Consider the scenario: you’ve spent many (chargeable) hours organising your professional service or consulting firm’s (PSF) latest seminar for clients and targets.

The event is free to attend because, as well as providing a fabulous marketing opportunity for your firm (and you), it also provides a great opportunity for you to demonstrate your credentials and profile in this area - hopefully leading to follow up meetings and ultimately fee income!

You have managed to build a good quality list of targets and clients and you are delighted to receive a high acceptance rate to the invites. All looks good.

The big day arrives - the room is set up; the presentation slides have been meticulously pulled together (and the hook up to the overhead projector tested repeatedly!); the conference venue staff roll out with the drinks and canapes.

Now we just need the attendees…… Tick, tock. They eventually trickle through the door minutes before the scheduled kick off time (no client wants to be the first to the “party” and therefore surrounded by eager (or passionate?) professionals!)

During the course of the seminar you scan your eyes around the room and see quite a few empty seats. You note that this is consistent with the smattering of badges still awaiting collection at the door. Attendance is good but it’s no way near as good as the original acceptance list. There are a lot of “no shows”.

Following the event, you shrug your shoulders at the lack of attendees and concentrate on those that did attend. This is a good strategy but are you missing an important opportunity?

An alternative approach

You have the list of badges for the “no shows” so why not follow up immediately post seminar with an email or letter along the lines of:

“It was disappointing that you were unable to make it along to our seminar on “X” earlier today. Feedback from the attendees was excellent so it would be a shame for you to miss out.

I attach a copy of the slides for your information. Of course, I appreciate that it may be more difficult to follow the slides without having one of our team with you to talk you through the relevant points so I would be happy to pop out to run through the presentation with you on a one-to-one basis. If this is of interest, please give me a call on xxxxxxxx”

How many recipients of a kind offer such as this are likely to refuse?

Answer: Not many!

Perversely, adopting this approach to “No Shows” may actually give a better result for both parties than attendance at the event in the first place.

How?

Well the client / target gets a one-to-one personal presentation where they can ask questions at any time whilst you secure a meeting in which you can follow your client / target’s lead during the course of the presentation in terms of specific areas of interest - hopefully leading to engagements and therefore fees.

Let’s take this approach to the next level

You could adopt this approach for all the invitees who declined the original invite - they may not have been able to make it due to a prior engagement so might be delighted with an opportunity to experience the presentation.

Also, why not consider uploading your slides to your website with a similar offer to any readers. This has the benefit of reaching out to other potential clients who may not yet be on your list.

If you have the resources, why not also consider videoing or at least taking an audio recording of the event. This would allow you to upload the recording to your website or record the event onto DVD or CD ROMs. If your event was a paid entry event, then this adds a further sales opportunity for those potential customers who could not make it to the event or who were not aware of it in the first place.

Summary

You can see that by taking these simple additional steps you are going some way towards fully leveraging the significant effort and resources that go into preparing and delivering such seminars. You also have the potential to significantly add to your sales pipeline.

We hope you find this useful and look forward to your feedback and / or suggestions.

Tags: passionatepractice, psf, seminar, conference, marketing, presentation

This short film is great fun but at the same time, it has a very important underlying message about the need to continually sow the seeds to create tomorrow’s harvest of creative juices.

Enjoy - but at the same time, think about this message in the context of your professional services or consulting firm (PSF)….

Watch the following video in which Cisco representatives stand on stage together despite the fact that they are in reality many thousands of miles apart (in California, USA and Bangalore, India).

The chaps from the USA are recreated holographically on stage yet the technology is so advanced that it is almost difficult to make this out. They explain that this technology is expected to be used for ‘on-stage’ presentations and speeches in the immediate future but this should be extended to business meetings and homes in the not too distant future.

Just think of the possibilities for global business……

The ability to connect with clients (almost) in person despite potentially being on different sides of the globe. This is yet another good example of how technology can bring us closer to together.

Enjoy:

Cisco On-Stage TelePresence Holographic Video Conferencing

Pick up a pen and a pad and commit to writing a list of at least 10 ideas per day (personally I prefer 20 ideas for the following reasons).

