Question for you:
Are you ready to go Live? Are You Ready to Click That Broadcast Button?
She was right…I didn’t practice and when I walked on stage as the character, not five minutes passed, before I started to forget my next lines…(AHHHH…yes I was sweating!!!) Well before I get overly nagging (like my mom), I wanted to share with you an all-to-familiar horror-story of being…UNDER-PREPARED!…(cue scary music)
I have a sad but all too common story to tell, and for the sake of this client I am not going to name names….but…
One day last week one of my Easy Webinar clients and I were on and off a call that lasted a good part of the entire day.
I was so dead-set that she have success on that event that I moved around
much of what I was doing that day to make things work for her.
Spending around 4 hours total helping her.
I helped her with her emails and even was on the event to moderate
any questions that she should have.
However, as much as I tried to facilitate the event itself, when I asked her a bit earlier
in the day how her presentation is looking, she said, “I don’t have one yet.” (?)
When we got on the event, I was thinking “Ok she must have all of this in her head, she’s got this.”
But what actually happened?
She froze. She focused on the technology…She didn’t start the event on time.
(even though she was all cued up and ready to go)
As soon as this happened, I realized something. No matter what technology you are using, what medium of communication…if you cant communicate your message in the first place then you are unfortunately sunk.
Well, she got 20 minutes in and simply canceled her event.
She didn’t have anything prepared regarding a presentation and it fell flat.
What is the moral of the story here?
What did I take away? What did she take away? What should you take away?
You can’t just wing it!
Now someone out there might have unique super hero skills to where they can wing it, but the normal mortal needs, at the very least, to have an IDEA of what they’re going to do and talk about no matter what the tech does.
You can’t just show up and the magic will automatically come. (Well after awhile the magic does come easier!)
You have to keep your audience’s attention and have a presentation (or a plan) ready to go. A show ready to go.
I am not saying this to scare you…but more so to prepare you.
The technology should be 2nd to the actual presentation. Please remember that!
With that said. I want to invite EVERYONE to get on the EarlyBird list to
enroll into my new coaching program LaunchStream.
Click Here to Get On The List.
LaunchStream is a group and one-on-one coaching that can help you to tap into mastering
the 4 steps to the event launch blueprint for increasing your event performance, process and most importantly revenue.
FYI: This is a coaching program, different from my OnlineBroadcasts training.
(OnlineBroadcasts teaches how to use Google Hangouts/YouTube Live for Broadcasting, where LaunchStream is a Coaching program geared towards improving and optimizing your SALES events and Launches. LaunchStream is Strategy BABY…and it is what adds a couple zeros to your event sales generation.
To sign up for the earlybird list when we open up the program, click here. (Please be aware, this is a coaching program, so it is not cheap.
I am only looking for students dead serious about their business and their success.
——————————
Now back to this client. Remember, I am not picking on her…I am simply sharing the painful reality of things.
I’ve personally had terrible webinars and events..Sometimes you freeze…sometimes the software freezes.
The great thing about LaunchStream is that it can HEDGE again all of those issues. So no matter if the software causes a problem or…you do…things are salvageable I will come in and teach you—–>
THE SINGLE IMPORTANT THING THAT YOU CAN DO IN YOUR PRESENTATIONS
TO GO FROM 2 SALES TO 20 SALES…OR 4 SALES TO 40 SALES!
So again with that said, If you think that this program might be right for you, get on the list to get notified when we
open up enrollment coming soon. We’re looking at starting the training in about 2 weeks.
(But I will put out the notice before then and you can get into the archived 1st
Session of LaunchStream even before our live training sessions start)
If you are tired of being under prepared for your events and presentations, and if you’re ready to
take this stuff seriously, Register on the earlybird page!
To your unrelenting success!
Casey
P.S. FYI, Please remember that we have 3 programs that might be right for you…
1. OnlineBroadcasts (for learning the power of Google Hangouts/YouTube Live as an awesome broadcasting tool)
2. LaunchStream (For getting one on one coaching specifically designed to examine your business objectives with events and give you a blueprint for optimizing your sales events, presentations and launches!
3. Finally, our ProducersCorner is our ‘We do the work for you’ Service. So if you want us to swoop in and help produce your events as well as CREATE the event marketing funnel whether that be automated or live, we can do that! (Please note: Consultants and Coaches, we do have a partner program where we can do the work for YOUR CLIENTS and you can get paid for it.) Send me an email @ casey@easywebinar.com with inquires.
