helps make it authentic. The storytelling achieves the desired impact and influence.

I'll be mentioning some of this in an online presentation I'm giving next week. Onstream Media has invited me to give tips for incorporating demos into your sales webinars. I immediately thought of persona-based storyline demos as a common problem. If you want to hear about some other frequent sales demo mistakes and how to fix them, register for the July 1 session.

And if you don't attend, that's okay too! Just promise me that you'll keep your storytelling personal and authentic.

 

Technorati Tags: Brad Phillips,Mr Media Training,storytelling,presentation tips,speaking tips,sales,marketing,personas,persona-based marketing,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting

Can Presenting Be More Conversational?

I just came across an interesting article by Mark Goulston. "How to Know If You Talk Too Much" introduces a "Traffic Light Rule" from his friend Marty Nemko.

In conversation, you get 20 seconds of Green Light openness and interest from your listener, 20 seconds of Yellow Light where they start to shut down, and 20 seconds of Red Light where they are seriously wondering if you will ever bring them back into the conversation. Your job when speaking to someone is to repeatedly stop and bring that light back into the Green zone by letting the other person have a chance to participate.

We all know that a formal presentation is different and distinct from a one-to-one conversation. But the Traffic Light Rule can still offer useful guidelines, even for presenters.

The first and easiest comparison to make is during a hosted Q&A segment of your talk. If possible, you should get a moderator to select and read out audience questions to you. It relieves you of the burden of scrolling, selecting, and paraphrasing while simultaneously trying to compose intelligent answers. It also resets the Green Light for the audience by having a new voice act as their proxy in the question and answer conversation.

My experience is that most presenters badly violate the Traffic Light Rule during their answers. You need to remember that a question may not apply to everyone in the audience, and that other people are waiting in queue for their Green Light to participate with a question. Tolerance for long-winded recitations is much less than in your formal presentation section and you should look for ways to answer questions with short and specific responses. Let your moderator draw you out for more details if necessary.

Now how about during the formal presentation itself? You can't stop and ask a large audience to converse with you every 40-60 seconds. I would hope that's obvious. But you can help your audience to reset their Green Light status by repeatedly bringing them back into the process psychologically. Your goal is to continually acknowledge and include them so each person feels that you are speaking with them rather than at them.

Most presentations are recitations that ignore the audience. "This is a fact. This is another fact. Here's another piece of information." Audience members are inconsequential… They just happen to be listening in while a monologist talks to thin air, quite unaware and unconcerned with the fact that other people are present. After the first minute of this, the Red Light turns on and stays on in their receptivity meter.

So what can you do instead? Simple… Change from the impersonal to the personal in your delivery style. Use the words "you" and "your" as much as possible. Relate facts to the way that audience members should use them. Invite listeners to think about why your information is valuable and how it affects them. Ask questions even when you don't wait for a formal, physical answer. You can interject phrases such as "Does this make sense? Do you see how you gain a benefit from this?"

Instead of simply presenting a list of facts, challenge your audience to think about what is coming next: "The next point is one of the most important things you can do… Do you know what it is?" Or: "When surveyed, one of these items came out on top… Which do you think it was?" Each time you stop presenting for a moment and shift to an inclusionary statement, you reset the Green Light.

On a webinar you have even more help. You can see comments and questions as typed in by attendees. Cast a glance over to your chat stream every so often and mention someone by name. "Debbie just mentioned that she has used this successfully in her business. Thanks, Debbie!" That simple act of stopping and including a question or comment from an audience member resets the Green Light by shifting focus away from your nonstop recitation.

Let's not get too hung up on the details of whether the Traffic Lights change every 20 seconds during a presentation. The exact number of seconds is not the point. I hope you will use the concept to be more responsive to, aware of, and inclusionary of audience members as you present. You need to continually and repeatedly draw them back into the presentation as active participants in a conversation (even when they don't physically speak).

