Your Voice Inc.Page 2 of 3

Avoiding the Treadmill Effect: How to get the most from your outsourcing efforts.

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Tell me if this sounds familiar to you.  You have finally gotten to the tipping point in your business and you are employing the services of an outside contractor or support staff to take over parts of the job that you used to do.  This will allow you more time to create products, generate more speaking engagements and re-assess your overall business mission and focus.  It sounds great, it feels great and you can’t wait to get started.

A similar thing occurs when we (the royal “we”) decide to buy a treadmill.  We are convinced that with this new convenient gadget our lives will be much better.  It seems like a no-brainer.  Here is this great machine that helps solve a problem that has been weighing (no pun intended) on our minds and bodies for a long time and once it is in the house or the garage, everything will be different.  And then what usually happens?  The process necessary to get the most out of its features requires work and commitment on our part.  In only a short matter time that shiny new “answer” starts to lose its glow.  We engage with it less frequently and we convince ourselves it doesn’t really provide the value we once gave it credit for.

Now imagine that you did the same thing with your support staff.

Just like the treadmill purchase, we recognize that we could really benefit from this outsourcing support but when the talent is right there, ready, willing and excited to be the answer to our problems, we do not maximize their potential because we have to be in control of everything.  After all, it’s our company, our brand, and our clientele.  It is critical that we provide the best and who else can do that but us, right?  What we don’t realize or acknowledge is that with a little bit of training, clear communication and good leadership skills, we can get the same results from other people.

But if we don’t spend that time and make that effort, in the end, that talented support is like the treadmill that is now pushed off in the corner partially covered with clothes that either need ironing or a trip to the dry cleaners.  Not only aren’t we benefiting from their full potential, but they are feeling unsupported, undervalued and disengaged.  Sooner or later, their performance will diminish, they will quit, or you will let them go and none of these outcomes will be a true indication of what was really possible from the collaboration.

In essence, there is nothing wrong with the talents and skills of your support staff, just as there is nothing functionally wrong with the treadmill – but both are being underutilized and abandoned.

The solution? Start to relinquish a bit of the control you still have over the pieces you wanted to give up anyway – you don’t have to have your hands in everything to get great results.  Make a commitment to be available and regularly engage with the people who are helping you to create a better life for you and your company.  Start out slowly and gradually work up to giving away larger projects and bigger responsibility.  You can’t run a marathon until you can run a mile.

Do You Lose Your Voice When You Write?

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I am not suggesting that you suffer from a strange side effect of writer’s block.  I am referring to our tendency to lose our brand identity when we write books, speeches, promotional collateral, opt-in products, website copy, etc.  Have you ever read some of your own content months or years later and thought it does not even sound like you?  Have you watched one of your keynote presentations and wondered why it did not feel authentic? Have you reviewed your website copy lately and thought, “Is this really me?”

Just for fun, let’s call this phenomenon Writer’s Laryngitis (WL).  We will define it as a condition resulting from authors or speakers deviating from their brand, their rhythm, and their personality because they are trying too hard to accommodate their perceptions of their audience.

Are you addressing industry mavens and CEOs and instead of being your clever and engaging self, you end up delivering a stoic and lifeless presentation?  What if the demographics of your readers are predominantly male or female, do you get too in touch with your masculine or feminine side in an attempt to establish rapport when in fact your disingenuous tone turns people off?

These may seem like dramatic examples, but on a much smaller scale this happens more often than you realize.

Mild to Severe WL-like symptoms:

  • You find yourself stuck trying to write about content you coach everyday, or you try to mimic expressions and concepts that do not come easily to you.
  • You stumble for just the right words to explain your own services and products.
  • When you receive your own Opt-In product emails each day, are you unable to see your reflection in them?
  • Your personality resembles slacks and a nice sweater but your correspondence wears a three-piece suit
  • When listening to your own recorded tele-seminar script you sound more rehearsed than the conversational tone of your in-person consultations
  • A new client or colleague tells you that based on your previous correspondence and content, you “seem different” in person

In-Home Remedies:

  • The next time you talk with a potential new client on the phone, record yourself on a digital recorder.  Are you explaining your services the same way in print?  Chances are your audio explanation was more engaging and persuasive.
  • Put your promotional collateral and sales letters side-by-side with your web copy and see if they are consistent in tone and messaging
  • Read your manuscript chapters aloud to yourself. If the words do not flow easily for you, then simplify and replace it with your everyday diction

Professional Treatment:

You may have a more severe condition of WL (or lack the time to cure yourself) and I recommend you seek the advice of a second set of eyes.  Chances are you are too close to your own condition and self medicating may not be the answer.  Work with a collaborative writer or editor to help you with the consistency and tone of your messages.  After only a couple of consultations and reviewing your existing content, a writer specializing in voice duplication can create impressions of you on paper.

