Nov 13, 2018
Hello everybody and welcome to the Story Engine podcast. I am so excited for today's guest, today we have Isa Adney on the show. She is the webinar developer for ConvertKit. And webinars are such an exciting and powerful tool that combine storytelling, that combine scalability, that combine a lot of the elements of marketing that I think are so empowering to people creating a business and making an impact and she is a total master of how to make these webinars just explosive in growth for your business.
She's going to share everything from getting people on your webinar, how do you do that effectively, how do you get people excited to be on with you, how do you create great content throughout the webinar which keeps people engaged, keeps people excited, how do you put together an amazing offer, completely with great bonuses that make people want to move forward and move deeper with you once you've completed your webinar. This is exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, as Isa has never done a podcast before!
Key Takeaways
[4:23] The secret to becoming a good speaker
[7:16] Working with affiliates
[9:08] Generating registration through email strategies
[12:17] How to attract people and get them excited about attending your webinars
[14:07] How to create outstanding content to wow your prospects
[16:29] Using bonuses effectively
[22:47] The strategy behind a good offer
[28:04] Advice on how to teach via a webinar
[31:39] First steps to creating a revenue-generating webinar
Isa Adney Information
Sales Funnel Pep Talk 3 Steps to More Sales in Less Time
Transcript
Kyle:
There is so much value in this episode that she has never shared before, never done any interviews on podcasts like this, she just creates webinars all day long and this is the first time when we really get a peek behind the curtain at what makes what she does so great. Plus we've got a special treat for you at the end of the episode, so make sure you listen to the end and check out the show notes. Thanks so much, and let's turn this over to Isa. Isa, thank you so much for joining us today.
Isa:
Thank you, Kyle, I'm so excited about this. I was just counting recently and I had done 150 webinars, I think in the last year and I've never talked with anyone outside my team and maybe my friends and family about webinars, so I'm really excited about this.
Kyle:
The secrets are coming out today.
Isa:
They are.
Kyle:
This is awesome. So before we dive a little bit into your probably 10,000 plus hours, webinar mastery, I'd like to learn a little bit more about you and who you are and kind of a defining moment in your life that you feel like has led you to have the brilliant skills that you have today.
Isa:
Well, thank you, I would say the most defining moment was probably having my first book published, that happened in March of 2012 and the book's called Community College Success and I had gone to community college, I then worked at a community college and fell in love with the students there and the potential there and I always wanted to be a writer as well and I wrote this book. And I also felt this entrepreneurial urge.
I loved my job but I just wanted to also do my own thing and I just couldn't help myself. And so the book was the first thing I had really created, my own physical thing and it unlocked all of these opportunities, and the first opportunities it unlocked was to speak. Immediately I was working at this college, the president of the college asked me to speak at this event for donors to get scholarships.
So that was my first real time public speaking in kind of a big way, I had never done anything like that before. I'm actually introverted, which you wouldn't think, with all of the webinars I do, but I'm a writer at heart. So if anyone listening, if you're terrified of the idea of being on video, you're thinking I'm an extrovert, I've gotta tell you, I was a writer first and not an extrovert, not a skilled public speaker but I just started speaking and what I realized is that when you speak about something that you really care about, you don't need to have any formal skills, you just need to be able to care about something. And if you care about something, you already have a big head start when it comes to speaking in public and being on webinars, and they're very, very similar.
So I'd say that was the biggest defining moment in my life because it changed everything, I quit that job, I had my own full-time business, I had a blog and that is all that started where I am today. I teach other bloggers and other creators who wanna bring something they really care about into the world. And so this job, when it opened up to be a webinar producer just felt like the perfect way to start sharing everything I had learned and this... Where we are with technology now, right, like when I was first learning how to have my first business, I was on teleseminars, I always share this in my webinars, but now live is so easy.