As you speak, keep asking yourself whether you have reset the Green Light recently. Find ways to involve and engage your attendees by getting them to turn on the active, participatory parts of their brains. It's more fun for them and much more effective for you.

Technorati Tags: Mark Goulston,Marty Nemko,Traffic Light Rule,presentation tips,speaking tips,public speaking,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting,web event,online event,web conference,web conferencing

7 Lessons From A Bad Webinar

Yesterday I attended a bad webinar. Today I want to analyze specific mistakes from the webinar that you can use as a learning experience or checklist items to help you avoid similar problems on your own web events. (Disclaimer: I know the event producer/host, so I'm going to be a bit oblique. I will also say that I know my impressions were much more negative than many other audience members who made positive comments at the end of the webinar. My opinions are my own.)

1) ALL ATTENDEES CAME IN "LIVE" - Upon joining the webinar (which used Zoom web conferencing as the technology platform), we instantly found ourselves publicly broadcasting our webcam video and microphone to the entire room. There was no warning and no confirmation message. Click the link and you were on the air to members of the general public. This is a recipe for disaster. Horror stories abound of people who don't realize their laptop webcam is active and stand naked in front of it after emerging from the bathroom. I didn't see anybody picking their nose or revealing confidential information on a computer screen behind them, but these things really do happen.

No public webinar should ever start up with all attendees live. The presenter indicated that while Zoom probably has a way to mute and turn off cameras for attendees on entry, he wasn't sure how to do it, and it was too late anyway. It is the host's responsibility and obligation to know the conferencing software and to have practiced how to set options appropriately. If attendees may join live, instruction and reminder emails need to mention this so they can be prepared.

2) HOST AND PRESENTER WERE WORKING OUT SOFTWARE OPERATIONS ON THE AIR - I joined about 5 minutes early to find the host and the guest speaker having a training session as to how the software worked and how the speaker should adjust his settings. That should have been done in advance of attendees coming in. If your webinar software does not permit a subconference, "green room", practice mode, or other hidden communications for the presentation team, it is the host's responsibility and obligation to set up a rehearsal session ahead of time to go over operational details. Five minutes before scheduled start time - with attendees listening - is too late.

3) INITIAL FOCUS WAS ON THE PRESENTER - The guest speaker started with more than ten minutes of self-congratulatory professional "cred building." He told us about projects he had worked on, famous celebrities he had worked with, examples of funny voices he had used, and much more. The best way to build credibility with an audience is to demonstrate the value of your information and how it is relevant for audience interests and needs. "Don't tell me how great you are… Show me!"

4) PRESENTER DIDN'T KNOW THE TECHNOLOGY - At 17 minutes after start time, the speaker was ready to show his first PowerPoint slide. But he couldn't remember how to display it to the audience in the software, leaving us to watch him fumble for a bit. This is why you have technical rehearsals before your event and practice mechanical operations in the software. The audience's focus should never shift away from your content and onto the mechanics of the software.

5) ATTENDEES HAD TOO MUCH POWER - The conference room was set up in a way that is perfect for a team brainstorming session, but not for a public webinar to an open audience. We could mute and unmute our own microphones. We had annotation power and could draw on the presenter's slides. I was impressed at the self-control and politeness of the audience, and things went smoothly without problems… But that was just lucky. I have been on similar webinars where attendees really interrupted the presentation - particularly latecomers arriving after initial instructions. People often like to experiment when presented with controls. Public webinars are usually safer when more tightly managed and controlled.

6) PRESENTER LET COMMENTS INTERRUPT HIM - We had an open chat panel and attendees were encouraged to write questions and comments as we went along. There weren't too many, but each time an attendee wrote something, the presenter immediately interrupted whatever he was saying to address it. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence and once in the middle of a word. Acknowledging and addressing audience questions is a wonderful way to stay engaged and empathetic with your audience. But as presenter, you can pick a break point in your presentation for shifting focus to the audience. Don't be afraid to finish a point before addressing questions and comments.

