Archive for Peak Performance
How to Lose $10,000 a Month with your Hiring Practices
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It’s estimated that an agent who fails in six months costs a broker between $10,000 and $30,000! So, if you’re hiring only one a month who fails, you’re easily losing $10,000 each month!
Do you know how much poor hiring practices cost you? Most brokers don’t realize they are doing irreparable damage to their companies by hiring those who aren’t going to go right to work—and keeping those who won’t work. Here are the 3 biggest consequences to poor selection I see.
1. Stops you from hiring great producers.
Likes attract. How can brokers hope to hire that great producer when they have more than 10% of their office as non-producers? I can see it now. “Sure, I’ll come to your office. I’m a top producer, and I just love to be dragged down by those non-producers. It will be my pleasure to waste my time with them.” Not.
2. Kills your recruiting message.
Do you have a training program? Do you use it to recruit? Here’s the real message: “We have a training program. All our new agents go through it. We don’t get any results from the program, so it really doesn’t work. But, join us.” You can’t possibly show how successful your training program makes your agents because your training program can’t possibly get results—poor people in and no actions and accountability required.
3. De-motivates your agents to provide referrals to you.
Your outcomes and hiring practices speak more loudly than you could possible speak. Why would one of your good agents possibly refer someone to you when your good agent doesn’t see those you hired starting right out and making money fast?
This Market Won’t Cover Up an Inadequate Selection Process
In a fast market, ‘accidental sales’ buoyed poor agents and made them look as though they were actually selling enough real estate to be a ‘median’ agent. When the market left, so did the agents’ ‘mirage’ of decent production. Now, brokers need to hire with purpose (using a stringent, professional interview process). Then, they need to put agents right to work with a proven start-up plan.
Please Tell Me What You Think
What do you think a non-productive agent costs the company? In my next blog, I’ll give you some line items that will probably double what you think a bad hire costs. Let’s see what you think first. Poor hiring practices really, really hurts brokers—both financially and emotionally.
Does Your Training Make the Grade?
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How effective is the training in your company and/or office? Is it doing the job you want it to do? What, exactly DO you want it to do? Some brokers say they want training for
1. Recruiting
2. Retention
3. Because the competition has it
4. Teach agents the technical aspects of real estate
But, brokers don’t usually pinpoint what I think training should do:
Directly affect the success of an agent who attends the training–and does the work during the training.
Too often, agents simply choose an office because it has ‘training’. They don’t differentiate between training programs. Yet, I know all training programs aren’t created equal. In fact, unfortunately, a great many of them don’t assure any type of success. How do I know? I look at what happens to the people after they ‘graduate’ from those training programs. So, I think, if you’re going to go to training, you have the right–and responsibility to yourself–to expect that training program would directly affect the success of your agents. Otherwise, what is it for?
What should you expect from your company/office training program as a manager?
What to Look For: Five Critical Points
1. The objective is fast productivity, not just knowledge. When an agent interviews, he/she should ask what the objectives of training are with that company. If it’s just knowledge, in my opinion, they should run the other way! They will know a lot, but they won’t be in business very long!
2. The training program has business-producing expectations and goals. For example, if the agents expect to make money fast, the training program needs to help them learn to set prospecting goals and attain them. That doesn’t mean lecturing in class. That means they get an activity plan and are working in the field during the class duration. That also means that they aren’t in class all day.
3. The training program is built around a business start-up plan. In the interview, show the company’s business start-up plan for the agent. If it isn’t sales-producing, it isn’t a real start-up plan.
4. Sales skills are practiced by the students in class. How can we expect agents to be competent with clients if they haven’t gained competency and confidence in the classroom? Clients are very discriminating these days. They expect agents to know what they’re doing! During the interview, show how students spend class time. This should not be lecture!
