Every week as SmallBizLady, I conduct interviews with experts on my Twitter talk show #SmallBizChat. The show takes place every Wednesday on Twitter from 8-9 pm ET.
This is excerpted from my recent interview with Thomas P. Curran @tompcurran. Thomas is a Webinar Training Expert who teaches his students how to generate leads, clients and profits with webinars. He is also the author of the book, Millionaire Legacy, 8 Millionaire Success Strategies for achieving financial and emotional wealth. For more information visit: www.webinarsuccessprofits.com
SmallBizLady: What are three ways entrepreneurs can make money?
Tom Curran: I am going to outline 3 ways entrepreneurs can generate revenue. The following examples are illustrative only and there is NO guarantee of making any money.
1) Seminars & Workshops
By hosting your own seminar or workshop, this gives you the opportunity of sharing your expertise with your students. You can also invite other leaders to speak at your event.
If you host 4 events during the year and get only 25 people to register for each event at price of $1,000 per attendee, you will make $25,000 for each event. As a result, you will make $100,000 for the year.
2) Life or Business Coaching
Within the coaching industry, the amount of money that you can make by sharing your knowledge can be substantial.
Let’s assume you are charging $1,000 per month for each one of your coaching clients. Then, all you need is 10 coaching clients per month in order to generate $120,000 for the year.
3) Membership Site
With a membership site, your students can log in to the site and learn strategies, access interviews, and get training material. In addition, you can also add a private Face Book Group for your members.
If you charge $67.00 per student on a monthly basis, you only need 125 members each month to generate $100,500 for the year.
SmallBizLady: I know that you are a Webinar Training Expert and Founder of the Webinar Profits Boot Camp. Could you explain the concept of webinars?
Tom Curran: A webinar is an online presentation that allows the presenter to share valuable information with their audience. A webinar can be focused entirely on training or the host can make an offer for their product or service at the end of their presentation. They can be done live or pre-recorded.
The presenter has the option of being on camera or doing the entire webinar using PowerPoint or Keynote slides. With all of the webinar hosting platforms on the market, it is very easy for anyone to do a webinar and share it with their audience.
SmallBizLady: What are the 8 benefits of using webinars?
Tom Curran: Webinars can definitely help entrepreneurs, business owners and coaches. Here are the 8 Benefits of Using Webinars:
- Webinars are one of the greatest ways to promote your business, products, and training.
- People are excited to attend webinars in order to learn valuable information that can help them.
- Allows you the opportunity of establishing your credibility and authority as a trusted leader within your industry.
- You can build your email list.
- You can describe how your product, service, training or coaching is the solution for the customer’s problem.
- You can sell your products, services, and training 24 hours a day on auto pilot.
- During your webinar presentation, you can overcome objections before you make your offer.
- People are more receptive to hearing your pitch or offer for your product or service.
SmallBizLady: What are the three major factors that prevent someone from investing in a product, service, coaching or training course and how can webinars help with this process?
Tom Curran: The three major factors that will prevent a potential customer from buying:
- FEARS: The fears or self-limiting beliefs that your prospect or client has thinking that your product, service or coaching only works for other people and not for them.
- MISCONCEPTIONS: Any misconceptions they heard in the past regarding the type of product, service, coaching, or training that you are selling
- OBJECTIONS: People have a natural tendency to put up a wall and make objections when the pitch or offer is presented
You should make a list of the fears, misconceptions, or objections that someone may have regarding your product, service, coaching or training. After you complete your list, pick the top three and address these concerns on your webinar before you make the offer for your product or service.
SmallBizLady: What are the two biggest mistakes that people make when they are hosting their own webinars.
Tom Curran: Mistake #1: The presenter will talk too much about their own accomplishments. It is important to establish your credibility and authority but this should be done in a brief manner. You need to be focused on providing great content and showing how your product and service is the solution to their problem.
Mistake #2: The presenter purposely holds back information to the attendees on the webinar. It is important to realize that people are coming to your webinar to learn valuable information that can help them. I have heard a number of people say that you shouldn’t share your best content on a webinar. This is completely false… Yes, you should be sharing valuable information with your attendees because this will help to build your credibility and branding as a trusted leader in your industry.
However, realize that you are also promoting your product, service, coaching, or training program on your webinar. As a result, you need to balance the valuable information that you share on your webinar with the offer you are making for your product or service.
SmallBizLady: Is it better to host a live webinar or have an evergreen or pre-recorded webinar that people can access?
Tom Curran: There are advantages to doing both live and also pre-recorded webinars. If you are planning on doing a live webinar, the biggest advantage is that you can do a live question and answer at the end of your webinar. As a result, this will definitely increase your sales.
For a live webinar, you are going to pick a day and time for your webinar within the next week or two. Then, people will sign up for your webinar and it is their responsibility to mark it on their calendar so that they don’t forget. Even though you can send them email reminders, there are a number of people who sign up that will never attend your webinar.
For an evergreen or pre-recorded webinar, you can give the potential client the option of watching an immediate replay of your webinar. In some cases, they are given the option of choosing the best day and time to watch the webinar that works best for their schedule. Depending upon your audience, pre-recorded webinars usually have a lot more advantages than doing a live webinar. In addition, pre-recorded webinars allow you to generate sales and profits 24 hours a day on auto pilot.
SmallBizLady: What is the 4 Step Process that all webinars must have?
Tom Curran: All Webinars follow an easy-to-follow 4 Step Process.