Here’s to getting better soon!

Creating Lasting Change: How the End of the One-Week Challenge Became the Beginning of a New Outlook

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I have often heard that what you focus on becomes your reality and that if you believe things to be a certain way you are undoubtedly provided with evidence that supports that belief.  Well, I am living proof that both of those statements are true and I am happy to say that so are many other visitors to this blog series.

This past week, our challenge was to focus on having tremendous confidence in ourselves and our abilities.  Even when we started to have doubts or negative self-chatter, we brought ourselves back to that single focus.  The results were astounding!

For myself, the Universe consistently provided me with supporting evidence that I am confident in my abilities – I am smart enough to figure things out, realistic enough to know what I don’t know and how to find the right resources, and talented enough to continuously provide great writing and guidance to my clients.  The end result was that last week was one of my most creative and productive weeks of 2009.

I never heard the chatter of “you can’t do that”, or “it won’t be very good”.  In the past, it never mattered that I had proven my inner chatter wrong thousands of times with quality work and great connections for my clients.  This time I reminded myself that success leaves wonderful clues if you listen and look for them. Every day, even every hour I was accomplishing things that I might have otherwise procrastinated out of fear or initially fumbled through due to a lack of focus.  I always delivered quality content and ahead of schedule, but sometimes the inner chatter made the process of getting to the outcome much longer and more tedious.  This last week I was accomplishing great results in less time and with more concentrated efforts.  For a productivity geek like me who never wants the tasks to compromise the creative process, that is huge!

For the visitors of this blog series I raise my glass to your success!  Congratulations for allowing your focus on self-confidence to empower you to be more creative and more productive. For some of you I was ecstatic to hear how you were able to establish very reasonable boundaries with colleagues, clients and loved ones that made for much more fulfilling relationships.  It is amazing how feeling great about yourself and your skills helps you to speak your mind in a constructive way.  (This will come in handy during the upcoming holidays!)  Some of you shared your newly found entrepreneurial spirit. Confidence definitely helps you take more risks and with that receive bigger rewards.  Onward and upward!

Cheers to all of you who committed to staying focused.  Your confidence was likely contagious, as I am sure others picked up on your great energy and were drawn to you.  Great Mojo – keep it working for you!

How to Create Fabulous Results: Checking in on the Confidence Challenge

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WOW!!!  What a great few days it has been since the One Thing for One Week Challenge started.  Here are just some of the comments and successes that have been shared by those of us committing to focus on our confidence for 7 days.

“I can’t believe how much better I have slept.  I have spent all day feeling confident about my talents that I keep making progress on projects that I used to procrastinate and by the end of the day I feel so great that I sleep straight through the night.  I thank you and my wife thanks you.”

“I am feeling more comfortable asking for meetings with people I normally would not have the guts to approach.  I can’t believe I am going to have coffee with someone I consider a leader in her industry for a possible collaborative project. Yippee!”

“The last couple of days when I sat down to the computer to make my 1,000-word write goal like I do every morning I did not stress out about not knowing where to start or if it was going to be any good.  I just wrote and wrote and it is really good stuff, if I do say so myself.  What a difference, and what a week I am going to have, my agent won’t believe my progress!”

“I was able to make calls to former clients and ask for new business and referrals based solely on my own self-confidence about the type of work I had performed for them in the past.  Hey, if you don’t ask and don’t stay top-of-mind with people, they can’t say ‘yes’ as easily.  Four out of six had either a direct job for me or were able to give me potential referrals.”

“There were a couple of times when I fell back into my old routine of feeling overwhelmed and nervous.  When I reminded myself of this challenge, along with recognizing all of my past wins, I could shift my focus back to the value I continue to add to my clients.  I stayed much more productive than I have been in months.  Thank you.”

Celebrate:  Day 4

It is now Day 4 for some of us and as was suggested by a colleague, business strategist and all around expert in all things brain-brilliant, AmyK Hutchens at  www.amyk.com,  it is now time to celebrate our wins thus far.  AmyK wrote in…

“I would also suggest to your readers/followers that you break the week into two sets: “4 days” and “3 days.”  The brain is more successful with smaller chunks and turtle steps. After 4 days of focusing on your confidence and actively choosing to spend a few minutes developing your confidence, reward yourself! Celebrate your progress.”