5. Expectations for achievement in sales developing and packaging are clear. Is this a college-level training? In college, students are expected to perform during the course. If agents are not expected to practice outside class, and get sales packages together (like listing and buyer presentations), then this isn’t a real training. It’s just a time-eating event. Wouldn’t your consumer expect agents to have a high level of competence, no matter their days/weeks/years in the business? Then, your training program must deliver.
Armed with these 5 critical expectations, you can evaluate your training program .
Question: How do you evaluate your training program? What’s working right? What’s not working? What do you think should have been in your training program?
Want to see that kind of program–and a sample of what it looks like? Check out Advantage 2.0.
Click here to see more.
Hiring your Next Great Manager: Run the Other Way If…
Posted by: | CommentsYou’re in the interview process, attempting to do a great job in choosing your next manager. What do you want to listen for? What ‘red flags’ should you notice? It all starts with your job description. (Look below to get mine).
The real estate industry is changing rapidly. Yet, many of our job descriptions for managers have not changed in 40
years! So, don’t rely on that old job description when hiring. Instead, look way past the ‘traditional manager’ profile. What do I mean? You can’t afford to have just a ‘maintenance manager’. You can’t have a manager who:
Sits in the office and waits for a crisis
Refuses to recruit because he/she ‘doesn’t have time’
Doesn’t believe in standards of performance
Thinks training should be done by someone else (unless he/she is managing a very large office)
Thinks managing is about getting groups to do what he/she says, instead of developing each agent to his/her potential
What to Listen for in the Interview
If your candidate says any of the statements below,
“I just want to support my agents”.
“It’s tough out there; I want to keep encouraging them to just hang in there.”
“I want to be available to agents 24 hours a day.”
“Retention is much more important than recruiting.”
“ I don’t train or coach. You’ll have to hire someone to do that.”
“I don’t believe in taking courses. I learn from experience.”
“My expertise is in answering broker questions. I’ll be there for them”
“Crisis management is my forte.”
Run the other way. In my experience interviewing hundreds of would-be leaders, any of these statements is a strong indicator that the person is going to practice ‘maintenance management’. You need much more than that. You need an action leader.
For a job description of that action leader, click here.
Want many more tips/strategies/leadership actions to put to work to build a more profitable office? Check out www.365leadership.net. This subscription series provides you one leadership idea/action per month. It will motivate and inspire you to be the best leader you can be. Next series starts in September. Join us!
Team is No Longer a ‘Four-Letter Word
Posted by: | CommentsIn real estate, for years we said,
we don’t need to think of ourselves as a team. We’re independent contractors. We work alone.
That perspective has certainly changed in the last few years, and it’s a continuing trend. Why? Because the challenges are so much greater. The needs for specialists is so much greater. Both managers and agents are learning the benefits a synergystic team. And, for managers, it gives them an opportunity to stop that old ‘top-down’ management style and step into participative management (see the 365 Leadership coaching program for more on this).
Who Has Supported You in your Life?
Think of a time in your life when you accomplished something noteworthy. Were you completely alone? Or was someone with you? If someone was involved in your accomplishment, think of how that person was involved. Did he or she help you get that done? Taught you the skills to do that job? Encouraged you?
That exercise always elicits smiles, warm memories and enthusiasm. And no one with whom I’ve done that exercise has ever said that he or she accomplished something important alone.
Management tip: Try that in your real estate office. See what kind of response you get. Then hold a discussion using the points in this and my next blog.
No One Succeeds Alone
What about talented people? Can’t they master skills alone? The answer is—no. Since I have been a musician from age four, I thought about my musical experiences—and how much musicians can accomplish alone—or not. I concluded as I thought about my musician friends, that, no one could succeed without outside coaching.
As I grew up, I watched innately talented musicians get “stuck.” They could take themselves only so far without some coaching. (You would call that “playing by ear.”) For example, many found they had to learn to read music to achieve their goals. Why? It’s impossible to learn a Beethoven sonata “by ear”—it’s simply too long. I don’t know anyone who taught him- or herself to read music—alone. And that’s just the basics. We musicians know that we can’t hear ourselves play or sing well enough to correct all our mistakes. We need a coach with a great ear to help us refine our performances. And the need for coaching never ends, as long as we want to maintain levels of performance.
