Virtual Event Success

Actual emails from attendees that I collected over the last few months complaining about the hosting duties of the person facilitating a telesummit.

Complaint #1: “Could you ask the host to let the speaker speak please?”

This is due to 2 things – nervousness and knowledge of the topic. The host isn’t sure how to facilitate the session, so they end up yapping for most of the session. Or, they know ALOT about the topic and want to show off their expertise.

The goal of hosting a telesummit is to form joint ventures for future projects. And one of my clients said to me that the side benefit of hosting a telesummit is that he gets to be a student too.

Complaint #2: “I go on stage in 5-minutes and I don’t have the call-in details.” (or “The host is so disorganized.”)

This one is a classic case of the host doing everything. She’s answering attendee emails, she’s hosting the sessions and she’s making the recordings available on the website.

You need help. You seriously do. Because when you have help, you can focus in on facilitating each session to your best. No more dividing your attention across various tasks. The last thing you need is for the speaker NOT to show up because you FORGOT to send him the access information.

Complaint #3: “Can you tell the host to stop using so many um’s (or giggling or saying you know’s)?”

Otherwise known as verbal clutter, the host begins saying these things in order to fill dead air. The real issue is a lack of confidence. The guest expert becomes silent after making his or her point, the host doesn’t have a clue how to segue into the next point (or has misplaced the questions or was focused on monitoring the Twitter feed) and then fills it with “Um”, “You know” or giggles.

I’m teaching a virtual course called Telesummit Host Tips. If you’d like to learn how to host your next (or first) telesummit with confidence so you don’t sound like a newbie, click here to learn more about this program. Registration closes July 29, 2010.

It took me 6-years to finally become a confident Telesummit Host, but you’ll learn these winning tips in just 2-hours. Because trying to figure this all out during your live sessions is too late. You damage future joint venture relationships with your speakers and you heighten refund requests from attendees. I have thousands of hours hosting and facilitating telesummits and virtual events and I’ll teach you how to host a telesummit in a non-rookie way.

If you’ve attended telesummits in the past as an attendee or speaker, what other complaints do you have about telesummit hosts and what would you offer as a solution to help them improve?