|
January 2003 Product Development Technique
TeleSeminars Part I (Mechanics) This has been
one of the most profitable and easiest to produce products for me. And
best of all I deliver them right from my basement with no dressing up in
a power suit, no travel, and no airport food. I even delivered my last
one from the kitchen table of my mother's house just before
Thanksgiving. TeleSeminars are just like a giant
conference call except the technology used is much less expensive than a
typical conference call that normally charges you so much per person per
minute. The TeleSeminar technology is called a "telephone
bridge line." You don't have to know anything about this or install
anything. You simply sign up with a bridge line provider, pay your fee,
they give you some number that I'll explain below and away you go. I
currently use
http://www.voicetext.com and have the capability of having 600
people on the line at one time. I started out much smaller with a 30
person bridge line that I subleased from Judy Sabah
Judy@judysabah.com
DRAWBACKS
Even though telephone bridge lines are really great, there are some
things you must watch for. In some cases you may want to opt for the
higher quality conference call technology if you need absolute high
quality. Bridge line noise can be a problem as the number
of people on the line increases. If you want an open discussion your
noise level may be so high that no one can hear anything. You must keep
your group size small if you want everyone to be able to contribute.
On the large seminars that I do I use the bridge line mute feature to
turn off everyone else so that I can be heard clearly. Not every bridge
line has this feature so check before you rent the line.
Cell phones and speaker phones can cause trouble on the line so you
should discourage your participants from using them, although most of
the time it's not a big problem.
Many of the smaller bridge line rental companies don't have anyone
standing by in case something goes wrong. On occasion they'll give you a
backup emergency number to call if the bridge isn't working.
If the seminar before you runs overtime, your seminar participants won't
be able to get on the line or will pop into the wrong seminar and get
confused. I rent mine exclusively 24/7 so I don't have this problem.
With all the above said, TelePhone bridge lines have really made doing
seminars by phone affordable for everyone.
EQUIPMENT
All you really need is a phone and all the participants really need is a
phone. I'm going to tell you what else you need to make more money doing
TeleSeminars.
I really recommend using a headset telephone. You will be making notes,
shuffling papers and possibly watching and responding to emails as they
come in. You will also need your hands free if you're taping, which I
highly recommend.
The big money from TeleSeminars comes from taping them and selling the
tapes. To do this yourself you must have a cassette tape recorder and an
adapter to allow you to plug your phone line into the tape machine. This
can all be gotten from RadioShack. You will also need a "Y" adapter,
also from RadioShack.
Here's the hookup
Your phone line comes out of the wall to the "Y" adapter. One side of
the "Y" adapter has a phone line that goes to your headset phone. The
other side of the "Y" adapter goes to the phone line adapter. The phone
line adapter then plugs into your tape recorder.
I still do many recording of TeleSeminars this way because I can take
the tape and duplicate it immediately as described in the
December 2001 issue.
Since so much rides on my tape I also have the bridge line company
record the event on CD and Fed Ex it to me as a backup.
That's it. Next issue I'll teach you the strategies I use to really make
lots of money with TeleSeminars.
Other upcoming topics
Back to January 2003 Index page
|