Who Is Supporting You to Master Real Estate Management?
It’s time to acknowledge that none of us can master real estate alone. How did we ever create the folklore that we had to work alone in our endeavors to achieve accomplishments in real estate? I can’t think of a skill that anyone can master where the “practitioner” had no teaching, coaching, mentoring or encouragement.
But by perpetuating this folklore, we have damaged the real estate industry. We did the easy, expedient and inexpensive thing: We told our sales associates that this was an “independent business”—that they were in business for themselves. We trashed our training programs. We forced our sales associates to seek outside coaching and consulting. What we got was a very uneven standard of performance, and we created adversarial relationships among sales associates—and between sales associates and managers. What we allowed were uncommon goals, more competition, less cooperation—and we did it with a bunch of people who already are highly competitive. We threw out leadership—and what we got was anarchy, in some cases.
Leadership Steps
Start coaching your sales associates again. Help them discover that no one achieves alone. Then start building a team atmosphere. What do I mean by “team”? Not what you might think. Don’t get up in front of your sales associates and say, “We will accomplish more together as a team. So now we’re a team.” That’s ludicrous. And yet, that’s exactly why so many teamwork concepts fail. Teamwork is not an announcement. It’s a process—a process that requires skills that many managers, and sports coaches, have not mastered.
What Exactly is a ‘Team’?
A team is not a rah-rah group of people drawn together in a power play. A team isn’t a social group. A team isn’t a group of people who agree to do things the manager’s way, or whoever is the “boss” such as the dominant sales associate. A team is two or more people working on a common task, focused on mutually agreed to and mutually beneficial results.
You can think of the team acronym, “Together Everyone Accomplishes More.”
Want to get specific strategies, that you can immediately implement, to build your team with confidence, take a look at 365 Leadership. It’s a small-group coaching program ONLY for owners and managers. Each month, you’ll get a new leadership strategy to recruit, coach, train, and motivate your associates. You’ll build new structures to get out of that old ‘top down’ management that agents hate! Take a look at 365 Leadership and see what others think of the first program. Our next program starts in September.
You deserve the kind of coaching and support to take your management career to the next level!
Ten Steps to Help Your Agent Adjust to Today’s Market
Posted by: | CommentsHave your seasoned agents adjusted to the market today, or are they still working the market of yesteryear? The hot
market brought agents happy sales ‘accidents’, and they capably helped those people buy and sell. But, in a challenging market, people don’t just ‘turn themselves in’. It’s time for agents to get ‘on purpose’.
You, the Coach: Helping Them Get ‘On Purpose’
Have you given your agentsthe ammunition to change from ‘on accident’ to ‘on purpose? Here are 10 questions that will reveal whether agentshave the plan and the support to pull themselves out of that slump and provide the insurance plan that allows themto thrive—no matter the market:
1. Do I have a ‘start-up’ plan—a plan that tells me what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and why to do it? (Or, do I just come to the office and ‘go with the flow’)
2. Am I waiting for someone to tell me what to do each day, or do I have focus and purpose with my plan? (it doesn’t work to ask your manager what to do each day, and, as a newer agent just told me, your manager answers, “Mail some postcards.” You wouldn’t expect a Starbucks franchise to ‘guide’ the new franchisee that way, and you’re not going to get a business start with that kind of piecemeal ‘advice’!)
3. Do I have a daily schedule that is prioritized with the business actions most important to me to assure I make money? (If you’re just relying on your office for its floor time and meeting schedule, you aren’t in the business!)
4. Do I know the best methods of lead generation—and how to implement them? (You can’t wait for ‘training’ that starts in 3 months to start your business!)
