What does football and seminar marketing have in common? Surprisingly, quite a bit! Explore Frank Maselli's lessons from the Super Bowl.
What do last weekend's Super Bowl and seminar marketing have in common? Surprisingly, quite a bit! And who better to share some seminar success tips and tricks than seminar expert and financial services coach, Frank Maselli? In today's blog, we'll dive into Frank's insights drawn from the Chiefs' and 49ers' game, as well as football in general, and see how they can be applied to financial workshops.
Watch game films
I can't think of a professional sport today that doesn't use video as a training tool. I would bet that every NFL player spends ten hours watching films for every one hour of game time. They even watch video during the game itself!
How nice would it be to stop the workshop, grab your tablet and review the segment you just did on RMD's? " OK, let's try that one again! What I should have said is this."
You are no different! We are verbal and intellectual athletes. Your "game" is up in front of that workshop, and watching your performance is a critical way to improve. Fight through the pain! Watching yourself on video is tough. If you're new to seminars, it can be a jarring experience. But I urge you to overcome that feeling and just do it. Just tell yourself: "I'm a professional, and this is what pros DO!"
Great coaching
The Super Bowl was as much a match between brilliant coaches Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan as between players. Tony Romo's insightful commentary highlighted that perfectly to the point where my wife said, "I had no idea there was so much strategy in football!" (Me neither, but don't tell her.)
There is strategy in speaking as well. The days of just getting up and talking are over. To drive business, you need more. Relying solely on your innate chatty nature will yield mediocre results at best. Get some help! A couple of tweaks could be the difference between a 10% and a 70% appointment ratio. What could that do to your ROI for the rest of your career?
How cool would it be to get some sideline coaching in a seminar? "OK Pete, this audience seems to enjoy stories. Let's cut out those spreadsheets on slides 45 and 52 and go deeper with the case studies on 48 and 55. And bump up the humor a bit. They're definitely reacting to that. Now get back in there!"
Tiny details matter a lot
One inch to the left and that punt would have missed 49'er Darrell Luter's heel. KC would not have recovered the fumble and scored, and San Fran could be holding the Lombardi Trophy today. ONE LOUSY INCH!
In a workshop, there are a hundred seemingly tiny details that can swing a prospect's decision in your favor. Everything from room set-up, your handout kit, the way your slides build instead of just appearing, the type and placement of stories, the snacks you provide...can make a huge difference in the outcome.
What's even better is that you can control almost all of the details yourself. There's no opposing team fighting to throw you off your game. There are unpredictable things that can happen with a live audience.
One unlucky advisor had a kid's karate tournament next door to his seminar room at the local community center! The noise was absurdly distracting!
Barring those kinds of unforeseeable events, most details can be planned in advance.
Go with your strength
Patrick Mahomes isn't the GOAT yet, but he's on his way, doing things that Tom Brady could only dream of...like RUN! His two runs in OT weren't scrambles — they were planned. Someone on a headset finally said, "Let Patrick do his thing!"
What's YOUR thing? In a workshop, audiences will not understand more than 10% of your content. What they need and desperately WANT to see is your passion, conviction, expertise, general likeability and trustworthiness on display. Are those your things? Does your program "gameplan" allow you to highlight those aspects of who you are and what you can do for people
Focus on emotions
One thing that makes football such a great sport to watch is that there is structured emotional tension 120 times in every game. Every play is an explosive moment...a potential highlight film for the ages.
Financial workshops can't be that exciting, but they can be much more emotionally engaging. EMOTIONS are what drive people to action. Data and facts are great tools, and you need them, but they're only useful to the extent they support the broad emotional goal of your message. That message can be stated pretty simply as:
You can learn about seminar emotions by downloading "The 9 Critical Emotions" guide here.
Overall, Brock Purdy's story is phenomenal! The final player chosen in last year's draft; he leads his team to a Super Bowl in his first year as a pro. How rare and exciting is that? He obviously has talent. But what he didn't have was scars.
Patrick Mahomes has been to the big game four times and won three! His NFL record has imbued him with orders of magnitude more experience...and it showed in the last two drives. The more times you step up in front of a crowd...the better you're going to be. And with White Glove handling the logistics of your seminar, coupled with Frank's expert one-on-one training, you're set up for success from start to finish.
To download Frank's complete Super Seminar Tips and Tricks: 5 Lessons from the Super Bowl Guide, click here.