So tonight is the end of the 4 days…what are you planning to do to celebrate?  For me, I see a nice meal and a glass of red wine and freshly baked cookies in my future (not necessarily in that order!)

Congratulations and keep up the great work!

Share the Challenge: One Thing for One Week

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If you could change only one thing about yourself that would make the most significant difference in your life, what would it be?  Before you answer, remember that the question is something about yourself, not about your life. Would you answer…..smarter, thinner, funnier, richer….more attractive, disciplined, patient, creative, productive, more connected to a higher power…?

What if there was one thing that could make all of that possible?  What if you could change your level of confidence; wouldn’t all of the others change as well – either literally or figuratively?  What if you worked on your confidence and shushed your inner chatter?

If you had complete confidence in yourself and your abilities, would you…

  • Feel great when you woke up to start your day
  • Be excited to start that new chapter or edit yesterday’s writing
  • Spend more time following your passion
  • Not be able to stop coming up with great ideas for your next blog, article, book, etc.
  • Make the call or send the email to those people you want to work with, or work for
  • Know the success or failure of those around you does not define your own identity
  • Put your running shoes on and head out the door
  • Send the query letters to agents
  • Fit the yoga class into your schedule
  • Be able to get back to sleep in the middle of the night
  • Create the mind map or project plan for that big idea you have been putting off
  • Call the friend or family member with whom you had a disagreement
  • Write that brilliant cover letter or specialized resume for your dream job – and send it!
  • Ask an influencer or thought leader to be your mentor
  • Speak up for yourself and set boundaries to improve relationships
  • Eat healthier foods, one meal at a time, because you know you can consistently make good choices
  • Approach that woman or man you are attracted to and introduce yourself

This list could go on and on, but you get the general idea.  Anything and everything you first listed as something you would like to change becomes a reality when you have authentic confidence in yourself and your abilities.

The Challenge:  One Thing for One Week

Please join me in a challenge to be, to feel and to live with complete, authentic confidence for one week.  Shift your inner chatter and hear yourself saying “Yes, I can”, “I will”, and “I am.”  No matter what happens you know that you can do it, handle it, and make it better.  Regardless of the day of the week, just start today in this hour and for 7 days see what you have accomplished and what comes into your life.  When you believe anything to be true or right, you see and experience things that support that belief.  Please share your progress.  Your comments will serve as inspiration to others (and to me).  Ready?  Go!

Please send this to your friends, colleagues and family members so that you can support each other in the challenge.

Does your big idea bring you even bigger stress? Productivity Tool, Part 3

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When it comes to accomplishing big tasks or completing a goal, feeling inadequate and overwhelmed can be paralyzing.  The excitement of an idea combined with the adrenaline of wanting it done yesterday and the stress of not knowing how it will happen can lead you to feeling like you are going to jump out of your skin.  I am speaking from past and very present experience.

Practice what I preach: I love combining my writing talent with my skills for creating infrastructure and processes to empower my clients to realize their dreams on paper and on stage.  My clients’ feelings of overwhelm and anxiety are reduced because they are able to collaborate and sort through their concepts with an objective resource.  When it comes to doing that for my own dreams, I have to remind myself to go through my own processes to achieve my goals.

Recognize your wins: Keep a running list of the projects you have completed and the challenges you have overcome.   When a new one comes along, you can reduce fear and procrastination by remembering that you were never an expert in the mechanics of how it all happened, but you did find a way through the maze and it felt fantastic once it was finished.

Get it out of your head: Jumping from one step to the other in your head trying to make sense of it all tends to jumble everything together and results in many hours of lost sleep and unproductive work time.  Just start writing or typing out a list of every piece of the puzzle as it enters your head.  Don’t try to organize or sort it yet, just download your thoughts.

Chunk it: After reviewing your list you will start to see patterns of how the steps are linked together and their natural progression towards your goal.  By sorting your list into categories you will get a better sense of how the puzzle will come together.  Leave plenty of space in each category so that you can jot down additional pieces as they come to you or as you discover it along the way.

Tag line items: Next to each task that you do not know how to or want to do yourself, write down the name of the person or resource that might be able to help.  Some items may have a question mark next to them and as you move through the process of discovery, you can ask others for suggestions.  By tagging your line items you will be more organized and thorough when you sit down to do your own research or brainstorm with a colleague.