5. Do I know the numbers? (how many contacts does it take to get a lead, how many leads to get an appointment, how many appointments to get a listing, showing, how many showings to get a sale, how many marketable listings will sell) (If you don’t, you are destined to be an ‘on accident’ agent—only selling someone something when the stars are aligned).
6. Do I know how long it will take to get a sale? To get a listing? To get a listing sold? (so you can project your income) (New agents tend to wait, and wait, and wait, to get into the business ‘stream’, thinking that there is no time frame to buyers’ decisions—wrong!)
7. Do I have a method of setting goals and tracking accomplishments in the areas above—so I can analyze my specific strengths and challenges in this business? (Most agents never track what they do, so they don’t know what worked—or why what they’re doing isn’t working).
8. Do I have a budget so I know how much money I should be spending in marketing myself/marketing my listings?
9. Do I have someone to talk to regularly, to coach me, to keep me on track, and to help me if I fall off my start-up plan (to keep me from failing)?
10. Do I have a method to keep myself motivated and inspired to keep on keeping on (like a coach or your manager)?
Getting Some Help with Direction
If your agentscan’t answer the questions above with authority and confidence, they need much more business direction than they’re getting now. It’s time forthemto get serious about real estate as a business, and grasp a start-up plan and the support theyneed to assure their success.
See Manager’s On Track to Success in 30 Days Coaching System for experienced agents, and the Manager’s Up and Running in 30 Days Coaching System for the agent under 1-2 years in the business.
Coaching: How Much Lead Generation Does Your Agent Need to Do?
Posted by: | CommentsYou’re the coach. You’re helping that seasoned agent re-energize his/her business. The agent asks you, 
“How much lead generation do I HAVE to do, coach? ”
What do you tell the agent? I have a strict, precise lead generating plan with ratios of success in Up and Running in 30 Days. I also have a plan for the seasoned agent in On Track to Success in 30 Days System. But, it’s not quite that simple.
Three Variables to Keep in Mind
I wish I could give you one tight, proven formula. There are variables that make specific formulas difficult to pin down.
Success by the Numbers
I set the expectations for the Up and Running in 30 Days business start-up program based on my experience on the number of contacts it takes to get a lead, then a sale. But, it also depends on several variables, as explained in Up and Running:
1. Type of contact–how warm or cold is it?
How much trust has been established? The warmer the contact, the more trust is already there. So, it takes less contacts in a ‘warm’ target market (like people you know or past clients) to convert to a lead, than to a ‘cold contact’. For example, the Internet marketing companies say it takes 200 contacts to equal one sale.
2. The agent’s sales skill, competency, and tenacity.
How good is the agent at opening sales conversations? How good is the agent at finding out needs? Asking insightful questions? Listening? Guiding the conversation with focus toward a goal of moving the sales process forward? The better the agent is at sales skills, the easier he/she will find it to sell–and the better the lead and conversion ratios.
3. The market–buyers and sellers are more hesitant to ‘turn themselves in’ today.
Sales skills come back into play here. It’s not a market where people just fall all over themselves to buy and sell real estate. You have to have skills, tenacity, and competency.
How can you tell the numbers it takes?
Provide a tracking process as you coach. (There are tracking Excel spreadsheets with goals and ‘actuals’ in both Up and Running and on Track). Set up goals for each target market and track the agent’s conversion rates with him/her . Now you know the specific work it takes for the agent to generate a lead, create an interview, work with buyers and sellers, and get sales results. Armed with those numbers, you can customize a program like Up and Running.
The problem: Most agents work way too few lead generation numbers and sources. In fact, they have so few, it’s impossible to extrapolate ratios. That’s why Up and Running and the four -week regeneration plan in the On Track to Success in 30 Days System (for seasoned agents) have such big numbers–it’s an insurance plan.