Make it a routine. Start today

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Email checklist

Before you hit send on that next email, perhaps you should run down this list, just to be sure:

1. Is it going to just one person? (If yes, jump to #10)
2. Since it’s going to a group, have I thought about who is on my list?
3. Are they blind copied?
4. Did every person on the list really and truly opt in? Not like sort of, but really ask for it?
5. So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
6. See #5. If they wouldn’t complain, take them off!
7. That means, for example, that sending bulk email to a list of bloggers just cause they have blogs is not okay.
8. Aside: the definition of permission marketing: Anticipated, personal and relevant messages delivered to people who actually want to get them. Nowhere does it say anything about you and your needs as a sender. Probably none of my business, but I’m just letting you know how I feel. (And how your prospects feel).
9. Is the email from a real person? If it is, will hitting reply get a note back to that person? (if not, change it please).
10. Have I corresponded with this person before?
11. Really? They’ve written back? (if no, reconsider email).
12. If it is a cold-call email, and I’m sure it’s welcome, and I’m sure it’s not spam, then don’t apologize. If I need to apologize, then yes, it’s spam, and I’ll get the brand-hurt I deserve.
13. Am I angry? (If so, save as draft and come back to the note in one hour).
14. Could I do this note better with a phone call?
15. Am I blind-ccing my boss? If so, what will happen if the recipient finds out?
16. Is there anything in this email I don’t want the attorney general, the media or my boss seeing? (If so, hit delete).
17. Is any portion of the email in all caps? (If so, consider changing it.)
18. Is it in black type at a normal size?
19. Do I have my contact info at the bottom? (If not, consider adding it).
20. Have I included the line, “Please save the planet. Don’t print this email”? (If so, please delete the line and consider a job as a forest ranger or flight attendant).
21. Could this email be shorter?
22. Is there anyone copied on this email who could be left off the list?
23. Have I attached any files that are very big? (If so, google something like ’send big files’ and consider your options.)
24. Have I attached any files that would work better in PDF format?
25. Are there any or other emoticons involved? (If so, reconsider).
26. Am I forwarding someone else’s mail? (If so, will they be happy when they find out?)
27. Am I forwarding something about religion (mine or someone else’s)? (If so, delete).
28. Am I forwarding something about a virus or worldwide charity effort or other potential hoax? (If so, visit snopes and check to see if it’s ‘actually true).
29. Did I hit ‘reply all’? If so, am I glad I did? Does every person on the list need to see it?
30. Am I quoting back the original text in a helpful way? (Sending an email that says, in its entirety, “yes,” is not helpful).
31. If this email is to someone like Seth, did I check to make sure I know the difference between its and it’s? Just wondering.
32. If this is a press release, am I really sure that the recipient is going to be delighted to get it? Or am I taking advantage of the asymmetrical nature of email–free to send, expensive investment of time to read or delete?
33. Are there any little animated creatures in the footer of this email? Adorable kittens? Endangered species of any kind?
34. Bonus: Is there a long legal disclaimer at the bottom of my email? Why?
35. Bonus: Does the subject line make it easy to understand what’s to come and likely it will get filed properly?
36. If I had to pay 42 cents to send this email, would I?

The exact material of the workshop is something that I am no longer as close to anymore so I was ‘in at the deep end’ - to put it lightly. This provided a useful reminder for me of the importance of preparation for any presentation - no matter how small (something that I am passionate about - when I have sufficient warning).

Here is a brief skim through some of the key lessons that I was reminded of during the course of the day in delivering effective presentations:

1. Beware of your ‘ummming’ and ‘errring’ between sentences or words - this horror is best revealed to yourself by videoing your presentation. Bad news for me today was that even I could hear them in real-time as I was saying them! This boils down to not having rehearsed the material sufficiently - not my fault in this case.
2. Slooooow down. The faster you speak, the more eager you can sound to get the ‘ordeal’ over with (perhaps the audience would have thanked me for sparing them!)
3. Have some real life anecdotes or stories up your sleeve. This helps keep the energy and interest level of the audience up. Again, this requires decent advance preparation and research. Ideally, try to intersperse the stories about every 10 minutes to avoid eyes rising up to the ceiling in a sleepy trance-like state.
4. Have a strong beginning and end - your audience won’t remember much in between but they will likely remember these.
5. Visuals are all important. Big, colourful and minimal.
6. Online software demonstrations require good preparation and knowledge of what to do when things go wrong…..
7. Interjections of humour can help. As can injecting some energy by walking around the room and digging out the old flip-chart for a bit of audience participation. Helps especially when the content is a tad dry.
8. If it’s a small audience, get them to introduce themselves at the beginning and give a little background about their relevant experience. This helps you gauge the level at which to pitch the talk and allows for the audience to speak up (and therefore participate) from the outset.
9. Keep to the allotted time particularly if the content of the seminar or workshop is particularly heavy on technical detail - your audience will appreciate it. We got this right and, yes they did!
10. Ask for audience feedback on forms. You might not want it after a difficult course but it is in your interests in the long-term to help build your skills and develop the course. (Yes, we did and no, it wasn’t that bad!)

I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Mary Wynne-Wynter sets out a simple and practical system to ensure that today’s innovative ideas can be effectively captured ready for review and action in the future.

RedShift Blog : Mary Wynne-Wynter