MD19: How to Create a Webinar That Converts in 5 Steps With John Lee Dumas
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If you really want to know how to create a webinar that converts, all you have to do is listen to John Lee Dumas. The guy is KILLING it, he even publishes monthly income reports demonstrating his financial results and how much of them come from webinars.
He specifically shares with us that 75% of his income comes from doing webinars, and last month he did over $525k in revenue, so that’s $393k from webinars.
I even got a post from this blog go viral on Reddit thanks to mentioning John’s webinar results.
In this episode you are going to learn how to create a webinar that converts using John’s formula which is pretty precise and easy to follow.
From This Episode You Will learn
Step 1 – Welcome People And Provide a Giveaway
Step 2 – Telling Your Story and Welcome people
Step 3 – Show The Content And Demonstrate The Problem
Step 4 – Introduce Your Product as The Solution
Step 5 – Question and Answers
Resources
Transcript
Borja: How to kill it doing webinars with John Lee Dumas, episode 19, let’s do it. Welcome to the Money Diver podcast, I’m Borja Obeso and every week I bring you step by step actionable online marketing strategies that you can implement in your business to see the results fast. So let the diving begin.
Hey what is up, amigos? Welcome back to another episode, as always, thank you so much for being here. You are in for a treat of an episode today. I’ve got John Lee Dumas from EntrepreneurOnFire.com, we’re going to discuss how he makes a killing doing webinars. I mean he just made a little over half a million bucks last month and a lot of it came from doing webinars. We’re going to discuss the step by step process of actually running a successful webinar, all the parts and pieces that a successful webinar must have. Now we won’t get into the pre and post production of a webinar – and what I mean by pre production is driving traffic to the webinar and then following up with people. But I suggest that you look into episode 15 and 13 of the Money Diver podcast to learn a lot about Facebook ads and how you can combine what you learn in those episodes with what you learned in this episode to create a killing webinar. And in regards to post production I plan on releasing an episode about how to follow up with webinar attendees very soon. So stay tuned with the Money Diver podcast for more information on that and complete the whole process and become a master. Now as always – well, not as always, but this week we do have a contest. You can go over to EOFire.com/Borja and get a chance to win a lifetime premium membership to Smartduu.com, the only WordPress solution for website personalization for content creators like you and me. So head on over to EOFire.com/Borja and now let’s jump into the interview with John Lee Dumas. Here we go.
He was named best of iTunes 2013 and awarded the podcast award by iTunes. He has become one of the most influential entrepreneurs since he quit his job to become a full time podcaster at EntrepreneorOnFire. He has generated revenue results from webinars so amazing that we can only let him tell us about it. Ladies and gentlemen, John Lee Dumas, hey John, thank you so much for coming over.
John Lee Dumas: Borja, I am so excited to be here and brother I am prepared to ignite.
Borja: I bet you are. So talking about igniting, are you required to have any extra fire extinguishers at your home? Because man with all that fire going on in your living room every day I can’t imagine being that safe.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah, it’s funny I bet my landlords think that I’m like the most boring person in the world because I just stay inside all day at my computer. Little do they know what Entrepreneur On Fire is all about.
Borja: Yeah I bet you receive a lot of calls from the fire department. Hey, what’s all this thing about you being on fire and igniting people, man? So I have a question for you. How do you feel before you started your own business and your own podcast?
John Lee Dumas: Terrified, clueless, blind. Didn’t know anything. You know, I had never been an entrepreneur before. I had never done anything in the broadcasting world, anything in the online entrepreneurship world, it was an absolute new thing for me. So I was all of those things. I was scared, I just didn’t know what the next step was going to be. And that’s a pretty common place for a lot of entrepreneurs which is why it’s so critical to consume content like this, to read the right books, to get the right mentors and mastermind partners because it’s been done before and there’s no reason not to stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak. To learn from those that have come before you. And to not make the same mistakes of those that have come before you as well.
Borja: Definitely. And how do you feel now after you started?
John Lee Dumas: Amazing, awesome, on fire. Terrified, scared, blind. I mean that never ends. That fear never goes away. You know the impostor syndrome’s always going to be there. You know, I definitely get freaked out every time I’m about to step on stage at a conference. I just interviewed somebody who I really respect a lot and I was really nervous before I pressed record on that interview and I’ve done over a thousand by now.
Borja: Yeah…
John Lee Dumas: Yeah, it’s part of the game, though. It’s part of the game, it’s just the reality of being an entrepreneur is that all the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. So if I go too many days feeling too comfortable, I know something’s wrong, I’ve got to change it up.