And so it never ceases to amaze me every day when I'm on a webinar and you ask everyone where they're from and they're from all over the world, South Africa and Spain and India and I tell people, and I'm so serious when I say this that I never get bored of this part. I'm in awe that I'm sitting in my home office where we are right now, every day talking with people around the world about the things they really care about and how they can use the internet to share that thing with more people and in a way that's really authentic, not weird or salesy or gross. And webinars do not have to be that way, which I was thrilled about when I learned more about them because I wouldn't want to do it if it was that way.
Kyle:
Wow, there is so much in there. A lot that I can identify with, I definitely got my start as a writer, and even wrote a book to the college student as one of my first big things, too. So a lot of what you said, I loved what you were saying, kind of giving us encouragement where it is terrifying to get on camera, it's terrifying to get on podcasts or speak for the first time, especially as someone who's more practiced with we like to have each of our lines perfectly written before we share them.
So yeah, being up in front of people and being live and being vulnerable can be a really big challenge at first. So I'd love to get kind of a big picture of how the webinars you do fit within the whole sales process with ConvertKit and then maybe take it a step back and break down what that means for somebody who is maybe running their first webinar who has gotten started with a couple of webinars but really wants to make it a powerful growth tool for their business.
Isa:
Good question. So the first part, I'd say the main thing I do with webinars, is we partner with affiliates. So we have an affiliate program at ConvertKit, people can get, and anyone can do this if you're a ConvertKit customer, and actually or not even, you can be a ConvertKit affiliate if you just like ConvertKit and want to recommend it to people who you think it'd really be helpful to and so people get 30% lifetime commission, so as long as that person is paying month to month, they will get 30% of that every single month.
So so we have a really strong affiliate program and we have some affiliates who just do an amazing job. And so with those affiliates who have an audience who are doing a really good job of promoting it, we tend to partner with them and we'll do a joint webinar together. So we do all the work for the affiliate in terms of setting everything up. Because they're busy and they have their whole business going on, so we create the landing page, we design the content, so I meet with them beforehand and learn more about their audience.
So that's something that I was really passionate about coming into the role is, I wanted every webinar to be a little different because every audience was gonna be a little different and their goals for email were always gonna be a little different. And I didn't wanna do the same webinar every day, so I don't really, so that's been really fun.
So I meet with the affiliate partner to figure out who's gonna be on the other end. And I think that's a big takeaway for anyone thinking about doing webinars, it's all about who is on the other end and what do they want, and what can you teach them to help them get there, even if they don't buy your thing. Even if they don't do the thing at the end that you'd like them to do, you wanna make sure that the content will help them anyway, I think.
And so that's what we figure out with the partner is how can we help them? No matter what they do at the end of this webinar. And then I write swipe copies, so being a writer and a webinar person helps a lot. So I write swipe copy for the affiliate that they can then send their email list to invite them to the webinar. And sometimes they invite them on social media too.
We've definitely found though, that solo emails to your list, at least two, and I'd say today even more than a year ago, the closer the emails are to the webinar date, the better. We have found the email that goes out the day before saying "We're going live tomorrow,", and then the email that day saying "Hey, last chance, we're going live today,". That's where a lot of the registrants tend to come from now, more than last year.
I'd say last year it was a little bit spread out, now not so much. So it's interesting doing webinars every day as you start to see a lot of trends. So the affiliate invites just their list, and then they're a co-host, and so I host the webinar, the affiliate there's a co-host. I ask them questions about whatever they're doing related to email as related to the content, teach you the content, depending on what we've decided would be most helpful for the audience, and then at the end, I show them how to do some of the strategies in my ConvertKit demo account.
So I tell them at the beginning, everything I teach, you can use really no matter which email service provider that you use. So they know that this is gonna help no matter what. There's no pressure. At the end I'll show them how to do it in ConvertKit though, and then say "Hey, if you wanna do this too, if you wanna not just take my word for it,", then we give them a 30 day free trial, which is something you can't get on our website, it's just exclusive to our webinars and very special kind of promotions.
