Automated Webinars with Melissa Kwan

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Come on

Unknown Speaker 0:11
I’m left with is George G. And the time is right. welcome today’s guest strong, powerful Melissa Kwan. Melissa, are you ready to do this? Yes, I am, especially with with that voice. Let’s Let’s go. Melissa was the co founder and CEO of E webinar. They’re an organization automating the tedious task of giving the same webinar over and over again, unlocking your free time, less. It’s also my personal life. So more about your work and why you do what you do.

Unknown Speaker 0:40
Yeah, so this is my third startup. In my previous startup, I mean, they’re all Bootstrap. So my previous startup, I was everything except for code.

Unknown Speaker 0:50
So you can imagine like all of the sales, demos, training, onboarding, like all those things I was doing on a daily basis, sometimes five or six of them back to back. And all these were like, exactly the same contents for new users that were coming onto the platform. But not only that, I have been a digital nomad for about five years now. So when I was running that company, not only was I doing all these repetitive live webinars daily, just to keep people on my platform, I was doing them on complete opposite time zones of my customers, like my customers were in North America, I was not in North America. So I just found it completely ridiculous that I would have to do the same thing over and over. Like, it doesn’t even make sense for like any person to do that, like just hiring a person to do that, let alone the founder of the company. And I was always so exhausted, and so mentally drained from these, that I didn’t have the mindshare to do anything else. So I had always dreamt of this incredible product that would do my job for me. Well, I could go and have more fun, sleep more, or just do literally anything else. So I ran a company for five years, and I just kept thinking about this magical product. And when that company was acquired in 2019, I decided this was the problem that I was going to solve not just for other people, because I really believed there were other people like me that just absolutely load running, like live webinars. And I believe that this product needed to exist, not just for me, but also for them. And that was kind of the beginning of the journey, I sold that company, I convinced my CEO at the time to let me work on a side project because I was just I had spent 10 years in real estate tech. And I was kind of sick of doing that and need a new challenge. And because it wasn’t conflicting with with what I sold, they let me do this. So that was three and a half years ago now. Build the product for year and a half and approximate life for two years. Awesome. And has it gone just as expected? Never.

Unknown Speaker 2:49
Does it ever, I mean, it always takes two or three times longer, it will cost two or three times more. And you just have like all these unexpected challenges. Like I actually just wrote about this yesterday. Like I had three three businesses. First one was an agency. Second was an enterprise SAS. So like big ticket items that to big corporations. The third which I’m running now is like a self serve like product like grow SAS like $50 product, everyone signs up on their own kind of like a MailChimp. So I went into each company thinking I know exactly what I’m doing. Because I did one before, like an agency cannot be more different than an enterprise SAS company. And enterprise company cannot be more different than a self serve, like product lead growth company. What I’m doing now like needing to figure out how to attract people to our site, or you know, a piece of content, how to get them to sign up, watch a demo. Convert, not turn like this is the absolute hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And I’m finding that I need to learn new things every day just to keep this running. And I never expected that. So that is I think the one biggest unexpected surprises, I actually have no idea what I’m doing, because everything is pretty new. Yeah, I certainly appreciate that. All right. So people who are, are having a similar experience to you of doing product demos, and you’re exhausted or what are some of the other use cases that that that you’re commonly seeing that people love what it is that you’re doing? I mean, our biggest use case is actually onboarding and training. So whether that’s for external customers or prospects or

Unknown Speaker 4:36
internal staff, right, so those are actually the people that are doing the most webinars, because if you think about sales demos, like yes, people do a lot of those. But it’s one function, right? Like, here’s my one product, here’s my one sales presentation. But if you think about like, when someone comes onto your platform, or even a service, like we have foreign companies, hair replacement companies, we have insurance companies, we have lots of tech companies, the non

Unknown Speaker 5:00
have different products features, feature updates, training that that you have to deliver on an ongoing basis is like enormous. So a lot of times people just don’t do them because they don’t have a resource, or they’ll put together a video, but it’s just not a video is not the same experience, right? People come to webinars, they expect to be engaged, expect to be able to reach out ask questions. And that’s what’s really special about what we built is you can run an asynchronous webinar, and still have a chat system where people can reach out and you can respond at your own time. So while you can hop into respond live, you don’t have to, you can respond later. And that actually means that you can run your webinars 24/7, like literally 24/7 without ever missing a question from a customer. But more importantly, they’re not missing an answer from you, which is most important. So sales is actually our second best use case. But onboarding and training is actually our number one use case. Got it? So during the webinar, let’s just say that the I’m doing a new training for some new employees, and it’s at 10 o’clock on Monday. And during that automated webinar that they’re watching, somebody uses the chat feature and says, Hey, I don’t understand this. Can Can you explain that? How do I get alerted to that? Yeah, so as the host, you can, there’s a few different ways we send an email notification. And this is all customizable, you can integrate with Slack. So some people like that, because they like to live in Slack. And you can respond directly from a Slack channel, which is really convenient, especially if you’re on mobile. But we allow you to set up desktop notification. So a little message pops up if you’re on your computer. So there’s multiple different ways where you will get alerted.