Leave a comment below: Have you ever had an experience where you were unprepared? Did you feel naked from it? Exposed? Please share below!
As Jason Fladlien is fond of saying “Fail to prepare then prepare to fail”. Steve Jobs was notoriously meticulous about his preparation so his presentations were prepared for weeks, scripted and rehearsed and re-rehearsed – both guys didn’t NEED to prepare…yet they did – which may just have played some part in their success.
Dave! Awesome stuff. Yes Jason F. knows exactly what his message is and who it is addressed to. It might look unscripted but knowing what you want to say takes a lot of preparation and practice.
PPPPP
Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance!
Why the experts make it look easy is because they’ve not only practiced A LOT, they also never get in front of a group, online or offline, without at least a plan and usually an organized and practiced presentation.
Great reminder and blog post Casey.
I mostly wanted to write to wish you luck on your adoption journey. Our child is now 12. The journey 12 – 13 years ago was both arduous and magical. She is absolutely the child of our heart and we know she just had to take a creative path to join our family! I’m am always happy to talk to and support other parents on their forever family journey.
Warmly,
~Deborah Tutnauer
Deborah, wow! That is awesome. First thank you for the share about practicing..but more importantly…thanks so much for letting me know about your own journey. We are both excited and nervous…and when people start to share their own stories it reminds us that this is the right plan for us. IF we have any questions about things, I definitely might connect up! 🙂 Thanks again! C
I was in the beginning of a webinar that I had marketed, had ALL of my slides together [was actually Over-Prepared], ready to go…
Started out fine, and then about 3 minutes into it, my notes and slides made absolutely NO sense to me! I froze and just stared at them trying to recover, but couldn’t…
I wanted to cancel, but I couldn’t, cause I’d already committed to go through with it no matter what…
I stumbled through for another 10 – 15 minutes and then finally apologized to my attendees, and told them what was happening, and that I was going to need them to bail me out by asking me what they wanted me to cover in the training.
I knew the subject matter cold, but I had too much info trying to get out at the same time and hit a bottleneck in my brain. Could Not Get Anything Out! LOL!!!
So embarrassing, and So liberating at the same time!
They started firing questions at me, and I took them through real time demos, visuals and examples to get them what they needed.
The attendees raved about the webinar, even though I felt like 2″.
I learned that valuable lesson for the second time…
Be relevant to your audience, answer their questions, send them away with what THEY came for, and it ALWAYS works out to the positive.
Hope that helps Casey! 😀
Jason, this is terrific insight. Based on what you experience, I would say that you were OVER PREPARED and then your mind was filled with too much stuff! I have definitely been there. Where I had been working on my slides so much that I was tired and had way too much stimulus.
Nowadays, I try to have thing prepared but then get a nice walk before I start or clear my mind a bit before it starts. And you are so right that it is ok to TALK to your audience. To ask them what they want…but again, I try to have enough points to cover during the event just in case I’m not getting comments. You are so right. The audience will forgive if you have a ‘freeze’. I love what you said…”Be relevant to your audience, answer their questions, send them away with what THEY came for, and it ALWAYS works out to the positive.”
Great article topic…planning is key! Even after 20 years experience of teaching professionally in schools, university, private settings etc, you always have to be prepared- and online, I still use a basic script/outline with time slots. Teaching online is no different, even if you are running recorded events and have little interaction with your audience who will want to expand or discuss something during the event, you still need to ensure you keep to a timed schedule and logical sequencing of ideas- people have paid for a certain time slot or have made a time commitment.
Even when lecturing teachers on how to write curriculum, my biggest point I made to them was to have a ‘rationale’- why you are teaching the topic and the ‘aims’ are the basic steps/approaches you will take to achieve it during the time given. This way you always keep your planning relevant to the purpose of that event…any extra planning/ideas might be best used for another course. It’s not about the great activities or idea you have to discuss, it’s about relevance to the learning community. If you are interacting on your online event, and are not getting audience questions, prompt them with some pre written ones of your own to help get some ideas started- be prepared. If you have built your community which is focused on sharing ideas in safe discussion environments which are inclusive, then your community will become more interactive and help guide your business/course creation relevance. Preparation is key. Hope that helps 😉