7) THE PRIMARY THRUST WAS A SALES PITCH - The invitation promised the webinar as a learning experience. But I felt very strongly that the primary objective for the presenter was to make sales, with tips presented only as teasers and enticements to learn "the real secrets" in a longer, fee-based program. We were given a sales link and encouraged to sign up quickly for an extra-special savings offer.

It is very easy to lose credibility with your audiences. If you are going to make offers, let people know it ahead of time. It doesn't matter how valuable you think your offerings are; What matters is how your audiences perceive them. And if they start thinking of you in "bait and switch" terms where they expected free information and instead got an unexpected sales pitch, they are going to stop trusting you and stop attending your webinars.

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web event,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,Zoom conferencing,web meeting,online seminar,online conference

Tips For Improving Audience Interactions

Last week I promised a follow up to ON24's Webinar Benchmarks report with commentary. You can now find that commentary online at ON24's own blog as a guest post:

http://www.on24.com/blog/how-to-improve-audience-participation-in-your-webinar/

I was disappointed in ON24's user statistics showing how often webinar participants took advantage of certain interactive features, so I wrote up some tips and best practices that presenters and hosts can use to improve interactivity.

Take a look and let me know if you agree or disagree with my suggestions!

Technorati Tags: ON24,Webinar Benchmarks Report,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,web event,online event,online seminar

Findings On Small Business Web Conferencing

Telecom consulting company Software Advice recently published results from a survey they conducted. They looked at employees from companies of 50 or fewer employees who use web conferencing at work. Response statistics are based on a screened sample size of 148 responses. You can access the report findings without registration or download at this URL:

http://www.softwareadvice.com/voip/industryview/smb-web-conferencing-report-2015/

This is an interesting segment of the market that does not get much statistical analysis from the big enterprise webinar software vendors. My personal bias is to think of these very small companies as typically being concerned with price first, ease of use second, and advanced functionality farther down the list. They often cannot afford license contracts with the enterprise-class webinar vendors I spend most of my time working with. This is a segment where low-cost/no-cost solutions such as Google Hangouts and Skype become very important, sometimes by necessity. I think that is borne out by the first reported graph, showing adoption rates for different types of conferencing:

When Video Conferencing ranks that high, I have to assume respondents are thinking mostly of person-to-person "video calling" services such as Skype. These can be great for prospect, client, or employee conversations.

The same kinds of clues are present in charts showing opinions about what is important to these users. They tended to respond in terms of speed of starting a meeting and convenience in quickly joining, which are more important for person-to-person and ad-hoc collaboration than for more formally scheduled webinars and webcasts.

When asked about features and functionality, respondents indicated frequent use of features related to scheduling and daily work administration, with things such as email scheduling, file sharing, and calendar scheduling receiving showing highest use frequency. To be honest, I'm not sure how I would have interpreted this question if presented with it in a survey, since "Webcasting" is included as a function on the same order as "Raise Hand." The two items don't really seem comparable to me:

But the final graphic in the report shows the danger of making assumptions. It turns out that my belief that these companies are mostly doing ad-hoc quick collaborative sessions is not supported by the data. Users indicated that planned and scheduled meetings had a much higher use frequency than quick one-on-one collaborative sessions. So I've learned something as well!

Software Advice has done us a service by focusing attention on a segment of the business market that may not generate as much revenue for the big web conferencing vendors, but represents an enormous potential volume of business for the companies that want to address these needs. It's worth reading the full report summary, as there is more information than I have highlighted here.

 

Technorati Tags: Software Advice,web conference,web conferencing,web meetings,online meetings,video conferencing,webcast,webcasting,webinar,web seminar

ON24 Webinar Benchmarks Now Available

For some reason, it took two months between ON24 sharing their latest Webinar Benchmarks data in a public webcast and making the report itself available for download. I shouldn't gripe, as we are fortunate to get the benefit of their compiled statistics at all.