Borja: Well, that’s a nice quote right there. And do you still get scared when you hit record with people?
John Lee Dumas: Absolutely. You know, not every time. Like not with you Borja, you’re so nice. I don’t get scared. But it definitely happens. Like I was just featured on Amy Porterfield’s podcast and that’s a big deal. Amy is a friend but she has a massive audience and I wanted to make sure that I brought my A game. And so before we hit record on that I was definitely like “okay, John it’s time to focus, let’s do this.”
Borja: Yeah, a little meditation doesn’t hurt before that. I know it helps for me. So how much of your current success do you attribute to webinars?
John Lee Dumas: Financially like 75%. Because there is no better medium to grow authority, to grow credibility, to actually create sales than on a webinar. And because of that in 2014 I did 60 live webinars for Podcaster’s Paradise. And so far in 2015 I’ve already done 20 more. Because I know the value of webinars. I know the value of creating an event, of delivering awesome value to an audience that’s there live. Answering their questions right there, removing those barriers that they might have. Giving them a shout out, letting them say “hey, we’ve got Borja from Florida in the house.” Like that is an awesome feeling to be on the other side of that. I’ve been on the other side, I know it feels great. So that’s what I love about webinars and that’s why I do at least two live podcast workshops every single month.
Borja: Two live, wow, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of work and planning for sure.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah but once you get the systems down in place, it really just comes down to about an hour and a half of work per every two weeks. That’s the amount of time that we block off, our systems are in place so everything else just flows.
Borja: Okay, so let’s dive into the actual running of webinars so people actually see the picture of what a successful webinar looks like. What is the very first thing that you do when you start a webinar?
John Lee Dumas: So when you start a webinar, I love starting off with a gift. Just letting people know that hey, I think your time is valuable. I want you to know that I think your time is valuable. And that I am respecting the fact that you’re here live with me right now, here’s a gift. You know for me I give away my book Podcast Launch which is the number one ranked book on all of Amazon on podcasting. And I give it away to every single person that joins in on the webinar on the very first slide. That’s the first thing that I like to do. Now I definitely insist for myself and suggest to others that I quickly follow that up with this is what the webinar is going to be about. This is the table of contents so to speak for the content that’s coming. So people are assured that they’re in the right place and it also gets people excited for the content that’s coming up and lets them see that there is actually a road map that they’re going to be involved in.
Borja: A table of contents? How did you figure out that that would help?
John Lee Dumas: You know a table of contents is not the probably best word or phrase. It’s basically just like letting people know what’s coming up and just like how a book has a table of contents that tells you the chapters, I like in a webinar to give people that guidepost as they move forward. So they know what to expect and again…
Borja: Clear expectations.
John Lee Dumas: Setting the expectations in the right way and getting them excited about the content that’s coming.
Borja: Yeah and then just like you meet them, you greet them, you offer your gift, and then what do you do? I mean do you introduce yourself right away? Do you tell them about your story?
John Lee Dumas: So now I don’t. I introduce myself, I mean sorry, I give them the gift and then I go through what the webinar’s going to be about and then after that point I say okay, you know, now let me tell you a little bit about me. Let me share with you who I am, let me share with you my story. But a key thing that I see a lot of people doing wrong is they spend too much time here. Like this isn’t a biography on the webinar host. People are there because they’re looking to get valuable content on a certain subject. So I spend a couple of slides letting people who who I am, where I’m coming from, how I got to where I’m at today to give myself some social credibility but I don’t belabor the point. I don’t spend too much time there because to me it’s incredibly important for my actual webinar attendees to know that hey, every minute that they’re spending on this webinar is worth their time because they could be doing a million other things. So I make sure that even when I’m describing myself I’m relating it to them, the webinar attendee.
Borja: So you use your story as credibility and social proof basically.
John Lee Dumas: Yes.
Borja: Okay, yeah that makes sense because before you get to the problem, it’s important to let them know why you’re qualified to talk to them about that problem.
John Lee Dumas: I agree.
Borja: It would only make sense, for sure. And how much time do you spend on average on your welcome?
John Lee Dumas: I’d say between two to three minutes.
Borja: Two to three minutes. That’s reasonable for a 45 to 1 hour webinar, right?
John Lee Dumas: Yeah, my webinars are 45 minutes of value and then 15 minutes of taking them behind the scenes of that product, service or community that I’m selling that day.
Borja: And after you’re through introducing yourself and social proof and your story what is the – where do you jump to?