Reach out: You will not know how to accomplish everything on your list but you have ways of making it happen.  You can reach out to the internet (search engines, Twitter and Facebook communities) and ask for help and resource options.  Just knowing that people have the expertise that you do not and are willing to send you in the right direction for more information, helps decrease the anxiety that you need to know and do everything yourself.  It is okay to admit you don’t know everything.  The important thing is to reach out.  You may find a partner or affiliate relationship that will benefit you now or in the future.  In addition, what you learn in your own research will inevitably add more value to your client.

Knock it off: Now commit to knocking off at least 5 items on your project plan every day.  Try to tackle some of the big ugly monsters first in the process, and first in the morning.  Once they are out of the way, the rest is easy!

I am excited to get started with my new goal and look forward to sharing my progress and small wins with you in the hopes it can be a catalyst for your own big dreams.

Productivity Tools for the Creative Soul, Part 2

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Thank you all for contacting me with your success stories from using the first Productivity Tool in my previous posting.  Time Stamping is a great way to make better use of your time as well as alleviate your anxiety about feeling overwhelmed.

As promised, it is time to really look at the overall puzzle that is your day and your week.  Lists are fine for keeping track of what tasks need to be accomplished, but in order to improve upon my productivity I prefer to supplement my list with a more visual approach.  Our creative brains tend to want to think in shapes and colors and I hope this technique will help you not only accomplish more but also plan your days to maximize efficiency and balance your lifestyle.

Color Blocking: Identifying and distinguishing activities by colors on an hourly or 30-minute block system.

It doesn’t matter whether you use a formal project planning system, ACT!, Outlook Calendar or Day Planner system, my Color Blocking technique will work for you.   I print out my Outlook Calendar and keep it on my desk and I use colored pencils or pens to outline or color in the hours or 30-minute blocks based on how I have used that time.  You can also do this electronically using many different calendar programs, but I tend to have a need for the physical activity of coloring – if only it was practical to use crayons….but I digress (or regress).

The majority of your activities will fall into about 6-8 major categories and by assigning colors to those categories, you will create a daily/weekly vision of how you are spending your time.  It also helps you to determine what adjustments you would like to make to improve on the next day or following week.  This does not require you to make huge changes, just small shifts from hour to hour or day to day that will have a measurable impact on your life.

Here is how I code my activities:

  • Income Generating – Green
  • Business Development – Blue
  • Research/Networking online – yellow
  • Social online – Black
  • Exercise – Red
  • Family and Friends – Purple
  • Errands/dining/commuting/Misc. – Grey

I like the fact that at the end of the day or week I can assess the productivity and balance of my life by quickly seeing how many blocks of green or blue there are compared to the other categories.

Do this for at least one full day/week and then ask yourself:

  • Is there too much of one color?
  • How come I was so busy but yet there is not one block of green in my day?
  • Am I waiting until things slow down before I do more business development?
  • Have I committed enough time to exercise or friends/family?
  • Did I really spend that much time online without any purpose?
  • If I pre-color blocks of time for tomorrow, will that keep me more focused?
  • There is way too much time spent on errands and miscellaneous, what resources do I have that can help me?  Can I delegate or eliminate any of them?
  • If I color in the block for exercise ahead of time, will it make me more committed to keep that promise to myself?
  • What would my ideal week look like if it were represented in colors?  That is my goal and I can get there by just being conscious of my colors.

It is truly amazing how being able to see the completed puzzle can help you readjust the pieces to better fit your lifestyle objectives.  Start Color Blocking today and see your own brilliance.  Please share your feedback.  I would love to hear about your progress.

Productivity Tools for the Creative Soul, Part 1

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“Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.”  - Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

When we are stressed or fear that we don’t know how to accomplish something, instead of taking action, we stop in our tracks and put off the process because we believe we need this big elaborate plan before anything can happen.  This provides us with a sense of security as well as allowing us an opportunity to procrastinate the project. This dilemma is commonly referred to as Analysis Paralysis:  The belief that we need to chunk it, prioritize it, mind-map it, or project plan it before we can even think about getting anything done.

Therefore, for Part 1 of this series I am not going to discuss any elaborate plan but instead I will present a simple approach to putting the “process” back into the creative process.

