Webinar Mastery: The Proven Formula for Highly Engaged Webinars that Convert

And we are live! Hey everybody, welcome in. It is Monday, July 8th, and I appreciate you being here. We're going to be here together for the next hour talking about how to create a webinar that converts.

Webinars are fantastic. Going live is one of the most incredible things you can do. The technology is available to us in such an easy way these days, but even more than that, um, the idea that we can just go online and teach people something is, is awesome. Uh, I want to make sure that the tech is working okay. So, I'm going to make sure that you can hear and see me okay. If you can, uh, please say hello in the chat, let me know, and wave hello. I believe I'm live now. Okay, we are good. I wasn't seeing the stream on my end, and that can happen sometimes. But, you know what? That's the beauty of live. You never know what's exactly going to happen, but you roll with it. And that's so important today because today we're looking for real life. Right? There's a lot of AI and these things that are seemingly automated. And yes, you can automate a webinar as well, but when you're live, there's just a different level of connection and rapport that's built with your audience. And that's one of the most powerful things about running a webinar.

Now, a webinar is a little different. And I have a bunch of slides to go through. I'm going to teach you a lot of stuff. I'm just kind of prepping as more people come in. I also see some familiar faces in here. I see some new faces as well. And by faces, I just mean chat. Uh, but hello to Stephen and, uh, Amy. We have Megan, Marketing Sherpa, MX, Tina in the house, Kathy, Linda, Stephen. Welcome in, everybody.

A webinar is a little different than just going live, right? You can go live on Instagram, TikTok, uh, even here on YouTube. But the big idea with a webinar is it's sort of like a seminar. That's where it is. A word combination between web and seminar. There used to be even Tel seminars, like telephone versions of seminars. The big difference is it typically involves some sort of topic or teaching. There's perhaps some workshop. There's earnings that happen in a topic involved. People also often sign up and register for these things. So it feels a little bit more professional, if you will. And in many cases, especially for us marketers, it involves some sort of pitch or lead into a product or service or program. It doesn't always. In fact, webinars are an amazing way to grow your audience and just build an email list. I used to run a lot of webinars with no pitch on the opposite end, and that would help grow an email list. So there's a number of different benefits to running a webinar.

But I want to survey the audience real quick. And I just want to ask you, if you've run a webinar before, type "yes" in the chat. Or if you haven't run a webinar before, uh, type "no." So either way, this will be very useful for you because I'm going to teach you some stuff that's going to help you understand some of the nuances that you might not learn elsewhere, right? A webinar isn't just about coming on live, asking people where they're from to engage. There's a lot more depth into that. And probably what I'm most excited about, and I've been so excited about this presentation for a number of weeks now, because I'm actually going to take you behind the scenes and show you our most profitable webinar. I'm actually going to show you the slides from that webinar and kind of go behind the scenes on why I have certain slides, why I'm teaching in it in that way, what the sort of pattern or framework is going to be.

So, if you were to answer this question, why do you think webinars are important? I see quite a few "yeses." Levi says "yes." What's up, Levi? Good to see you here. I see some "nos" like from Chris and Cross and The Midlife Chick. That's okay. Again, no matter what, you're going to learn a ton of stuff today. We have a lot to go over. But why do you think webinars are important today, right? There are easier things to do to get in front of an audience compared to a webinar. A webinar takes some time and thought to create a presentation. It takes some time. And there's a little bit of friction to sign up and enjoy and watch. I mean, people are busy. Why would they spend time out of their day to go and watch a webinar? Maybe I'm preaching to the choir because you're here right now doing so. But it's likely because you are very curious about this topic. You know there is a particular and potential ROI that can come from learning how to do this correctly.

But in most cases, there are so many, uh, other reasons why a webinar can be great. For example, "clients get to meet you and decide if they want to work with you," says Donna, which is an incredible thought. The idea of a connection, probably in the best way outside of actually meeting in person. A way to show and share your expertise in a way that, that can prove that you are worth hiring or you are worth investing, uh, time and money into. So to find clients, yes. "English with Megan" says, "to build trust." Trust is one of the most important things that you can earn with an audience online. And if you want to build trust more quickly, doing so in a webinar type fashion is a way to fast forward that process, right? Especially if you nail the presentation. I'm going to show you the framework for a presentation that will work in order to do that. It can also help you build your email list. It can also help you generate more sales. Uh, Michelle says, "to provide more in-depth service than you can on a short-form social media post." For ex, yes, exactly. So short-form is great, but if you want to go more in-depth, yes, a longer video could work too. But the interaction that can happen, just like the engagement that's happening right now, is wonderful. And many of you have been on a lot of my webinars and have seen what, what can happen and kind of the things that happen, uh, inside of those webinars to drive people towards sales or at least teach and share expertise. We're going to uncover all of that today for you.

Now, there are some, uh, amazing stats that I can share with you. I mean, we've been running webinars since 2017. In 2020, webinars kind of had a nice big resurgence, uh, or a boom because of the pandemic. People were at home, and we started running a lot of webinars to teach in front of an audience and help drive people to our new SPI Pro community and our All Access Pass. And these are stats from October of 2020. And you can see hundreds of people were registering for these, and many people attended. The follow-up process that happens after a person attends is really important as well. Uh, this helps build your email list. Those same webinars, as you can see, created spikes in our email list growth. And so, even just if nobody purchased, you can still use webinars as a way to, uh, build your email list. But build your email list in a way that is topic-specific, right? It's one thing to say, "Hey, join my email list for this newsletter about certain things," versus, "Hey, come to this workshop and learn about this one specific thing," just like you're learning about webinars today. And you can gain that information from your audience based on when they subscribe. They subscribe because of this webinar, and you can follow up with them and continue that conversation with them after the fact, right?

Today, however, we have been running our webinars just right here on YouTube. And the reason is because, number one, not just the tech is even easier today, but we get a little bit more reach. Not just from the live webinars itself. We have almost 200 people concurrently watching right now, which is amazing. But the longtail reach. You can see some of these webinars that we did. The last one we did for emails, which wasn't too long ago, has 6,000 views. Most of those coming on the replay. After, uh, sometimes these videos get picked up. Like the one in the middle there, "Double Your Downloads," has 12,000 views. There weren't 12,000 people who watched that webinar, uh, live, but that many people came in afterwards to watch. And that can continue to almost plant seeds for you to continue your growth and continue your expert, um, showcasing, just right there on YouTube. So we like using YouTube. And there's other platforms that you can use which have perhaps a better registration process to help you collect more information. But I enjoy doing these on YouTube. And your earnings, webinars, like I said, help build trust a lot faster. And you're able to generate some revenue, especially if you know how to pitch and pitch without being sleazy. We're going to go over that today. In fact, many other, uh, secrets that I can share with you. I'm just going to reveal. And you're also going to get an open window of what it is like in our course, A to Z Webinars. It's a course that is not talked about very often because webinars aren't the most popular of topic, but I'm trying to change that. It is a very, very powerful form of marketing. And the truth is, most of the people out there aren't going to do it, which means you have an opportunity. If you can step forward, create an engaging webinar that people watch and engage in, it proves your expertise, it builds that trust. You can sell into a program, maybe a beta program for something you're launching, a coaching program, a software, whatever it might be, even a physical product because you can demonstrate live and answer questions as you go.

So, before we get into the meat of the content, I do want to ask you a question. When the idea of running a webinar comes to mind for you, which of the following numbers, one, two, three, or four, sort of resonate with you? And it could be more than one of these. Number one: The technology is scary and overwhelming. Number two: Going live is intimidating, so you're more driven to stick to your usual content. Number three: You are afraid to sell on a webinar. And number four: You're not sure how to deliver a valuable webinar. I already see some amazing questions and conversations happening in the chat here, by the way. But we're going to reserve the addressing of those questions and answers at the very end. And there will be time for this as well. We're not going to go too long today, and we'll definitely stop at the top of the hour. But which one of these numbers, one, two, three, or four, seemed to most resonate with you?

For me, when I started out, it was kind of all of them, right? And when I started thinking about webinars, it was 2012. So, for sure, the technology was like, "Geez, this is like, the tools aren't ready." The tools are definitely ready today, for sure. And there are many different tools that you can use to just go live very easily. I'm using StreamYard right now to broadcast onto YouTube. You can also use it to broadcast onto other platforms as well. And there are many other webinar platforms that you can use that give you a lot more data for registrations, they can hook you up with landing pages, all these kinds of things. So the tech is definitely not as much of a problem as it once was.

Going live definitely feels intimidating, right? You never know what's going to happen. But I also would spin that to the idea of going live is going to be very different. And it's a different way of consuming content. And a huge opportunity for you to build that rapport much faster. So although it may be intimidating, it's also just as exciting for what you can do with that 30-minute, hour-long time period, right?

Number three: You're afraid to sell on a webinar. I see a lot of threes on here. And I think this is the thing that a lot of us marketers are most afraid of, and why we avoid doing webinars, because we've been sold to before. And yuck, it makes you want to take a bath sometimes. It almost feels like a bait and switch. Very often, it was very, very popular, thankfully not as popular these days, to run a webinar like this. You tell a sappy story for 50 minutes that really is engaging and emotional, and it gets the audience to cry. And then you sell them something in the last 10 minutes. And it's like, you didn't provide any value. There's no takeaways other than how much they need this thing that you have to offer, or else their life is going to be in crisis as well. And that, like, I actually went to some live events that pitched on stage like that, and I just like had to take two baths that day. It was bad. And I don't even take baths, I take showers. But that day, I needed to take a bath. But no, I don't want you to leave today feeling like when you put yourself out there, especially if you're going to be pitching something, that it feels wrong. In fact, there is a right way to do this in a way that is graceful, in a way that will have your audience thanking you and not being angry at you for offering something. And I'll teach you how I manage that a little bit later today.

Number four: I'm not sure how to deliver a valuable webinar. Uh, I think the best thing we can do is go over the framework and the process that I'm going to teach you because it will guarantee that a person who watches your webinar, whether they end up purchasing with you or not, will still get value. And that's huge. Because they, they might not purchase that particular webinar. We've had people who have watched a few of our webinars, five to six of them, and then purchased because it's taken people that long. And in some cases, for some industries, it can take multiple touch points. But this fast forwards that process so that you can hopefully help drive home the fact that you are the expert that they should learn from, that you have something that they can't get anywhere else, and that they trust you. Cool. Kathy says, "Yuck." What's up, Gonzo? Good to see you here. SharePoint Help Desk, uh, Azra, great to see you here. Gonzo, "Three months worth it, learn so much. Thank you, my man." I appreciate that.

All right, so let's move on to really what we're here to talk about. You know, the big idea or the goal of this webinar. In fact, I'm going to share with you exactly what we're going to go through today. So, what, here's what we're going to cover: Number one: A simple and powerful framework to run a quote-unquote perfect webinar. I've never held a perfect webinar, but as perfect as possible. This framework will help guide you in terms of how to set this up, the structure of it. I'm not going to get too granular with it, like the fifth slide needs to be this, but you're going to see a sequence that makes sense, and you're going to be able to adopt that for yourself as well.

Number two: A walkthrough of my number one most attended and most profitable webinar. I, like I said, we're so excited to share this because I don't often get to talk about webinars very often, and there's a lot of things that I've learned over time that I've put into the one presentation, and now all the rest of them that works really, really well. So I'm going to actually show you these slides and the way that I set up that presentation so that you can just kind of borrow and take it for yourself too, right? I want you to steal these ideas and use them for yourself. Obviously, just don't do the same presentation. Put your own style and voice into it for your own audience. But you're going to see the framework makes it very, very simple.

Number four: How to create engaging content that keeps people watching. And number five: How to sell on your webinars without being sleazy. Again, very, very important. Kathy says, "I'm personally a slow buyer. I'm more of a quick buyer, and that's probably not a good thing." But everybody's different, which is why we need multiple touch points, no matter what.

So, our goal today, my goal, is for you to leave this presentation with a new skill set, a new set of tools, if you will, um, that you can kind of bring up when the time is right. You might not, it might not make sense for you to run a webinar tomorrow, but you also might be coming out with a new product. You might be pitching something in the future and want a webinar to support that. I want you to be at least a little bit more confident when you go and do this. I want you to have some sort of structure so that when you form and create your own webinar or go live in front of an audience, and a lot of these tips, by the way, if any of you go live just in general, Gonzo, I know you go live once a week, um, a lot of these tips can be really helpful to holding an audience's attention, uh, and, and again, eventually down the road, potentially pitching something. And like I said, this is an open window into our course, A to Z Webinars, one of the dozen-plus courses that you can find inside of our All Access Pass. So, if you happen to be an All Access Pass member already, you'll already have access to this course. Um, shout out to all the, uh, AAP members who are in the chat right now.

Also, we are going to be hosting our next Accelerator. Our Accelerators are cohorts of students who, together with an instructor, go through our courses all at the same time. So you can get access to any of the courses if you're an All Access Pass member at any time. However, we like to run these cohorts of people. Shout out to Ashley, one of our team members who's in the chat right now, who sort of developed this program for us. It has been amazing. People have had a three to four times return, uh, or excuse me, scratch that. People are three to four times more likely to complete and finish a course when they go through it with our Accelerator. And that kickoff is actually later this week, on Thursday. So I'll talk more about that a little bit later. But the things I'm going to share with you are a small component of what we teach in that course. And over the course of those eight weeks, you might be ready to run your first webinar and even make it profitable, like some of our students have already.

All right, so if you're ready to get started, let me see your favorite emoji in the chat right now, just as a sign of life. And again, I thank you for all the conversations. I'm not looking at the chat as much as I want to right now because I'm going to go dive deep into this presentation. I don't know why I said it like that, but like I said, I'm going to be able to answer some questions at the very end for you. Chris is a lucky AAP member. Whoop, whoop! "Taking notes now," says Gonzo. Nice. "I'm in the process of creating many low-ticket offers. A webinar would be great on creating that." Yeah, even a webinar itself can be recorded, obviously, and used and reused in different kinds of ways. I know some people who use, uh, recordings of webinars as a lead magnet to drive people into their email list. I know a lot of people who use their workshops and webinars as packaged bonuses for when people purchase something. They get a bonus webinar that was once recorded and not available anywhere else.

All right, a bunch of emojis coming in. 200-plus people watching in the room right now about webinars. That is fantastic. I was expecting a much lower attendance rate today because webinars are so specific. But that just shows me you are driven to learn how this works. And in order to teach you this, I'm going to introduce you to POPEs. I know there's only one Pope at a time, and I'm not going to talk about the Popes. This is an acronym, and this is an acronym for the framework that I'm going to teach you today. And then I'm going to show you the example from our most profitable webinar. P stands for Promise. I'll tell you and define what these are in just a second. O stands for Oreo. So yes, this might be a sin, but I am using an acronym inside of an acronym. I don't know if that's a good thing, but it is what it is. Oreo: Process, Engagement, and Story. Okay. And this line right here is where, uh, the sort of division is. So the first three are part of the framework. The last two are things that should be included throughout the framework, right? So, sleeping Snorlax. Just to define, and for anybody who's new here, I see the numbers are going up in the chat. Anyway, a webinar is a more structured or even professional live stream. Live streams happen all the time, but this is, this is a webinar because it's surrounded around a topic. There is information and learning around this specific thing. There's often a registration process and a follow-up process. It's almost like an online seminar, if you will, um, and that's what a webinar is. But POPEs, Oreos, yes, exactly.

