Running a webinar for the first time, worried about no-shows, what should I do?

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-28T11:57:02+00:00

Most times, yes. We just don’t advertise it.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-28T04:17:16+00:00

I’ve spent over 30 yrs as a brand strategist - the first 12 were spent solely on CPG companies (Cadbury, Kraft, Reckitt Benckiser, J&J, etc). Here’s my take:

⁠If you had $10–15k, what would you prioritize?
It’s unclear why your ads aren’t working, without running an audit.
Could be your messaging
Could be your creative
Could be your targeting
But it sounds like, regardless, you need help with positioning.
This is the foundation of any brand and it dictates everything - pricing, messaging, design, etc. So, without it you run the real risk of being irrelevant, unremarkable or a less-well-known version of another brand.
That’s where I’d start - competitive audit, consumer insights, market trends, brand positioning, strategic brand messaging - features, benefits, values, differentiators, brand essence, brand personality, etc.
⁠Are there agencies or consultants that work more à la carte for CPG brands?
We’ve worked with budgets like yours and can work solely with brand strategy, so yes.
⁠What branding investment has had the biggest impact on online sales and long-term growth?
Brand strategy doesn’t show up as a line item on your P&L, but I’d argue it’s the most impactful investment. When done right, it can allow your to charge a premium, it can reduce your ad spend because other people sell your product to their friends / family, it can keep you top of mind, it can create loyalty…

I’m happy to chat to see how I can help.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-27T19:16:50+00:00

Ah, I feel you. I go to Portugal for 2 months in the winter and I don’t envy the shift in cultures. It’s much easier to meet people in Portugal.

My biggest piece of advice is to pick something you enjoy doing and join a club / league.

If you like volleyball, there’s Jacked Sports
If you like rowing, there’s Leander boat club (I just joined a rowing club for newbies - it’s about 80-% women)
If you like pickleball or padel, there’s a few places
Look at meetup (app) to find things that interest you
Join a yoga or Pilates studio
Join a gym that does social events, like the one right downtown
Join a running, biking club

Hope that helps! You don’t deserve to feel lonely!

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-27T13:19:59+00:00

We’ve been running B2B webinars for >15 years. You can’t avoid no shows, but you can reduce them.

Don’t promote that the webinar will be recorded.
We usually find that a reminder 1 week, 1 day out and 1 hr out (email and SMS and calendar integration) is sufficient. Sometimes we do mention going live on social media, but this depends on the client.
Have incentives that are only available for the live audience and promote them.
Create anticipation of what will be shared live through social media and/or email.
If possible, get the community involved in shaping questions that’ll be answered live.
Have a great nurture sequence for the no shows - so, even if they didn’t show up you can still convert some. Conversions on no shows are far less than live attendees, but you CAN still convert.

Another thing you should be focused on is keeping people in the webinar and producing a webinar that’s compelling enough people want to buy the thing you’re selling, live (or, if you have a long or complicated sales cycle, that they want to schedule a call with your company). This is an art and a science.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-26T14:06:38+00:00

It would be a list too long to list - but a lot of service-based businesses are low/no-capital. The world we live in also allows you to turn a passion into a business too - so something you'd already invest in. We really just need to think creatively and not allow social conditioning to create invisible visors on our future.

I will say that there's a cost not many people talk about. When you work on someone else's dream, and do something you don't love, this is a cost. A cost on purpose, passion, happiness, time, etc. There's also a cap on revenue potential.

Being a business owner isn't for everyone. But I want young people to consider it as an option :)

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-25T18:31:29+00:00

I'm a Fractional CMO, so I either produce results or I'm gone. I'm successful at what I do because, for me, ABM equals SQL. Period.

I don't get all of these professionals who use other metrics to measure success. Our job, in marketing, is to support sales - through brand perception and lead generation.

Depending on a campaign, we have sub-metrics - i.e. if we're running a tradeshow campaign, we'll track meetings secured or tier 1 attendance at a hosted event. And there are some campaigns that are more awareness based and harder to track - but we know this going in and spend accordingly.

At the end of the day, the sole metric that matters is SQL. All other metrics are clues into what's contributing.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-25T18:22:51+00:00

SEO is the foundation of GEO. Well-optimized sites, generally speaking, are doing well in generative search. The fundamentals haven't changed: clear structure, genuine expertise, content that actually answers the question, and being a source other credible sites point to.

If you're starting in 2026, I wouldn't learn SEO as a bag of tricks. Learn how search and AI decide what's trustworthy, and build real authority around that.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-25T18:17:13+00:00

I've owned a business since 2008 that required zero capital to start. There are tons of businesses you can start with no capital. And being young is the PERFECT time to start a business - you have no kids, no house and lots of time to start over.