What your agent needs to succeed: Tenacity, a business generation plan, and action. Help each agent set goals and keep accomplishments. Analyze them. Point out their best sources of business and help them work them with consistency. Teach classes and have them practice and polish sales skills. Remember, you are helping each agent, one at a time, develop an enviable career.
Is Your Real Estate Office Productivity-Focused?
Posted by: | CommentsIs your office productivity-focused? Or, is it basically a social gathering place? What’s important to your agents? Do you know how you can tell? It’s in
your agents’ attitude about lead generation. Do they run home to lead generate? Or, are they proud to pick up the phone and lead generate in your office?
What Percent of Your Agents Actively Lead Generate?
Do you know? Find out. Do your agents ask you if they will have to lead generate to be successful? Too many times, agents look at lead generating as a ‘last resort’. In their minds, they are saying to themselves,
“If nothing else works, I’ll pick up the phone.”
So, their lead generating efforts are too little, too late—and done without much skill. In fact, they spend too much time and energy negating various methods of lead generation. They say things like,
“It won’t work for me in my area.”
“I tried that once. It doesn’t work.”
“Isn’t there something new?”
“I’ll wait for people to come to me.”
“I am going to company that provides leads.”
“I’ll join a team and they will provide me as many golden leads as I want.”
What Are You Telling Them in the Interview?
Too many times, we whitewash the real estate sales game in the interview. I’ve heard managers say things like, “You won’t have to lead generate with us. We’ll provide you leads.” Or, “Our floor time is great.” Those are set-ups for failure. Look at your interview process and be sure you aren’t shining on that candidate, only to see them fail later on.
Don’t Let Them Shunt Lead Generating Aside–They Will Fail in Real Estate!
Instead of spending countless hours, energy, and money trying to avoid lead generating, help your agents make lead generating the cornerstone of their businesses, not the exception to the rule.
Follow the Sales Path to Results
The sales path, as explained in Up and Running in 30 Days, is:
Lead generate
Interview and qualify buyers or
Interview and qualify sellers
List marketable properties or
Show buyers homes
Listing sells or
Make a sale
The last two activites are the only 2 activities that make us money!
It all starts with lead generation. If your agents are avoiding it, ask yourself ‘why’? Perhaps they need to be someone’s assistant, or find a job that doesn’t require them to self-start. Instead of doing everything to avoid lead generating, help change your culture to embrace it. Teach them and hold them accountable to a new method every week. It’s the most important aspect of your agents’ success.
Before You Decide NOT to Hire a Coach…
Posted by: | CommentsMoney is tight. You are experiencing more challenges than you thought possible in real estate management. Who can afford a coach? Well, maybe now is the time you CAN”T afford NOT to hire one.
Ask yourself: How are you going to get better? How are you going to break through those ceilings of achievement? What are you going to change about your recruiting, your training, your coaching?
“I’ll Get Coaching and Training from My Company”
How’s that working out for you? The real estate industry is cyclical. You’ve heard people say that. There are ‘buyers’ markets, and ‘sellers’ markets. There’s another way the real estate industry is cyclical, too. It’s cyclical in its approach to supporting its agents. When I started in real estate, (almost three decades ago!), there was no training. Then, companies started training programs. When I went into management in the early 1980’s, we were also taught to coach agents to higher productivity. But, as money got tight, and real estate companies became less profitable, they dumped their training programs. They asked managers to also sell. Just ask anyowner or general manager today whether they have time to train and coach……….you know the answer. It’s ‘no’.
Coaching is Big in the World of Business Today
However, in the world of business generally, coaching has become a big thing. It’s even swept into the realm of real estate again in the form of paid, independent coaching programs. But, you may be one of those who says, “I don’t need a coach. I’m a self-starter. I can reach my goals on my own.” Having been in real estate for three decades, I’ve heard that comment a lot. But, my experience has shown me that almost everyone benefits from coaching.