If you want to download the PDF, you can visit http://communications.on24.com/webinar-benchmarks-report-wp-2015.html

They compiled a lot of the findings into one of ubiquitous infographics that have destroyed the entire field of statistics as a mathematically precise and meaningful concept in modern society. But ignore me… I'm just an angry old curmudgeon. If you like that sort of thing, you can click on the image to expand it:

If you would like to compare this year's results with analysis and commentary of previous years' data, I invite you to check out my post from last year, which has links to historical information.

ON24 asked me if I would like to comb through the data and comment on anything I find particularly noteworthy. I have written a post on their blog with some insights and suggestions regarding attendee interactions. You can see that post at http://www.on24.com/blog/how-to-improve-audience-participation-in-your-webinar.

Technorati Tags: ON24,Webinar Benchmarks Report,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,web event

Book Review: Mastering Webcam Video

I am delighted to recommend a new book just published by Doceo Publishing and written by Jan Ozer. It has the rather long, but certainly descriptive title of "Mastering Webcam and Smartphone Video: How To Look & Sound Great In Webinars And Videoconferences." You can order it on Amazon.

I got a prerelease copy to peruse, and I am quite impressed by the work that Mr. Ozer has put into describing the many different considerations involved in creating quality audio/video presentations.

The book is definitely written for nonprofessionals, which should be clear from the title. This is for people using webcams and smartphone or tablet built-in cameras to present themselves. If you have access to a professional video studio with broadcast-quality video cameras, you are operating in a different world and need different technical advice.

Mr. Ozer uses clearly-labeled chapters to introduce each aspect of videocasting. You can easily jump to a topic of interest or go back to look up something as a refresher. Within each chapter there is a brief backgrounder for people unfamiliar with the topic, some basic definitions to make sure you understand the terminology and concepts used, and then practical tips and advice.

This book is different than some others I have seen, in that it not only covers best practices for on-camera presenters, but also delves into hardware, software, and internet connectivity considerations. Mr. Ozer talks about different types of computing devices, webcams, microphones, and goes into details of setup and operation within several popular web conferencing and video conferencing technologies. He even takes the time to break out differences in operation between Windows and Macintosh operating systems when they are noteworthy.

The writing style is conversational and personal. Mr. Ozer writes in the first person and demonstrates the importance of production choices with personal anecdotes and cautionary tales. He also illustrates concepts with explanatory graphics and photographs.

Obviously Mr. Ozer cannot review and compare every available camera, light, computing platform, microphone, and conferencing product on the market. But he uses enough representative examples so that you will understand how to compare and select equipment and software that is right for your needs and your budget.

If you want to put yourself in the best light (figuratively and literally) on your next video webcast, get this book. If you are responsible for administering or producing your company's webcasts, get this book. It's a great one-stop reference for a topic that can be confusing or overwhelming to newcomers.

Technorati Tags: book review,Jan Ozer,webcam,video conferencing,web conference,web conferencing,webinar,webcast,webcasting,web seminar,online seminar,online meeting,web meeting

Making Webinars Engaging And Interactive

I hope you'll join me online for a free educational webinar this week. I am guest speaking with the kind sponsorship of Adobe Connect and the Content Marketing Institute on how to make your webinars more engaging and interactive.

Show time is Wednesday, June 3 at 11am California / 2pm New York. You can get a conversion to your local time zone by clicking here and you can register at: http://j.mp/KMjune3

I really try to pack my webinars with juicy practical tips and examples. I promise not to spend any time marketing myself or my business. We'll look at presentation techniques, vocal patterns, use of conferencing features, and interactivity considerations for webinars. As always, I leave time for live Q&A with you during the session.

I look forward to "seeing you" online!

 

Technorati Tags: Adobe Connect,Content Marketing Institute,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing,web event,web meeting,online event