So that helps too when you're doing a webinar, is having something that's special to the webinar, to that kind of mode of communication and then we often include bonuses, some from us, one from the partner typically, so there's that bundle which I'm sure anyone who's ever been on a webinar, you've seen, we definitely didn't invent that.
It certainly helps, we tend to give bonuses that we think will really help them with the journey they're trying to go on, in our case that's usually starting or creating a thriving online business in some way, or getting more clients, more customers and they get to keep the bonuses even if they cancel their ConvertKit account. So we want to make sure they get the bonuses just for getting on the trial, in our case.
So that is typically what our webinars look like, and then they get the replay and then some follow up emails at the end and that last follow up email, one thing we do in ConvertKit because I use ConvertKit for all my webinar emails. We use Zoom for the actual webinar, but ConvertKit for everything else and we exclude anyone who's on a trial from that last follow up email. So if you already saw the webinar, you got ConvertKit, you don't need another reminder that there's one more day to still get your trial, so we exclude them from that as well.
Kyle:
Wow, I think that's amazing and there are so many different things that I wanna dive into, but let's start with the beginning. I think one of the most challenging parts of a good webinar is getting people to show up. So I know you can use ConvertKit to send some automated emails to get people excited. You also want to send some campaigns that are based on time. But are you just sending emails? How do you create swipe copy that gets people really excited, that gets people opening the emails and I guess how do we get those last minute people who "We're going live today, hop on the webinar,", how do we get them to really get off the fence and join us on the webinar?
Isa:
Such a good question. So in our case, we're... All of our attendees are coming from the affiliate's list and this is a warm list, right? These affiliates are constantly building a list with really helpful freebies, content upgrades and these are people who want to grow a business, want to grow a list, right? Those are the partners that we have, we don't partner with an affiliate partner who teaches people baking.
Right? We're not gonna email their list "Hey, come to our webinar about growing your email list," if they're just interested in recipes, that wouldn't be relevant. So for someone who's doing this on their own, what you wanna think about is how you're getting people on your list, and how relevant that content is you're giving away to get someone on your list, how relevant that is to what your webinar content might be.
So if we're doing this by myself, you could just invite people to a webinar, free masterclass, you hear a lot of different phrases, all of that can work, that can be your main way to even get new people on your list. This is also how we grow our email list, even at ConvertKit, right? Is through webinars. So that alone can be enough, especially if you're doing the right copy which I'll talk about next, but you can also do a step... Kind of take a step back and do a checklist, right? Something that is gonna be relevant to what your webinar is but actually start by just getting them on your email list for something quick.
Give them a quick win, a quick checklist and then have a sequence that tells them about the webinar. Some people do this with every webinar, so they have this always ongoing, right? You could also do this live where you have a limited time only checklist, you only give it away for a month and then you invite that list only to the live webinar. And so you could kind of keep it exclusive in that way too. The key is just attracting the people who need what you're going to share in the webinar.
Isa:
And when it comes to copy, because the copy is what's going to get people on your list. The copy is going to be what gets people to show up. I think there are two really important parts to that. The first is interviewing someone who is your ideal customer client, the ideal person that you want on that webinar. I have seen this a million times with every creator I have met who's earned a full-time living online. They do this. They get on the phone with one person, and then they just listen. And they ask about their struggles. They ask about what they need. And you record that, and then use that copy in your copy. Everyone else is going to feel like you're reading their mind. And I'd say that's the first most important element, is you've got to understand what they're struggling with and how you're going to help them overcome that, and how your webinar content's going to help them.
And then the second part is your personal connection, your personal story. And anyone listening, that's where you're going to have an even bigger advantage than even a company because this is so personal to you. And that is what's going to stand out, so even when I give affiliate swipe copy, I've made the base copy based on all the interviews that I've done with people, trying to grow an email list, start a business. I know what they're struggling with. I know what they really want. But what I always tell the affiliates to do is, I say, "Hey. This part right here, I wouldn't use my words. I would put your story there. When did you struggle with email? What was the ah-ha moment for you? How has it made a difference in your business?" And so for anyone listening thinking about how to get people to show up on your webinars, your story plus their story is really what's going to stick out.
