Transcript

John Jantsch: Webinars. Everybody’s doing them, right? Well yeah, right,
everybody’s doing them, but are they doing them well and are you using them in your
business? I think that webinars are a great tool to use for every stage of the customer
journey, not just as a sell tool, as a hard sell tool, like so many people use it. In this
episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I speak with Omar Zenhom. Not only
has he been running webinars and teaching people how to do webinars, he’s actually
created an amazing software for doing webinars called Webinar Ninja, so check out
this episode.

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is sponsored by Ahrefs, the SEO
tool set that I use every single day. Listen into this episode because I’m going to tell
you how you can win a full year subscription, over $2,000 value on this amazing tool.
Check it out.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is
John Jantsch, and my guest today is Omar Zenhom, the author of The $100 MBA and
a podcast by the same name, and he’s also the creator of a webinar platform called
Webinar Ninja that has a new, shiny release that we’re going to talk about a little bit
today. Omar, thanks for joining me.

Omar Zenhom: Thank you, John. It’s great to be here.

John Jantsch: So you have a whole course on webinars. You see a lot of webinars. I’m
sure you consume a lot of webinars just in your kind of daily business. In your opinion
what makes a good webinar? And I know there’s probably a lot of answers to that, but
generally speaking.

Omar Zenhom: That’s a great question, because there’s so many people that are doing
webinars today and I’ve seen a lot of them, just some of the taste-makers in our
marketplace, and I find that the best thing that somebody can do when it comes to
running a webinar is making sure that they’ve been able to convey some sort of value
in a way that people can use. So a lot of people, they like to just do a value dump
where they’re just like, “I’m going to tell them everything they need to know about
golf,” and just if [inaudible 00:02:24] golf expert, let’s say, for example, and it’s just
like an information dump.

And then there’s some people that on the other end of the spectrum they’ll maybe
banter a lot and they’ll just go on and on and they just really don’t give a lot of
information. Both camps are really not useful because when you just have some sort
of information dump, it’s just so hard to retain all that information. And when you’re
just bantering and you’re not really giving a lot of information, people feel like it’s
kind of a waste of time. So what you’re really trying to do here is you’re trying to give
specific information, give specific value in a way that they can retain it.

In my previous life, I was an educator for 13 years as a high school and university
educator, and that’s one of the first things you learn, that when you’re teaching a
classroom of students is that it’s not about how much information you give it’s just
how well they can retain it. So you got to keep in mind that whatever I teach, let me
see how I can make sure that they can retain it and implement it. That’s how they’re
going to feel like they got a win. That’s how they’re going to feel like, “Wow, this
wasn’t a waste of time. Wow, this was great. This person gave me a whole bunch of
value that I can use, and it’s very applicable,” and they go away remembering your
webinar and having that trust built with you so they can go ahead and purchase a
product of yours or check out your next piece of content.

John Jantsch: I suppose it’s like any good presentation. There has to be that narrative
arc that brings it all together, that keeps people interested, but then also, like you said,
delivers a lot of value.

Omar Zenhom: Definitely, yeah.

John Jantsch: So you kind of alluded to this. I’ve probably been doing webinars for 15
years or so, and it used to be a really unique thing. I probably get 10 webinars pitched
at me a day now. So what about that kind of glut? What is that doing even to the
consuming, educating market? Is it too much, or is there still a purpose for it?

Omar Zenhom: Well, what I love about that dynamic is that when there’s so much
going on, when there’s so many webinars or there’s so many videos on YouTube or
whatever it is, it’s so easy to rise to the top. It’s so easy to stand out because people
are just used to a mediocre presentation. So if you just do a few small things that
differentiate yourself, that makes you a little bit better than the rest, you stand out and
people remember you. Person that comes to mind is Tim Page. Tim Page is one of the
best I’ve seen on webinars, so much so that we’ve hired him at Webinar Ninja to do
our webinars because he’s so good.

John Jantsch: So a lot of people view, and I want to talk about various uses of
webinars, but certainly the one that a lot of people see is the webinar that is selling
something.

Omar Zenhom: Right.

John Jantsch: Are there some effective ways to, and again, you see people that are just
like boom boom boom, they sell a lot but everybody comes away feeling kind of
sleazy at the end, right?

Omar Zenhom: Yeah.

John Jantsch: So is there an effective way to both get people what they need but also
not kind of come off as the hard sell?

Omar Zenhom: Definitely. There are two strategies that I’ve found that are really
effective when it comes to this. The first strategy is just to be very honest about it
from the start. A lot of people they talk about the problem they want to solve, they say
that this is what this lesson’s all about, they’ll spend about 20 minutes on their back
story or something like that, talking about their war stories. And then they spend about
a good 30 minutes pitching at the end. And the whole time they’re watching the
webinar they kind of feel like this is coming. “Oh my gosh, when are they gonna sell,
when is the other shoe’s gonna drop?”

