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Webinar:
UTILIZING ONLINE EDUCATION TO SELL SERVICES
Presented by: Scott Zarret, CPAPresidentCPAacademy.orgCPAwebengage.com
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Scott Zarret, CPA
15 years of experience in the accounting industry
Processed more than 375,000 hours of CPE credits via live webcast
President of CPAacademy.org, an online education company with over 60,000 members
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Why are we Here?
Why are webinars so popular?
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◦ Relatively inexpensive to host
◦ Reach a wide audience
◦ Data can be gathered about their audience (registration, polling questions, evaluations, questions asked during the presentation)
◦ It’s a great way to use your existing database
◦ Presentations can be archived at no cost
Who Is This Class Designed For?
Professionals who are interested in understanding the potential for using online education to:
◦ Share important content with existing clients or with potential clients
◦ Use time and technology efficiently
◦ Utilize cost-effective marketing
◦ Reach a wide audience
◦ Position yourself as a thought leader
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Webinar Objectives
Discuss current trends in online education
Learn presentation styles and tips for webinars
Understand technical considerations
Learn how to set short-term goals: planning and preparing for your webinar
Discover how to use a webinar to generate sales
Learn how to set long-term goals: online education as part of a strategic plan
Learn how to “own your own space” through thought leadership and branding
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Webinars Provide An Opportunity for
Accounting Professionals to Earn CPE
Approximately 770,000 CPAs in the nation with annual requirements of 40 hours of CPE per year
30 million hours of continuing education requirements that need to be filled
Companies that provide CPE must be registered with “The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy” (NASBA)
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There are two options for presenting CPE: Present for State CPA Societies, Industry Groups, or Associations
◦ Advantages You do not need to market your presentation or incur costs
◦ Disadvantages You will not be able to private-label your offering. Often the presenter information is not marketed well
and is very difficult to find
Your topic might not be chosen
No control over the pricing
Standards imposed by providers are generally more strict than NASBA standards
Become a NASBA provider◦ Advantages
You choose the topics and length of course
You control the pricing and marketing of the event
You have complete information about your participants
You have control the frequency of your events (date / time)
◦ Disadvantages Need to have your own database
Need to purchase software
Need to be NASBA certified
Find a NASBA-approved organization that will help you private-label market your webinar, control the pricing, present your chosen content using their technology, and potentially help you earn a profit
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Webinars Provide An Opportunity for
Accounting Professionals to Earn CPE
What are the benefits to a firm offering
CPE webinars?
Thought leadership:
Retain and reward current clients
Build virtual rapport with an audience including both clients and prospects
Share knowledge and exchange ideas with others in the CPA community
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What are the benefits to a firm offering
CPE webinars?
CPE webinars help sell products and services without being “sales-y.”
Develops credibility, creates accountability
Generate leads for new client acquisition
Enhance a personal brand
Use archived sessions to share ideas on demand
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What are the disadvantages to a firm
offering CPE webinars?
Webinars require technology-savvy or time to learn and prepare
You don’t meet your audience
Presenter needs to know or learn how to present under this format
To reach an audience outside of your core, you will need access to a database.
Limited attention span when presenting over the computer – audience can be easily distracted
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Best Practices for Webinar Planning
Clearly identify your target audience and ensure your webinar will be well attended
Rent or acquire a database
Send reminder emails prior to the event to your own internal database or an external database – the number and timing of these emails is important!
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What you need to get started.
◦ Course Name ◦ Course Description (4 - 5 sentences) ◦ Course Objectives (3 - 5 bullet-points showing what the attendee will learn)
◦ Target Audience ◦ Length of course (1, 1.5 or 2 hours)◦ Instructor bio, photo, company bio, company logo and full contact info
◦ PPT slides (1 week before the webinar) ◦ Polling questions (1 week before the webinar)
◦ Graphics
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Time-Line◦ 30+ min before the webinar – all login to software and
perform a test of audio and visuals ◦ 5 minutes before the start time: Presenter performs a
screen share◦ 5 minutes before the start time: Moderator and
presenters make small talk while people are signing in to the session (example: discuss presenter's background and ask basic questions about the webinar)
◦ Start webinar on time. Moderator kicks off the webinar to discuss CPE requirements (2 minutes)
◦ Presentation begins (moderator launches polls) ◦ 1.5 hour class: Presentation lasts 75-80 min◦ Presenter allows 10-15 min for Q&A ◦ Within 24 hours:
Follow-up email is sent Issue CPE and posts the archived session. Review details of the attendees and follow-up
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What Makes a Successful Webinar
A reliable webinar platform A topic that timely, relevant, well
defined A presenter who connects with the
audience A presenter who is knowledgeable,
passionate, interesting and takes control.
An interesting format (product demo, interview a client or other industry professional, second presenter)
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What Makes a Successful Webinar
PowerPoint Use of examples / storytellingDon’t try to fit in too muchPlan for questionsStart / end on timeStay organizedKeep it a-politicalSolicit feedback in an evaluation
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Best Practices for Webinar Planning
Put together your course description, objectives, target audience, author bios, photos
Define the course level
Decide on the number or presenters, panelist and organizers
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Best Practices for Webinar Planning
Draft your webinar script or talking points, including a powerful opening
Enjoy yourself. Be yourself. Have fun.
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Best Practices for Webinar Follow-Up
Follow up by emailing a thank-you to participants and offer a post-event survey, link to your latest blog post or informative news clip that underscores your event topic
Use your online event report and lead-scoring information to identify hot, warm, and cool prospects. Develop a plan to further engage each group based on their place in the sales cycle.
