Four Ways to Guarantee An Ineffective Webinar

I just sat through my sixth webinar this month. I would give all of them at least a B+ for content, and two probably deserve an A. That said, they all kind of sucked in a way, leaving us with the obvious question:   If they had such great content, how could they not be great?

In each case, there were one or more things that caused what could have been an excellent webinar to be something far less – even though the underlying content was very good.

Here are four things that made this month’s potentially great webinars substandard. Avoid these mistakes if you want to improve the impact of your webinars.

Saying of the Week – if Not The Decade

Someone sent me this quote this week. It has nothing to do with sales or marketing, but it is probably about the most inspiring yet at the same time troubling quote I have read in a very long time. It speaks volumes about what is going on in America – and what is absolutely going wrong in America today.

The quote is attributed to Dr. Adrian Rogers, an evangelical conservative, born in West Palm Beach in 1931. Dr. Rogers passed away in 2005 of pneumonia and complications from colon cancer. Whether you are a conservative, liberterian, or liberal, I would urge you to carefully consider his words. 

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.  When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

Dr. Adrian Rogers

Think about it!

Making Lemonade Out of Missing Bourbon

Thanks for Nothing!

I arrived home on Tuesday of this week to find the following tube package in the mailbox addressed to my oldest son (who I assure you has been of legal drinking age for at least a couple of years). It was from a premium bourbon producer, Knob Creek.

I don’t know where he acquired his taste for top-of-the-line bourbon (hahhh!) but I did know that he has used rebate certificates before from the New Hampshire State Liquor store to help minimize the cost of this particular indulgence from time to time.

Even given that, I could not imagine what the tube contained or why it was being sent. Surely it was some type of promotion, but the words “Thanks for nothing” just didn’t seem to fit a typical promotion. I could hardly wait until he got home to learn what was inside.

Inbound Marketing University – 5 Reasons I Liked It

Image via Wikipedia

A couple of weeks ago my TweetDeck popped up a Tweet from someone I was following, telling me there was to be an “Inbound Marketing University” offered by HubSpot, from here in the Boston area. While I have more than my fair share of free webinars to attend, the word “University” caught my eye and I decided to click in. I’m very glad I did. This is my review of the IMU event, which I am told will be held again in August. Here is what I liked about it …

Why Focus on Who is NOT a Target

While I always realized focus was important in marketing, it wasn’t until I was given an assignment one day that it really hit me between the eyes. I was working for a large technology company. Our group was responsible for producing the new product introduction kits, slide decks and messages that would go to our direct and indirect sales channels. I was asked to interview a product manager for a new product we were launching and extract some of the early launch data. 

Puffy Messages Cost Customers

When working with clients one of the key elements of building out their selling content is to move them away from arming their sellers with ‘puffy cloud’ statements to very specific statements that have impact and can be remembered. This is done by pushing them to use facts and figures, images, and stories to get their key messages across to clients.