Improving Webinar Sales

Transcription of Episode

Ryan: Hey, this is Ryan Chapman with FixYourFunnel and today I have the privilege of having one of my good friends, Robert Vance, on.

[00:00:05] Robert, let's just dive right into it because I don't think anybody wants to have me ramble on for too long before we get started.

[00:00:13] How did you get into marketing automation?

[00:00:15] That's always a fascinating question to me because it's not- I mean, for those people that are in it or that maybe have been Infusionsoft users for a long time, something like that, it seems like everybody should know about it, but it's actually not very common.

[00:00:28] We kind of get used to the fact that we know about it. How did you learn about marketing automation?

[00:00:33] Robert: Well, I mean for me it started way back in 2010. I was doing some stuff where I was selling high-end, luxury real estate so I wanted to build a list.

[00:00:44] Back then, I got involved with a couple people and they recommended Infusionsoft and I was like, "Okay, what's this Infusionsoft thing?"

[00:00:54] I started looking at it. Back then it was complicated didn't have campaign Builder back then so, I got involved with it and started using it a little bit and then I ended up closing that company and going back to Corporate America and doing stuff with them.

[00:01:10] And then around 2012 I decided to do some more online marketing stuff and I'd use Infusionsoft in the past. And so I got Infusionsoft again. In hindsight I wish I'd kept my first app that I had back in 2010

[00:01:26] Ryan: Probably better pricing too.

[00:01:28] Robert: It was it was a lot better pricing and unlimited contacts unlimited emails and all that stuff.

[00:01:36] so now I'm stuck with one that doesn't have the vanity URL and those are minor things but, I mean the thing I loved was the campaign Builder made it so much easier to build out all these automations and getting people to flow through how I wanted them to go and use multiple touch points and stuff like that.

[00:01:58] And so that's kind of how I got back into marketing automation. So it was a long journey, I mean, I've been doing stuff off and online since 1998.

[00:02:08]Ryan: Oh, really?

[00:02:10] Robert: That's when I built my first website back when I had the code my websites and notepads on Windows computer. That before they had any of the fancy editors and wysiwyg editors and were pressed all that stuff.

[00:02:22] Ryan: To be totally honest, I had to learn code by force, I don't even know is you've heard that story, but that didn't happen for me until probably 2005.

[00:02:34] I'd heard of some stuff online. I was always wondering what are they doing, you know looked interesting to me, but you didn't really get involved too much with online stuff and tell you.

[00:02:45] Robert: I've been online for a while seeing all kinds of things.

[00:02:49] I mean, I still remember some of the old original search engines like Altavista and all those other.

[00:02:55] Ryan: I remember that kind of stuff. Well now okay, so you get started you can I come in. I'm out and then you get going now today you find yourself helping other business owners with marketing automation.

[00:03:08] Tell me a little bit about that transition. How did that end up happening?

[00:03:12] Robert: Well, so about 2014 my career in Corporate America was kind of winding down. I thought it was getting more and more of a pain in the neck to find clients that I enjoyed working with in Corporate America.

[00:03:23] I just got so tired of the corporate structure where they treated their employees like dirt the contractors were golden and it just got really frustrating.

[00:03:35] So, I decided to take what I've learned from building my own online businesses and decided to start helping other businesses do it.

[00:03:44] I started off kind of doing a little bit with video marketing and that kind of expanded to where I could get people to watch the videos and opt-in, but then people weren't really doing much to follow up with those people after they got them opted in is like this kind of be a better way.

[00:04:00] That's kind of how the transition came to working with other local businesses and helping them do their email Automation and email marketing behind the scenes.

[00:04:12] Ryan: Interesting, nowadays. I understand you do a lot more with fixture funnel.

[00:04:17] Robert: Yeah, I do a lot with Fix your Funnel.

[00:04:19] I really like helping people set up ways to maximize their webinars. Setting up texting automation so that when you're trying to schedule an appointment get people showing up on the appointment by texting them beforehand and giving them valuable content beforehand to get them to show up.

[00:04:38] Ryan: You just hit three things, I know you also work with people from Stage.

[00:04:44] Let's let's back up and kind of deconstruct the webinar one. There's a lot of people that do sell by webinar. I don't know that they realize how much money they're leaving on the table. Have you found that to be true?

[00:05:02] Robert: Yeah, I mean it's amazing how much money people leave on the table by not implementing just a few simple things to increase their show up rate or after they've had the webinar to even increase their sales.

[00:05:16] There's a couple simple tactics that you can use. And it's not really tactics, it's more strategy to sit there and get people to answer questions and ask you questions through text messaging to generate more sales and generate additional conversation after the webinar is over that leads to more sales.

[00:05:37] Ryan: Yeah, I think that's really interesting to me because you know, I think about, I call it my three million dollar mistake, which was just not asking one question to people who showed up and attended our three-hour training.

[00:05:47] With my previous company before fix your funnel in a training company We had a guy that would send all over the nation two to three days a week. He was teaching two or sometimes just one training for three hours and they would have be 1,500 people in the room.