So let's go through these one by one. Number one is the Promise. And it's important that upfront, in your webinar, in your live stream, in your training, in your YouTube videos, you offer the promise of why this is even important in the first place. And I already started this conversation. I mean, this webinar itself, this is the little meta, if you might remember one of those slides from earlier. I said, "Why is a webinar important?" And then we went over that. It's important to establish the importance of what it is that you're about to share. What are the benefits of doing this? Why does this even matter? You have to, in the first few minutes of your presentation, start with that. That is going to be your hook for holding people for 30 minutes to 45 minutes to an hour. I even know some workshops and webinars that have run for several hours, but it's not going to be something people stick around on if they aren't sure exactly what they're going to get out of it, right? So, I promise you need to, you can even literally use those same words. "I promise that by the end of this presentation, I promise that webinars are important because attention spans are getting shorter, but if you can hold people and show that value for a longer period of time, you'll speed up that process." Trust, right? "I promise this is what you will unlock." This is another way to frame the promise. "By the end of this presentation, by the time you learn how to run a webinar, you're going to be confident in learning how to sell without being sleazy. You will unlock a new skill." Did you hear me say, "You will now have this new tool set or the ability to do something that other people in your space can't," right? So this is again, a second part of the promise that you are offering your audience. I think a lot of content marketers, we, we don't, for some reason, we don't offer that as much as we should in all of our content, right? We kind of just expect people to sit and watch and, and hopefully get value from this thing. But if you can set it up, it almost puts the pressure on you to make sure that you follow through and do that. And if you do, well, then it's a beautiful situation. People are thankful because you've fulfilled that promise, right?

The third part of this is, "This is what will happen if you don't." And this is a really important component because this is the amplification of the problem, right? Webinars are an incredible tool for you to be able to get in front of an audience, build trust faster, and potentially sell something that is of use to your audience. And it's a quick way to do that. However, if you aren't getting involved with webinars, you're missing out on the opportunity to build trust faster because everybody's trying to build trust and fight for attention on social media right now, right? Your competitors are probably showing up on webinars. And if two people, uh, were offering the same product, and one showed up on a webinar, and the other was just kind of sharing content on social media, which one do you think people are more likely to purchase from? The one that they've invested some time with to learn from and see that this person was a real expert on something, right? So two parts of the promise: "I promise this is what will happen if you stick around," but "I also promise this is what happens if you don't." Right? And there's a very fine line there, obviously. You don't want to fear-monger and say, "You know what? If you don't watch the rest of this webinar, bad things are going to happen." Don't, I mean, don't do that. But in many cases, you have to share the consequence of what would happen if a person doesn't learn this thing, right? And in some cases, um, it's easier than others, right? Uh, Lindsay, hold that question. I love that question. We'll have a lot of time at the end for that, for sure.

Okay, so that was the Promise. Right? Now let's talk about Oreos. So, Oreos, yummy, made up of different parts. But this is what this acronym is made of: Objection, Rebuttal, Example, Outcome. So, we talked about the promise. That's going to be the first part of your presentation. "I promise you, here's what this is about, this is why it's important, here's a little bit of proof on that." And then you get into the Oreos: the objections, the rebuttal, examples, outcome. What does this mean, Pat? This means that before you even begin teaching whatever it is that you're teaching, you have to get in front of the objections that your audience probably has, the fears, the challenges, the stories that they're telling themselves about why this stuff probably isn't going to work for them, right? So there's going to be a very clear example in the presentation I'm about to share with you, the behind-the-scenes of my most profitable webinar, where I clearly say things that are already on people's minds because they're afraid of starting a podcast, right? That's going to be the presentation. It's our podcasting presentation that has accounted for over $2 million in revenue. So I just wanted to share that with you. But when a person has the objection in their mind, and I want you to think about this right now, you don't have to type it in, just hypothetically think about it. If you were to teach something to a particular audience, what might be an objection that they have about why this probably wouldn't work for them, right? Um, well, I learned a lot of this from Ramit Sethi, from "I Will Teach You To Be Rich," because on his sales pages, in his conversations, inside of his YouTube videos, he will literally call you out and say, "You're probably thinking this isn't right for you," or "You probably think that buying a home is the right thing for you to do right now, but I'm about to tell you why that's not true." And he'll just kind of go right into what's in your head, and then he'll offer the other side of it. And again, I know I'm speaking hypothetically right now, but you will see the clear examples of Oreos that are just like snacks that the audience absolutely loves, right? So I'm going to share that with you. And then if you can share an example and an outcome of what another person who has had once those same thoughts, but then came out the other end, then basically what you're doing is you're getting rid of any sort of objections and stories a person's telling themselves so that they can be open to the information that you're about to share with them, but also open the idea of working even further with you. If you can nail what is in a person's head, right?

And do you remember what I started with? Remember that slide? Actually, I'm going to share it with you right now. I've already done this with you. You remember this? "What comes to mind when you think about running a webinar?" This is exactly an Oreo, or the start of it, at least, right? Here are the things that might be on your mind, and many of you confirmed that these were already on your mind. But what did I do? I offered a cushion on them. Yes, when I started, the technology was hard, but guess what? There are so many tools out there that that make this so easy. That's that's not even an issue anymore. Going live is intimidating, yes, but imagine going live and building trust faster than anybody else in your space. So I've already addressed a lot of these things specifically for the webinar with you as we were here, which is really cool. So again, I'm kind of running these things with you as we go. Very meta, because I'm teaching what I'm literally doing with you right now, anyway. I hope that makes sense. You will see a much more clear example of this when I go over the podcasting presentation with you in just a second.

All right, and then the Process. This is finally where you just, you teach a segment of what it is that you're teaching, right? So, in this case, I'm teaching you how to, uh, create and, and style a webinar so that you don't have to worry, so that you can be confident, so you can sell without being sleazy, right? There is a particular outcome. Is it everything that you need to know? Not everything, because there's going to be, "How do we get people to show up on these webinars? How do we get people to purchase from these webinars? How do, what's the follow-up email sequence look like?" Those are things that can be reserved for things like an online course or a follow-up workshop. In our case, it's the All Access Pass and our A to Z Accelerator that's going to be happening soon. But you want to make sure that no matter what, people can walk away and take home something of value from your webinar. You don't actually want to even teach too much because it could be overwhelming, right? It almost is an answer to the most common question, which in this case is, "How do I even create a webinar that can sell something without being sleazy?" Um, and they'll be able to, you'll be able to take home that information and even use it. However, in many cases, you're going to also potentially need more information. In which case, if you want to invest into us, you can. If you can find that information elsewhere, also good. But it's given you something that's helped you realize that this is possible and that you can do this, right? Cool. Feel like I'm learning how to pitch. Is that a webinar? That is a webinar, and I will teach you how to do that as well, specifically using a webinar. But we're about to get into the example really quick. But I also want to finish off with Engagement and Story.

Engagement. You've already seen us engaging. In fact, you can include specific things in your slides, in your presentation, to encourage people to engage. This is one of the biggest struggles that I see a lot of people who run webinars or do live streams do, is the way that they engage with their audience. It's one thing to just say, "Oh, hey, I see Tina in the audience, and she said, 'Love room meet.'" That's cool. I mean, that's great. You're talking to somebody or referencing them in the chat, which is fantastic. You're calling them by name, which is really important, right? But you've already seen some things that we've done to engage with you even more, to make engagement really easy. Let me go back and show you. This was the first slide of the day. "Type 'yes' if you've run a webinar before. Type 'no' if you have not." This is a very, very easy way to ask your audience to do something, right? Instead of just, "Hey, let me know in the chat if you've ever run a webinar or not. Tell me what that was like." I'm giving you very clear and explicit instructions. "Type 'yes' if this. Type 'no' if this." It's also very important that you want everybody to engage as well, because if I said, "If you've run a webinar before, type 'yes'," and just kind of moved on, well, everybody who didn't, didn't engage. So you want to make sure that when you engage with your audience, you get sort of both halves, if you will. And having them just type a number or put an emoji or, uh, type "yes" or "no" is a very, very easy way. It's so easy to engage, and it almost trains the audience as they've started to work with you in this presentation already to get used to typing and paying attention and realizing that this is going to be very interactive, right? Thank you, Mara. I appreciate that.