John Lee Dumas: So after I get done with my story, then I say “listen, you saw the table of contents, you saw the direction, let’s start at the beginning. This is how to create a podcast topic.” And that’s where I start going through the order of events that I’ve already laid out for them as I’ve gone through.
Borja: The topic. You start laying down the topic and do you provide case studies? Do you like providing that sort of proof?
John Lee Dumas: I believe that whenever you can show real world examples and case studies and success stories, the better.
Borja: Okay, I mean I love case studies. Every time that I’m browsing through my list of like posts and everything that I read in the morning, case studies always catch my eye. Every time. And it’s a great thing to see other people’s success and see how it can relate to your own life, your own story and how you can achieve those people’s results or something similar for sure.
John Lee Dumas: Totally.
Borja: And what else do you like to include inside the whole content of the webinar?
John Lee Dumas: So I like to take people on a journey. And that journey for podcasting is pretty legit because it is the journey of a podcaster. It’s the topic, then the avatar and then understanding what it takes to have an actual podcast equipment-wise. So we focus on the equipment. Now you understand that so let’s talk about launching your podcast. And then I give some video training here about the eight steps to launch your podcast. Okay, now your podcast is live, what’s next? Let’s talk about growing your podcast audience. Let’s dive into that. Because now that you’re live, how do you get the show bigger and get seen by more people? Okay, now that it’s getting seen by more people, how do you monetize this? Your time is valuable, how do you turn this into a viable business? So then we talk about the top five ways to monetize your podcast. And it’s that kind of story, consistent flow that really helps my attendees stay attuned and really get the most out of the actual live webinar.
Borja: Definitely. I mean one thing that I always see people do is that sometimes they don’t transmit the problem properly and I think you do a great job doing that because you go straight to the point.
John Lee Dumas: Oh thanks.
Borja: You make people realize oh yeah, I have that problem. Yeah, I didn’t think about that before. I mean I know it happened to me I think the very first time. But I saw your webinars and it’s very important to be super clear and again set the expectations for people so that they can know that with their knowledge they can also achieve those results and remove those insecurities and create confidence in them.
John Lee Dumas: Totally.
Borja: And where do you move from there?
John Lee Dumas: So at that point I’ve gone through 45 minutes of value. I mean that’s a 45 minute process right there that I’ve taken them through. The complete journey of what it takes to create, launch, grow and monetize a podcast. So now that I’ve gone to that point, I say “hey, let’s take a deep breath, let’s get refocused because now I’m going to tell you all about my community; Podcaster’s Paradise.” And then we dive into – the content for the next 15 minutes of Podcaster’s Paradise.
Broja: And what difference, I mean do you explain that what they’re going to get in the product is sort of a very detailed and advanced course about what you just underlined as content?
John Lee Dumas: Exactly. I take them through every component of Podcaster’s Paradise. So you know, I’ll say “hey, listen. Podcaster’s Paradise is all about creating your podcast. So we have 200 video tutorials for the beginner, for the intermediate, for the expert. We have an accountability match making team that will match you up with an accountability partner. We have a private Facebook group of over 2,000 members who are there to support and guide you at every step in your journey. We have a resources page. There’s monthly exclusive webinars with myself where I answer any questions that you have on a Google Hangouts. I have exclusive monthly Hangouts with today’s top podcasters like Pat Flynn, like Tim Ferris, Michael Hyatt, James Altucher.” And then after describing that, I then actually share my screen and take them inside of Podcaster’s Paradise and walk them around. And that has always been a massive opportunity for me to show all the work that we’ve put into our actual community.
Borja: Yeah it’s sort of an aha moment for people, right? They’re seeing the actual product. That’s super powerful. And I bet you have a lot of questions. How do you deal – I mean how much time do you put into question and answers?
John Lee Dumas: Yeah, we get a lot of questions understandably and I give a lot of time at the end for people to ask any questions that they want. And we have Kate, she’s there, she is taking questions in the chat room throughout the entire time. She is doing that so that people feel that they’re having their questions answered in a really powerful way. And that’s really important on a lot of levels. And I think that that’s really critical that people know that their voice is being heard. So then at the end of the webinar when I’m done sharing all the value, all the content, taking people behind the scenes, showing them everything that’s involved there. And then say “okay, now let’s open it up for question and answer time.” Kate is skiving me over all the questions and I’m going through person by person answering their questions, removing their barriers, having real conversations with them that allows me to say “hey, you know, Paradise is for you if… and it’s not for you if…” And a lot of people end up joining because I’m able to remove specific barriers on that live webinar.