Drive Traffic => Sign UP Page (Get Email) => Webinar => Sell Your Product or Service / Get Money
Step #1: Drive Traffic to your webinar from your followers on Facebook & Twitter, your connections on LinkedIn, and from paid advertising including Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Step #2: People come to a Sign Up Page for your webinar and provide their email address. It is critical to obtain their email so that you can follow up with them. After they provide their email, they will be taken to the actual webinar if it is pre-recorded or if you are planning on doing a live webinar, they will be given the date and time for your event.
Step #3: The potential customer will watch the webinar and this gives you the opportunity to establish your credibility, provide great content, and show how your product, service, coaching, or training will solve their problem.
Step #4: Your client or customer will be taken to the sales page where they can provide their credit card information and then you get paid.
SmallBizLady: In your book, Millionaire Legacy, you’ve interviewed Brendon Burchard, Bob Proctor, Mark Victor Hansen, Russell Brunson, and other highly respected leaders. What would you say is their biggest secret for being highly successful?
Tom Curran: Their biggest secret for being highly successful is having a “Mindset for Success”. Your mindset is critical for reaching success in your business and also your personal life. Don’t allow self-limiting beliefs or negative comments from other people stop you from reaching your dreams and goals. You have the ability to achieve whatever you want in life with perseverance, dedication and by taking action steps every day that will get you closer to your dreams and goals.
Here are the 8 Essential Steps for a Mindset Focused on Success:
- Be firmly committed to reach all your dreams and goals.
- Maintain the driving force to overcome fear, push through challenges, obstacles, and failures.
- Keep a positive attitude with the realization that success will be achieved.
- Be thankful for what you currently have in your life and have gratitude for what you will receive.
- Develop affirmations that are focused on your aspirations.
- Have a dream board and visualize your goals as if you have them now.
- Start thinking, feeling, and acting as if you have an abundance of wealth and happiness right now in your life.
- Be willing to take decisive action and work on tasks every day that will get you closer to your dreams and goals.
SmallBizLady: What prevents entrepreneurs and business owners from reaching their dreams and goals?
Tom Curran: Fear is the biggest factor that prevents entrepreneurs and business owners from reaching their dreams and goals. However, it is important to realize that fear can be overcome. It is only temporary and not permanent. During my interview with Brendon Burchard for my book, Millionaire Legacy, he stated: “Fear can either be something you use to protect yourself and curl up, or it can be used as something to grow yourself and to stand up. It can be used as something that doesn’t minimize you, but actually activates you.”
Here is a quick 3 Step Process for overcoming fear. 1. Don’t focus on fear, minimize it. 2. Visualize the bigger picture; your goal. 3. Decide on a plan and take action.
SmallBizLady: What are the 8 critical aspects for business success?
Tom Curran: The 8 Critical Aspects for Business Success are:
- Create a clearly defined business plan focused on acquiring customers and providing exceptional service that exceeds their expectations.
- Understand what your competitors are offering so that you can go above and beyond them.
- Ask your employees for their suggestions on how to improve products, services, and customer relations.
- Utilize an education based marketing approach in which you share valuable information through free reports and audio / video training.
- Encourage feedback from your clientele so that you can improve on your products and services. Post their positive testimonials on your website and use them in your marketing campaigns.
- Actively utilize email and text messaging to keep in contact with your clients.
- Use target specific advertising and the internet to spread the word regarding your company.
- Develop an online presence including some of the following websites: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
SmallBizLady: Why should business owners always obtain email addresses?
Tom Curran: By obtaining email addresses, you are developing a list of loyal followers who can become customers and clients. When a person visits your website, give them something of high value in return for their email address. This is called reciprocity. Reassure them that you only want this information so you can send them your newsletter and “special discounts” for the “inner circle clients” on your list. Let them know that these exclusive discounts are just for members. Tell them that you respect their privacy and will not disclose any of their contact information with anyone else.
When a potential customer leaves your website, you have most likely lost them forever. Can you begin to realize how much money is being lost in revenue by not asking for someone’s email address? As a result, obtaining emails and utilizing effective email campaigns could determine your eventual success.
SmallBizLady: What are the best ways to utilize effective time management strategies?
Tom Curran: Here are 5 effective time management strategies that you can start using today:
- Organize your mandatory daily activities hour-by-hour on a calendar. This may include working your current job, taking your children to school, or completing a required errand.
- As you organize your daily activities, set aside quality time for your spouse, partner, and your children.
- Limit your recreation time to only one hour per day. This may include watching television, responding to email, surfing the internet, or sending text messages.
- On your daily calendar, schedule time for working on high priority tasks related to achieving your business and personal objectives.
- Utilize idle time for productive activities. When you are traveling in your vehicle, turn off your radio and listen to an audio book or seminar that is related to the dreams you want to attain. Also, when you are exercising, listen to a motivational seminar or home study course.
Let’s assume that you spend a half hour in the morning when you wake up and a half hour at night before you go to bed working on tasks that will get you closer to reaching your goals. At the end of the month, you would have spent thirty hours being productive and advancing closer to your aspirations. It is simply a matter of turning off the television, not surfing the internet, stop sending continuous text messages and start working on your ambitions.
If you found this interview helpful, join us on Wednesdays 8-9 pm ET; follow @SmallBizChat on Twitter.
Here’s how to participate in #SmallBizChat: http://bit.ly/1hZeIlz
For more tips on how to start or grow your small business subscribe to Melinda Emerson’s blog http://www.succeedasyourownboss.com.
Leave a Reply