Kyle:
Incredible. On top of that, I want to transition into kind of the bonuses because I do think that's a really compelling thing. Do you use bonuses? And you've seen a lot of different bonuses, especially bundling in and seeing how they perform on different things. Do you give away a bonus just for registering for the webinar? If you have several bonuses, do you give them away during the webinar to make sure people stay on, or give them away at the end? Or are you giving away bonuses if you buy, if you sign up for this product, if you take action, then you also get a bonus? There's three, the preregistration, during the webinar, and if you make the purchase kind of bonuses. Can you delineate these? And which ones are successful?
Isa:
Really good question. We haven't tested the, you get a bonus just for registering for the webinar, at least telling people that ahead of time. I've wanted to. We might test that at some point. We just haven't. What we've done most of the time is include bonuses for setting the trial of ConvertKit, so you get the bonuses if you set up the trial. And basically setting up an account right now, you don't even have to put a credit card in to do that. You also get a separate email with all those bonuses. That's always worked really, really, really well. And one thing we also do is we have a live only bonus. If you set up your trial on a live webinar, you will get that. And then everyone who couldn't show up, they'll still get the replay. And they still have access to some bonuses, just not the live only one, so that one is only for people who show up live. And that has worked really, really well. The affiliate sometimes throwing in a bonus too is really helpful.
But yes, that works really well. The only time we do it a little differently is, we also have a course and have a webinar that actually leads to getting a paid course called Creator Paths, which is something new that we have. And that, you can only get bonuses if you're buying something, whereas, in our typical webinars I do, you get bonuses just for trying something. Now in that case, if they only get the bonuses for buying something, we also give everyone registered with a replay a bonus as just a thank you for showing up, a thank you for being a part of the webinar. We don't want anyone to leave empty handed or feel like they were just sold to, and if they didn't buy a thing, they were unimportant to us. That is not how we feel, and so we always want to make sure we're truly teaching, truly helping no matter what.
In that case, because the entry to get the bonus is a lot more, you actually have to pay, we want to make sure they still get something. That's how I tend to think of it. And then another thing to that is we do always think about our current customers because there's always some on a webinar. They're like, "What if I'm already on ConvertKit?" We also make sure we give them the bonuses too, as a thank you. Obviously, the first free month, that free 30 days, they can't get that. But we let them know that we'll give them all the bonuses too. And so our amazing support team helps make that happen.
Kyle:
Wow. And as far as the actual content in the bonuses, so do you have any quick examples of What are some things that people just get their mouth-watering, they go crazy? They're like, "I have to." There are some bonuses sometimes people will buy things for the bonuses.
Isa:
Yes.
Kyle:
What does that look like?
Isa:
I think that looks like really knowing who is on the other end of your webinar. So that interview, I can't stress enough, is the most important thing you can do, understanding who they are, what kind of content they like to consume, what they're really hungry to do, and how you can save them time or money with your bonuses. And so for us, the bonuses that tend to work really well are eBooks. We give away our founder, Nathan Barry's eBook, Authority, which is just a tremendously helpful book when it comes to starting an online business.
And then we also give away a masterclass that really does the same thing. For us, it's really about thinking about: How can we help people reach the goal that they had, that would make them want to come to this webinar in the first place? To spend an hour with someone live is pretty incredible in today's kind of quick eight-second videos world. It still amazes me that people show up to webinars. That’s what I say to our producer. I keep waiting. When am I going to show up, and there's going to be three people because everyone's busy? There's so much going on. And I'm blown away that it's been the opposite of what I think I probably thought a year ago. There'd be less and less people, and I'd be waiting for them to be obsolete. And I've got to figure out what else I'm going to do. But that has not been the case. People are showing up more and more, I think because everything's moving so fast. They know that this key and the secret is learning. And free training is a very good place to start so you can figure out what you need to do next.
