Viral Storytelling with The Story Lady, Ronda Del Boccio

Just in case you are not sure what a teleseminar is, I’ll take a quick second to define it, then I’ll show you some ways it can grow your business.

A “teleseminar” is a telephone seminar that allows you to impart information, teach a class, sell a product, etc. The moderator or host - that’s you - and the participants all get onto a “bridge line” or conference line that holds multiple callers. Entrepreneurs and people in internet marketing do them all the time.

I would like to see more authors do teleseminars, because they are a great way to:

• Grw a following
• Talk about how your book will solve a problem or make life better for the potential readers on the line
• Teach concepts of value to those who would do business with you
• Promote a product or service

Ultimately, when someone hears your content for an hour (or more), they come to

• know you
• like you
• trust you

…if they’re your ideal customer. Teleseminars also allow people to “pre-sort” themselves. What I mean is that your potential customer decides whether you have the solution or book or whatever that they need. If the answer is yes, you’ve got a new customer. If the answer is no, you have not spent any time individually pre-qualifying them.

So if you do ttelesemianrs, or you are considering doing them, here are 10 hot tips to make your teleseminar a success:

BEFORE the call

1. Plan your content ahead of time: Don’t “wing it” or the listeners will know that you haven’t a clue what you’re going to do next.

2. Set up a schedule. Know what will happen when so that you keep yourself on track.

3. Practice using your conferencing service and any other tools you’ll need. There will be enough technical oddities happening without you coming unprepared - so get used to your conferencing features, recording equipment, phone, etc. before it’s show time.

4. Create a page where people can come for information about your seminar. Some people use an opt-in and some put up the call details at the time of the call and offer a courtesy reminder email without requiring optin..

5. Practice your delivery into a recorder and listen. One time I did a teleseminar featuring a woman who gave me a set of questions to ask her, yet when I asked them she would begin by saying something like, “Um…yes that’s a good question…let’s see…” and perhaps she wanted to come across as being reflective, but all it did was munch time and make her look ill-prepared, even to me. I kept thinking, you gave me these questions yourself, so it can’t be that yor’re surprised.

During the Call

6. Have someone help you: Maybe you’ll have someone welcome listeners before the show and introduce you. Maybe you’ll have someone interview you. The synergy of two people working well together makes for an interesting call.

7. Over-deliver top notch content: People are investing an hour of their time to listen to you, so do them the honor of giving great content.

8. Be ready with an offer for your callers to take the next step with you: Even if you’re very new and not ready with a program, have a gift that you can use as an enticement to keep communicating with you. In other words, use the seminar for list building even if you don’t have a product to sell them yet..

9. Watch the clock: Your flow will be something like this. Plan for the first few minutes to be introductory, then have a testimonial/success story caller, dive into content, testimonial, content, warm up for the call to action, more content, testimonial, call to action.

10. Close on a high. You don’t want your final message to fizzle out. That kills your credibility.

During the call do these things to keep your energy up:

11. Have a glass of water handy & keep yourself hydrated. Make sure you’ve had some protein before the call so you are properly fueled. If you’re running on empty, so will your presentation.

12. Pace, stand, or at least sit straight and tall. Slouching comfortably puts you in a “not working” energy space and people will drop off the call. Pacing or standing keeps your energy up and keeps your listeners tuned in to what you are saying. If you need to sit, at least sit straight without slumping into your chair.

13. Energize your voice. I know someone whose products and services are all about vitality. Every time I hear her speak I could fall asleep - and that’s just normal conversation. She sounds lethargic, yet she wants to convey energy and vitality. My attempts to give her some vocal coaching are met with , “Yes that’s important,” said in a lethargic voice. Sound as if you’re having the time of your life during your perfect day.

14. During the call it’s show time. You want to do everything to get yourself in the zone of “energy up!”

15. Leave everything that happened before the call outside. If you just had a fight with your VA or something, put yoruself into showtime mode and let it go, because you don’t want anything to detract from your message.

16. Care about the people who might open their wallets to you. People on the call will feel this.

17. Never be afraid to give away too much. This comes up a lot in different ways. Don’t you need to hear things more than once anyway? Don’t you feel compelled to do business with someone who has given generously to you first?

18. Engage your audience. Whether you’ve asked for questions ahead or you take questions on the call or don’t take questions at all, speak to the people in your audience and think what would make this call speak directly to them and capture their attention.

19. Remember that you are nto the only one who is giving something. THis is a relationship. The callers give up an hour of their time to be with you and should be given respect and kudos for that. Make your call a wise investment of 60 valuable minutes of their valuable. We each can make more money, but we can never get back time, so remember that your audience have invested their most valuable and unreturnable asset in listening to YOU.

19. Seek first to be a person of value and life opens up more doors than you can possibly imagine.

Tags: author coach, entrepreneurial authoring, Awaken The Author Within, business development, folklore, storytelling