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How to Be a Fabulous Training Webinar Facilitator

August 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How to Be a Fabulous Training Webinar Facilitator

Companies with an eye on the bottom line are increasingly turning to webinars to provide training. But there’s more to a training webinar than simply putting together a few slides. You’ll need to plan, plan, and plan some more. Here are tips for being a fab facilitator for training webinars:  

  • Create learning objectives. Ask yourself: What do attendees need to be able to do when this training webinar is complete? Understand compliance guidelines? Navigate a new POS system? Do not move forward until you answer that core question thoroughly because the answer will guide everything else you do.
  • Categorize learning content. Make the most of limited webinar time by figuring out the where’s and when’s of what participants need to know. Identify three content categories: 
  1. Material attendees should read or complete on their own. Some of this might be material you designate for pre-webinar reading; other content might be better suited as supplementary material.
  2. Info that is best presented during the webinar. This is often the material in which the presenter can offer insight or material that is most likely to generate questions or discussions.
  3. Material or learning experiences that are best shared with fellow trainees. Encourage interaction by planning collaborative exercises, such as brainstorming, research, sharing experiences, or reacting to webinar content. 
  • Be a facilitator. Learning is about creating experiences and interaction—not forcing material on an audience. Instead of lecturing attendees into oblivion, facilitate the experiences that create knowledge. Use single learner and group activities to get attendees engaged with the material. And if you don’t know an answer, provide the resources so the trainee can get the answer they need.
  • Solicit feedback. Use webinar features, such as polls, to get feedback from participants. Use the answers to tweak future training webinars.

It’s time to bring out your inner fab facilitator—now get out there and start planning!

RollCall Business Conferencing is an industry leader in reliable and secure webinar solutions. Our RollCall TV service is a feature-rich way to offer training; it offers mobile viewing compatibility, payment integration, and more. Contact us today to get the tools that make training webinars successful.

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Virtual Town Hall Webinar Best Practices – Pre-Event Tips

May 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Town Hall Meeting

Whether you’re a politician who wants to stay in touch with constituents or a CEO who needs to engage the team, the virtual town hall webinar is an affordable and easy way to connect with audiences. But how do you pull it all together seamlessly and professionally? The secret is to give it an excellent foundation by implementing pre-event best practices.  Here’s how to make your virtual town hall a real success:

  1. Create an agenda. A virtual town hall webinar is not the place to wing it. Invest the time to develop an agenda to guide the event.
  2. Use a moderator. For many, the trickiest part of having an agenda is sticking to it. That’s where a good moderator fits in. Choose a person who knows the issues inside and out and has the ability to guide the conversation. It also helps to pick a moderator who stays cool and calm under pressure, especially if the town hall webinar touches on thorny issues, whether it’s impending layoff rumors or school budget talks.
  3. Prepare the team ahead of the town hall webinar. Gather moderators, panelists, and presenters for a pre-event session. Review the agenda, working out foreseeable kinks. Also provide additional training for any team members who might not be comfortable with the webinar technology.
  4. Collect questions in advance. Even if you plan to take questions from attendees during the event, reviewing advance questions will clue you in to the issues the audience finds important. Pinpoint and group together inquiries that have a common theme and address those first during the Q&A. If you don’t solicit advance questions, consider creating a list of seed questions to get the session rolling, if necessary.

 Don’t forget—the foundation of any successful town hall webinar is easy-to-use, reliable technology. RollCall Business Conferencing provides the webinar platforms you need to interact and engage your audience, whether it’s constituents in your home state or the international sales office across the Atlantic.  Contact us today.

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Deliver a Boredom-Free Training Webinar – 5 Tips

April 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Boredom Free Webinar

Your mission: deliver an effective training webinar. The challenge: deliver a training webinar that doesn’t bore the attendees into oblivion. Check out these 5 tips for presenting a boredom-free presentation:

  1. Maximize registration. The registration process is more than just a heads-up to let you know how many attendees to expect. Gather info during registration about attendees’ needs so you can provide a better webinar experience. You might, for instance, learn that most of the trainees are already crazy-mad experts at one point you’d planned to cover heavily.
  2. Get connected. Don’t assume which types of presentation materials will best engage trainees. Do a practice run with a colleague and ask for honest feedback. Is the PowerPoint so ho-hum it will drive attendees to start texting their office pals? Are the charts easy to read and understand? Are animated features too busy, distracting from your message?
  3. Get to know the webinar’s interactive features. Remote participants don’t have a long attention span, especially when faced with temptations like email and Twitter. Use interactive features such as chats and polls to ask questions and keep trainees on their virtual toes.
  4. Housekeeping counts. Prevent attendees’ focus from wavering because they’re wondering when they can grab another cup of joe. Review all housekeeping items before the training starts, from if and when there will be breaks to when and how audience questions will be addressed.
  5. Hit record. One advantage of a training webinar is that you can archive it, allowing you to use it to train incoming staff. But, in addition, a recording provides the opportunity to review the training session and pinpoint any snooze-inducing areas so you can make adjustments.