And then maybe figure out where you do want to spend some money to level up on the things you know you're going to go all in on. But that has really blown me away. If you think about: Why are people stopping to spend an hour with you? It's still a big deal. They really want something. That's why they're doing that. And so if you can figure out what they're trying to achieve, and then I think making your bonuses about that. I think it's more than just, look at all these bonuses. Look how much value you're getting. I think that's important show if you can show there's literally this much value that you're getting for this much instead. That's a great moment in a webinar. But I think it's really, truly being intentional about the bonuses too. How is this going to help them get where they want to go?
Kyle:
I love that. And I did love what you say about people signing up to spend an hour with you. If you think about, even if we quantify. What is the hourly rate of somebody who's being an entrepreneur? And maybe that's usually worth hundreds of dollars. If you think of it like that, you really need to sell these things really well. But also, I love that it works really well as a system to qualify people. If they're staying along with the webinar with you for that long, then they're immersing themselves in your content and your ideas and your lessons, then they're automatically qualifying themselves as I really am interested in this. And so you not only want to see a webinar, even if you're doing it for free, something you need to sell, but I think that it's equally valuable to really distill down exactly who's resonating with your message.
I'd like to transition into the kind of offers now. Now I know you're presenting mostly the same offer, but I'm hoping that you can shed some light on just generally how to make a good offer. When do you do it? How do you present that? Do you do anything kind of during the teaching content to build up desire? And if you have some ideas. What are some really hot products or styles of products that do well after webinars, or as offers?
Isa:
Yes. Such a good question. Well, I do the same pretty much two offers, free trial of ConvertKit, or that course I was telling you about. As part of what I do, I make it a point to attend at least one webinar a week. I'm always on the other end of webinars because I want to know. What are people doing? What is working? What do I like? What do I don't like? Because I'm constantly tweaking. I never do the same webinar exactly the same way twice. And what is really exciting is there are so many kinds of products and services you can sell through a webinar. I have seen people doing things like essential oils. Of course, online courses is a big one, and so many different things really. I think it all depends on making sure that the content of your webinar is really, again, attracting that right person who will also want your offer.
And I think in terms of how to give the offer, this can be really scary to people. It was really scary for me. I'm a writer first. I'm not a salesperson first. I don't even think of myself that way. If someone told me, "You need to hard sell, and do this trick and this tactic," I'd be running miles away. I couldn't do that. And I wouldn't want to. For anyone for whom that part's scary, I think what's really great about webinars and the really good news about what I'm seeing in a lot of the one that working really well, is that people don't want that either. They want authenticity. And that actually works very well, where you don't have to be doing this tricky behind the scenes thing on your webinar. All you really have to do is make sure you're giving away in the beginning, solid, solid teaching as related to what you sell. You want to get as close to that as possible. Maybe you're even giving away part of what you sell in your webinar.
People who attend webinars don’t want the hard sell. They want authenticity.
And we have a saying at ConvertKit. I don't have a teacher. I wish I was learning it now. But it's all default to generosity. A lot of people get scared. Do I give away too much in the webinar? And I'd say that the webinars that I most dislike are the ones that act like they're going to tell you a lot, and then they just sort ... All they do is build desire in the webinar, and give the most vague answers in the world. And then, okay, to get the real help, buy my thing. And that always leaves me feeling blah, and I don't like that. And what I think, and maybe it works, but it's just not our style. What I really love more, at least the things I buy personally because I buy things from webinars too when they're good, the ones I buy from are when people are really themselves. They're not doing some act that they felt like they were told they had to do to sell on a webinar.
You really get to know them. They actually give you information that will help you even if you don't buy anything. And then the sales pitch, the offer. And I have seen it been given at the beginning and the end. I tend to like it better at the end. It's cool when people say in the beginning, "Hey. I'm going to ... " I think it's good to say, "I'm going to tell you a thing you can buy at the end." But this is going to help you whether or not you buy. I love that. I think people give the actual offer at the beginning. It's really cool in terms of transparency. I think it's cool. I'm like, "Oh, that's cool." But I remember. I'm like, "But I don't know you yet." So I actually think it works better at the end just from a sense of building trust, of making sure they get to know you first. You're helping them, and teaching builds trust.
If you actually teach real content versus kind of keep it vague, I think you have a better chance of selling because they're going to actually ... You don't have to tell them what you can do for them, you're going to show them in the webinar. You're going to show them how you teach. You're going to show them a version of what you do, whatever your business is. And then by the offer, it's as simple as, if this is helpful, if you like this, here's how you can work with me more. And I hear that time and time again from the creators who I work with, who make a full-time living online. They're the least salesy, sleazy, tricky people I've ever met in my life. They just really care about what they do as a business. They give away as much as they can to people, whether or not they buy. And then their pitch, their offer, is simply, oh, if this sounds helpful, here's how you can work with me more. And they're making a living for themselves and their families doing just that, and many of them with webinars too.
Kyle:
That is gorgeous and very inspirational. That's definitely how I like to feel just being a big content creator myself. Always leading with generosity and building trust through that I think is always the best thing. It's interesting. I think one of the things ... A lot of the people I work with, I work with a lot of health and wellness experts, and I actually find that they over teach, where they try to cram in so many different ideas and lots and lots of just different action steps. And I'm wondering if you've got some insight into What's the balance to keep? How do we teach a good lesson? And I kind of have my own ideas and opinions on that. But I think there's a careful balance to maintain with your teaching content that is good enough that it's actionable and that people can use it and have value, but also that doesn't overwhelm them and flood them. What do you think of keeping that balance?
Kyle:
Also, that doesn't overwhelm them and flood them. What do you think of keeping that odds?
Isa:
Yes, that's such a good question. My master’s degree is in training and development so I spent many years thinking about this kind of thing. Learning on how people best learn and I even found myself when I first started doing webinars, having that same urge like, "Oh my gosh, someone is gonna spend an hour with me. I need to tell them everything there is to know about whatever it was that the first topics were." And I quickly realized ... And a lot of it comes from a good place right, you wanna give people a lot of value and you wanna make sure that you're not patronizing them. And like, "Here let's take it slow." You want to really treat people like adults right, this is adult learning. And I remember very quickly realizing that that's just overwhelming and people don't actually need all the information all at once. That's what we're also overwhelmed with right now. That's what the internet is.
We have all the information all at once. If that's all we wanted we wouldn't go on webinars 'cause we could just search for it. But the reason why people still wanna go on webinars and they want someone to break it down for them is because that is so overwhelming. And so the best thing you can do on a webinar is really think about one, maybe two, but really one thing, the most important thing you would want someone to know how to do when they leave your webinar. And then break that thing into three to five steps. And then teach those steps. And actually walk someone through instead of just telling them, "Here's all the things you should do, all the things you wanna know, all the things." Actually, figure out, and if you don't know what that one thing is, that's your sign to do research on it, do those phone calls, look online, find out what people really need. And then you're the expert, especially if we're talking health or wellness, you're the expert in your particular thing.
If you could tell someone only one thing to do that will help them, what would it be and why? And to me, that's your webinar. Teach that, help them get as far as they possibly can there and really break it down. Tell them what to do first and tell them what to do next, and then next, and then we'll leave it at that. I think that also will help you if you're doing webinars for the first time, also for you not to feel overwhelmed. So keeping it simple is really good for everybody. But I understand it's hard to do, but it definitely I think is the best way to go.
Kyle:
I think that's amazing, really good point, very, very clearly articulated. And so I think to wrap this all up and bring this back together, we've understood the core elements of a webinar. And I'd like to know, again since this is just one element of a sales funnel that you're creating, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture that this all fits in. And how do we build a successful, reliable stream of income based on having an awesome webinar?
Isa:
Yeah, so in terms of how do they get started or how they put it in their overall strategy?
Kyle:
Yeah, how does it fit in with your overall strategy and what are some of the other components? We've definitely covered a lot of email, email swipe copy and building relationships with partners. But again, yeah, how do we use this once we have this together or put together our good sales funnel system around it? And then start turning it into a profit driver for our business?
Isa:
Right, so I'd say the first step would be to get that first live webinar out of the way. Just do it and however you can with whatever tools you have. There are so many ways to even just go live on social media. Go live, teach one thing to whoever shows up and then ... Your offer can even just be opting into your email list, you don't have to do a full sales webinar that you think you're gonna do for a long time in your business right away. I would say the first thing is to just jump right in. Even when I started this job, I remember I was doing a webinar the second week, and I was like, "Oh my gosh." And it was the best thing that could have happened because you learn so much just by doing a webinar. And people love authenticity. So if you say, "This is my first webinar, I'm super freaked out." You can say that people understand. So I say show up as you are, start there to get comfortable with being on camera, with doing it.
Maybe even your first webinar is getting live and asking people the questions I'm telling you to ask on a phone interview. Just ask them in video and save that. I think that's the first step, is just getting comfortable with that and getting to know your people. Then you wanna start doing that more formal live webinar where you're actually inviting your email list, maybe you have a partner too. Maybe you try a joint webinar, that works very well for people who are creators. That's how a lot of people grow their email list, they do joint venture webinars too. That's what it's called, if you look up joint venture webinars or JV webinars, you'll see lots of good content online about how to do that. It works really well, so try that. Do a full-on webinar and see how it goes. Have fun. Teach something, that one thing that's really helpful and see what happens. Keep doing that and keep iterating until you start making the sales you wanna make.
The first step in becoming a webinar creator is to just jump in and do it and become comfortable with being on camera
And play around. So I would say whatever frequency makes sense. One life webinar a month maybe. I know people who have really grown their business fast by doing one webinar a week. And that may seem a little crazy, just depends on how dedicated you are, how quickly you wanna grow, but that could be an amazing cadence if you are really, really committed to growing your business. 'Cause you'll just learn so much faster, and what you're looking for is, you're trying to find the webinar cadence that works for you. And don't worry if that takes a little while. You've gotta find out what you're comfortable with, you've gotta get comfortable with the technology. That's one thing I noticed is, the first time your brain is in five different places. You're trying to make sure your mic is working right, you're trying to make sure, "Okay what's the best way to look at the chat and teach at the same time? Do I need technical support?"
You develop all these many brains when you're doing webinars, I've noticed. And what's great is, the more comfortable you get all those brains start to quiet down, 'cause you get super comfortable with everything and all you're thinking about is the people in the chat and is this helping them? And that, it's the best feeling. It's so relaxing actually, right to the point where webinars can actually be relaxing because when you do it enough, you're able to then just focus on people. So you wanna get to that point where you feel comfortable, and then really what you're looking for is when does your webinar start making the sales you want it to make. That's when you know it's time to make it an official part of your business like you were talking about Kyle. That's when you start to think about, "Okay, how do I take this and multiply it?" And that's when you'd really wanna start to think about how often do I want to do this live, do I wanna do live launches where I open the cart and close the cart. There's that whole world that you can look into.
And there's also the evergreen world, where you can take that webinar you did that you know is helpful to people, that you know actually turns into the sales or gets you the clients that you want. And you can use software tools like EasyWebinar, that's something we have just started to use and it's been really, really great, to actually take that webinar and then send it out into the world and duplicate yourself. Though I think it's really important when you do that, to make sure you don't wanna fake people out and act like it's live if it's really not. Either you wanna make sure you tell people in the copy or what not, or not say that it's live. I'm not a super fan of that. But that's something you can do as well to expand that content. And there's ... What I've seen a lot of people do really successfully right now is, once they have that webinar that they know works, and they did all this work I told you to get to that point.