The other engagement. This one I've already shown this slide to you a couple of times, but this is very simple, and this is a great way to help the audience understand that, you know what, their mind is going through. Right? "Type one, two, three, or four." Some of you typed all of them. Some of you just typed one. And that's a great way to engage your audience as well. So including those kinds of things in your presentation as you go along, I would say every five to 10 minutes, if you are doing an hour-long presentation, at least have one way or one excuse for a person to type in something in the chat that matters to them based on a question or some sort of survey. Even if it's just like a breaking point in your presentation, and you say, "Hey, are you all with me? Everybody type 'yes' in the chat if you think you are ready for the example that I'm about to share with you." Even just something like that in the middle of a presentation, once every five to 10 minutes, can do a great job of holding people through and continually getting a person to, uh, feel and stay engaged with you. Cool. Pat's been meta since meta has been meta. Oh, even before that, but I like that.

And then finally, Story. Right? Story is key. Tell stories. You can start your training with stories. And the more that you understand the art and power of storytelling, the better the engagement and just your presentation's going to be, right? You don't have to tell stories the entire time, but the presentations that have done very well are ones that have included some story because stories relate. Stories help a person understand that you were just like them, or somebody else was just like them, that they're not alone, that there is a challenge, but also an outcome that can be positive, right?

So, let's go into this presentation. This is the most valuable webinar I've ever run. I'm just going to take you behind the scenes for the next 20 minutes here, and then we'll end with 10 minutes of Q&A. And then I'll share with you a little bit, uh, about our upcoming Accelerator, in case you need some direct help on writing a webinar for yourself as well. So, so I'm going to hide myself, and I'm just going to take you through this. And this webinar, again, has accounted for over $2 million in revenue, right? Not directly in terms of, "Oh, people watching the webinar then took out their credit cards to pay for a course." No, but it was a part of a process and a follow-up sequence. Most of the sales happen in the email sequence that happens after the presentation. That's when most of the sales come in. However, many people do purchase during the webinar as well because they're excited, they want to get in, and all that kind of stuff. So let's dive in. Y'all ready for this? Give me a thumbs up in the chat if you're ready to go. All right, just getting a little stretching. What I'm doing here is I'm creating a breaking point, sort of a reset. I'm going to start talking kind of behind-the-scenes conversation like, uh, so so that you can kind of get get a sense for what's going on in our heads. And these are the kinds of things that I teach inside of A to Z Webinar, which is really fun.

So, this is "Nine Strategies for Creating, Promoting, and Monetizing Your Podcast." So, obviously, this is a presentation that we've run for people who are interested in starting a podcast and also have a podcast, right? So, remember when I talked about engagement? This is exactly what I do to start the presentation. Real quick, in the chat, "Do you listen to podcasts? Yes or no?" And we get a bunch of "yeses." We get a bunch of "nos." And then I throw in some data. Data can be good to show kind of trends or how things are going. 53% of the population is listening to podcasts. It's great. I ask another question: "How many podcasts are you subscribed to?" And then we get a number of answers, right? We get anywhere between two to 200. Some people are subscribed to 200, which is absolutely bonkers, but it proves my point. Knowing that people subscribe to a lot of different podcasts. Look, even by answering the question, is an example. Look at the chat is already answering questions. This is the power of simply just being live and asking questions, especially on a slide. Yes, I could just simply ask these questions out loud, but the slide itself reinforces. And are these slides, like, really heavily designed? No, but it does ask for the answer. Yes or no. You've seen me do that either with numbers or literally different colored "yes" or different colored "no." This is how you can get a person who's watching just quickly type in something. And again, being engaged. Um, again, more data. "Average number of subscriptions per podcast." Here we go. "How long you listening for?" I get people to comment on that. And this then shows why podcasts are so powerful, right? Remember what I said earlier? Show people why this thing that you're teaching is important. This is my slide where I drive home that answer. People are reading blog posts for five to 10 minutes, on YouTube for three to five per video, on social media for a very short period of time per post. But on your podcast, if you had a podcast, you can have people listening to you for 30 minutes to an hour. And the cool thing about doing it in this way, in an engaging kind of way, I'm getting the audience to support my cause here, right? For those of you who are here, if you think about what it is that your audience is doing, or like, even just if, if I were to use you as an example, if you listen to a podcast and you're listening for hours, it's like you're proving my point that podcasts are something worth looking into. Remember the promise? "I promise this is something that is worth your time." And I'm using engagement to support that, right?

Next, I go into this very, very important, um, slide here. So I used an older picture of me to show you. This is from an older presentation. That's me without a beard, by the way. That's weird looking. Oh my gosh, the crow's feet just stand out like crazy. "Please reduce distractions around you and stay until the end." Three quick things. This is going to be interactive and fun. It's already proven that because I started with those really quick engagements. Those are also really good to put in the beginning because a big pet peeve of mine when a person starts a webinar, especially, is they go live and they go, "Hey, welcome. We're live, and we're going to wait a few more minutes until we get started, and just saying hello to a few people, and we'll wait for more people to come in." That's disrespectful to people who were there early. Just go into the content. But I didn't get into the meat of the content yet, right? I went into engagement for people who are already there. People are coming in, or seeing people typing already. The chat is active. It's a really smart thing to do to get people to start being active upfront so that people, as they're coming in a little bit late, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I've missed some stuff. Like, I got to tune in now, right?" Cool. Um, so this slide here preps people for what's to come. So this is interactive and fun. I've already proven that you're going to learn a lot, and there will be Q&A at the end. You always want to address when the questions are going to be answered. It might be at the end, it might be during. I like to hold the questions and answers to the end so that I can stay in the flow, but it's really up to your style. I'm not saying, uh, one way is better or not. And then the third one here is really, really important, and this is where we start our pitch. Are we pitching our product here? No, but we're letting people know that something is coming. And I was a little reluctant, reluctant to do this at first when I learned about this strategy. I was like, "No, I don't want to let people know I'm selling something at the end." Like, they're already going to leave. But remember, I've already talked about why this is important. We've already reinforced why this topic is key and why people should stick around to the end. So therefore, I can insert a little, "Hey, by the way, this isn't, you heard me say this already. And I would advise using the same language. This is an open window into what we sell in our course, inside the All Access Pass, A to Z Webinars. And you're about to get actually some lessons for free right now, and you can watch it and take it home with you. However, at the very end, if you're interested in working with us a little bit more, I do have a special offer. So stick around for that." Now, nobody could ever say that I've blindsided them with a pitch, right? Because I've literally been honest and upfront here. This is what you're about to learn is an open window inside of our course. That's perfect language. I use that all the time, right? And if you'd like to work with us more, you might be able to take home exactly what you learn here and use it. But if you feel like you needed some additional help, we have some, uh, resources for you there too, and I'll tell you more about that at the end, right? Don't spend too much time on that, but bring that to light, surface that, so it doesn't become a bait and switch anymore, right? Very, very key, very intentional. And then you move on.

Here's some more engagement that happens. This also helps me survey the audience as well. Remember when I asked you one, two, three, or four, which one of these were you? I'm doing something similar here. "Which one of these are you?" "I'm here because I heard about this thing called podcasting and I'm here to learn more about it." "I know about podcasting, I need to do it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet." "I've started podcasting, but I'm not getting the results I want." "I'm a podcasting pro, but could always use a few more tips." Or number five: "It's hot outside, right?" I added that last one. It's a joke. It's fun to add a little bit of humor here and there, just kind of to, to, you know, engage with the audience, to throw them off a little bit, but also just have some fun. But the reason why this slide is important is because I can get a sense of who's in the room, um, and this is really key too, that I've covered the entire ground. I've covered people who just heard of podcasting, um, all the way through pros. But I also say at this point, "Whether you are a beginner or you are a seasoned pro, you're going to walk away with some tips that you've probably never heard of before." I don't say specifically what those tips are, but again, I address all the people. I cast a wide net of people who are there. And you can probably see based on the numbers and the survey that you run, again, press a number. That's all they got to do. They, they don't have to type anything else. You'll get more answers that way, right? Do you see how much easier that is to get people to engage when they're with you? Anybody who's live, you could like, not even in a webinar, you could spend a few minutes on Canva creating a slide to show, and you can show choices, like a multiple choice. You're going to...

get way more engagement in that way and learn some stuff from your audience at the same time, right? And see, there's even people putting numbers in the chat right now. I didn't even ask you to. Just, you are meant to do that.

