subject: Have You Ever Hosted a Free Teleseminar? [print this page] Have you ever hosted a free teleseminar (one in which you charge no participation fees), with the intent to sell a product, and you've gotten feedback like, "Great content," or "I learned a lot," or "You're really knowledgeable in your field"?
Despite your blush at the flattery, were your sales numbers from the teleseminar lackluster? Was your conversion rate uninspiring?
It's not difficult to figure out what may have happened in this situation. You've offered too much valuable information, and didn't start your teleseminar with the end in mind: the sale.
When conducting a free teleseminar your main concern should be with the quality of the contentthe value of the information that you're passing on. But how do you balance sharing great content without giving too much away and losing the sale?
No one who has registered for your free teleseminar has paid a dime (other than maybe the dial-in fee). If you give them too much, they will walk away with your valuables, free of charge. If you give them less information, but offer them an opportunity to learn more and to walk away with something that they've deemed valuable, even if there is a cost involved, you will have succeeded in your tele-endeavor.
Your offer needs to be developed from your opening. Even though the attempt at sales will come at the end of the free teleseminar, you must keep your goal in mind when you utter your first sentence.
Your sales pitch must seamlessly tie into the rest of the teleseminar. Delivering a wealth of information and then tacking on a sales pitch at the end rarely works. Your sales pitch should be less like a birthday surprise and more like the end result of a lengthy birthday celebration preparation.
Don't squeeze every bit of valuable information you can think of into your teleseminar. Instead, work to weave education with sales presentation. When this is done correctly, you'll be priming your prospects to buy, but they will view it as free information. In short, create a monologue that will make purchase seem like the next logical step to your listeners.
Use your sense of responsibility to your participants to offer them something of value. Whether your teleseminar is 30 or 60 minutes in length, there's a good chance that you'll never be able to cram everything they need to know about your topic into that timeframe. In fact, if you do try to cram it in, you'll likely be delivering an incomprehensible mess. When you offer a chance for them to learn about the rest of the story at the end, you're delivering value and offering a service. Often, you can only make the biggest difference in the lives of your customers by offering more than you can give away for free.
The no-fee teleseminar can be a great selling tool. When people invest 30 or 60 minutes of their time, they'll naturally want to know about their next step. When you give them that step, in the form of your product or service, after priming them to want more, they'll be apt to buy.
So don't view the free teleseminar as "the cost of doing business." Rather, view it as a valuable tool for garnishing your conversion rates, realizing your unique success, and balancing the teleseminar ledger.