[00:06:04] And 15% to 30% would buy, but what about that other 70%? They showed up, they sat down, they listened, and we didn't even ask one question.

[00:06:16] So I figured at least three million dollars was left on the table just because we didn't say, "hey, why didn't you buy?"

[00:06:22] And in the webinar world we see the same thing happen.

[00:06:25] I mean, what's really tough in the webinar world, maybe we should start there, is I see a lot of people complaining about low show up rates. What are you doing to help increase show up rates?

[00:06:36] Robert: You know, a lot of things with show up rates is people are busy. They sign up and if you have a long period of time between the time they sign up and the time that the webinar is, and you're not communicating with them during that timeframe getting them to know you a little bit better and build that rapport.

[00:06:57] They're not gonna show up because they're just going to plain forget about it. You got to send them reminders, and not just one reminder an hour beforehand. Because I can guarantee you if I sign up for a webinar and I don't get a reminder a day or two beforehand, I'm probably going to forget about it because something's going to book my calendar and I'm just going to plain forget.

[00:07:16] Ryan: Yeah, I think that's something a lot of people forget about is the fact that, life happens, life goes on, you know it steamrolls a lot of things.

[00:07:24] I was talking to somebody recently, they're friends of mine, and they are doing webinars. And I was talking about this just this concept of the webinar or getting people to attend the webinar.

[00:07:34] I don't want to focus on the webinar reminder so much because to your point, that's where a lot of people focus is, "Okay got to do reminder half an hour before" And that's insufficient.

[00:07:44] And from my perspective, it's insufficient a multiple levels. For example, you know, we all have problems if we see a webinar and it looks like it's going to address our problem. That's when we get excited.

[00:07:56] We sign up for it. But I my experience has been that the second we finish signing up our excitement about attend that webinar tends to start to wane.

[00:08:05] Robert: Yeah, it goes down, dramatically.

[00:08:07] Ryan: Then everything else in life starts coming back up, because that moment has passed and that almost seems futile like, "oh shoot. What's the point then?" You know, maybe I should only have my webinar scheduled, you know, 30 minutes before they start.

[00:08:22] And I don't think that's actually the solution, even a lot of people gone that way, the solution I from my perspective is this: You've got to set the hook, right?

[00:08:32] So if someone registers for a webinar, I would say it's like analogous to fishing and they nibble on the hook. They're nibbling on the bait on the hook.

[00:08:42] Some people think. Oh, that means that they've taken the whole bait and the hook is in and so they're going to reel in the fish. They're going to show up to the webinar, but they don't, they don't set the hook. And what you said was really important because what you said is what I do is I help them to recognize they need to be in communication from the time of registration until the time of the van.

[00:09:06] That was a very simple way of putting. Really complex process or concept which is, to set the hook which means psychologically you got to get them excited about being there. So my son's got a basketball game this Saturday. I'm coaching. So guess what? Am I going to forget about that?

[00:09:26] No, I'm going to be there. So people will say, "oh, yeah people just get busy." That's true, but they're not busy to forget about things that are really important to them. So the problem is the importance level of your webinar is very low when they just register.

[00:09:44] There's a moment of excitement. But if we just think well that's going to be enough, It's not. We've got to actually figure out how to engage their conscious mind so that the priority level of our webinar goes up and this is what a lot of people don't do.

[00:10:00] So the other mistake that they make is one that I know you don't, which is the only ask for name and email. We just made everything more difficult.

[00:10:07] How do you go about like, I know you're going to ask for the mobile phone number because you understand the whole concept of Market rule number 19, which is know how you're going to sell before you leave capture.

[00:10:19] But how do you go about getting it? Are you mostly doing web forms? Are you doing Facebook ads? What is it? What are you seeing working for you?

[00:10:27]Robert: What I like is the Facebook ads and what I'll do is just in the lead ad. I'll ask the simple question, "Would you like me to send you the shishi text?" That gives me their mobile phone number and it gives me permission to text them.

[00:10:43] Ryan: Oh thats interesting you just threw that in there very casually but you use a cheat sheet at the time of registration. Additional motivation for them to give you that information.

[00:10:58] Robert: You can use the cheat sheet or a lot of people like the workbook concept.

[00:11:04] Ryan: Okay, so maybe it's got sentences with blanks in it and stuff or

[00:11:08] Robert: Yea, sentences with blanks or the main idea and then space for them to take notes, so that way they can take notes in one spot. They printed out so that they can take notes.

[00:11:17] Ryan: That's fascinating because one of the things that I would do when we had our live trainings now as hard as you think it is to get a webinar, you know some of the show for a webinar, imagine trying to get them to show up to a hotel room with no money involved because this was a free training, so they have to get in their car, drive across town possibly spend three hours with you.

[00:11:37] It's a big investment much bigger than a webinar and yet the same Concepts apply. So one of the things I figured out and you know, I didn't do the work because it could have been good for us, I don't know.

[00:11:51] That's past so I can't go back but I would I would tell them to do is print out their ticket. Because I would make a little ticket with a fake barcode on it and have a number on it and all that and that would be on the thank you page after they register. That's a print this out put it on your desk, make sure you don't forget.

