There's no longer any debate:
Webinars are one of your most powerful pathways to the online profit bonanza you've been dreaming of. You can search for months, and you'll be hard pressed to discover an avenue that can have a more massive impact on your business.
Unfortunately, you can also blow alot of resources on your webinar with very little return. If you fall victim to the 5 biggest webinar profit killers.
It doesn't matter how much you plan. How eye-popping your slides are. How much you feel you have a *sure thing*. If you do any of these … you are sunk!
Webinar Profit Killer #1:
Waiting too long for your pitch
You might be surprised by this one. Everyone hates a pitch, right? Wrong!
First … if you've delivered on what you promised (more on that in a moment), people will WANT to hear how they can get more of you.
Second … a well crafted pitch educates and inspires as well as sells. It shows people a bigger vision for their success. And just how much is possible when they work with you.
So you don't want to wait forever to reveal how how your audience achieve this vision by working with you. Its a good idea to start your pitch about 45 minutes into your webinar. Because it allows you to reach your audience while you still have peak attendance on your presentation.
Since I've had success bringing my presentations in at around 70-75 minutes, this means I also save some of my content for after the pitch.
Webinar Profit Killer #2:
Not delivering the content you promised
This one can be devastating. Because it can turn your prospects off for life.
I was viewing a webinar once, put on by someone I highly respected. Who promised some tips I was very interested in.
The problem was, she spent 30 minutes on a drawn out explanation of her rags to riches story. Plus a parade of photos of the fancy vacations she now takes.
I left. And I haven't been back.
While this one may seem obvious, you want to assure people within the first few minutes of your webinar they will receive what you promised. And go over point by point all the juicy content you will reveal.
And then … within the first 10-12 minutes of your webinar, be sure you get into at least one of them.
And there is almost nothing more crucial to maxing out your webinar sales, than insuring you have a maximum audience for your entire presentation.
Webinar Profit Killer #3:
Offering what you want to tell your prospects rather than what they are desperately searching for. And desperately interested in.
A successful webinar is not an exercise in personal creativity. (There are lots of other ways to do that). Its a means to deliver content your best prospects are desperately searching for.
Its amazing how easy it is to turn a webinar into your own personal soap box. And unless that is of intense interest to your audience, you have just shot yourself in the foot.
If you get nothing else from this post, please get this: Your audience is interested in your process, your history, your story, your secret technique ONLY to the extent that it helps them get what they want.
If you want to skyrocket revenue from every single webinar, run everything you present in your webinar through this simple test:
Does this in some way help my audience get the result they want? Does it give them information they want? Does it inspire them to create the results and the life that they dream of?
Webinar Profit Killer #4:
Giving too much
Yes you want to give content. Especially the content you promised. But you don't want to give so much, your audience feels overwhelmed or discouraged.
You also don't want to give them so much that they say, "Thank you! I am now going to take the next six months to apply all this. And I'll be back when I'm done …"
Alot of us LOVE to teach. That's great. But your audience can only absorb so much. Be sure you give enough to establish your expertise and have them walk away with some great info.
But do it in such a way that they realize its just the beginning. And the real benefit comes from an extended relationship with you, your products and your services.
Webinar Profit Killer #5:
Selling your product, instead of the outcomes your product makes possible
That sounds crazy, I know. Of course, you are selling your product on your webinar. But that isn't what your prospects are buying.
They are buying what the product makes possible: The big outcome. The dream. And when you focus too much on the product and not enough on the outcomes it makes possible, your product (and your profits) are dead in the water.
So always be careful that when you are telling your audience about your offer, you do it in a way that makes it plain that the fastest, easiest, least painful way to achieve their dream runs directly through your product or service.
So they realize it will actually cost them more in lost time and money NOT to invest with you.
So … what has been the biggest webinar profit killer you have experienced? On your webinars or someone else's? And what new ideas or insights have you discovered to help make your webinars more profitable?
Let me know in the comments below:
I, too, was recently on a webinar where the presenter went into so much detail about her 'story' that I became impatient and bored and left. She lost me even though I was initially interested enough in her upcoming course to make time to attend her live webinar. Thank you for the great information.
Rob. I am yet to create my first webinar and you have provided really clear tips that I am going to implement when I write the outline. I really loved number 5. I had an aha moment when I read that one. It was a great reminder to break down the outcome into smaller outcomes to clarify the changes that the clients will gain and make it really clear for them to see.
This post was also a reminder not to go on and on with my story. It's not meant to be a show and tell about my life. The webinar is there to teach and entice people to sign up for my program if they think it's a fit for them. Thanks again for your insights and knowledge.
Thanks Lily. That’s a great observation: You only go into your story to the degree it helps your audience bond with you. And to reveal the challenges you have overcome. And to show how you have used some of the material you will be presenting to create your own success.