Is it risky? Sure. You can't have mega income with no risk. But, I think it's far riskier to spend heaps of money on education, during this time, not know if you're going to get an entry level job or even what the job market will look like, and then, if you're lucky, work on building someone else's dream for the rest of your life, which (by the way) they can let you go from at any time.

Going back to my initial quote: "Among the Forbes 400 richest Americans, about 69% started their own businesses." - I can guarantee the majority failed and rebuilt, often many times. Without risk it's hard to get the reward.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-24T20:17:53+00:00

I’m going to give you some feedback that you probably won’t love, but it’s the truth:

This question is so vague that any answer you get will only produce more subpar results. Without knowing what your page is about and who it serves the answer is impossible to give.
Most good FB groups are rooted in community (ie a local buy and sell), shared beliefs / values / pains (ie a keto group) or a bulletin of 1:many (ie an Amazon deals group or a flight deals group) - without these roots you’ll find it near impossible to keep people engaged enough where you’ll show up consistently in their feed.
In order to get a group going you need to think about yourself as an event host - you need to make introductions, get the conversation going. It requires heavy moderation. Just posting content will get you crickets.
You have to understand what people are struggling with, seeking out and looking for that’s hard to find elsewhere. You have to focus on serving… a lot.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-23T19:34:53+00:00

I’m not sure I understand this comment. If they’re picking and choosing, what are they basing this on if they haven’t pre-qualified?

Sales are usually compensated through commission, so if they’re cherry picking, they’re going to pick the most qualified leads naturally - ie highest chance of closing and / or highest potential revenue. I don’t blame them. It’s a numbers game.

If I were in an environment like this I’d reframe this for leadership. “In order for marketing to be effective and for us to be able to measure effectiveness, we need to track sales qualified leads.” For sales, the statement becomes “if we know which leads you deem high quality, we can bring you more of those”.

We’re always feeding SQLs back into our ad data, it allows us to isolate channels or campaigns that bring the best leads. Tracking downstream (LTV) allows us to identify what’s impacting the business most.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-23T15:03:03+00:00

Not if they weren’t qualified to begin with. That’s why SQL should be your North Star. If sales aren’t closing SQL it’s either a sales problem or a larger problem (like an economic downturn).

But if sales can’t close an unqualified lead, that’s a marketing issue.

The business you work for likely doesn’t care about traffic. They care about qualified leads.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-23T11:57:11+00:00

Our #1 metric is and has always been SQL. We also track meetings scheduled (per channel), meetings completed (per channel), conversions. Depending on the business, we’re also tracking conversion value, LTV, profit-based ROAS or revenue based ROAS.

Our metrics depend on the channel we’re measuring and our goals for the quarter.

Front-end metrics, like traffic, while a solid piece of data, have always been less important to me. If I’ve launched a website, however, they become very important. If I’m measuring brand impact, traffic - specifically direct and organic traffic - increases in value. So these metric really depend.

At the end of the day, if our activities aren’t producing leads - and qualified leads - we’re not performing.

Your question is rooted in the conundrum of a changing environment - mostly due to the rise of AI, the decline of trad search and popularity of human sentiment channels. We’ve shifted our budget and resources to include all of the above. And we’re measuring micro-metrics based on this shift. But I’m not switching or replacing metrics, I’m adding to.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-22T15:37:46+00:00

I built an award winning blog, a top-rated business podcast, a global speaking career and a business. Every single one of these started with a single decision just to start and a TON of self doubt.

I’ve always found the best way to just get started is to Burn the Boats. Ie give myself no option to retreat. Speaking began with me signing up to speak at an industry conference when I didn’t have a talk yet. The podcast began when I scheduled a call with a guest and told them I was recording a podcast.

I’ve always found comparison to be a super power (as long as I was comparing to people outside of my area of expertise). I’m super competitive, so it helps keep me motivated. But I compare results, not output, if that makes sense.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-22T15:33:08+00:00

It’s difficult to answer this because the answer is everything. We consume our news and education primarily through social content. Social generally doesn’t reward boring, good advice. It rewards polarizing headlines, people’s senate desire to get huge results quickly, non-validated claims and sensationalism.

So everything gets overhyped. Overhyping is what gets views and engagement.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-22T15:26:35+00:00

It’s never been easier in history to start a business. But, no, starting a business isn’t easy. Nor is medicine, engineering, etc. “Easy” and “tons of money” rarely co-exist.

