How to Profit from the Biggest Webinar Mistake Nearly All “Gurus” Make

by Nick Nichols, Sales Performance Strategist

What’s the biggest free webinar (and teleseminar) mistake nearly all gurus make?

If you’re like me you’re busy and don’t have time to interrupt your day to sit in front of your computer or smart phone for an hour or more to watch webinars or listen to teleseminars.

Yet the reason we register for free webinars and teleseminars is because, despite the inevitable sales pitch, most deliver at least a few nuggets of useful content. Some deliver a lot of useful nuggets. A few are, well, worthless. I’m not willing to invest my irreplaceable prime time to find out which are worth my time. I’d rather absorb the content when it’s convenient for me – such as when I’m driving or exercising. And yes, I DO buy stuff featured on webinars and teleseminars – but only if I can absorb the presentation!

So to make sure I can do that I record webinars and teleseminars on my notebook using Camtasia® Studio. This leaves my desktop free to do other things. Then I convert the video to MP3 and use Goldwave audio editing software to process the files so I can actually absorb them.

What I mean by that is, on many presentations the volume is either way too low, or it’s very unequal among multiple presenters. And often there’s hum or static, and often there are long gaps of silence – especially when the presentation involves someone typing on a keyboard during the presentation. All this makes for a less-than-optimal listening experience. Goldwave fixes all that.

But recording requires that I’m available to set it up and sometimes I register for two presentations that conflict time-wise, so I can only record one. No replay means I won’t learn about what’s offered on the conflicting presentation and won’t buy it.

And another pet peeve is people who use so-called “evergreen” webinar software that offers multiple time slots that imply (or even overtly state) that each presentation will be live. If you’re in the IM space you’ve seen these, where, among other gimmicks, the software lists the names of people who are allegedly on the webinar with you – with your name at the top. Do these presenters think we all just fell off the turnip truck and that we don’t know it’s all fake?

Some producers do make replays available, but they disable the video controls so you have to watch the entire presentation as it if was live! How arrogant! Fortunately, there are ways to capture most video and audio. Replay Media Catcher works most of the time except for files stored on Vimeo, for which I use the Video Downloader Pro plugin for Chrome. For YouTube videos I use FLV Downloader Pro. For converting Flash to MP4 and video to MP3 I use Movavi Video Suite. These are all handy apps to have.

But I shouldn’t have to do ANY of this, should I? I have a saying that will serve you well: “It’s impossible to make it too easy for people to buy from you.” Most people are not like me and won’t go to all the trouble of recording or capturing presentations. And they certainly won’t edit them to make the sound levels consistent and clean. They will just move on and probably never buy what was offered. Which is a shame, because if what you offer has genuine value you are doing your audience a disservice by not making downloadable replays of your presentations easily available shortly after their original air date.

And while I’m at it, another thing I dislike about many webinars is the time wasted “welcoming” people to the webinar. You know what? I really don’t care who else is on the webinar and where they’re from. Like most people, I only care about what’s in it for me (WIIFM) if I invest my time in a particular presentation. This welcoming and later asking participants to respond positively in the chat area about some point that was made and acknowledging those responses is, IMO, more of an ego stroke for the presenters than it is of value to the participants. BTW, I believe that answering questions from the chat area IS valuable.

And don’t use replay software that requires entering your email address for access. If you’re like me you use different email addresses for different purposes and can’t easily remember which address you used to sign up for a particular webinar. When I encounter this I pass. And besides, since I registered, they should already have my email address for follow up.

So, you can profit from the biggest free webinar/teleseminar mistake others make by making replays of your presentations available for download as soon as possible after the fact, including an MP3 version of your video files. Remember, it’s impossible to make it too easy for people to buy from you! “Gurus” take note.