I use lot of elements in my live sessions to keep the audience hooked for anywhere between 60 mins to 6 hours, and believe me doing this day in and out is not an easy task.

After 500 hours of live sessions, 10,000+ trained professionals and delivering 300 hours of content I have some understanding on how this works and what tools you can try to do the same. Im laying out this for you to try this in your next session.

The typical challenges in the online sessions that one come across:

o Participants are less responsive during the online sessions

o Have a short attention span and are easily distracted by things around them

o Low engagement and response rate

These are some of the challenges faced by all during the online sessions. Let me share you tips to engage with the audience.

• Setting the expectations

You should set expectations at the start of your session so that all participants know what will be happening. You should explain what you’re going to be doing and what the protocol will be (cameras on/off, muted/unmuted). As a general rule, ‘cameras-on’ will make people feel more present and involved (but be understanding that there are certain situations in which cameras can’t be turned on). Tell everyone that yours will be an interactive class and explain how you will be asking people to participate.

• Encourage participants join by their names

Many a times participants log in with their device names and it becomes difficult to communicate. Request the participant to change it to their First name and Last name and address each participant by their name

• Participants first

You are doing this for them. Hence everything need to be centered around them. Monologues are a strict No. This is a live session and hence interaction, participation is the key to the success of the live session

• Listen, Listen, Listen

Comments made in chat, verbal dialogues need to be listened and understood. Ensuring that you understand and value every comment that is shared will encourage more participants to join and take part. A win-win

• Ask and Wait

Ask questions regularly to see how much your audience is in sync with you. Involve them, check their understanding, wait for them to respond, listen to their answers. The whole objective is to keep them engaged and busy throughout the session.

• Be best version of yourself

Always remember if you do not enjoy, are excited, are enthusiastic then why will the audience will be. You should enjoy the overall experience throughout and only then the audience will connect with you at a deeper level.

These 6 points are the softer and finer aspects of engaging the audience during live sessions. Use them and try doing this in your next session for a greater positive experience and impact.

In the next section we will see the technical aspects of engaging the audience which includes the top 5 tools that can be used to make your session more meaningful, fun, interactive and engaging.

And that’s it for today. Do keep listening to my sales and selling podcast  and Don’t forget to follow, like hisales consulting on the Linkedin and FB platform. Also check out my website www.hisales.in for free resources and blogs.

Lastly, let me know what you think and I greatly appreciate it. Myself Prakash Batna reminding you again “ Selling is Fun, When you know How”. Take Care

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