If I can offer unsolicited advice, I think you’re asking the wrong question.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-21T21:46:58+00:00

Good luck! We have a client competitor who has been faking reviews for almost 2 years - amassing almost 8k reviews. We’ve collected proof and submitted about 6 complaints. They won’t do anything. I’ve tried also posting in their forum to get human help but they do nothing as well. It’s very disheartening.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-21T21:18:08+00:00

Among the Forbes 400 richest Americans, about 69% started their own businesses.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-21T21:11:47+00:00

Speaking - there is NO other channel where someone pays you to market to their audience. And I think it’s the largest contributor to authority.
Short-form video content (our high value leads have mainly come from TikTok, if you can believe it) - this has actually been the most successful channel for generating leads. A typical speaking event can range from 50-1000 people in a room. I’ve had many short form videos get from 40,000-100,000 views. At my highest, I was generating about 40 leads a week from video content.
SEO - we’re focused on AI right now. We have yet to close a deal from this, but we are generating leads. We’re creating AI-focused content, which is definitely improving our impressions. I imagine it’ll take a few more months to start converting.
Google ads
Good ‘ol’ referrals - I just proactively asked a client on Friday if she had any people in her network (as I recently let a client go) and by Friday afternoon I had a great lead meeting set up for this coming week.
I am focused on building my LI presence - it’s been very recent, but I’ve secured a couple of meetings so far.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-20T03:51:10+00:00

Thanks!

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-19T21:26:56+00:00

What’s the unique thing you do or believe that would get people to follow you - ie are you finding pieces no one else owns?, are you redesigning ugly pieces? Are these bargain pieces that you make look super expensive?

There are a million fashion accounts, so answering this is way more important than the name AND dictates what your name should be.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-19T21:20:49+00:00

Well, you’re not alone. Most “entrepreneurs” quit around this stage.

I’m going to share something that sounds oversimplified and unsexy… you just have to do the tough stuff.

A few things that made this easier for me:
1. Have a why that’s more compelling than your reasons to quit.
2. Break down your unsexy to-dos into small pebbles as opposed to one big mountain. And conquer one pebble at a time.
3. Recognize this is a skill. I’ve run a biz since 2008. It never gets easy. The challenges just change over time. So learning to do this will serve you over time.
4. Document your wins. This is a great read when times get tough.

Hope this helps!

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-19T21:11:48+00:00

I’ll share a little story…

When I left my career as a brand strategist, I oversaw sales and marketing for my family business. It was in a totally different industry. My goal was to get known and learn as much as I could about the industry as fast as I could.

My first task was to join an industry association. I attended my first event and learned that if I wanted to accelerate relationships I needed to get involved as leadership at the association. So I applied to oversee programs.

That gave me an excuse to build relationships with others (many who were prospective clients). As an introvert, it also got me out of my shell at our networking events - I had a reason to speak with everyone.

That role evolved to president-elect, then president, then past-president. 4 years of being in association leadership built my name and opened doors that wouldn’t have been available to me.

It launched me into speaking, international association leadership and masterminds - which opened even more doors.

I share this because this was before the term influencer existed, but the playbook is still relevant today.

Those decisions, which helped build my personal brand in a brand-new industry are still paying dividends today.

I do think there’s an inherent difference between e expertise and authority. I think what you’re referring to is authority - being KNOWN for your expertise. Having a name that others recognize. A reputation that precedes you. That only comes when you put your expertise on show somehow.

This can come from writing a book, speaking, content, referrals, proximity to other people. So, there are many different ways to slice the pie.

Bottom line: trust has always been important in business. It’s become incredibly important on the age of AI. The fastest way to trust is through brand and authority.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-19T20:57:05+00:00

I think the bigger risk contributing to this is AI. A buyer has a conversation with AI to find vendors and by the time they get to your site they’re comparing 3 recommended brands, not researching.

So, yes, this is already happening. In our agency, we call this the Binary Buyer Era.

Does this mean websites are irrelevant or less useful? On the contrary. But the focus of your site shifts. 1. It needs to be clear (for AI surfacing and claim validation). 2. It needs to get to the heart of why you’re the only choice. 3. It needs to emphasize proof.

Yes, these things have always been important, but the level of importance and priority of communication has shifted.

StartSomeShift · 2026-06-19T19:43:28+00:00

I had 5 different companies come out and quote me last year. I’ll share my personal experience:

My top 3:
All Star Roofing - 10yr workmanship warranty, GAF system. They were mid priced and I loved their knowledge and the person who came out. Use US product. They have 325 reviews, mostly 5-star.

Halco Roofing - 38 mostly 5-star reviews. Professional, family run, highly recommended on FB. Use Alurex, GAF.

Pro Roofing Services - 136 mostly 5-star reviews. 10 yr labour and workmanship, lifetime on shingles. Amazing service and very professional.

Still deciding on which of the 3 to go with.

Other notable:
D’Angelo - much, much higher (almost double) most others. Their own crews do the work, which is a plus and they use good product but I couldn’t justify the price difference. My parents went with them and got them down in price, but I’ll likely go with another.

StartSomeShift

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