George Kao criticizes manipulative sales-funnel tactics used in many "free webinar" promotions, describing them as indoctrination-like and dishonest. He says he stopped using funnels at least seven years ago and that his business has improved since. He distinguishes three webinar types: (1) authentic free webinars—teach what you promised and limit any sales pitch to the final 5–10% of time (e.g., 3–6 minutes of a one-hour session); (2) honest "info sessions"—marketed clearly as sales/info sessions and allowed to spend ~1/3 of time on selling; and (3) "free-to-attend paid recording" webinars that become a product for attendees. He advocates for honesty in marketing rather than manipulative funnel tactics.
Questions this video answers
At least seven years.
5–10% of the webinar (e.g., 6 minutes for a one-hour webinar).
Six minutes.
Chapters
A question about my thoughts about sales funnels. Those of you who have watched my videos for a while know that I, I don't like sales funnels. I don't recommend them. I don't do them myself. I used to do them. That was years and years ago. I haven't done sales funnels for at least seven years. So seven years, no sales funnels. My business has only kept going up better and better audience over the last seven years. But you know, the questions here asked is would I still recommend having a free webinar? Free webinar is a common sales funnel tactic. Join this webinar to learn the secrets of life that you'll never learn anywhere else. And it's free. And of course once you sign up, you know you're in that person's funnel. They, they'll send you email after email after email until you unsubscribe. And the whole thing is designed carefully to indoctrinate you. That's literally the language they use. Did you know that they use? Indoctrination is the actual term. I'm like, this is horrific. I mean it's essentially taking cynical religious conversion tactics and bring it into marketing. And that's what sales funnels are. So it's really cynical, it's really manipulative, really like psychopathic, to be honest. Light psycho. Light psychopathy. It's what it is. Let's just be honest about it, you know, so, but can we do a wet free webinar and make it authentic and still offer something? Of course, of course you can. So actually there's a separate question here. One is authentic free webinars, one is sales funnels. The person asked is actually asking about authentic free webinars, not sales funnels. Okay, Authentic free webinars are very simple. You present, you market the webinar saying what you are excited to teach them in the webinar, who it's for, if you know exactly, that's it. Now who it's for, what you're excited to teach them, that's it. And then you deliver on what you promised in that webinar. You teach what you're excited to teach them to the people that you have in mind. And then the last 5 to 10% of the webinar you talk about your upgrade, your further offer. So the language is something 5 to 10% of the time. So if you're doing a one hour webinar that's free, then what's 10% of one hour? Six minutes. So three to six minutes at the end is the only recommendation that I have for selling something on a free webinar and those of you who are marketers are like, George, you're ridiculous. My marketing tactics, or my marketing teacher says, a third of it is credibility building. A third of it is giving a few tips that are really setting up the frame for the final third, which is the sale. It's fucking ridiculous. Okay? I mean, because unless people said, unless people signed up to say, I would like to come to your sales webinar, that's also okay. So there's a, there's a second type of free webinar which is called an info session. And you, you should feel free to do it. Just like colleges have info sessions. You know, you bring your kid to say, I'm interested in applying to this college, let's go to their info session. Info session is very plainly marketed as, hey, let us sell you on the college. And all these people come to get sold on the college. Why wouldn't we do that for our business? Why? Why can't you just be honest and not just not the person asking the question? I'm just generally right. To all the marketers out there, why can't we be fucking honest and say, hey, I would like to sell you my coaching program. Will you come to my info session so I can sell it to you? Would that be okay? Now you don't say it like that way, but you'd say, I'm excited to be launching my coaching program. Come to this info session. I'll tell you all about it. It's basically for these types of people dealing with these issues. But come and I will explain why I believe this framework works for a lot of people. I'll even give you a few tips. But I'll certainly tell you who is fit to work with me and how we work together. Info session, you could be so honest and you could sell for a third of the time. So a lot of free webinars, so called are actually info sessions, but they're dishonestly marketed. They're marketed as a free webinar. That's a teaching thing, but it's really an info session. So just be honest about it and you could do it all day long. Right? But, but, but if you're doing a free webinar, I don't recommend free webinars, just that are teaching. I recommend free to attend paid recording webinars. I've talked about that elsewhere, so I'll kind of stop there. So like there's really two, two free things that you can offer in terms of webinars, when an info session, just market it honestly. And then free to attend paid webinars, which are going to turn into a product, but you're giving it for free for those who attend. And even during that free to attend, you can still do 5 to 10% at the end, no hard sales. But it's sort of like it's a convenience to people to say, hey, if you really love this stuff we're talking about today, and if you want to work further, there is a way. There's a way. And so I'll just let me spend three minutes or six minutes talking about it. That's it. So I hope this is helpful, you know, for everyone who's interested in my thoughts about free webinars. And sorry for the cussing, but I get excited when we talk about manipulative marketing. So.
