You keep customers engaged by giving them what THEY want!
Have you ever found yourself talking about X when your customers/employees/friends wanted to hear Y?
We all have.
So when I was asked to speak on a webinar to a group of entrepreneurs about the value of joining the National Speakers Association and how it changed/launched/defined my business I said sure.
Waiting for the call to start, while some technical difficulties were being sorted out, I tossed out a question to those who had logged on early…..”Why did you sign up for this webinar?”
And it was clear……….what they signed up for and I what I was about to talk about were not the same. A sudden momentary sinking feeling went through my body. The call organizer was nowhere to be found – she was having the technical difficulties. How am I going to keep these people engaged? I just got fed to the sharks. Or in this case a group of (mostly) women who were about to hang me out by my……..
They were looking for tips/strategies/ideas on making presentations more powerful; I was getting ready to address building a speaking business. Screw the EASY button; where’s the PANIC button!!!!
I started talking about what I was asked to deliver. While I was talking I was watching the chat and Q&A windows. They did not want to hear what I had to say. It’s happening…….DISENGAGEMENT! I didn’t even dare look at the attendee count to see if it was dropping. Talk about an ego deflater.
They wanted tips and strategies. Now I have trained myself to not read emails/chats/facebook posts with any slant. So although I know the questions were coming from a place of learning; I kept reading them as “hey stupid, this is not what we want to hear” and imagining people booing and shouting at me.
So now not only am I talking into a piece of crystal and looking at a picture of myself, my gut is telling me STOP! ABORT! ABORT!
And so I did.
And with the permission of my host I changed the focus completely to marketing strategies and presentation techniques that I use.
And here’s what I learned and offer to you:
- Get questions from customers days before; not 15 minutes before
- Give people what they want; and get off your agenda – I had three points I wanted to make; I made 1 1/2 before I moved on.
- People don’t read all the information; they read bits and pieces. Afterwards it was clear how the program title may have been confusing.
- Trust your gut; go with your instinct; but at the same time respect people who have hired you to do work
In the end all was good, and several of the attendees reached out to me and thanked me for the information that I offered. But it just reminded me once again the importance of businesses, employees, leaders needing to be flexible when it comes to a customer experience.