Um, so anyway, this slide's really key because it shows me, but it also allows me to say, "Hey, it doesn't matter which one of these you are, you're going to get some stuff." I'm going to teach you both beginner stuff to help reinforce what those things might be, the basics, the foundational items that some of you pros may have forgotten, but also for you beginners, I'm going to teach you some advanced stuff that's going to help you fast forward your success. So again, you could see how I can kind of capture everybody's attention here, right?

Now, what I'm about to do is paint a picture of their future, right? And if you might remember in this presentation, I shared with you some slides about my email growing some spikes in emails. I showed you some numbers and revenue coming from webinars, right? That's painting a picture of the of your future and what that might look like, right?

So, how do I do this in this podcasting presentation? Well, I have people imagine. Metaphors are an incredible tool, and the more that you can use metaphors in your content, the better. This is where I start. I say, "I want you to imagine being in a room with 30 people and you're there at the front of the stage." That's a lot of people to be speaking in front of. But when you have a podcast, that's kind of what it's like. You have your own stage and you're talking in front of people. But it's not just 30 people. As you grow, it might be hundreds of people, it might even be a thousand people. And that's you. That's you right there on your podcast in front of an audience with their attention. So you see how a metaphor of the stage works really well for a podcast? And if you could start with a metaphor to help people understand exactly what they're about to do and what's possible, even better.

Next, I go into proof that I have done this as well. This is important. People are going to want to know, "Okay, this all sounds great, Pat, but like, do you know about podcasting? How much have you gotten involved in this?" You need to know that you need to tell them a little bit about yourself. Be a little cocky. Share your expertise, your accolades, the things you've achieved around this, so that people, when they ask the question, "Is this person even worth learning this stuff from?" you're kind of addressing that right here, right?

So, I share that I have this food trucker podcast that had 900 downloads per episode. I also share that I had this SPI podcast that has over 115,000 downloads per episode, right? And then I start to talk about, "Okay, well, the beauty of a podcast is it feels very personal. When a person puts those earbuds in their phone, it's just you and them." So, I want you in the chat to tell me what your podcast is going to be about, if you know what that podcast is and you have a name for it, or if you have one already, type it in the chat.

And this is where again, another set of engagement comes in. I'm painting a picture of their future. So, in your case, with whatever it is that you're teaching, find an engagement opportunity for people to tell you what their future looks like if they were to actually do this thing. So, classic one I've seen when I've been on some webinars about weight loss and and and fitness, um, are, you know, "Hey, what, what would life look, what would you be able to do if you were to lose, able to lose 20 or 30 pounds in the next few months? What would that open up for you? What activities would you, would you want to do?" Or they might even go as far as saying, like, "What will you no longer be embarrassed about?" Oh my gosh, that is a powerful question in the realm of health and fitness because they know that that is a on a person's mind, right? So painting a picture of the future again helps to further amplify the whole reason why we're here and the excitement around the content that's about to be shared.

And then I go over, just like I did with you today, here's the roadmap for today, right? I'm not going to go over these one by one, but I will share the last one here. Last one, excuse me. This last one here, which I'm covering monetization in the realm of podcasting. People want to know how to generate money from it. It is a very hot topic. It is a very in-demand topic. And it's something people want to know, which is exactly why I put it to the very end, right? This may seem a little bit, you know, it is a tactic, but you have to understand that in order for me to help a person get to that monetization point, I have to teach them these other things as well. But at the same time, I also know that this is going to hold people. So if I save some of my best stuff to the very end and I talk about that up front, "Hey, also, if you stick around to the end, I'm going to share with you exactly how I generate revenue for my podcast."

And my most profitable podcast ever, didn't I say that here at the beginning of this presentation? "I'm going to share with you behind the scenes of my most profitable webinar ever, right?" If you're a photographer, you might say, "Hey, I'm going to, um, share all these things with you. Also, at the end, I'm going to share with you my number one filter that I use for all of my photos that makes these photos look like just classic." I don't know if that's the right thing to say, but you know what I mean.

Gathering info to further help them by allowing them to define their own successful outcome. Good, says B, uh, Bernade. Yes, these are very, these kinds of tips and and tactics aren't really shared very often, which is again, why I was so excited about today's presentation because I don't get to talk about this stuff very often. But it makes sense for the webinar, right? It is a hook, right? Another version of a hook, another open loop that I'm creating. Hey, here's this monetization tactic. Now that I know that you want that, now you'll probably, or at least be more likely to stick around to the end or catch the replay.

And then, of course, the goal. What is the goal of this presentation, right? I shared this with you earlier, to give you another skill set or a tool that you can use in your arsenal when you market something, when you pitch, when you want to build your email list. In this presentation, the podcasting one that I'm demoing right now, to teach you my best information about podcasting. You can make smart decisions as you move forward, right?

And here is the Oreo. So remember, Oreo: Objection, Rebuttal, Example, Outcome. So I started with the promise. We did some things to paint a picture of their future, to reinforce why I am the person that I should be teaching this to you. But more than that, we are now getting into the Oreos. The objections. What are the stories that people who want to start a podcast are telling themselves that stopped them from wanting to start a podcast? Well, I go right into it. Myth number one. I call them myths, right? I call them myths. They can be objections. They could be, um, limiting beliefs, as some people call them. You can call them whatever you want. But again, we're trying to get in front of our audience so that they can then be open to receiving the information we're about to share with them.

If a person already feels like they have to be a natural-born speaker or storyteller, then nothing I tell them about podcasting is going to make sense if they don't believe that they are a natural-born storyteller or interviewer. So this is myth. I call them myths here in this presentation. Myth number one: You might think that you have to be a natural-born speaker or storyteller. And you know what? I thought about that too. Remember what I said about storytelling? This is where the first story comes in because I share a story from December 2008 when I purchased a whole bunch of equipment and then I waited until July 2010 to get started because I was so scared. I was not a great communicator. I didn't know how to speak very well. I've never done it before on a microphone, especially. But you know what? I overcame those objections. I got some help and I started podcasting. And then I created five different podcasts. And as a result of that, I've gotten invited on stage. Here I am at Podcast Movement. As a result of my podcast, I've been able to connect with Gary Vaynerchuk. Outcome, outcome, outcome, right? So I'm taking an objection. I'm going, "No, you're wrong. You are wrong. Here's proof." And in this case, it's proof from me. It could be proof from somebody else, which you'll see in the second myth, right?

So, objection. Remember, think about the story your audience is telling themselves that is the excuse for why they can't do this. Get in front of that and basically call them out on it and say they're wrong, right? Here's revenue that has happened since starting the podcast. Here are fans that have been sending me mail as a result of the podcast. If I didn't get started, none of this would have happened. And I was not a natural-born story, story teller. So no, that is not true.

Next myth: You have to podcast in a big niche to succeed. How do I know that these are the things that people were talking about themselves, or excuse me, telling themselves that were stopping them? Because I had conversations with them. If you don't know what these objections are, first of all, you might know what these objections are because you are speaking to an earlier version of yourself before you were able to figure out how to solve these problems and overcome these challenges, right? So you might already know what these objections are. But if you don't have conversations and ask, "What's stopping you from blank? What's the number one challenge related to blank? Why haven't you yet blank?" Get those answers and now you can just regurgitate them in this format, in an Oreo: Objection, Rebuttal, Excuse, Outcome.

So here is an objection. A person might say, "Oh, well, I'm not in a big niche, and so I'm probably, it's probably not worth my time to," um, or ask AI. That's a great question, Marsha, but verify those as well. Um, well, how do I solve this one? Well, here is the rebuttal. "Oh, you think you have to podcast in a big niche to succeed? Okay, well, um, here is Phil Linberger, who is a student, uh, he is a person who took our PowerUp Podcasting course, and he has a podcast called Scanner School. It's not a big audience. It's people who have a, a love and are in the hobby of those handheld radio scanners, which is like an ancient technology at this point. But that's his love and his hobby. And guess what? After 24 episodes, after going through our course, check this out. He has super fans now. He has people who listen to every podcast and who follow him and who conversate with him. Conversate, anyway."

So, I'm sharing the results of somebody else who is in a small niche, basically disproving anybody who thought that they needed to podcast in a big niche to succeed. What have I also done during this example? During this example, in the Oreo, remember the objection: "I have to podcast in a big niche or else it's not going to be worth my time." Rebuttal: "It was worth Phil's time, who's in a very small niche, and look at him now. He's got super fans. He's having conversations with companies, getting people to send him free stuff. He's building an audience." Show the example. Show the outcome.

What else am I doing at this very moment? I mentioned that Phil was a student of my course. I didn't say, "This is why you should buy my course." I'm showing an example of a successful student. So when you share these objections, if at all possible, you could take a success story of somebody who has overcome that particular objection, and it's one of your own students. By the end of this presentation, you will no longer even have to feel like you're actually selling anything because you've already planted these seeds all along the way that your course, your program, your coaching, your software, your service is worth the time. Kathy says, "Letting your students sell for you with their stories and testimonials." Exactly, exactly.

Show a testimonial. How do you do that when you're just starting? Get a result from somewhere. I talk about this one-on-one strategy. Find one person who has one problem and help them get one result. Then you can tell that story. You can share that story. If you don't have that yet, go out and find that person. Go get it. It's going to be worth so much to you, not just because you'll have that testimonial, but you'll also unlock that confidence when you're teaching this stuff because you now have real proof that this stuff works versus the inside voice that we have, the objection, the imposter syndrome that often comes when you're a first-time seller, right? Cool. And you don't need that many people in order to have a lot of these different kinds of examples.

Okay, let's keep going here. Myth number three: You have to have an audience already, right? Before you start a podcast. Not true. Sophie Walker. Again, another example who is a student. I don't, I don't like having big words. She's a student of my course, therefore you need to get in as well. I just talk about it very naturally. Sophie Walker started a podcast called Australian Birth Stories. That is now actually part of a prerequisite for certain nurses in Australia to listen to her show, and they get continual education credits for listening to her show. And she didn't start with anything. No email list, nothing. And I have some proof. I got testimonials. And you can see she's now number one on the charts. How could this not just be inspirational for people who had that objection, but also be confirm that, "Okay, Pat, you must, you've got to be the person to learn this stuff from, right?" Yep. Cool.

Then I go over a couple more. "You can't make money until you get big, big listenership." Podcast. And, and, and, and this one is my transition, right? This, this is not necessarily something you have to do, but it kind of helps me transition into what is now the, uh, actual meat of the presentation, which is podcasting. Myth number five: Podcasting is easy. That's not true for most people. It's hard, which is why they have tried to start. Maybe you've tried to start too. But you know what? I'm going to make this easier for you because we're about to dive into the how-to as far as starting a podcast. And if you're ready to get started, show me your favorite emoji in the chat right now. Boom. Emojis. I've kind of reset. We're moving on from the myths and objections into the meat of the content now.

And that's where I get into this. I'm not going to go too far into this. You know, I share different quotes. I share different examples. Microphones they should use. Um, you know, how to create compelling content. All this stuff. I'm not going to go over this right now. As you can see, the slides are just kind of there to help guide along the way. I'm teaching. I am teaching. I'm teaching. I'm showing different examples. I'm telling stories along the way. This presentation is, in fact, live on YouTube in case you want to actually go and, you know, analyze this a little further. But I've set this up. This is just, I'm just teaching various things that I promised I was going to teach in the beginning of this presentation, showing different examples. I actually do a live demo as well, which isn't always possible depending on the niche. But I show a live demo of how to find a Facebook group to then go and connect with the Facebook owner so that you, or Facebook group owner, so that you can interview them and they would then push out your show.

Here comes the end of the presentation where I talk about monetization. Um, "Do this, not that." Again, these are just, this is just normal teaching, right? That I'm going over here. And as you saw, I've been able to sort of switch between just me and you talking to then sometimes the slides. That is a more advanced strategy to just continually engage. If you don't have that capability, if you're just presenting on Zoom and it's just a slide, as long as you're showing up somewhere and people can see your face every once in a while, that's really key to help them remind you or to help you remind them of who's talking and who's teaching, right?

Also, give me a thumbs up in the chat if you're getting some good value here today, learning some new stuff that you haven't really learned before. This webinar stuff can be complicated, but I'm trying to simplify a lot of it for you and show you the bigger things, the bigger levers, uh, levers that, uh, work. Okay. So again, we're at the monetization part of this presentation, which is again, held to the very end because that's a very big topic. At the end of every presentation, we're going to go back, back, and sort of transition now into the pitch. The pitch can be very scary. And I used to like sweat leading up to when the pitch was going to happen, knowing that I was going to potentially see the pitchforks come out as soon as I say, "Oh, by the way, I have a course to sell." Or have this thing.

Remember in the very beginning of our presentation, we said, "Hey, by the way, this is an open window to a lot of the information and stuff that we teach in our course, which is for sale, called XYZ." So PowerUp Podcasting, in the case of this demo presentation that I'm sharing with you. And you're going to walk away from, uh, this presentation with some incredible things that you can actually implement right away. However, if you know that you might need some additional help, well, we're there for you. And I have a special offer for you at the end in case you want to go and work further with us. Boom. I've mentioned that upfront. Therefore, it reduces the anxiety that comes with when I finally mention the pitch.

But I don't just go, "Okay, and that was a presentation. Now let me sell you something." That's not how it works. I always transition into this way. And if you've been on my presentations before and have watched these webinars, I'm basically revealing the secrets here. I ask two questions. The first question I ask is this. So when I finish the meat of the content and I want to transition into the sell, I ask this to the very engaged audience now because I've trained them to type, I've trained them to engage. They are very, very kind of, you know, and even if not everybody types, I mean, some of you watching this right now, it just might be lurking. Um, and again, if you're, if you have a replay, they can't obviously chat or engage with you, which is why it's important to call out answers in the chat so that even though a person's watching a replay, they know that there still was a live chat and you're still interacting with them and sort of by proxy interacting with a person watching the replay as well.

Okay, uh, Kathy says, "I so appreciate mentioning the offer in the beginning so it doesn't feel slimy." Yes. So, I mean, the idea is you mentioned it in the beginning, you drive hard value, and almost kind of earn the right to share a little bit for anybody who wants to learn more, right? But I start with this question: "What was the most useful thing you learned today?" Because then the type, then the chat types, right? Like Marsha here is already typing, "I learned better engagement strategies." Wonderful. And you get a whole bunch of people typing, right? Um, and it doesn't even have to be much. You can call out just one person who does it, right? I can say, "Oh, Marsha learned today, uh, how to better engage, uh, with her audience, and that's amazing. Engagement is key." Blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. So you're essentially having the live audience that's there watching your webinar prove that your content was useful, that they've gotten value out of it. So nobody could ever then say, "This was like, I didn't learn anything in here, and now you're starting to sell me stuff." No, look at the chat. Everybody's saying that they've learned something here today, right? So this kind of again, deflates any anxiety you might have about the fact that, "Okay, people didn't get value from the presentation today," which is again, important.

