CONVERTlisten to you. It is your obligation to give them value, to give them what
they want, and also to entertain them a little bit, to be the professional.
It's always good to start off with a little dialogue.
It is also a good idea to bring someone on who just answers all the
questions in the question box. If you're just running solo, that is totally
fine, but if you have an employee or partner or whatever, and maybe they
don't want to be your co-host and have their voice on the webinars, then
just ask them to answer questions.
Some of the most successful webinars I have ever seen have a few
different people on the call. There's the host, and there's the cohost, the
two people interacting back and forth, and then they have a least one
person whose sole job is to answer questions in that text box. They are
typing answers as people are asking questions. The nice thing about it is
that the host and the co-host don’t have to worry about the questions until
the end, yet as people come up with timely questions, they can get
immediate answers. Once you get to the end, and you open up for Q&A
time, you can go through the answers and then you close it down.
With a co-host, if you have somebody else on the line with you, he or she
is probably going to introduce you. They’ll talk a little bit about how
they met you, what their experience has been with you, their friendship
with you, and then they will introduce you. Again, you will have some
minor chit-chat for a few minutes before kicking it off, to allow for the
remaining folks to jump on the line.
Once you get introduced, say, “Okay, can everyone hear me okay? Is the
sound good? Where is everybody from?” Read off where everybody is
from: the U.K., Chicago, San Diego, Pakistan, etc. This is social proof,
meaning that attendees listening see that there are people joining in from
all around the world. There was one webinar, back when I first got
started, and what they did was actually open up all the lines. They had a
few hundred people on the call, and they opened up all the lines, so all
you heard was talking, babies crying, and everything else all fighting
within the line. Then they closed it off and said that's what happens when
you have thousands of people on one webinar! That’s why mics are not
enabled on everybody’s connection.
There is a certain element of social proof, when you're reading where
people are from, when you open up the lines like that, and it really just
helps attendees see that, yes, you are the star; yes, they should be on this
call, because you're going to be giving away some great information.
After the introduction, your co-host is probably going to mute
themselves, and then you take over, rocking and rolling with the content.