Time Stamping: Next to each of the items you have listed on your white board, to-do list or project plan, write down the estimated time you think it will take to accomplish each activity.  For instance, a portion of your day’s list may look like this:

  • Write blog (1 hour)
  • Research statistics for chapter 2 (1 hour)
  • Follow up with editor regarding Forward (15 min)
  • Write Introduction for e-book (1.5 hrs)
  • E-mail 5 potential new network connections/clients (15 min each – 1 hr 15 min total)
  • Exercise – yoga, treadmill, Pilates, run, gym.  (1.5 hrs)
  • Review Facebook posts (30 min)
  • Post to Twitter in a.m. (30 min)
  • Post to Twitter in p.m. (30 min)
  • Comment on relevant blogs and create link-backs (30 min)

This is a quick way of putting realistic time allotments to each piece of your puzzle.  The benefits of this easy step are:

  • Each time you have only 30-45 minutes before your next meeting, conference call, etc. you can quickly scan your list and see what items you can fit into that time slot and make the most of that short block of time.  You will begin to feel more productive and this will reduce your stress and help you to be more relaxed and creative.
  • You will be less likely to postpone a project when you realize it will only take you an hour or so from start to finish.  Consider how much better you will feel taking action rather than spending hours being anxious and trying to avoid it.
  • You can add up the total times you have allocated and realize that what originally looked like an overwhelming mountain of work is only 6 hours of that day or 35 hours for the week.  This will give you a sense of relief in knowing it is manageable and doable.
  • You may realize in totaling up your hours that you have overestimated your ability to handle every activity on your own.  Although this may be a little depressing at first, it is a perfect time to reassess your list and see what is not critical or what can be delegated or eliminated.

Try Time Stamping your activities for a day or week starting today and watch what happens.  I would love to hear comments on how it worked for you.

The next installment of this series will address the concept of creating a visual representation of how you spend your time.  It is amazing how being able to see the completed puzzle can help you readjust the pieces to better fit your lifestyle objectives.

How to Edit Your Own Writing. Getting Back to Basics.

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These tips are for anyone interesting in creating quality content for books, blogs, ebooks, newsletters, ezines, and even daily email correspondence.  Getting back to the basics is a great way to tackle a process that appears overwhelming or mystifying.

So What: You might have a pretty good idea why you are writing a book, ebook, newsletter, etc., but are you sure you know why someone should read it?  What are your take-aways?  What do you hope the reader would learn?  How can it or will it make a difference in their lives?

Theme Party: You have already determined why someone should read your content therefore you are half way there.  You have a theme.  You have a driving force for continuity, but are you continuously making the connection, threading that theme throughout the product?  It may seem obvious to you that each step, tool, story or strategy is related to the overall premise, but make sure you take the time to reinforce it with clarity.  But let’s be clear:  Continuity does not mean redundancy.  Threading is not the same as repeating.  There is the old adage of “Tell them what you are going to tell them.  Tell them.  Then tell them what you’ve told them.”  Yes, this is true, just don’t hammer it into your reader or they will perceive this, and you, as not respecting their intelligence.

Too Much Good Stuff: I often have clients come to me when they have been told by a publisher that they need to cut their word count by 25-30%.  Their expressions range from “But I don’t want to cut any of the stories or tools” or “I keep rereading it and I don’t see how I can cut anything.”

For most of us, being told that our work needs tightening is a bit ambiguous.  It is easier for a publisher to say, and an author to hear, “you need to cut 2,000 words”. The end result, when done correctly, is the same. By looking for effective ways to cut word count, the writing becomes tighter and the manuscript reads better.  You will find redundancy in your message and extraneous words that may be part of your day-to-day diction but have no real place or purpose in your manuscript. The thesaurus feature is a great tool for eliminating the redundancy of your most popular word choices.  (See previous blog post, The Best Concise Writing Tip I Ever Learned for more details.)

My Two Tense Worth: Are you telling a story in the past or present tense?  Pick one and go back through your writing to make sure it all matches.  For instance, do you write, “we were expected to have our PowerPoint presentation available be at the event so I write the last few slides, I upload the graphics and I will send it off to my assistant to print and bind the hard copies.”  Can you see how the beginning was in the past tense of “we were expected” and then suddenly all of the verbs that follow are in the present tense “write, upload, send.”  It is very easy to slip back and forth when you verbally tell a story, but you have to be very careful when you put pen to paper.