Borja: And you’re able to classify customers.
John Lee Dumas: Exactly.
Borja: Yeah, that’s very important so you don’t waste time and money on people who are just not qualified to join your program and not waste their time, not waste their money and not waste your time and effort for sure.
John Lee Dumas: Exactly.
Borja: Yeah, I’ve experienced that a lot. And it’s one of the things that has helped me with my business is the most for sure because it removes a lot of uncertainty from the process. And John, what are your conversion rates if you don’t mind me asking on average?
John Lee Dumas: Yeah, no, I love sharing all numbers. I’m a numbers guy. I always love sharing numbers. You know for us absolutely across the board we look at – and let’s just use easy numbers now just for the time being. Let’s say 1,000 people sign up for the webinar. We’re going to get between two to three hundred people actually showing up for the live webinar at 1,000 sign-ups. Between 20 to 30% show up from the actual sign-up for the webinar. So of that let’s say 300 show up. Let’s say we have a good show up rate of 30%. Of that anywhere between 10 to 20% of people are actually joining the course. So we’ll do anywhere from 30 to 50 sales if we have 300 people live on that webinar. That’s kind of a very consistent break-down. So expect about 25% of people that signed up to show up. And then expect about 10 to 15% of people that actually show up to join. If you’re hitting those numbers, you’re doing good.
Borja: And a key factor to getting those numbers is knowing who you’re targeting for sure.
John Lee Dumas: Yeah. Absolutely.
Borja: Which brings us to your avatar. And you talk a lot about your avatar on each of your webinars and you know the importance of your avatar. And this is for a reason my signature question, the only question that I ask all of my guests is who is John Lee Dumas’ avatar? I mean I don’t ask everyone who is John Lee Dumas’ avatar but who is theirs. So who is your avatar, John?
John Lee Dumas: Yeah so my avatar is super dialed down. I know his name, his name is Jimmy. I know he’s 35 years old. He has two kids. I know his commute to work is 27 minutes, I know that he’s at a job he doesn’t like. I know that when he comes home he wishes he could spend more time with his family, more time with his kids and his wife. And I know that he wishes that he could really have more control and freedom over what he does. And I know that he should be listening to Entrepreneur On Fire every single day. So he’s my avatar, I know him incredibly well and that’s very, very important so that I know exactly what I should be making my content all focused on because I know that avatar. And that really just allows me to – excuse me – to really dial in on the exact content that I’m sharing.
Borja: Cool. Man, John you’re such a beacon of inspiration and I want to invite people to go check out your revenue reports. Because they’re going to see a lot of light from those numbers and those reports. Do you have a direct URL for your revenue reports?
John Lee Dumas: EOFire.com/income.
Borja: Perfect. And do you have any other resources where people might want to go and learn more about your teachings on webinars, learn more about webinars and all that?
John Lee Dumas: Yeah, thank you for asking. I actually have two completely free trainings that really work well with each other. The first one is TheWebinarCourse.com. It’s a completely free training, 10 days, it will teach you how to create and present webinars that convert. Again, that’s TheWebinarCourse.com. Number two is FreePodcastCourse.com. Because you need to be able to drive traffic to your webinars and podcasting is a great way to grow an audience and build traffic. So check out FreePodcastCourse.com as well and in 15 days you’ll learn how to create, grow and monetize your own podcast.
Borja: And of course they can find you Entrepreneur On Fire on iTunes and EntrepreneurOnFire.com. You have a beautiful website by the way.
John Lee Dumas: Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Borja: Yeah, I love design. That’s one of the best things that I love about doing online business is the design part. I spend a lot of time on my own, I love designs. I know a lot of people don’t like doing that but that’s my hobby, that’s what gives me the most inspiration, you know. So John thank you so much for coming again. I mean you just provided a bunch of value. I know people will find even more value from staying in tune with you and your courses. So thanks man, I hope to see you again in the future and I’ll catch you on the flip side.
John Lee Dumas: I’ll catch you.
Borja: Alright, I hope you enjoyed that interview with John Lee Dumas as much as I did. I hope you took a lot of notes because as you can see, this is the number one strategy that John is using to generate all those income reports that you see on his website. Again, if you want to participate on today’s contest, head on over to EOFire.com/Borja and let us know what you thought of this interview with John, let us know on how you plan on implementing webinars in your business, what struggles or doubts you have and we’ll make everything we can to help you, try to solve your problems and get you going with this awesome strategy that I myself am doubling down on. Alright guys, once again, thank you so much for being here. Go out, make friends and as always, keep on diving.
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