Offer an archived recording of your live webinar to make it easy for participants (and those who registered but did not attend) to view it again and share it with fellow decision-makers
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The Larger Strategy
Consider what role you would like webinars to play in your organization to ensure you are up to speed with competitors
Ensure your larger strategy will position you on the industry forefront by including methods of reaching your audience that align with the most cutting edge trends
Recognize the advantage data collected during the webinar will provide
Realize the potential for branding and thought leadership the online forum supports
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Including web seminars as part of your marketing and educational strategy achieves two primary objectives for firms: it appeals to one of the growing preferred methods of learning and it positions your firm as a thought leader in your specialty, niche, industry and service areas. The trend toward online learning is supported by the ASTD 2010 State of the Industry Report that showed the average percentage of learning hours available to learners through technology reached its highest level ever at 36.5%. Through web seminars, you can provide valuable content and education, while adding credibility to your firm and key leaders and positioning them as the “go to” thought leaders in your key areas of expertise. Web seminars should be part of your 2013 strategy!
Tamera Loerzel, Partner, Convergence Coaching
Accounting industry trends: webinars for “content and credibility”
Accounting industry trends:
webinars to foster relationships
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The human connection is essential in building a business. While in person meetings are the best way to accomplish this, we have found that the visual impact of well-designed slides coupled with the human interaction that webinars allow for can consistently create a great audience experience. Webinars are at the center of our strategy for bringing our message to market.
Rick Solomon, CPA, President, Thriving Firm
Accounting industry trends:
webinars expand your company’s reach
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Virtual learning and meetings continue to become a larger component of how businesses and educational institutions operate today. The expanded reach to your potential audience, decreased cost in travel expenses and ease of scheduling and administration are some of the leading drivers to this expansion. From a business development front, webinars have allowed us to not only expand our message to many more prospects but also engage our existing clients from across the country in the delivery of our value proposition. The technology is only going to get better and the audience more accustomed to consuming information in this manner leading to continued growth in virtual content delivery.”
Jim Boomer, CIO & Shareholder, Boomer Consulting
Next Steps For Getting Started Determine the specific goals for offering
a webinar
Research the competition
Decide the pricing of your courses
Refine your database
Gather the presenters and topics
Come up with a post-webinar action plan
Determine which webinar platform you want to use
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Parting ThoughtsCommunication and collaboration are king in today’s web-savvy social-media world. Whether it’s building your brand, marketing your products or services, or offering training and educational services - webinars are a very useful medium to deliver your message or obtain audience feedback from a large audience. Webinars today are the convergence of TV (a one way non-interactive medium) and social media (instant feedback) – the best of both worlds. I especially like that during the webinar you can interact with your audience using polls, chat, Q&A – tools to keep the webinar interactive, interesting, and informative. And viewing webinars on mobile devices (tabs and phones) add yet another dimension in webinar availability (home, office, or anywhere). Bob Torella MBA, Director of Client Relationships, AccountantsWorld
Webinars are truly one of the new marketing tools of the 21 century. Where else can you talk with hundreds of prospect at one time, get a list of all the attendees for future follow up and never leave your office. They are an excellent prospecting tool as well as a business development tool. Webinars are not perfect and the presenter has to work harder to develop the interaction with the audience. Online education is more than just a passing fad. Major universities as well as companies are offering a wide range of courses. Variations of this type of learning have been around for many years, but the technology did not support it. With the Internet, technology has finally caught up.” August Aquila (AQUILA GLOBAL ADVISORS)
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Parting Thoughts
Webinars represent one of the most effective and cost efficient ways to showcase thought leadership. Today, firms are using webinars to put prospects into the top of their sales funnel, and as a key part of the lead nurturing process. Those firms that use webinars as a strategic marketing tool, and not just as a marketing tactic, are finding that the return on investment they make in hard costs and resources can be concurrently leveraged for corporate branding, personal branding, and lead generation.” Alan Vitberg, Chief Marketing Guru, Vitberg LLC
I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness of using live seminars for education and “selling”. Not only was it fairly simple to do, but the ability to interact with a large audience and deliver value and your own message was very apparent. I don’t know of a better way to reach a large audience, hold them for an hour or so and obtain their feedback and have the ability to follow up with them. It is powerful.
Charles R. McCann, COO, CPA, Kellogg & Adelson
Webinars provide an efficient way to interact with thousands of people in an efficient, engaging and cost-effective way. Failing to use this technology these days is akin to refusing to use a telephone.
Christian Payne, CEO, Kellogg & Adelson
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23 Subject Areas That Qualify for CPE
Accounting
Accounting (Governmental)
Administrative Practice
Auditing
Auditing (Governmental)
Behavioral Ethics
Business Law
Business Management and Organization
Communications
Computer Science
Economics
Finance
Management Advisory Services
Marketing
Mathematics
Personal Development
Personnel/HR
Production
Regulatory Ethics
Social Environment of Business
Specialized Knowledge and Applications
Statistics
Taxes
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Becoming a NASBA Providerlearningmarket.org
NASBA sponsor requirements continued: CPE program sponsors must provide descriptive materials that enable
CPAs to assess the appropriateness of learning activities. To accomplish this, CPE program sponsors must inform participants in advance of◦ learning objectives◦ prerequisites◦ program level◦ program content◦ advance preparation◦ instructional delivery methods◦ recommended CPE credit◦ course registration requirements
CPE program sponsors must ensure instructors are qualified with respect to both program content and instructional methods used
CPE program sponsors must employ an effective means for evaluating learning activity quality with respect to content and preparation, as well as provide a mechanism for participants to assess whether learning objectives were met
CPE program sponsors must ensure instructional methods employed are appropriate for the learning activities. Learning activities should be presented in a manner consistent with descriptive and technical materials provided
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