[00:12:09] Because I knew that emails and even calendar alerts like I can't tell you how many times. My watch buzzes and I miss entirely because I get so focused when I'm working, right? If something is really important i almost have to set an Alexa alarm, you know, so I what I would have to do is I have to put an alarm there so I get an audible noise. Otherwise, I'll just miss it entirely.

[00:12:33] It's all those things. You know, what you're trying to do is get out of the email inbox. That's why the text message is so effective.

[00:12:40] But in all honestly printing out that workbook and putting it on your desk or putting it on the fridge or somewhere where they're going to see it every day until then, having them do that, is even more powerful than the text messaging in many ways.

[00:12:53] What we're trying to really accomplish is not just be a nag and say, "Hey you got to show up. You got to show up." We want to engage their heart and mind into the idea that, "This is going to be really important for me."

[00:13:04] Robert: Yeah. You want that emotional involvement.

[00:13:07] Ryan: Yeah, and that's where I think so many people miss the bows. They don't think about the fact that, "Oh, we're trying to actually get an emotional engagement or involvement like you said in order for people to show up."

[00:13:18] So I love that idea of the workbook. Do you tell people to print it out Right after they register and they get it?

[00:13:25]Robert: Sometimes I do. Most of the time though it's just here's the workbook and then on one of the pages inside the workbook I usually have printed out. I probably should put that in the message when they get sent.

[00:13:37] Ryan: Yeah, I found that people are actually pretty good about following instructions if they get clear instructions. Yeah, some people won't I'm probably one of them because I'm a bit contrarian know like, " don't tell me what to do", but that's fine.

[00:13:50] You know the fact that they said first thing to do is print this out, you know, I think that that you're going to give most of the people to do that and for me, I always wanted to get something in their physical environment.

[00:14:01] That's why we did the sendoutcards integration that we used to have initially, was because what I wanted really bad was that I wanted something physical in their environment that they couldn't ignore. Because I knew the competition back at that time wasn't as bad as it is now, but it was still tough.

[00:14:16] You know, it's just, ones and zeros on a device that time it was mostly desktop computers. So it's really easy to get away from it. Super competitive even though it's on smartphones, for some people. It's just super competitive.

[00:14:29] It's hard to get it actually seen. But all that being said, if I get in the physical world, that's a that's a way better way to get people to actually show up because there's something nagging at them in a positive way, you know, reminding them of the pain and the benefit that they're going after. So I like that idea a lot.

[00:14:49] Okay, so you're doing a workbook, you're doing a cheat sheet something that you can get in the Physical Realm. Sounds like now on you're also going to be telling explicitly go ahead and print this out. Well the assumption, I also like to go off of in this whole beginning part of a webinar is that assumption that you said you wanted to, you know you registered there must be a reason for most people the registering for webinar.

[00:15:15] There is some reason must have some Market to message match meaning the messenger at the webinar must match some need in their life.

[00:15:22] So if we take that assumption that we want to do everything we can to help them. To actually have success and so from my perspective a big part of that is showing up, right? Because they don't show up. They can't go any further no matter how great you think.

[00:15:37] Robert: You get stuck.

[00:15:37] Ryan: So anything we can do to help them progress is a big deal.

[00:15:40] So I think asking the printout that thing, maybe if there's a pre-webinar exercise that they can go through. I think that's another good one. I've seen that it's really effective anywhere where they're having to process.

[00:15:51] I've read this book. It was a book on pricing and what it said was that, "have you ever been to a conference or something someone selling and they start putting all these things up there about well this module is worth this, and then this call here is going to be worth $10,000 and then blah, blah, blah and then it all adds up to a hundred million dollars, but I'm going to give it to you today for $2,000."

[00:16:12] We've all seen that trick. well the reason that frequently it's comes off as you know, a bad technique instead of something actually powerful is because there's no belief in the mind of the audience that they any of those values are anywhere remotely to real it's just like he just pulled them out of this butt. There's no sense to it.

[00:16:37] But if people actually had the process that number and they had to actually go is that worth that then it actually sticks is what the research has shown and so the interesting part about this pre-webinar preparation is if you can get them to process something about their situation it actually it starts the whole thing.

[00:17:00] So that is what set stuff in the mind. And so if you did have some sort of exercise in the workbook, there was a free webinar exercise. That is more likely to make them go, "oh, okay. Yes. This is it. This is important. This is what I want to see" So that's something to consider.

[00:17:18] I think all these things are things that people don't think about they just like I got to sell, so I'm going to do webinars and schedule it. And they don't think about all these pieces. Now if you're just doing a one-off webinar, probably not going to go through all this trouble. But if you're doing a webinar that you do on a somewhat regular basis, then don't you agree that it would be absolutely the best thing you could do is think about how do you prepare them to actually want to show up?

[00:17:42] Robert:Yeah. I mean the more you can get them engaged and really feeling that pain, and the potential benefit of that webinar helping them get out of that pain, the better off you're going to be.

[00:17:53] Ryan: Yeah, that was a super loaded question I asked you, but I don't think it kind of got out of the trash.

