UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging

Chapter 46. Tele-Seminars

ONCE YOU HAVE started to build a platform and a following, a great way to further position yourself as an expert is by doing tele-seminars. One nice thing about doing a tele-seminar as opposed to an in-person event, is that nobody knows how many people have shown up. Having five people attend an in-person event that has 50 chairs set up is embarrassing. Having five people show up to a tele-seminar, although not ideal, will go unnoticed. So these seminars are a great place to practice and gain confidence in your speaking and in your content.

You want to ensure that with tele-seminars you give standalone value to it. Way too many of these events are pitch-focused, where you don't really even give content, maybe just a hint of content, and then spend the remainder of the time trying to convince the listener to buy something.

I remember calling in to listen to my first tele-seminar eight years ago. It was run by one of the big-name motivational speakers. So I blocked off the time on my calendar, took away time from my family (it was in the evening), and dialed into the conference phone number. The first 10 minutes consisted of the speaker getting the phone-call attendees all revved up for the call itself and pretty much the remainder of the hour talking about how you can succeed in life by taking advantage of this great opportunity. The great opportunity that was being offered on this call was to sign up for their high-priced coaching program.

I got off that call ...