for this by creating your own questions. It’s not a bad idea to have a couple of people planted in the audience to ask predetermined questions . Even easier is to say "I received an email from Fred Smith this morning who said he could not attend but wanted to know"

5 - Find a teleconference service provider that understands teleseminars Ensure your conference call service allows:

Enough lines to be connected simultaneously

The conference leader to have a different

The growth in use of teleseminars is astonishing but how do you ensure that yours will be a success? This article is the result of 13 years experience in running teleconferencing services.

1 - Practice Everything
You have one chance to get it right so do everything possible to ensure that your teleseminar goes smoothly. Practice everything you can in your control and prepare for the things you cannot control. The Presentation Most presentations are done this way – because it works. Tell them what you are going to tell them

Tell them - this is the body of your presentation

Tell them what you just told them – summarize your presentation

Call to action – what they should do about it, how to buy, sign up etc

2 - Keep It Simple
Keep it simple and to the point. The audience will remember only a few things from the presentation (no matter how brilliant it is). Make sure they are the points you want them to remember by repeating them. Your attendees may have a short attention span so keep the presentation focussed and brief.

3 - Practice the presentation
Presenting over the telephone can be more challenging than being in the same room as the audience because there is no visual or audible feedback. For this reason, many presenters will script their whole presentation or at least the first few minutes until they get into the flow of it. If you do script the teleseminar, practice until it sounds like you are chatting to the audience. Choose your vocabulary to suit the audience – don’t use jargon they won’t understand. Try not to use empty words or phrases such as like, sort of, basically, to be honest.

4 - Questions
Most presentations will have a question and answer session at the end. In fact, if you don’t have one it may infer to the audience that you have something to hide. Have an answer ready for all of the common questions. What if there are no questions, is no one interested? Always be prepared for this by creating your own questions. It’s not a bad idea to have a couple of people planted in the audience to ask predetermined questions . Even easier is to say "I received an email from Fred Smith this morning who said he could not attend but wanted to know"

5 - Find a teleconference service provider that understands teleseminars Ensure your conference call service allows:

Enough lines to be connected simultaneously

The conference leader to have a different P

ell them what you are going to tell them

Tell them - this is the body of your presentation

Tell them what you just told them – summarize your presentation

Call to action – what they should do about it, how to buy, sign up etc

2 - Keep It Simple
Keep it simple and to the point. The audience will remember only a few things from the presentation (no matter how brilliant it is). Make sure they are the points you want them to remember by repeating them. Your attendees may have a short attention span so keep the presentation focussed and brief.

3 - Practice the presentation
Presenting over the telephone can be more challenging than being in the same room as the audience because there is no visual or audible feedback. For this reason, many presenters will script their whole presentation or at least the first few minutes until they get into the flow of it. If you do script the teleseminar, practice until it sounds like you are chatting to the audience. Choose your vocabulary to suit the audience – don’t use jargon they won’t understand. Try not to use empty words or phrases such as like, sort of, basically, to be honest.

4 - Questions
Most presentations will have a question and answer session at the end. In fact, if you don’t have one it may infer to the audience that you have something to hide. Have an answer ready for all of the common questions. What if there are no questions, is no one interested? Always be prepared for this by creating your own questions. It’s not a bad idea to have a couple of people planted in the audience to ask predetermined questions . Even easier is to say "I received an email from Fred Smith this morning who said he could not attend but wanted to know"

5 - Find a teleconference service provider that understands teleseminars Ensure your conference call service allows:

Enough lines to be connected simultaneously

The conference leader to have a different

ur attendees may have a short attention span so keep the presentation focussed and brief.

3 - Practice the presentation
Presenting over the telephone can be more challenging than being in the same room as the audience because there is no visual or audible feedback. For this reason, many presenters will script their whole presentation or at least the first few minutes until they get into the flow of it. If you do script the teleseminar, practice until it sounds like you are chatting to the audience. Choose your vocabulary to suit the audience – don’t use jargon they won’t understand. Try not to use empty words or phrases such as like, sort of, basically, to be honest.

4 - Questions
Most presentations will have a question and answer session at the end. In fact, if you don’t have one it may infer to the audience that you have something to hide. Have an answer ready for all of the common questions. What if there are no questions, is no one interested? Always be prepared for this by creating your own questions. It’s not a bad idea to have a couple of people planted in the audience to ask predetermined questions . Even easier is to say "I received an email from Fred Smith this morning who said he could not attend but wanted to know"

5 - Find a teleconference service provider that understands teleseminars Ensure your conference call service allows:

Enough lines to be connected simultaneously

The conference leader to have a different

he audience. Choose your vocabulary to suit the audience – don’t use jargon they won’t understand. Try not to use empty words or phrases such as like, sort of, basically, to be honest.

4 - Questions
Most presentations will have a question and answer session at the end. In fact, if you don’t have one it may infer to the audience that you have something to hide. Have an answer ready for all of the common questions. What if there are no questions, is no one interested? Always be prepared for this by creating your own questions. It’s not a bad idea to have a couple of people planted in the audience to ask predetermined questions . Even easier is to say "I received an email from Fred Smith this morning who said he could not attend but wanted to know"

5 - Find a teleconference service provider that understands teleseminars Ensure your conference call service allows:

Enough lines to be connected simultaneously

The conference leader to have a different

for this by creating your own questions. It’s not a bad idea to have a couple of people planted in the audience to ask predetermined questions . Even easier is to say "I received an email from Fred Smith this morning who said he could not attend but wanted to know"

5 - Find a teleconference service provider that understands teleseminars Ensure your conference call service allows:

Enough lines to be connected simultaneously

The conference leader to have a different PIN code to the attendees

Co-presenters to share the leader PIN

Attendees to be muted by the conference leader

Attendees to mute their own lines

The teleconference to be recorded

Entry/exit tones to be turned off. This is very important for larger teleseminars as they can be intrusive. Conversely, you don’t want to be embarrassed if fewer than expected people attend!

6 - Sound Quality
Poor sound quality will kill a meeting. If the participants cannot hear you because you have a poor quality phone or there is too much background noise they will disconnect. Join the teleseminar from a quiet room where you will not be disturbed. Use a speakerphone only if you have a really good one and are 100% sure of zero background noise. Don’t connect via VoIP/Skype – never take chances with sound quality. If you will be hosting meetings on a regular basis invest in a headset to keep your hands free.

7 - Managing The Meeting
Just before the start time you (or a colleague) should call into the meeting as a call leader. This will remove the pre-meeting music. You or your colleague should welcome everybody and: Remind them what the teleseminar is about

Explain that all lines will be in lecture mode during the teleseminar to keep the background noise down and make it easier for everyone to hear.

Attendees often join 5-8 minutes late so you need to keep the people who joined on time happy whilst you wait for the full audience to join.

Tell everyone you will be recording the meeting and then start the recording

Place the teleseminar in lecture mode if there are more than 20 lines or so

Make introductions and hand over to any guest speakers

At the end of the presentation most presenters will say something like: "that's the end of the structured part of the presentation, I'd like to open up the teleseminar so that I can answer questions. Please press star 6 to mute your line wh