No one just does their first webinar and it works perfectly, so please don't feel bad if you're like, "I did my first webinar and it didn't make all the sales that I wanted it to make." It takes time people, do it many times. But once you've got that magical one, what works really well is you have that opt-in that leads to it. Maybe it's a checklist, something really simple, and then there's an email sequence that tells your story, tells how you help people and then leads them to register for your evergreen webinar. I was just talking to someone today who told me she is making 60 to 70,000 a month on her sequence that leads to her evergreen webinar. And she is one for trial and error in experimentation, she's a boss. Her name is Abby Ashley of the Virtual Savvy. She's a ConvertKit creator and is one of my creator heroes, I love her so much.
And so that's something she's doing, and I think ... And now it's a huge quarter of her business. But she didn't do it in one day, that's for sure.
Kyle:
Wow. Yeah, and that's beautiful and I think it's encouraging and yeah, you should be able to have an experimental and a playful mind when approaching these things and not totally counting on, "Oh this is gonna make or break my business, I've gotta do it right." And getting all stressed out on your webinar. So I think that that's really exciting and a great way to encapsulate this whole idea. And one exciting thing that we talked about before the show, and one of the ways that I really wanted to make this amazing is actually including a link to one of your webinars on building sales funnels. So we can see you in action, teaching and actually doing these things which I think is an amazing, really cool next step for anybody who has heard this and wants to learn what does a really great webinar look like. Check this out in the show notes. Would you tell us a little bit about what you're going to teach and then yeah, a little bit more about ConvertKit as well?
Isa:
Yeah, so this is our evergreen webinar that you can see in the show notes. It's the one about sales funnels. We call it Evergreen Webinar's Little Pep Talks. So they're about 20 to 30 minutes, and these are exactly the kind of content that I sat down and I thought, "Okay, what is the one thing someone really would want to know about a sales funnel? And how could they actually implement one after a 30-minute training?" And that's where this training came from, after years of really talking about sales funnels and I put it all in this little 20-minute to 30-minute training. And so we go through a little bit more about an ideal opted in like we've been talking about in the podcast. And if you're wondering, "Okay what do people write in these email sequences that make people wanna come to a webinar? And want to actually show up?" So what you can get in a little spoiler alert and the end of this Evergreen webinar, there'll be a trial offer how you can actually get. And then there'll be a bonus with an instant automation that goes directly into your email account.
And includes a sales template that I wrote for you. Where all you have to do is fill in the blanks, edit in your own business, or for any of you who are curious about that copy part. And what you might say to get someone to want to come to your webinar, this email sales sequence that's a general sales funnel actually has a lot of those same concepts in it. So you could use that template to help sell your product but also get people to show up to your webinar. And so that is something you'll get as a bonus as well through that, and you can see me teaching webinars, my webinars so. And I had such a good time doing that.
Kyle:
Thank you so much for joining us, that's a really, really exciting stuff. I love ... I'm all about templates and a lot of the people who are following and listening, have connected with me because of templates. So I think that that's gonna be a really exciting thing for a lot of people to dig into, and to start taking your business to the next level with some scale and some automation, so thank you so much for joining us, for sharing your wisdom and for breaking down what it takes to really create a good webinar and build a sales funnel around it today. So you're amazing Isa, grateful to have you on the show.
Isa:
Thank you so much, Kyle, this was awesome.
Kyle:
Thanks for listening to this Story Engine podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes and resources mentioned in this episode and every episode at the storyengine.co, if you wanna tell better stories and grow your business with content marketing and copywriting, be sure to download the content strategy template at contentstrategytemplate.com. This template is an essential part of any business that wants to boost their traffic, leads, and sales with content marketing. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.