Unknown Speaker 6:42
But the beauty of it is you don’t have to respond in real time, like we are already used to this type of communication. We actually do that every day. Like somebody texted me. I may respond. Now I may respond in two hours, right? You go to any website, right now, there’s a little bubble that pops up that says, Hey, George, can I help you? We actually just took the exact same concept and stuck it onto our product.

Unknown Speaker 7:05
Got it? Nice. So you could be on the beach, doing whatever you’re doing. And you get a notification of some kind that Steve watching the webinar. He had this question. And you could respond immediately if you were so inclined. Or you could respond whenever you want it. It drives my partner crazy when I’m like at dinner, and I just can’t help it. Like I have to go look at like I have like, I have this like notification add

Unknown Speaker 7:34
it, there’s a number I have to press on it. So like it just drives me crazy when I’m at dinner or like watching Netflix or whatnot. And I’m just like responding but yeah, like you can’t you have the opportunity to, but only only at your own time like if you wish.

Unknown Speaker 7:52
Yeah, you can be in your PJs, you can be on the beach in VR. I love it. So what are what are some of the big, I guess the main questions or concerns or objections that you get from people?

Unknown Speaker 8:07
I mean, I think from a, I never get objections from like people who attend my webinars.

Unknown Speaker 8:14
But I do get objections from people who are looking at automating their process, because it is is still not a widely known concept, right? Like, everybody knows what a CRM is, right? Like, you have a company, you got a CRM, or like you have a company, you sign up for MailChimp like these are the things you have to have. Right now you have a company, you sign up to zoom. And I think anytime you want to change a habit, like something that people already know, that’s hard. So what people know, as a webinar right now is, there’s a time tuesday at 11. I get people to join 20% of people show up, and then I get to talk to them, I get to present and engage. The biggest objection I get is, but if I turn this on, and I’m not there are people going to get angry. And that’s what’s interesting, right? Because we are ready communicate asynchronously everywhere else, just not the webinars that we know today. So it’s hard for people to make that little mental leap between Oh, yeah, you can actually have a zoom, that’s a video but also have a support chat that stuck with it. Right. All we did was take two pieces of something that already works and stuck it together. So once they attend the demo, then they can visualize and understand. But the biggest objection I get is I don’t understand why you don’t have to be there. Because it’s a webinar. I’m always there for a webinar. Right. Once they see the experience, then they’re like, Okay, yeah, like I get what you mean. And it’s it’s actually a better experience because the video quality is better, where people can actually attend it, like the average attendance rate for all of our customers is 65%. Like any instructor will know that that is absolutely unheard of, but that’s because it’s on a recurring schedule. So it’s not next Tuesday at 11. It could be tomorrow at 11 It could be right now it could be you know, Saturday so

Unknown Speaker 10:00
by giving people the opportunity to press play right now, or schedule a time that actually fits their schedule. Turns out, they can actually show up. Amazing. I love it. So how does it how does it actually work? Let’s say I sign up and I’ve got a handful of trainings that I want to do for new employees. I’ve got a couple of sales presentations I want to do. Do I record through like a software? Do I record on my phone to webinars? Probably not.

Unknown Speaker 10:29
Yeah, I mean, I actually use a really neat app that turns my iPhone into my webcam. And that gives you the best video quality that one can ask for, for not spending any money. So I think the app is called camo, I think it’s like 50 bucks or something like that.

Unknown Speaker 10:46
But if you use that, along with any screen recording software, it could be a loom, quick time d script. Or if you’re recording something that’s an interview style, you can also you can always use Zoom that people know or you can use something like Riverside, that has better video quality. But by the time people come into the webinar, they already have a video. So we don’t have a recorder. That’s a whole different business, we’re not going to get into that. It’s crowded space, and everyone has their own favorites already. But once you have the video, all you do, you upload it into a webinar. And what we allow you to do is we allow you to program in some interactivity. So you can program in polls, quizzes, resources, links, to share feedback contact form, to pop up at specific moments in time. What’s really cool about that is, it’s not a webinar, that’s traditional, you come in and you’re talking at me and that’s it.