[00:18:00] Okay, so that's getting them to actually show up. You know, most of the techniques you do, do they involve anything with the person's presentation.

[00:18:09] Are you just going to say, "hey look you got a presentation that's working. Let's keep that I'm going to enhance around it. And that's going to be what's going to make a big difference for you. You just keep selling the way you've been selling," Or do you actually go into modifying people's presentations?

[00:18:26] Robert: So I would say for about 95% of people. We don't modify the existing presentation. We just go in around it and put in stuff to help get that hook engaged and follow up afterwards to make sure you're getting the most benefit and the most likelihood of people making a purchase.

[00:18:46] Ryan: Hey I've got a curiosity question for you. Have you ever done a post registration text message?

[00:18:53] Robert: Post registration text message?

[00:18:55] Ryan: Yeah, so when people register everybody does, everybody that I have ever heard of that's using text messages with webinars is doing it pre-webinar. So in other words, they're doing like the hour before 30 minutes before to remind people to show up.

[00:19:11] But I've seen very few people that do the immediate registration confirmation text. What's your preferred webinar platform or do you just kind of do whatever the clients using?

[00:19:25] Robert: I do whatever the clients using but I like Zoom and Easy Webinar.

[00:19:31] Ryan: Okay. So if you're doing Zoom, right, let's say you're running some sort of process inside of Infusion Soft to register them. Right, and then now they're registered, you've got their link and everything. One of the concepts that I teach in my master classes, you know, is that post registration text messaging includes the link, includes date and time, you know, maybe an indication to go print out the thing like you're saying or go put this date and time into your calendar now.

[00:19:59] But then also at that point I can do a couple of things, one is I could attach my vCard that way any future messages I send will be recognized right, or does that contact card? Another thing I can do is link from that to a pre-webinar simple survey. Which would use the Fix Your Funnel simple survey to ask him a few questions.

[00:20:22] The interesting part about the question asking is it can set thoughts in motion. Did you ever see that movie Inception?

[00:20:30] Robert: Yeah

[00:20:30] Ryan: So, you know the whole basis for Inception is that they're trying to get this guy to think a thought that they're wanting to plant their but the he has to take his being his own.

[00:20:41] Yeah, and the fascinating part is is that a well-worded question does inception in many ways and I think that's something that a lot of people still haven't grasped in their pre-webinar process is that if you Incorporated a simple survey right off the bat, right when they were registered send the confirmation. Hey take this quick assessment to see where you are before we do the webinar.

[00:21:08] That kind of flow really could allow you to implant some thoughts because most of our thoughts are actually originated on questions. You can you can evaluate yourself and you'd probably go is that true and then boom you just asked the question.

[00:21:24] So have you done anything like that with any of your clients yet? Usually the client is the one that kind of holds back on that stuff.

[00:21:31]Robert: I've made the suggestion to people, some people are reluctant to do that. But I really like the power of that first initial text message because then you can include the vCard, so then even if you don't send very many text messages in between afterwards when you send that text message or you go to call them to follow up with them after the webinar. Then your contact information is already there and it increases the likelihood of getting response.

[00:22:02] Ryan: Yeah, that's huge. You know what's interesting too is that I think it's strange that people would kick against that. I wonder what they're thinking. You know what I mean?

[00:22:15] I can't say and I know you probably don't want to say what they're thinking either from a client shaming perspective,

[00:22:23] Robert: it's hard to know what they're thinking but I think a lot of times they want to just follow the advice of some Guru that they learned about doing webinars from and the guru didn't mention it.

[00:22:34] They think it won't work and won't add value.

[00:22:36]Ryan: It was really interesting. So I guess it's almost been two month now, my son is taking pasta to the sink and you spilled it gave himself second and third degree burns down his legs and he's been recovering to that process.

[00:22:50] There's different things that the doctors and nurses and Physicians assistants have asked him to do along the way and I've been present whenever those doctors were giving instruction and sometimes those instructions are misunderstood by him.

[00:23:05] And so he'll read more into it than what they said and as a result is very hesitant to do something. "I'm like, it's okay Josh you can do that" and he'll be "No. No, I can't do that. The doctor said no" and I understand because you know, there's some trauma involved in there

[00:23:21] But I think this is kind of similar to what happens with some people as they go and they get some advice from a guru and I don't hopefully people couldn't hear me sigh too loud when the guru thing, but problems I know too many gurus and I know that behind closed doors.

[00:23:39] And so what that means is that I know that often and it's was just a matter of necessity, they have to abbreviate and simplify advice. Because if they gave you all the caveats you'd be, "like that's too complex. I can't follow that" and you wouldn't follow it. So in order for them to be effective, the more effective the guru is the bigger more well-known they are the more they have to boil down their advice.

[00:24:02] Robert: But yeah, they have to kind of sugarcoat it.

[00:24:05] Ryan: Yeah, because if they gave you the full truth, you'd be like, well, I'm not doing anything then. Yeah, and so what's interesting is you know, this situation where you have business owners say Well Guru didn't say to do that, so I'm not going to do it is kind of disappointing.