Skills Come from Practice and Coaching Assistance
As a pianist since I was four years old, I know that peak performance comes only with practice—perfect practice. And, 
therein lies the rub. When you attempt to learn to play the piano by yourself, without a teacher, you can’t hear yourself play. You can’t make adjustments fast enough alone. You need a great piano teacher who is helping you assess your performance, make adjustments, and challenges you to stretch to higher goals.
Skills: The Secret Ingredient
The difference between one person’s success in any field and another lies, in part, in their comparable skills. All experienced pianists can put their hands on the keys. They can play the notes. But, most pianists haven’t mastered playing the notes. They haven’t mastered the interpretation. That takes practice and coaching.
Could You Benefit from Coaching?
If you’re:
- Not optimizing your talents
- Not attaining your goals
- Spending too much time spinning your wheels
- Spending too much money for little return
- Hitting ceilings of achievement
- Feel as though you’re alone in your predicament
You will benefit from a professional business coach.
What Your Coach Can Do For You
- Help you focus on our goals so we get there faster.
- Motivate you to get into meaningful action.
- Encourage you to keep on keeping on.
- Offer resources for new ideas so we can take a different look.
- Appreciate your efforts when no one else seems to!
Real Estate Salespeople and Managers—a Special Breed
Approximately ninety percent of all real estate salespeople and managers have behavioral styles that are highly aggressive and/or promotional. That’s not like the normal population! In other words, we like people and we charge ahead (my motto is, when all else fails, read the directions……). Only fifty percent of the normal population exhibits those behavioral styles. Other styles are more task focused and embrace procedure. Yes, we salespeople-types have special talents—and special challenges. Our biggest challenge is focus. We’re great with people. We get into action fast. Our problem is that people and actions pull us in various directions, and we lose the one thing that drives us toward our goals—focus. The first and biggest benefit a coach can give us is to keep us focused.
Coaches Provide Much-Needed Models and Systems
Models and systems are woefully lacking in our real estate industry. After all, we’re the people who’ve always said, “Fake it until you make it.” What if your surgeon said that? Or your accountant? Historically, we real estate professionals have had an aversion to following procedures.
Yet, in the world of business, systems are the basis of all business growth. For us too, systematizing is the best way we can build big, profitable businesses. A competent coach uses proven models and systems and processes that do more than stop our crisis management. They teach us how to think about our business.
A Coach Helps You move Faster and With More Confidence
Armed with great models and systems, you and your coach have a common language from which to work. You will benefit from gaining focus. You will accomplish more faster, gain greater confidence, and be able to set higher goals as a result of your coaching experience and relationship.
Want to see if coaching may be for you? Take this evaluator.
Webinars: 9 Tips to ‘Execute’ Like a Pro
Posted by: | CommentsIs there a webinar in your future? Webinars aren’t just for trainers, or even managers. They’re for agents to use, too. You can educate your potential clients, help first-time home buyers, record webinars for your website—the list is almost endless. They are an additional marketing tool for you.
Boring….or even Painful?
I’m sure you’ve attended webinars that were boring—even painful. Here are nine tips to assure your webinars are ‘executed’ like the pros.
1. Practice. It is amazing how many real estate professionals never practice
any type of presentation. That would be like me, a musician, trying to play a recital without practicing! You can put your webinar software in ‘practice’ mode. Then, run through your webinar as though you had an audience.
2. Timing. Time your webinar to assure you don’t go over 45 minutes. Be sure to take into account the amount of time your polls will take.
3. Have the right number of slides for your time frame. You should introduce a new slide at least every 1-2 minutes. So, for a 45-minute ‘show’, you should have about 20-30 slides. When you’re practicing, be sure to move through those slides fast enough. You’ll see that you don’t want to put many words on a slide, either.