And then here's slide number two: "May I have permission to talk more about where you can get more?" And when I learned about this, it was so powerful because I'm like, "You're asking your audience permission for the pitch." And they were like, "Yeah." I learned this from Shelene Johnson. I learned this from a few other people. And they're like, "If people give you permission, you're going to be so excited for it." And 100% of the time, after delivering value, I've had yeses in the chat. Sometimes it goes crazy. Sometimes it's just one or two people. If it's one or two, that's fine. Just call them out. "Oh, Joey said yes. Okay, Joey, and anybody else who might be interested, this is for you. We have PowerUp Podcasting." And then I get into the pitch. And I'm not going to go deep into what is included in the pitch today. That's, uh, for those of you who take advantage of our workshop and our accelerator coming up. But I wanted to give you a bird's-eye perspective of the presentation today, right? We started with the purpose, the Oreo, and then the process, right? PO. And then include engagement. Tell better stories along the way. That's sort of the framework for the presentation. I showed with you the behind-the-scenes examples of what it was like in our most profitable presentation. And a lot of you have already called out the things that you already already seen that transition into the pitch can be made so smooth and so without confrontation if you run it in that way, right?

Number one: "What was the most valuable thing you learned today?" The chat's going. They're proving to you that you've actually showed up and provided value, such that then opening up the opportunity for you to talk about something that is for sale. And if you ask permission and people say yes, amazing, right? So those questions, one more time: "What was the most useful thing you learned today?" The way that you do this makes people want to hear about the pitch because I actually want to find out about the course. I always thought it was weird to ask for permission. What if no one says yes? If no one says yes, you, you do it anyway. Um, you might even transition like, "I've never had that, uh, be a problem." But the way that you might transition, let's just hypothetically say nobody said yes. You might say, "All right, there might be some of you who are lurking who might be really excited about this opportunity, even if you're watching the replay, and you feel like this is right for you." You've now transitioned out of the people who are there live and into people who may be watching the replay or may be lurking. And that way, you just kind of imagine that they said yes, right? Um, that never happens if you do all the other things properly, especially provide that value. People will always say yes. Um, and that's the cool thing. Now, the chat, even people who might have been, I don't know, Pat, they see other people say yes, then they can't get mad at you for continuing, right? So yes.

Um, so ADC webinars, like I said earlier, is a course that any of you who are in the All-Access Pass already have access to. Some of you have already gone through it, which is really amazing, and I've seen some incredible results from students, uh, which is, which is really fun. And it does walk you through a lot more detail. In fact, if I were to show you, uh, the website here, um, you can actually see the different sections. So equipment, software, pre-webinar setup, how to promote your webinar, all the way through going live, how to sell, follow-up, how to create an evergreen webinar, how to use ads to promote your webinar, should you get to that point, which is really fun. So those are the different sections of the course.

And we are running an accelerator this week. The kickoff is on Thursday, which is really exciting. Ashley's here, and she can answer some more questions about it. But our accelerators are when people run through our course with other students, with an instructor, with access to office hours, and going through just chunks at a time. They've had a three times more likelihood of actually completing the course and seeing results. This has happened across our YouTube From Scratch accelerator, our Email Marketing accelerator, our Online Course accelerator. And this is our very first time running our webinar accelerator because people have been asking for it. And I'm so excited about that because this is where we can start to begin to see real results, especially if you have something for sale or if you're just trying to build your email list, you can actually see results sooner than later with a course like this one.

And so, let me tell you a little bit about what's coming up very soon. So with the, the All-Access Pass, in case you don't know what this is, this was something that was built in 2020-2. And instead of selling you just individual courses, we put them all together into one membership that gives you access to a dozen plus, uh, plus the community as well. You get the community of active, like-minded entrepreneurs like you. You get access to Team SPI, my office hours, other office hours as well. You get guided pathways through things. So, for example, if you want to start a podcast, we have a series of courses that you can take that are all in sequential order for you to go through, so you never get lost. And finally, like I said, our accelerators, our cohorts of students who work through a particular course together at the same time with instructors. And our next one is for A to Z webinars, our very first time running an accelerator through A to Z webinars, which is really, really exciting.

You can see our courses there inside of the All-Access Pass right now. These courses individually used to cost hundreds of dollars each. We used to sell A to Z webinars for $4.9 or $4 and, uh, $499. And, uh, we decided to make it easier for people to get access to this and other courses. So we now offer access to all those things for what is the equivalent of just $66 per month or $199 per quarter. So this is a very, very, very big deal because it's absolutely a steal compared to what it once was. And we had a lot of people purchasing those one-off courses but getting no help, no access to community, just on their own. And they were doing pretty well. But now with a three times more likelihood to go through, like through an accelerator at a much cheaper price, the barrier to entry is lower. And as long as we continue to provide value for you, um, you can remain in. And if we're not, then you can leave. There's no, like, we don't make that difficult.

So the accelerator for A to Z webinar starts this Thursday, July 11th. That's the kickoff call. And then you begin your 10-week program where you just take it a chunk at a time. Ashley and some of the team will be guiding you through that process. And we'll be there as a resource. We'll allow for office hours and questions to be answered each week about the lessons and modules that you're going through. And if you sign up today, you can get in the next cohort. And all you have to do is go right here. And that is smartpassiveincome.com/atoz. Again, that's smartpassiveincome.com/atoz. That's A, T, O, Z. And A to Z webinars. If you have over there, again, this is what it'll look like. And all you need to do is head over to the All-Access Pass here.

Some of you are already in Pro as well, which is our higher-level membership for those who have established businesses and want to have more in-depth conversations and masterminds and those kinds of things. You also get access to everything in the All-Access Pass as well. If you are in SPI Pro, as well, you're fine. Like you can get in and just sign up for the accelerator. It's at no extra cost on top of the membership fee. Just the accelerators are built into the program. And you can choose the ones that you want to participate in, which is, which is really fun. Uh, somebody I want to call out really quick is our good friend Stephen. Steve is somebody who is a Pro member who ended up taking a number of our accelerators and then also experienced his first launch. And he used a webinar to live stream on YouTube to run his first launch, which helped him earn over $165,000 in his first launch, which was super, super cool. So he's left this amazing testimonial for the All-Access Pass. And if you weren't convinced yet, Steve, uh, has a lot to say about what it's done for him, which is amazing. Um, and webinars were a part of his process as well, which is really, really cool.

So, um, here's where you need to go: smartpassiveincome.com/atoz. And I'm here to help you. And I also want to answer some questions. I saw some questions in the chat. We'll spend the next five minutes going through those. "It's actually a really good price," says Kathy. "Thank you so much. I like this method and offer." Thank you, Mara. Yeah, we, we're trying to take the lead in in the space that we're in and remove ourselves from the idea of, "Here's a course about this one thing and you have to pay a load of money for it," versus, "Join this community." And although we might not be making as much revenue upfront from selling it in this way, our goal is to keep you engaged and keep you here by continually adding value to you as you grow as an entrepreneur. So if you finish A to Z webinars, for example, and you're like, "Great, I need to learn how to build my email list a little better." Well, then you can go to Email Marketing Magic or find any of these other pathways into different parts of the process. Maybe you want to start building your audience using a podcast or go into YouTube. You can go from one thing to another. And if you have any questions or you feel like you're lost, our team is there to support you, which is unlike these other programs where you can get, it's just like, "Okay, you now have access. Good luck." And that's how we used to do it. But in order for us to best provide value to our audiences, is the way that we need to go.

"What do you use to make slost your courses?" So I use two different tools to make, um, the programs, or excuse me, the slides for recording that will then be a part of these programs. So I use Canva, uh, and I use Keynote for those kinds of things. But as far as where we host our courses, we used to host them on Teachable, which is where we still recommend you host if you just have one or two courses. But if you're going to start to build a community out and start to want to kind of create an environment around not just the content, but the people that are within it, then we use Circle. So we're using Circle to host our accelerator and our programs and our communities as well.