Step away from the screen, there is nothing to see here, folks: Ever go back to an important email you sent or a blog you posted and find a mistake?  You have no idea how you could have missed it.  Simple, it is your work and your brain sees what it means, not necessarily what is on the screen.  You may have forgotten the “it”, “do”, or used the wrong “their/there”, etc. and each time you initially reread it before you hit Send or Publish you could have sworn it was there.  Save it and walk away for an hour or even a day.  Fresh eyes are a key to making the obvious, well, more obvious.

Double Vision: You may think it is a masterpiece, it is exactly what you intended to say or wonder how there could ever be anything left to improve upon.  Nice thought, but reach out to your network, your colleagues and a professional trained to make improvements.  This second set of eyes is priceless but you need to remember to check your ego at the door.  Nothing can zap your self-confidence more than the colored evidence of Track Changes splattered all over your precious work of art.  Remember that you asked for suggestions and improvements and the result is your reader’s professional and sometimes personal opinion of what will make it better.  Take what you want and leave the rest.

There is a lot to be gained by refining your writing abilities.  Just as you are considered articulate based on your strong vocabulary,  so will you hold expert status by others based on your clear, concise and well-written products.

If our ears could talk. What your audience is saying about your tele-seminar.

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Tell me something new.  Give me a tool or strategy that did not occur to me.  I want to walk away feeling as though I traded my time for value.

Have you ever picked up a “7 Strategies” or “10 Principles” type book and scanned the table of contents or flipped through the book hoping to find a gem or knowledge nugget that could be an a-ha moment for you?  You are not alone.  We all want to learn more and with the accessibility of information online and our need for instant gratification, it appears as though we are commitment phobic when it comes to purchasing products and making the time to sit quietly and actually read them.

The Answer: the tele-seminar.  I prefer to speak and learn in bullet points with a story or two, and I retain more information through auditory means.  Give me a concise format with clear explanations and I am a fan (or follower) for life.  Those were the motivating factors for why I started signing up for any tele-seminar that I thought might teach me something, spur my creativity, or increase the value I bring to my clients.

What I found was that some of these classes added value and others just appeared to be a means to obtain more names for a mailing list.  For those of you who are motivated simply by the latter, may this serve as a wake up call because your audience is brighter than you give them credit for.

Planning to create content for your tele-seminar?

Here are some of my observations, not as an expert creator, but as an avid, engaged participant.

•    What grade are you? Rate your own content.  Are you providing guidance for amateurs, intermediates, or advanced participants?  Consider your audience when you decide what to share.  For instance, is this a follow up to another call or live speaking engagement?  Have you covered a lot of the material in your newsletter or ezine which they already receive?  You can always break up your sessions into different levels which will keep the beginner coming back, while it respects the more advanced student’s time.

•    What’s on your mind? Solicit questions prior to the call.  By asking for questions in advance, you not only pre-qualify the existing knowledge base of your caller, but you personalize the seminar.  Anyone who took the time to send in a question will make it a point of not missing the class.  When you send out the reminder email it would be great to see what questions you have already received which further peaks the interest of your audience.

•    This is a story about…. Please do not read from a script.  Notes are great, but a script is too much.  The audience can tell and they will perceive you as an amateur.  This is your content, your passion, and they are listening to you because they believe you to be the expert.  Step up and speak from the heart and the mind.

•    And the Oscar goes to…. The other side of that issue is when the facilitator sounds as if he/she is either a television product spokesperson or drank too much of the Kool-aid.  Be yourself, please.  Most participants in a tele-seminar are turned off by the fully-animated hard sell.  Add value in a smart, relaxed yet engaged manner.

•   I see clearly now…. Not all of the audience will be strong auditory learners, therefore if you have content that lends itself well to a worksheet, send it out with the email reminder for the call.  Taking notes and filling out sections of a short tool-kit will not only help retention but it will be a tangible reminder of you, the call and your expertise.

•    Seen but not heard. Offer the webinar option.  The idea of using up cell phone minutes or incurring long distance charges on their phone may not be the most economical for some of your listeners.  Being able to listen to the call from a PC or laptop is a great alternative.  Although it limits input from the audience, webinars allow you to have more people on the call who would normally not participate.  More ears and eyeballs is the goal, isn’t it?

•    What was that again? Record the session and send it out to those who participated.  They may have been driving, preparing dinner, or just simply missed a concept and want to go back and review a portion of the call.

As a future fan of your tele-seminars, I ask you to please, concentrate on delivering gems and your expert status will be well-deserved.