4. Print your webinar slides 2-3 on a page. You can save them in a PDF format. (In the next blog I’ll talk about how to market your webinar. You’ll be using the PDF of your slides, anyway here). Why? Because it’s difficult to see part of your slides with some webinar software. Also, you’ll want to have a method of capturing your ‘dialogue’ with the slides. Make notes on your printed slide pages so you remember any stories, additions, etc. you want to make verbally to each slide. Remember, you must be entertaining!
5. Introduction. When you start your webinar, tell webinar attendees how you’ll proceed. How will you:
- Handle questions?
- Do polls?
- Provide handouts?
- Provide contact information after the webinar
6. Verbal delivery. Because people can’t see you, you need to use lots of ‘verbal dynamics’ when you present. What do I mean? You’ll want to use abundant voice inflections. Lower your voice when it’s appropriate. Raise it to make a certain point. Pause for effect. Listen to webinar presenters to see what’s most effective. The webinar attendees can’t see you, so you need to use your voice to transmit emotion.
7. Use a remote wireless slide advancer to change your slides. You’ve seen presenters use those ‘live’. You can get one at any office supply company. Generally, I use one that attaches to my computer via a USB device.
8. Use a moderator. Having someone moderate or control your webinar is a great idea, especially if you’re newer at webinars. Things can go wrong! Your moderator can handle any technical issues, introduce you, if you wish, and ‘chat’ with attendees. Your moderator can capture questions and give them to you during the webinar, or at the end, too.
9. Use a telephone connection, not your computer microphone. Generally, you’ll get better sound. I use a headset when I’m doing webinars.
Armed with those 9 tips, you’ll execute like a pro!
Want more presentation tips? Take a look at Knock Their Socks Off: Tips 
to Make your Best Presentation Ever!
How to Make your Webinars Sizzle, not Sink
Posted by: | CommentsOkay. My first blog on creating webinars showed you how to pick your topic. We developed your objectives. You chose your technology ‘vehicle’. Now, the fun begins. You have several more choices to make. They include:
- The name of your webinar. The name of your webinar is extremely important, for it will draw people toward the webinar—or away from it. For example: Your topic is business planning. Are you going to name your webinar “The Basics of Business Planning”? Only if you want to repel people and/or put them to sleep…. I do many webinars for the National Association of Realtors Learning Library. Click here to see one. I was asked to do one on business planning. Knowing that can be a deadly subject, I named the webinar “Not Your Grammy’s Business Plan”. This is the topic slide.
It got their attention, and was fun to do. It set the stage that we were going to have a good time at business planning.
Don’t just jump into a name for your webinar. Think of several names. Run them past several people and get their feedback. Sometimes your friends can come up with much better names than you!
2. The time frame of your webinar. Webinars work best if they’re about 45 minutes, with about 15 minutes for questions at the end. (You can also do questions during the webinar. More about interaction and timing later). It’s very challenging to hold someone’s attention more than 45 minutes. So, be sure you can deliver your webinar easily in that time frame. How to find out? Practice!
3. Sketch your webinar content and ‘progress’. When you’re doing a webinar, you can’t just think in terms of content. You must also think, “What visual would best represent the content?” So, as you are creating your webinar, get those ‘pictures’ in your head that represent your content.
Put the ABA Structure to Work
To create your webinar content, use the ABA persuasive presentation formula (those who have taken my instructor development courses, or have gotten The Ultimate Real Estate Trainer’s Guide knows exactly what I’m talking about).
A—the opening—should be provocative; should lay out the problem and the solution; should have a strong ‘theme’
B—the development of your theme; should support your opening. Here’s where your stories, analogies, etc. come in.
A—the closing—back to the beginning; should support the theme; should paint a rosy picture and be motivating to attendees
Your ‘homework’ assignment: Now you have some ‘rules’ from which to evaluate webinars. So, join 2-3 webinars in the next week and see if they:
1. Named their webinar to capture people’s attention and interest
2. Timed their webinar correctly
3. Used the ABA structure to create their webinar
In the next blog, we’ll discuss how to keep the audience’s attention during that 45 minutes!