Let's see. "My question, what about, did you learn something today?" "My question, what about, did you learn something today?" Give a thumbs up versus what was most valuable? Because this lets them answer quick rather than thinking. Yeah, I mean, you could do both. Shark point. I understand the question. But this is where we want to get specific for what a person. This is again, at the very end, when we want the audience itself to prove that there was value here today, thus then opening up more of an opportunity to then pitch into something, right? Because you actually did provide value. Now it's like, "Okay, now you can have permission to pitch something." Uh, getting the specifics can be really key. And if you've done enough engagement, especially thumbs up or emojis or type this number or type yes or no during the presentation, you are more likely to get exactly what a person might be thinking is most valuable. And as you saw earlier, people were typing that out with no problems. And I think that's important too for you because you can go back to these webinars and watch them later and look at the chat. And that part of the presentation is going to be extremely key because you can begin to understand what parts of the presentation people really, really enjoyed the most. And you can lean into that a little bit more. You can, uh, start to include clips or pull out and create written text around those parts that then insert themselves into emails for people who are watching the replay, right? So a person who maybe didn't catch it live, you might be able to understand and pull out the best parts that the live audience saw and then sort of relay that to the person who might be on the other end via email, who then might feel intrigued enough to go and watch the replay.

"How do I go about getting people to download my podcast?" Uh, there's a lot to that. I mean, that's a different presentation and a different, and, and, and, and we, we've talked about that quite a bit, uh, in other webinars and we do talk about it a lot in SPI. However, I will say really quickly that people need a reason to click. So it's important to have either a title that really intrigues people, or have a guest that really kind of excites your audience, um, or you've built a relationship enough with them elsewhere to get them to a point to want to click to hear more, right? So this is where, uh, short-form content or video could even play a role in that. But more than that, I think it's important that you have a topic that a person can't help but click on when they come across that, very similar to to YouTube.

"I love the idea of All-Access Pass, but what do you use to host all of that?" So that is going to be Circle. We use, we use Circle for that.

Question from Tim: "Do you use these strategies with paid or free Zoom workshops?" So with a free workshop, this is where you do this. But you can also use a lot of these strategies for paid workshops. I have some people who will, um, they'll host lower-priced webinars, right? So in of itself, that's pretty interesting because you can filter and know that those people who are on there paid because they want an outcome and they have a certain idea of what they're going to get. So there will be less setup required for those as far as like, "Here's the promise and here's all these things." I mean, you still want to include those things in a paid workshop. But in general, a paid workshop has a very clear outcome that people are paying for, and you want to make sure you highly deliver on that. In fact, overdeliver. But you can use a lot of the same strategies to then pitch into a bigger program or coaching or a mastermind group or whatever it is that you might have that might be higher ticket. In fact, a lower level or low price ticket item is a great stepping stone to a much higher ticket item, and a webinar could be a great version of that. So you can use a lot of the strategies for both.

Denise says, "What if you're new to this? Don't have any subscribers yet. How do you get people to turn up?" So we do talk about this a lot inside of A to Z webinars, especially if you're just starting out. Yes, you can run ads and those kinds of things. But I think it's important to get involved and get in front of audiences that are there in sort of different kinds of communities. And the understanding that you don't need hundreds of people to get started. What if you just held a webinar for 10 people, right? Because you can engage with those people. No, you're not going to get as much engagement, obviously. However, you can reuse that replay on several different places. You can take clips from it. You can reuse it on TikTok and Instagram and, um, and, uh, Shorts. Uh, you can use that as a bonus. You can use that at least as a way for you to then pull out what parts are most interesting so that you can talk about those more on the front end and then perhaps collect more people on an email list to then drive them toward your next webinar after that.

Marsha says, "You mentioned follow-up on webinar. How do I follow up after a webinar?" This is where the idea of collecting registrants upfront can matter a lot. Um, a little bit more difficult if you just host and keep everything on YouTube. This is why leading up to our YouTube presentations, we have a registration form that we talk about quite a bit. We share it via our newsletter. We share it on social media to have people register and sign up for reserving their seat ahead of time. And no, there isn't really like a limited number of seats, but just that language alone helps a person want to make sure they get notified and get up to date for when this thing is happening and to make sure they don't miss it. And this is where we then follow up. Um, we could probably do a better job on this end of saying, "Hey, if you're here and you want a follow-up process, or if you want more, if you want the free gift, or whatever it might be, subscribe here." We do have that for some of our presentations where within the presentation itself, there's a reason for people to sign up to get something. Therefore, then we have their contact to follow up with them. But again, the follow-up process and the entire sequence from the five-day email sequence or whatever it is, depends on what you're selling or if you're selling anything. Uh, if you have, um, if you're just doing this to build an email list, there's still a follow-up process required to help continue that engagement, to collect feedback, to do a better presentation the next time, etc.

"Let's see, if you have an email list of followers, how many people would you suggest offering a live webinar?" I think you could, uh, offer the live, live webinar to everybody in general. You're going to have a very small percentage of people on your email list actually show up live. Um, I mean, we have nearly 100,000 people on our email list, and we had concurrently at most, I think, 250 people watching today. But overall, we're going to have a lot larger percentage of people watch the replay, which is great. Um, but, uh, I would offer that to everybody. And again, with the understanding that many people will watch it after the fact, is is really key.

Uh, let's see. "Do you ever expire the replay? Why or why not?" Also consider you're doing the same webinar regularly. Um, yes, doing the same webinar regularly makes sense, especially if you, uh, learn to fine-tune it. Um, if you are continually getting new people to join your email list that you then bring those people into a webinar. We, uh, in, I know Johnny Dumis, for example, from Entrepreneurs on Fire, ran his webinar for a couple years weekly, the same webinar every single week. And he just got better and better and better at it. But he was pushing people into that webinar from ads, knowing that there was a higher return on the other end. So in that sense of the case, it made sense. But he also got better and better with it over time. Um, it can make sense to expire a replay so that people can just focus on the call to action to join the program or join the accelerator or some course or or or or coaching that you might be doing. Um, and that is often a, that that's more of an advanced strategy to create urgency, right? "Hey, this replay expires, so you better watch it." And we do take them offline sometimes. But for our webinars and our continual viewing of these videos on YouTube, we found it more beneficial to just keep them up. But it's going to be dependent on a case-by-case basis.

All right, last question here, uh, from English with Megan: "How much time in advance do you recommend scheduling?" Great question. I would recommend at least three to four weeks in advance. Uh, any longer than two months, though, you start to get people to sign up and register and then kind of forget, um, or you're going to have to continually send them emails about the thing that they signed up for that isn't happening quite yet. So I would say, you know, three to four weeks, um, is ideal because then each week you can have, um, some really good information and hype people up, get, get people excited excited about coming. And then that webinar week, you'd have a couple emails. And of course, on webinar day, you'd have an email to let people know where to go and what to look forward to. And all these things are strategies to get people to make sure they they show up. Uh, and then of course, following up with those people on a replay anyway.

This has been so much fun. It's, I love going behind the scenes and the stuff that we do here. And I don't talk about webinars very often, so I'm really excited to see a lot of you already sign up to the program and to get access to the All-Access Pass and our SPI accelerator because our next one is happening and kicking off this Thursday for A to Z webinars. And if you want some handholding and help along the way, you want to chunk it across the next 10 weeks and get some help and some advice and guidance, we got your back. Thank you to all the blue names in the chat, my team for supporting today, and, uh, I appreciate that. So, got to head out. It's lunchtime. I know you got stuff to do. But I'm glad we spent some time, a little extra at the end here, to answer some questions. And good luck. If you're in the accelerator, I look forward to seeing you in there. And, uh, make sure to sign up by Wednesday so that you can get in on the kickoff call and just introduction on Thursday. And then you start your work next week. All right, thank you, everybody. Appreciate you. Take care. Bye.