As I had mentioned in my last posting, my partner in crime and fellow web seminar guru Jessica Kahn and I have been brainstorming as to how we can revamp or rev-up our web seminar series. So, how might one go about “renovating” the norm in order to gain more appeal, yet retain a reputation of reliability? Sometimes even the slightest changes can make people weary, however, it can also be the slightest change that can catalyze an audience and funnel in a fresh crowd as well. That’s one of our current (and on going) objectives here on the marketing team - a goal that I’m sure is shared by the majority of marketing teams in any industry.

A web seminar can be used for various marketing initiatives such as nurturing, lead generation, and education. Here at ReadyTalk we’ve geared the majority of our series toward the educational aspect, however, we would like to now put more emphasis on the lead generation side of things. Why? There is a lot of time and effort that goes into planning, coordinating, scheduling, and promoting a web seminar and ultimately it would be great to get as much of a return as we take to make it worth while for our audiences.

We want it to not only compliment our services but also be a trusted resource for our audiences to use in their day to day business practices. Like I said, it’s coming up with the “it” factor that will catalyze our audience in their current undertakings and in turn, potentially come back full circle simply by word of mouth and promote our undertaking. What is it that launches this cycle? How can we spice it up? Who do we target? What is the “it” we are seeking and more importantly - what makes “it” stick? I don’t believe it comes down to a specific detail, but rather a bundle of small ones that will provide the best outcome. It’s a lot of brain-storming, a lot of feedback from attendees and input from other employees, and again – a lot of trial and error. We are learning as we go and improving with every adjustment.

I took a break from blogging for awhile, and now I’m ready to join Mike in writing more frequently. ReadyTalk has been growing rapidly over these past few months resulting in new faces and names to learn, new needs for processes where they didn’t previously exist, more dogs, more dishes in the kitchen, more activity. I’ve been living lead generation, producing campaigns, learning the ins and outs of Salesforce, dreaming about marketing automation software, presenting web seminars, reaching out to new partners and brainstorming how we can use conferencing to start intelligent, meaningful conversations.

During this little blogging rebirth, let’s revisit the fundamental reason why we are here, or the primary reason why I love what I do. It is this: your ReadyTalk account is a space full of power and potential. Choose your words well and be persistent and intelligent in bringing communities together, and you will fundamentally affect positive change in your unique way. Think about what you’d like to share with thousands of people around the world, and we can help you make it happen.

Something I love about racing and riding my bike is that there is so much to learn in the process of trying to go fast. There are so many options in the way of choosing bikes, components, methods to training, clothes, nutrition, rest, race preparation, the list is very long. So whenever there is an opportunity to meet some seriously fast professional bike racers, I take full advantage. One panel that assembled in Denver a few months ago included some top-pros and former national champions from the U.S. I asked them the question: “What one thing do you feel played the biggest part in your success in cycling?” I was pretty impressed with the answers. You’d pay Steven Covey thousands of dollars to say the same stuff (since these can be applied to anyone):

* Find one or two people who you really trust. (Coach or mentor.)
* Make goals, short- and long-term ones that can be measured. Make sure to
accomplish each of them.
* Track your progress to reaching your goals.
* Eliminate/minimize distractions.
* Surround yourself with people stronger than yourself.