[00:24:20] I wish were gurus would do is teach the principles he's able to teach the principles like what we've discussed in this podcast episode so far as we talked about the need to set the hook emotionally right to get the person fully engaged. Well, if you understand that principle, then all these other approaches to implementing that to make total sense, right because you're like, okay, well if I want to set the hook then anything I can do that engages them, you know at an emotional level.

[00:24:47] They introduced his thoughts into their head through questions that's going to be super effective and I'm going to want to figure out a way to do that. Right as I'm thinking Market rule number 19, which I wish more gurus would actually understand but they don't.

[00:25:01] Then they would go, "Oh I need to be able to sell so when I leave capture, I got to be thinking about how I'm going to sell at that point. So I'm going to ask for the cell phone number. I'm going to ask some questions, you know, I'm not going to be afraid to engage with them."

[00:25:14] And you know one of the things to, Robert, that I've seen and I'm curious to get your read on this is if you're having huge webinars, right, so I have we have some fix your funnel users that will have, you know, two, three, or four thousand people show up to webinar on a daily basis or something like that or you know, they just have a ton of people maybe it's even 500.

[00:25:35] When you have those kind of numbers it makes it very difficult for you to be able to engage with those people pre-webinar and that case you kind of want to filter. You don't want to be taking a whole lot of questions, pre-webinar.

[00:25:48] You kind of want to let the people qualify themselves by actually showing up, sticking around for the most, if not the whole webinar and then you engage with those folks. Right?

[00:25:57] And I filtered out but if you're running a smaller webinar where your numbers are much smaller, it makes a ton of sense to engage with the prospects pre-webinar because that again builds rapport and trust and makes it so that the priority to show up gets higher.

[00:26:12] They don't want to satiate the need but the concept is this and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it, is to ask an open-ended question. in your registration confirmation text message and something for the fact of what are you hoping to get out of this webinar?

[00:26:28] Robert: Right, so you basically want to open a loop and enclose it in the webinar.

[00:26:32] Ryan: Exactly. And so you're creating that anticipation but another thing it does for you as the person who's given the webinars is that it lets you know, what people actually care about which really helps when you're trying to sell.

[00:26:44] Robert: Exactly and I mean, especially with the smaller webinars, it gives you a chance to kind of address those questions as you're going through the webinar, when you get closer to that the end of the webinar where you're about to make your pitch and you can address those questions that they have and increase the likelihood of getting a sell out.

[00:27:05] Ryan: Well and the interesting part, I know that, because I'm always thinking of your what would people say to conflict that and how can we address that and it's the perfect place for some of my argue against that is say, "Well hey I ask questions during the webinar already." And so I get questions there, but I would argue that there's a different sentiment going on during the webinar than there is before the webinar at the time of registration.

[00:27:28] Robert: Not only that but during the webinar, you're usually so busy trying to focus and make sure you don't lose your place and lose your train of thought that most of the time most of the questions don't get answered.

[00:27:40] Ryan: I would even argue that I think you won't get all the same questions. I think we'll get more questions when you ask before.

[00:27:46] You get the moment of, "Oh yeah, this is what I really want to know. This is what I really want to get." And sometimes that can be reflection of your bullet points on the registration page, right? Or in your invitation. And that's fine because if you are getting that reflection then that tells you, I do actually know what the markets concerned about.

[00:28:06] But sometimes you learn something new and that data is actually super valuable in addition to engaging them. It can really help you to maybe...

[00:28:14] Robert: Refine your targeting.

[00:28:15] Ryan: Yeah refining targeting or find your message. And then even your presentation if you're seeing Trends, right?

[00:28:24] I wouldn't do it for every single question that comes in but.

[00:28:28] Robert: If you see a majority of the people asking that same question then yeah, it's definitely something to take into consideration.

[00:28:36] Ryan: So yeah, okay. So now I think we've beat, before the webinar to death. I don't know that there's much else that you could do that would really be fantastic before the webinar beyond what we've talked about.

[00:28:48] I mean you kind of laid out the very beginning we kind of glazed over it. So for the sake of clarity, I want to point out what you put out earlier with just the fact that you're going to do this and kind of drip it out over time between when they register and when they actually show up.

[00:29:02] In our case, we would start inviting people to weeks before our live event and depending on if they registered two weeks before or the day before they were getting different information, right which is easy with Infusion Soft, especially for someone like you that really understands how it works.

[00:29:19] Okay. So that's before the webinar. I'm going to leave during the webinar completely alone, because I feel like if that person has been selling at all, often I don't want to tweak or mess with the thing that's working.

[00:29:31] Right? So if they've been selling it all and they're kind of happy with that , I think you probably say, you said 95% time you don't touch the webinar, so it's probably the same philosophy there for you.

[00:29:42] Robert: Exactly. I mean if it's working in there getting cells then we just want to crank up and increase the likelihood of the people attending and the number of people going out the back end.

[00:29:53] Ryan: Yeah, I wanted to move on but I can't and I don't think we can move on without stating again how critical it is to prepare people for the webinar. People often think of the webinar is doing to do the preparation for the cell, but everything you do before the webinars preparing for the webinar.

[00:30:07] You want to Prime their minds to be ready to receive what you're going to give during that webinar and all the stuff you do before is so critical and I think too many people Overlook at they're going to get.

[00:30:17] Okay, I'll do a registration confirmation maybe trip a couple of emails on them and then reminder, you know, probably a bulk of the webinars. That's what's so sad. I think for me is that there's not more people working with someone like you that understands all this jazz that needs to happen before in order to make them more effective.

[00:30:35] I mean, frankly it's like grabbing the pinball machine and tilting it, right? You're changing all of the things in your favor. And so if people don't do it, they just walk into the thing with both hands tied behind their back and we'll take whatever they can get their mouths

[00:30:50] Robert: Sometimes they're even both hands behind their back and blindfolded.

[00:30:53] Ryan: Yeah. And it's so sad because they could put everything in their favor just by doing a few of these just relatively quick things that can be added. Robert for you, you come and you look at their existing webinar. their existing process. It's not like you have to reinvent the wheel you've done this so many times, you know exactly what to look for, right?

[00:31:14] Robert: Yeah. It's just a matter of basically bolting on some additional tools to in the front and the back.

[00:31:21] Ryan: So you say it, and it sounds so simple, but I think what people don't realize is that it's like my car right? I've got a mechanic. He's like a race car mechanic that I take my car's to. And I have no clue what's going on in the engine. I know you put gas in it and you can put some oil but usually have somebody else change that.

[00:31:39] You know, I have no clue what's going on with that vehicle. If it ever broke down on the side of the road. I'm toast unless somebody comes and picks it up, right?

[00:31:46] I'm fine with that. But for him, it's easy. He's like, "oh no big deal, you know just blah, blah, blah." and I don't even understand what you're saying but he's telling me everything he's fixed that you're the same way from this webinar staff is for you. And so. Natural you don't even have to think about it but for many people it's kind of intimidating.

[00:32:05] Yeah, we why they end up doing the simple stuff and leave all the odds against them. Okay. So you've done that. What do you do to close the webinar that so special.

[00:32:15] Robert: I like to thing engage people after the webinar with text message, especially the people that didn't buy and asking them why they didn't buy? Do you have any questions?

[00:32:25] Ryan: You know what I call them, I call them "should have boughts"

[00:32:27] Robert: yeah, because they stay through the entire webinar. So obviously if they're interesting what you're talking about. They should have bought.

[00:32:36] Ryan: Yup, they did everything a buyer does except for give you money. With your clients do you find yourself asking a different question for each one of them? Do you like tailor it or do you have like a standard question that kind of asking post-webinar to people who attended, but didn't buy?

[00:32:50] Robert: I have a standard framework that I like to structure it in, but then it's kind of tailored to each individual persons webinar. In other words I don't use the exact same words in every single text because the context may not make sense from one webinar to another. So you gotta kind of tailor it to the content of the webinar.

[00:33:18] Ryan: Yeah, okay. So you tailor to the content. Do you ask the question like right when the webinar ends or how long do you end up waiting? Is there some sort of formula you used or how do you figure out?

[00:33:30] Robert: I usually like to wait at least an hour after the webinar ends because I mean some people maybe they have had an appointment they had to go to and they didn't get a chance to buy right then that way it gives people that should have bought a chance to actually buy before you're sitting there bombarding them with questions.

[00:33:48] Ryan: So I don't like Frank Kern which some people may have heard of when he implemented this strategy that using Fix Your Funnel he would wait three hours because he found that that was the bulk of his purchases happened three hours after the webinar. So kind of let those people that you know, we're still processing.that would buy before he introduced his question.

[00:34:10] And I heard from another person when I said when do the bulk of your sells come in and they told me 72 hours and I'm thinking, is 72 hours the bulk? I'm wondering what they mean by that. Maybe my question wasn't good enough. Do you look for a grouping, what kind of grouping to look for and are you looking at like multiple webinars before you decide on that timing because, I really don't want to interfere with the people or the natural process you really want to get the people who are going to get hung up.

[00:34:41] Robert: Right. So I like to look at Statistics over a couple webinars and see when the majority of the people are buying.

[00:34:48] Ryan: When you say the majority are you thinking like half or 80% What are you saying?

[00:34:56] Robert: Well, you've got people that are going to buy right away. So you kind of exclude those people and then you have the people that are going to sit there and wait until the deadline for the bonuses expire.

[00:35:08] Ryan: Okay, so you're typically using bonuses then

[00:35:12] Robert: so I'll sit there and wait and exclude the outer limits and in look for a grouping within and try to identify those.

[00:35:25] Ryan: So when you're looking at the group you're just kind of looking at a report that shows the date and time when they bought, you know the date and time of the webinar, and looking at that. Or are you load it into like a spreadsheet or how do you go about it?

[00:35:37] Robert: I'll tend to download the data and then look at it in the spreadsheet, but there's no secret math to it, I just look for groupings of when the majority of the people are buying.

[00:35:48] Ryan: I think that's important because it just helps people get a feel for how they are able to identify these groupings so if they're thinking about, "well I wonder when most of my people are buying" they can go ahead and pull that down thrown into a spreadsheet look and see where that is and that will help them before they work with somebody like you.

[00:36:07] They've got their grouping they figured out when the biggest part of them are going. If you do have a bonus time frame, are you asking before that bonus is over or you extending the bonus to people?

[00:36:23] I'm just curious if there's anything like that you've tried.

[00:36:26]Robert: Never extend the bonus and I mean if you have people that are waiting like your example where you said you had one guy waiting where the bulk of those purchases for 72 hours later?

[00:36:40] Well, what I would do is implement a staggered bonus, we're after a couple hours one of the bonuses goes away and then the next highest value goes away after that. Because if you're getting people waiting until 72 hours afterwards to purchase you just haven't set the right urgency for him.

[00:37:00]Ryan: Yeah, it's interesting. So you find that you will help them tailor slightly they're offering. You might also tailor the whole purchase, but you will help them modify the offering so that it's more compelling.

[00:37:14] Robert: Right but that generally doesn't require them changing their whole webinar structure or their content. Is where they're just making little tweaks at the very end of the webinar where they're having their call to action.

[00:37:27] Ryan: I think that's something that a lot of people don't consider to when they're thinking about getting some help is when you have somebody like your that's worked with so many people in so many webinars you kind of get to see some things that you don't see when you're just doing your own.

[00:37:41] Robert: Exactly.

[00:37:42] Ryan: I think one of the things that we did well with our training company that we had was that we were doing so many we ended up doing like 440 trainings over a course of a few years and we because we're doing so many we were getting a ton of feedback and data that allowed us to tweak and adjust things over time.

[00:37:58] That's where a lot of the lessons I've learned about marketing came from is all that feedback that we were getting to doing all those events. I mean we were spending close to half a million a year just on travel, and bookings, and stuff like that and rooms and stuff because there's just so much that we were doing it when you have that much money on the line that also helps you to focus in better.

[00:38:18] But what's interesting is in spite of all that I still didn't learn that lesson until very late in the game to you know, just ask a question after the webinar. Just find out you did everything a buyer did except for buy. You know, what's holding you back? Yeah, what made you not decide to take action today?

[00:38:40] So what's your general framework that you add? Obviously tailor it but what are some of the key points that you're looking for in your post-webinar question?

[00:38:48] Robert: Why even buy? Do they have any unanswered questions? Do they need additional information, maybe the offer wasn't clear enough for them. Do they need clarification?

[00:38:59] The main thing is to get a dialogue going to where you can sit there and answer their questions or get them on a phone call where you can close the sale.

[00:39:11] Ryan: You know, what's interesting about that is my observation has been, and I'll share my observation. I'm really curious to see what you've observed.

[00:39:17] But my observation has been that most people really only have one question or one concern that's holding them back. It's not like they've got a laundry list.

[00:39:27] Robert: Right.

[00:39:28] Ryan: There are those people that have a laundry list, but most people it's just one question like, okay. "So what was the payment plan or so I didn't understand what was what was included in that or well, I just don't know if I go forward and in this doesn't work, you know, what's the guarantee" its kind of those kind of things that been your experience or what have you seen?

[00:39:47] Robert: Yeah. I mean a lot of it will come down to I really want to do this, but I don't get paid till Friday and it's Tuesday when you're having the webinar. Is there something we can work out or it could be as simple as

[00:40:00]Ryan: I bet that that cash flow, you know the money management part,

[00:40:05] Robert: Or it could be as simple as especially with higher ticket purchases going,

[00:40:10] "dude, man. That's a chunk of change to come up with when I wasn't expecting to have this expense. You have a payment plan is it is a spread out over two payments or three payments or whatever."

[00:40:21] Ryan: Okay, so that brings up an interesting point you really do quite a bit of work with people have high ticket sales.

[00:40:27] Those are common questions you guys run into. You know, it's interesting, I think that sometimes even especially in those High ticket situations. There is this little bit of weird social pressure on a person to have to pay all at once and so they're kind of fighting with that because they don't maybe want to make the cash outlay.

[00:40:47] Mostly for like cash flow purposes if anything else, but you know, there's almost as weird thing about if you ask for the payment plan, maybe that's just me, I don't know but if you think that's true that sometimes people get like I don't want to really ask about it. But if you ask them then they're like yeah. Well, here's the deal.

[00:41:06] Robert: Yeah, I mean, so I think a lot of people have a stigma about asking for different terms than what you're offering and my rule of thumb is always been if you don't ask, the answer is always going to be no.

[00:41:20] Ryan: Yeah, but I think that's exactly why it's so powerful to ask the question after the webinars because people do have questions.

[00:41:29] They do want some things clarified but they're not going to do it on their own which is so fascinating because at the end of the webinar you're, hey are there any questions. They could have asked the question then but they're not going to. "Oh, yes. We got Robert here Roberts got a question about price you can't afford to pay the whole thing."

[00:41:47] Robert: Yeah, exactly.

[00:41:49] Ryan: They're like, "I'm not doing that." So they don't ask the question and then when you ask the question to them like, "hey, is there any questions you had about the thing." However you word that. I don't even know I know that we're doing is important but I'm not sure how compared to like, I think you get 90% of the benefit just out of asking the question.

[00:42:09] Did you have a question? Do you have any concerns? Like if you got it really right? Maybe you get an extra 10% of result out of it. But I think a bulk of your outcome comes from just asking, just creating that space for them to be able to express whatever is holding them back because obviously if they got on the webinar really jumped over all those hurdles their life is throwing at them to get there.

[00:42:33] They stayed for the whole time which means sometimes fending off people and demands from other things and then they saw the offer and they didn't buy there's got to be some reason they stuck around that long. You know, so let's not let that become a you know, an issue that prevents them from buying.

[00:42:51] The interesting part I saw, Frank Kern shared with us that he had doubled the sales. So he got men complete dollars in sales the first year it was in the first year of like eight months that you implemented this strategy and from what I heard. And if it isn't strictly from him it's from somebody else that works with them. He was super angry about it.

[00:43:14] But I was like, why is he angry and he is angry because he left so much money on the table because for years you've been doing all these webinars, you know doing all these sales events didn't do this one thing. What have you seen with results when you just Implement that portion.

[00:43:31] Robert: I mean, a lot of them are like Frank they are kicking themselves in the hiney for not implementing it sooner and getting those results sooner.

[00:43:39] Ryan: Have you ever had anybody where they had fewer sales because they implemented the post-webinar question?

[00:43:44] Robert: Not yet.

[00:43:45]Ryan: And is there a range that you see an increase like in a minimum size when they asked the question?

[00:43:51] Robert: I've seen anywhere from 20 to 50 percent increase.

[00:43:54] Ryan: I have heard 50 to 200 percent increase, you know, that's been the range, but you know I hear from bigger varieties. They can have different price points because the higher end it's probably going to be a little bit more mild but still 25 to 50 percent raise is pretty nice.

[00:44:09] Here's the fascinating part about that the second half of that strategy, right? The first half is about getting them to show up which naturally can increase your sales right there, but we're just talking just about the post-webinar question. What's fascinating about that is every one of those sales is pure profit.

[00:44:24] Robert: Exactly. You've already had the investment in there. So each additional one is pure profit on top.

[00:44:30] Ryan: So it could be just a hundred percent profit increase for some people just by getting that second part in place. That's the interesting part is and I would be surprised I'll be interested to see your chart that does this but have you ever been to our one-click up sell page on Fix Your Funnel not not inside of the application but the public page?

[00:44:50] Robert: It's been so long ago, Ryan, I probably forgot.

[00:44:53] Ryan: Yeah. I wouldn't think that there be any reason you would remember it that's why I was asking but I would encourage you to go. Today and on it, there is a matrix and I put a matrix on there that shows what is your purchase price? What is your recommended first up sell, second up sell, and a down sell, right?

[00:45:11] And I know that across those three you're going to get 20% of the people to say, "Yes." And so based on your initial purchase price, I tell you how many up sells you've got to have. So how many people do you have that are buying currently to be able to figure out when you get to break even with my software as a service, right?

[00:45:32] And the chart is kind of almost ridiculous because it shows you how quickly the service becomes free for you, you know what I mean? You only have to have like two or three sales to have this happen. So the I would be interested in seeing for you.

[00:45:47] What does your Matrix look like for people that are selling at a 500,000 and 2,000, and 5,000 price point using the low end right because I always like to use the low number %20 is the average when it comes to up sells, if you're lower than that. You probably have something wrong with your offer. If you're higher than that. Your price is too low the 20% is like the average across the board.

[00:46:08] I would be interested to see what your Matrix would look like for your clients. So people can go. Oh, wow. This is kind of a no-brainer for me that Robert just set this up because one, he knows exactly what he's doing, so you can't screw it up and then two, I'm going to be making money off this by the end of the first or second webinar, depending on what my price point is.

[00:46:27] Well, this has been a really interesting conversation Robert. I really appreciate you being out here. I know there's some other stuff that you do we didn't get to cover.

[00:46:34] Maybe we can have you back another time. Talk about your work with people from Stage. And so those other things but any closing remarks that you have to people that find themselves selling by webinar.

[00:46:45] Robert: Feel free to reach out. If you go to my website Nitro Go Marketing. There's a little button that says text webinar to number you do that and we can set up a consultation and help you out.

[00:46:57] Ryan: So what is it called Nitro...

[00:46:58]Robert: Nitrogomarketing.com.

[00:47:01] Ryan: Great. Yeah Robert. It's been a pleasure. I've know Robert for a long time. I think I must have met you before you went full time into doing what you're doing today. When you're still in the corporate gigs the app icons over the year.

[00:47:15] One of the things I really appreciate about Robert is he's a straight-up guy. Whatever he tells you, that's what he's going to do, and it's been a pleasure knowing you I really appreciate coming on today.

[00:47:23] Robert: Thanks Ryan.