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Those that know me well won’t be surprised to hear that this post was inspired by a conversation.

Picture this.

There I am having a chat with a colleague about one of her new training programs, and as we’re talking away she mentions that she wants to start using webinars to build interest in her latest product offering.

My reaction?  “That’s a great idea”

Why?

Because webinars are a brilliant marketing tool.

They give you the opportunity to speak one-on-one with prospective clients, but in a leveraged way that maximizes your reach, so you can easily engage a large number of people without having to fly across the country to do so.

Now, if you’ve been following me for any length of time you’ll have probably realised by now that I’m a big fan of authentic communication, in particular, speaking up in a natural and authentic voice when it comes to your training and marketing material.

So when it comes to delivering a webinar, it should come as no surprise that I’m not a big fan of the the “over-hyped” webinar pitch.

You know, the “buy this now or your world will end” type pitch.

Come on, seriously, it just feels so contrived and inauthentic. Not something I’d be comfortable delivering at all.

For years, others have been trying to convince me that I should just “get comfortable with pushing the hype” because that’s the ONLY way to generate sales in the modern day marketplace.

Do you know what my gut feel response to this was?

What a load of utter rubbish!

So for years I’ve been resisting the push to deliver my products in an over-hyped inauthentic manner, searching for an alternative that achieves sales results, without making me feel sleazy in the process.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with making a valuable offer to your audience at the end of a webinar. In fact, I believe you’re doing them a disservice if you don’t.

No, making them an offer is not my issue, rather, my issue is with the inauthentic, super-sleazy, over-hyped “sales pitch” I see being used by too many so called “internet marketing gurus” to hype their audience into a buying frenzy.

If you’ve ever been on a webinar at any point over the last few years, then I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about here.

It’s the “webinar sales formula” that you may have heard quite a few “sales gurus” pitching to you over the years.

Here’s how it works….first they build up the value, usually telling you “what” to do, but not “how” to do it. Then they build up a little more value, add some excitement, rattle off a HUGE price, then drop the price.

With the price now dropped, they add a “valuable” bonus, drop the price again, and then give you a deadline of “Until this webinar ends” to get the “super low price” and the special bonus.

In some cases they may offer to keep the special price going for the next 48 hours but you’ll miss out on the bonus if you want to wait until after the presentation.

Does this sound familiar?

If you’ve been buying things from online marketers over the last few years then it probably should.

It’s a fairly standard formula, and frankly, it’s one that I believe people are getting tired of hearing.

But more importantly, it’s one that marketers are coming to discover is both inauthentic and tiresome, which hopefully means more and more marketers will be moving away from this model.

I’m not arguing that it doesn’t work, because if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be so wide-spread, but I will say that if you want to maintain a good reputation with your followers and prospects, then it’s time to refine your approach, and dump that old, inauthentic formulaic claptrap.

The fact is, if you do too many webinars that all end in this BUY IT RIGHT NOW OR THE WORLD WILL END! frenzy, you will see fewer and fewer people attending your webinars.

Why?

Because people don’t like to be sold. But they LOVE to buy.

And if you present great information on your webinar, combined with a strong call to action…an action that does NOT bash the audience over the head…people will like you, and more importantly, they’ll trust you.

They’ll think of you as the helpful go-to person, instead of a sleazy used car salesman (my apologies to all ethical used car sales people out there!)

Plus, you come across as someone who is supremely confident in your products and what they can do for your clients, rather than projecting the image of someone who’s desperate to make a fast buck.

So how then do you make an honest, less-hyped-up (dare I say, softer) sell?

Stay tuned for part 2 of this 3-part webinar sales series and all will be revealed.

OK, so what are your thoughts on the hype vs authenticity debate?

Are you interested in hearing how to implement this in your next webinar or should I stop flogging a boring topic?

Let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

Speak Up. Be Heard.

Con

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