Unknown Speaker 11:39
Like when you go there, like you’ll find very quickly that you’re actually losing me to Instagram or like or another tab. What you have in our does is by popping up these this, these kinds of interactions, we invite the attendee to participate in the experience. How did you hear about us? Do you like this feature? What do you think who referred you to us? what comments do you have? So they’re actually doing something every two, three minutes until the end, where you actually get to deliver, your CTA might be sign up, it might be book a call, like, whatever that might be at the end. So they actually stay until the end, because there’s something to do. We allow you to assign chat moderators. And then we also allow you to customize the registration and thank you page within the platform within our own page builder. But if you say like, Hey, I really care about conversions, or I care about my brand, I want to use my own landing page, we have a number of different widgets that you can install, like a button or a pop up, you can use your own page, if you want, just use our registration widget. And that’s it, like basically put in the video, programming your polls, quizzes, whatever you want, set a moderator create a landing page, you can complete that probably in 15 minutes. And then you just, it’s just set and forget. Because when you set a schedule, it’s a recurring schedule. So you could say I want this to happen every day, or every second day, whatever you want. And you just kind of sit there and let people come in, like a lot of people will have their demos hosted on their website, like a homepage, like us, for example. Or if you are doing this for onboarding and training, this webinar would be part of your onboarding series, where people have to go through or maybe you want to embed this into into your knowledge base. Because maybe not everything can be explained in one article or a two minute video. So these are like different ways that you can get it out and how you can make that part of your business and not kind of like a standalone. Nice. And so I think you probably already answered this question, but so I could email it to somebody and they can watch it whenever they wanted. And I can automate it. So it happens at the same day or the week, same time every week, or however I want to do it.

Unknown Speaker 13:40
Yeah, you can actually even set it to happen at the attendees local timezone, right. The idea that I can only watch a webinar, like Tuesday at 11, which is how like what everyone wants, it is actually kind of crazy, right? Because if you think about how we want to consume lifestyle content, right, like my Netflix or whatever my show my favorite show, like what am I told you, George, you can only watch your favorite show next Tuesday at 11. When was the last time that happened? Like more than 10 years ago? Back? Yeah, the way that we expect to consume video in our everyday lives is so different than how business content is delivered. And why that’s important is the people like the founders, business owners that understand that can align the content that they deliver through their business more closely to what people expect in their lives. Like I like to think about the webinars like the Netflix of webinars, you can play whatever you want, but most importantly, you can access the content when you want it. Not when the producer tells me you can only watch it at this time. So you can even say I want this to happen 10 And two every day at the attendees timezone. So whether I’m going to your registration page from New York or Singapore or Amsterdam, I’m seeing this happen

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Then at 10am my time, and that’s really useful for people that are serving customers everywhere in the world. Yeah, there’s no doubt. I love it. So much is it Michelle? Melissa, called you, Michelle. I’m so sorry. It happens a lot. Because there is a Michelle Kwan. Right. It’s fun. This isn’t having to be for like 30 years.

Unknown Speaker 15:21
It starts at $49. And then it kind of scales up from there, depending on how many websites you have. Nice, awesome.

Unknown Speaker 15:30
And it’s easy to use.

Unknown Speaker 15:33
I don’t even get it. So easiest.

Unknown Speaker 15:37
Yeah, we have very, very low touch onboarding. So it’s that’s how easy it is. Basically, like the first time you upload a video, we just walk you through the steps. Of course, there’s a learning process if you want to, like integrate their CRM, or marketing email, or Twilio, whatever it might be. But if you just want to use it, like, in its basic form, without any of those integrations, like anybody can do it. Love it?

Unknown Speaker 16:01
Well, Melissa, the people are ready for that difference making tip, what do you have for them.

Unknown Speaker 16:07
You don’t have to work harder. But you do have to work more creatively. This is something that I’ve learned very recently. Working harder doesn’t mean you’re more productive. It doesn’t guarantee success. If you’re working too hard, or spending too many times, like too many hours in a day working. Like I would encourage you to think about what you can, what you can contract out or what you can automate. Because this is the only way to build a sustainable business is figure out how to automate more things and creating more space for your personal life and your friends and family and not let work consume you. Well, I think that that is great stuff that definitely gets caught.

Unknown Speaker 16:50
Are you getting better at that? On business? Number three, which also I am, but it’s also kind of like an earned luxury.

Unknown Speaker 16:59
Yeah, because I had sold a previous company, like I’m still kind of writing offline. And that’s giving me the freedom to build this, you know, not in a rush and not need to raise any any venture capital for it. But this time around, I am very good at setting boundaries. So when I’m done working for the day, I’m done. Like, and I don’t work on weekends, I take my vacations very seriously, like, the force customer always comes first. But now I have very strict boundaries about when I don’t do things. And I didn’t used to do that. Love it.

Unknown Speaker 17:35
Well, Melissa, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? And how can they engage with you webinar?

Unknown Speaker 17:41
Yeah, so if you have any questions for me, either product or my journey, look me up on LinkedIn. It’s Melissa Kwan K, w a n. And if you’re curious about the webinar on how it can help your business, it’s exactly as it spelled e webinar.com. There’s a demo on there, you can join it at your own time. I’m always managing the chat. And it’s a very meta experience where you can watch our demo within the product. And we use the product itself to highlight the features.

Unknown Speaker 18:08
Love it. If you enjoyed as much as I did show Military Appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas, go to E webinar.com. And check out the demo. And then you can find Melissa on LinkedIn as well. Let’s do all those the notes of the show. Thanks, Kim. Melissa. Thanks so much, George. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai