A Value Builder page is exactly what it implies, it builds value. Let take, for example, a Les Brown teleseminar that I did. Now there was an Ask campaign at: http://www.asklesbrown.com, and we got hundreds of questions coming into Les. Les and I chose 12 of those questions to answer during a 90-minute teleseminar.

About four weeks later another email went out and said; “Hey Les Brown charges about $20,000 per keynote speech. He charges about $40,000 if you hire him overseas, outside of the continental United States. I’ve gotten him for $39 for 90 minutes. If you register you can listen to Les, get private access to him by phone for $39, and the audio transcripts are $10 more, for a total of 49 bucks.”

Now that’s a pretty good deal. Now by itself you would think that you would get a lot of registrants. But I have found that you want to give someone VIP code access. Now what’s a VIP code? It’s a coupon. It’s a way to save money. In this case the call is 49 bucks, they save $40 on tuition if they have a VIP code. And we go to the registration page you see VIP code registration and you will also see normal registration. Let’s go there.

I will send a ’save the date’ ten days out if I have a major, major call that’s happening. This is a one-day call, a fee-based call. Then three days later, seven days before the call I will send my first email teaser, I will typically do it in text. Very rarely do I do it in html. I use the lowest common denominator of email communication, a text email. And I will also have an audio postcard as well, which is a link that opens up a web page, which is an audio postcard. And then, four days later–3-4 days later which is 3-4 days before the call, I’ll send the second email solicitation. It’s the third email, but it’s the second email solicitation for the call. The first email was the save the date. The second email solicitation promoting the call. And then if it’s a pretty good call, if it’s hot, then the day before, I will promote it to the entire list again. And if it’s a really hot call, then I will promote it on the day of the call, saying it happens in 5 hours. It happens in 10 hours so on and so forth, okay? So, the more people I have registered, the more I promote the call. You only appear too pushy or overly aggressive if you are promoting something that no one cares about. Remember that and it will pay off for you in the long run.

People have been asking the the question “When do you promote the call on the day of the call versus choosing not to promote the call?” Well, this is an answer that may seem counter-intuitive, but here’s the answer: If I have a ton of people who registered for the call, that means I have a hot call. I like to strengthen a strength. I don’t like to strengthen a weakness. That’s a completely different seminar, and a completely different FAQ that requires a lot of discussion. Just remember ‘Strengthen a Strength’, in marketing. Don’t strengthen a weakness.

If you have a sales staff, don’t put your best sales person in the weakest territory. Put your best sales person in the best territory. It’s all about marketing Darwinism. Okay, so back to the topic. If I have a very strong call, and a lot of times I have a lot of people register, I will send one final teaser out to the list or lists that I’ve chosen to market to. Along with the same day auto reminded registration. Why do I do that? Because if I have a hot topic and a hot call I want to get as many people on that call as possible and I want to promote it as many times as possible. If I don’t have a hot topic and if I don’t have a hot call, and I know that by the number of people who have registered, and I’m not going to beat a dead horse. It will only make me seem too pushy or over-aggressive. Do you see the philosophy here is all about you’re too pushy or too aggressive if the topic does not interest your prospects? If that topic is of little interest or relevance to your listeners, you are being overly aggressive and overly pushy- irritating, quite frankly- if you keep promoting that call. Strengthen a strength, don’t strengthen a weakness.

Wait about one week before the call, at most ten days, then start promoting it. My first promotion is probably a ’save the date’ email promotion. About ten days before the call, it says ’save the date, something wonderful is happening on such and such date’. People forget, so I don’t go out two weeks. Two weeks is like a year in teleseminar time. Then another 7 days to the day of the teleseminar. Why do 7 days? Because that’s teleseminar day- whoever is going to read that email will probably read it on the day of the teleseminar as well, which is going to be my auto reminder. You want to send it out on the same day of the week as that call.

I want to send out an email promoting the call. Now, I will do it through an audio postcard. I will do it through a text email, I will do it through html email, or both. But, I will promote the call purely by some form of email, never by fax broadcast, unless I’ve been given permission and never by phone or voice broadcast unless I’ve been given permission and for that to happen the people have to already be on my list and have been paying me lots and lots of money, so I typically don’t promote a new call to a new list, usually ever, via fax broadcast or voice broadcast, because I consider it spamming.

Okay, ten days out we have the ’save the date’. Seven days out the first teaser that goes out and then four days before the call another teaser promoting it. 24 hours before the call the 3rd teaser promoting it. Remember, it’s the fourth email, but the first one was a ’save the date’ so I have a ’save the date’ about 10 days out–this is if it is a major call that’s paid. Then seven days before the call, that’s three days after, you know because ten days out and seven days I send an email teaser promoting the call. They know exactly what it is when I say ‘remember I said save the date?’ Well, here’s what it’s all about. And then four days out I send another one. And then one day out I send another one ‘24 hours left to register.’ Those are three promotions and one save the date and then the day of, I will choose either to send a one final teaser, that’s four teasers or I will of course remind everyone who’s already registered about the call, make sure they have the work sheets, cheat sheets and any other collateral information they need for the call.

A teleseminar is not like a physical seminar, where you have to physically make reservations on a plane or a train, travel to a specific city in a car, get lodging reservations at a hotel, pickup tickets for the seminar, get your packet early, or frankly, the inconvenience of traveling away from family, home, and business. The opportunity cost of that requires a lot of preplanning. Therefore, a physical seminar requires a different promotional philosophy than a teleseminar.

Now compare that to a teleseminar. People should not appear too pushy to their teleseminar list. No travel, no hotel. No tickets to purchase, no physically picking up a packet. In fact, there’s no odd feeling of “I wonder if I’m going to see someone I know.” or “I wonder if I’m going to fit in.” There’s none of that feeling. There’s no rent-a-car. What you can do is you can simply pick up your cell phone/turn on your speaker phone and listen to the call, whether you’ve paid for it or not if it’s fee based or free. Teleseminars are different because of that convenience and because of the internet. During the days of just direct mail it would take a lot more promotional time to get people on a call with just a post-card or direct mail piece or even fax broadcast. These days with the internet, it’s very simple.

Go check out internetaudioguy.com. Go check out tracyrecommends.com. Both gentlemen personally asked me “Alex, just give me a special web page and I’ll make an affiliate link out of it” and I said “Unh uh, I don’t want to get credit.” I don’t get any money or credit by recommending these two gentlemen. This way there is no conflict of interest and if the recommendations ever changed, I wouldn’t feel bad about it, as I’m not getting paid for these endorsements. I have purchased their systems and I am not an affiliate of theirs, even though they’ve requested it and have asked me to do it, simply because I want the integrity of offering you, my students/colleagues the right equipment. I want the luxury and the convenience of changing those recommendations without feeling bad about it.

So, I recommend two powerful and content rich websites for equipment. You can call these guys up and ask them questions too. One is Mike Stewart’s http://internetaudioguy.com. And the other one is Tracy Childers and it’s http://tracyrecommends.com.

By the way, if you have any recommendations about equipment or courses, or you want to put up a bunch of affiliate links of your own I would recommend that you get yournamerecommends.com, like alexrecommends.com, tracyrecommends.com, so on and so forth. That’s a little added tip for this frequently asked question. Good luck, good sales, and I hope our paths will cross with a transcription and with an audio recording using this equipment.

If you have a microphone, he also has a system where you can get an Audio Technica Professional Microphone and actually record your calls through that microphone. Through your phone jacks, so you not only could control the sound level of you going through the phone but of your guests which you typically can’t do that unless you have this piece of equipment or unless you’re recording through a microphone. Of course that’s a little bit more expensive; the most you’re going to spend is about 1700 bucks. The least you’re going to spend is somewhere between $25 to $50.

With the software, and the least expensive solution at Radio Shack figure on spending somewhere between $75 to $150. With the kitchen sink included, having the highest quality professional recordings, you’re going to spend about 1700 bucks. What do I do? I spend 1700 bucks. Why? When I amortize that over one year, three years, or for the lifetime of my business, I make seven figures doing teleseminars. Why should I not have seven figure quality. So, don’t skip on audio recordings, because those recordings could be evergreen. They could be used for ever and ever.

Whatever type of business you’re in, if you’re in the seminar business or teleseminar business, you can spend anywhere from $30 to $1800 for phone quality. Now, let me give you some concepts of how this works. You can get a very simple phone jack at Radio Shack and you can capture the recordings from your teleseminars. I’ve had some very good luck with this. The Radio Shack product is $25. It’s catalog #17-855, and at the Radio Shack website.

If you go to the website of my good friend and colleague, Tracy Childers, at http://www.tracyrecommends.com, you will see all of his recommended audio resources. They don’t conflict with Mike’s recommendations. Some of the same pieces of equipment are there and he does recommend Mike Stewart as well. He recommends Audio Generator which you can do phone capture, but you will see headsets. You will see jacks and that teleseminar jack from Radio Shack is there and you can check that out and just click that link.

So that’s the least expensive way to do it. You need some type of audio capture such as Cool Edit or Sound Forge to get it and you can just look it up on the net and you can find out all the information or just go to internetaudioguy.com.

There’s also the Edirol piece of equipment. That is a mixer that is actually hooked up to your phone. After Mike had worked with me as a coaching student, he came up with a special package just to start recording teleseminars and live events. The Edirol is the de facto standard he has created for all of his customers and students. And they are some of the best internet and offline marketers in the world. You would recognize them if I rattled them off right now. So, he has the Edirol system and you can check out the models. The UA-25 is one of the models he uses. It’s an audio mixer and a pro level capture USB sound card as well. Basically, what you’re doing is you’re having recording quality.

The sound equipment you should use to conduct teleseminars depends on how much you want to spend. Everyone should get a copy of “Sound Forge”. I use Sound Forge 6.0 to record calls. I’m sure there’ve been many upgrades since 6.0. It works for me and I’m technologically challenged. It’s a very inexpensive piece of software that records through your computer and through your phone line if you wish. Now, I’m going to give you a few resources where you can actually go and take a look at the equipment that some of the pros are using.

I dubbed one of my students and colleagues, Mike Stewart, as the Internet Audio Guy and he has recorded many of the teleseminars I’ve done. Now his son Michael records my teleseminars. He has recorded many seminars, Big Seminars, and system seminars. Mike is an audio guy and a musician, so he knows a lot about audio.

If you go to http://InternetAudioGuy.com, you see all of his different types of audio equipment recommendations. There is a piece of equipment called an edirol. You can click the link under packages that says ‘open teleseminar’. There’s also another link that says ‘phone capture’. And if you do physical seminars, there’s also another link that says ’seminar capture’.

In fact, if you’re going to have a teleseminar series, like Teleseminar Secrets, why not just buy a $20 phone card and give it to your registrants? It’s a nice little value added gift you could give to people. It’s not only affordable; it just makes things more convenient for them. So if you’re not aware of these calling cards, get them, use them, try them out. Make sure that it’s a reputable company, you can find them online. In the US, you can find them in most convenience stores; typically they are set up from a certain region of a country to another country. For example, if it’s in Australia going to the US, it’ll be a part of Sydney going to the US or a part of Melbourne going to the US. Just make sure you get the right calling card.

The rule of thumb is to always have the bridge line in the United States, simply because it’s more controllable, affordable, and it’s in your backyard. I know Aussies who have teleseminars hosted in the US. They call in with their calling card. They have all their mates and colleagues calling in from Australia. It’s more affordable to call Australia to US, than Australia to Australia.

Here’s a good example.  I am one of the codevelopers of the X10 seminar in Australia with my good partner Simon Chen.  X10 is a concept of multiplying your profits by 10.   We have had conferences and physical seminars in Australia, where we took many of my colleagues and flew them over to Australia and had a conference there and flew back.  Now, prior to promoting that conference we had preview calls.  When Simon Chen was doing the preview calls, he spent thousands of dollars by hosting the calls in Australia with a conference line in Australia. 

Simon is in the telecommunications business.  And it cost him thousands of dollars. He had an 800 number set up, and he had a little call in queue where the speakers would go in. They go into a little queue, I’ll call it a “virtual green room”, where people wait to be spoken to and then the operator puts them from the green room into the main bridge where everyone is waiting for them.  The call is muted and there is a FAQ, a frequently asked question section near the very end of the call.  The point being though, is that we called into an 800 line.  Simon had the bridge line call us.  He had to pay for that.  He had to pay for all the Aussies that were calling in.  Basically, it was not affordable to do that on an ongoing basis. 

So what I suggested is to have a local bridge line here in the US.  He did, and he used the bridge line company that I personally use. Now he has Aussies, US citizens, people from Europe, and a couple people from South Africa and other parts of the world calling in to the US bridge line using calling cards.  In Australia, in US dollars, it’s less than a penny a minute.  Less than a penny a minute to call the US.  Why on earth wouldn’t you call the US from Australia into a bridge line?