So one strategy is just to be upfront about it in the beginning, like the first five
minutes. “Hey guys, this is what we’re gonna be covering today, this is what today’s
webinar’s all about.” Or, “The first thing that I’m gonna just do right now is get it out
of the way. We have an offer today, this is what the offer is. I’ll be going into detail
what it’s all about. I’ll even give you a quick warning before I start this offer at the
end so if you want to leave, no problem, no hard feelings.” I like to joke around about
that. They feel like, “Oh, this person’s a real person,” and it also just lowers the
anxiety. Like, “Okay, I know what this product’s all about, I know that this person’s
just being honest with me, they’re an entrepreneur and they want to offer me
something that can help me.” But then we can just move [inaudible 00:07:01]. “Okay
guys, that’s a quick glimpse of what today’s offer is and the bonuses. And let’s move
on to the lesson and let’s move on to the workshop.” And at the end I can go into
detail and refer back to what I was talking about. A lot of people like that because you
just feel like, “Okay, this is different and it just makes me feel comfortable.”

The second strategy that I saw that has been really effective, and I picked this up
actually from our mutual friend Michael [Port 00:07:27]. So what he does is he
actually has no pitch on the webinar. So what he says at the start, he says, “Hey guys,
we’re gonna be doing a workshop and I do have a product that can really help you
take your public speaking to the next level.” That’s his area of expertise, for those of
you who are listening. “But I’m not gonna be talking about this today. You’re all
automatically registered to another webinar tomorrow at the same time, and that’s
when I’ll be talking about the product and you can ask all the questions about the
product at that time.” And that’s all he talks about. That’s it, that’s the last time he
talks about the product.

And then throughout the webinar people will ask questions like, “Hey, so do you have
a payment plan for this product you mentioned?” “Well, really sorry but we’re not
going to be talking about it today. Today’s the workshop, tomorrow you can ask all
the questions you want.” And it makes people feel comfortable and it also makes
people understand that this is not a sales webinar. What’s great about this is that the
next day when he runs that second webinar for everybody who’s invited, everybody
who was registered to that first webinar, it’s just fair game. Everybody expects him to
sell, everybody expects him to talk about the product, everybody knows what they’re
going to get. And they can ask buying questions and it’s just so much easier for
Michael because he can just be himself and sell the product, and at the same product
no one’s kind of guessing what this webinar’s all about.

John Jantsch: Yeah, and I wrote a blog post recently about using webinars in every
stage of the customer journey. And I think that that’s kind of the key point there is that
the first one was maybe awareness and trust building. And so then once you earn that
trust then it’s like, “Come back tomorrow,” and you’re going to be ready to buy
maybe even because you’ve kind of moved to the next stage. And clearly some of the
people don’t come because they are in that stage. And so I think that’s a real key too.
So many people just want to sell sell sell, and you’ve got to earn, I think, the
opportunity. I have done webinars where we were down to 10 people left that wanted
to get on the call, but all 10 of those people wanted to buy and they just needed a
couple questions answered because they had gone through several gates, if you will,
or stages. And I think people need to realize that this medium is no different than
running an ad or something that would tell somebody to buy.

Omar Zenhom: Definitely. And I love what you said there because I firmly believe
you can’t make anybody buy anything. Some people that use pressure sales, that sale’s
not going to stick. They’re going to return it, they’re going to cancel, or they’re just
going to have a bad taste in their mouth. So you really can’t make anybody buy. Plus
you’ve worked so hard, you’ve spent so much time and effort and money to earn that
trust to get them on the webinar. No, it takes a lot to try to promote that webinar.
Don’t lose that trust, allow them to feel comfortable and buy when they’re ready.

John Jantsch: I tell you another side of using webinars that I don’t hear enough people
talking about is we use them to serve our customers. So in other words we do a ton of
training with webinars, we do a ton of added value or kind of helping them along with
something that maybe they’re struggling with. And we also use it for a lot of internal
things too. So I think companies should probably look at internal training and training
of customers and serving customers as a way to think about webinars as well.

Omar Zenhom: That’s true. We love the idea of doing live training, live Q&A for your
current customers. It’s a great way to [inaudible 00:10:59], it’s a great way to keep
your customers happy. And these are really low maintenance kind of webinars, there’s
no real performance needed because you can send an email out to all your customers
or specific customers once a month and say, “Hey, it’s an AMA, ask me anything,”
open Q&A, and people can ask you questions, people can get advice. And it’s just a
great way for you to kind of hop on. It doesn’t have to be long webinar, it could be 30
minutes and ask a few questions, and feel like they’re being supported. Some people
are really surprised when they get an email and the founder of the company shows up
and answers questions for 30, 40 minutes once a month. They’re like, “Wow.”
Sometimes that’s just enough for them to be like, “Okay, I’m going to hang on with
this company. Even if I’m not using it right now I know I want to use them in the
future so let me just sit tight, because these guys care.”

John Jantsch: And I think that you can only do so much with an email, but you get on
and maybe you’re video sharing, and there’s just so much more trust that could be
there, there’s so much more feeling of connection. And it’s not unlike, I should say,
flying across the country and sitting in somebody’s office.

Omar Zenhom: I love that.

John Jantsch: Hey, wanted to remind you this office of the Duct Tape Marketing
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So you have spent a great deal of time and effort and sweat and blood building a
webinar platform of your own. Let me ask you this. What was sort of missing from the
myriad of platforms out there that had you kind of say, “Why gosh darn it, I’m
building my own.”