Bonus Tip: Choose a webinar provider with the reliable technology to avoid the glitches that slow down your training session. Contact RollCall Business Conferencing to learn more about our webinar platforms.

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Webinar Presentation Tips: How to Ask the Right Questions

April 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Ask Questions During Webinar

From the event script to the presentation slides, you have all the pieces in place to deliver a webinar. But there’s one webinar best practice that is easy to overlook: how to ask the right questions. Whether you want to engage a group of trainees or generate potential leads, these webinar tips will help you ask the right questions:

  • Use questions as a lead-in to a new topic. Questions as lead-ins are an ideal tool for presenters and facilitators. Use the responses to guide how much or how little detail you’ll need to go into during that section.
  • Ask follow-ups that go beyond “does everyone understand?” It’s okay to ask those general follow-ups once in a while, but they’re typically not the kind of questions that engage audiences. Use direct and relevant questions that foster thinking and encourage a response. For instance, if you’ve just demonstrated a software function, ask how attendees might use that function in their day-to-day tasks.
  • Let the audience know how you’ll deal with questions. Will you answer questions submitted via chat during the session? Will you address them all at the end? Decide before the webinar how you’ll handle questions and then let attendees know what to expect. Remember, it can be distracting to field questions during the session. Some webinar experts recommend having a dedicated staff member to collect questions submitted during the event and flag the most engaging ones for a Q & A at the end of the presentation.
  • Share transcripts of Q&A material. During the session, it’s inevitable that an attendee will be distracted by online footage of giggling babies or a message from the boss. After the webinar, get everyone the info they may have missed by sharing a transcript of all questions and answers addressed during the event.

Webinar best practices aren’t just about starting on time or making sure the slides are readable. Give your event every chance for success by learning how to ask the right questions.  What tips can you share for asking webinar attendees the right questions?

And we have another question for you: do you have a webinar vendor who provides scalable, reliable, and affordable platforms? If you’re new to shopping for webinar vendors or need to find a more suitable webinar partner, call the team at RollCall Business Conferencing.

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Retain Members with these 5 Webinar Tips

February 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Record a webinar

Whether you’re the head of a local networking group or a national trade association, you know that providing members with relevant content is key to retaining membership. One way to share that content is through webinars. Check out our 5 tips for producing a successful webinar for your association or group:

  • Content, Content, Content: Offering high quality content is critical to attracting webinar attendees. You don’t necessarily need to snag a high-profile speaker, but you do need to provide content that solves problems and/or generates interest.
  • Consider Paid Webinars: It’s a misperception that all association members expect free webinar content, so don’t be afraid to charge attendance fees. The higher the quality of the content the more you can expect to charge. Some organizations offer full-price webinars to non-members attendees and a discount to the dues-paying crowd.
  • Promote the Event: It’s not enough to post an announcement on the group website. Use every communication tool you have to generate interest for the webinar:
    • Consider email marketing.
    • Add a promotional blurb to association employees’ email signature lines. If the webinar is open to non-member attendees, ask group members to paste the blurb into their own signature lines so they can help spread the word.
    • Promote the webinar on blogs and social networks.
  • Hit Record: It’s tempting to build up attendance at a live event by not recording and archiving the broadcast. However the ability to deliver on-demand webinars provides membership value to those who can’t attend during broadcast time. This is especially true if your audience is scattered across time zones or if they’re decision makers with already tight schedules.
  • Collect Member Data: A good webinar platform provides chat or survey tools that allow you to glean insight from attendees. Use interactive tools to collect data before, during, and after the event.

Boost your group’s ability to retain members. When it’s time to add value to the program with professional-level webinars, contact RollCall Business Conferencing. From webinar platforms that require no infrastructure upgrades to reservation-free teleconferences, we provide the reliable and scalable communication tools you’re looking for. Learn more today.

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