This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey there, what's up? Chris Guillebeau here, your host of "Sidle Soul School." Hope you're doing okay. Wherever you are in the world, most likely you are in the midst of a busy holiday season, or at least beginning that season. And you might be busy at work, you might be busy with your family, you might be busy with other stuff you're trying to do. There's just so much you have to manage these days.
So I hope you're taking care of yourself. And speaking of all the things you have to do, with all of the Zoom calls you've been making, or at least all that you have made probably in the past couple of years, how many have you actually made money from? Hmm, if your answer is zero, pay attention. Because our listener has an idea, at least the beginning of an idea, about profiting from Zoom and other video conferencing. They mentioned webinars in particular, but are there other ways or even webinars, how does that work?
How does the average person capitalize on the fact that so many people are much more comfortable with video calls these days? So basically we're looking at how can I make money with Zoom calls? Pretty simple, yet important question. At least a promising question. Could be filled with profit potential.
Well, at least it's gonna be filled with a detailed question and my answer, which is coming up right after this quick message from our sponsor. Stay tuned. [Music]
Hey, Chris, this is Jan from Toronto, and I've been following your projects for a couple of years now. And so now that everyone and their mother and maybe their grandmother is used to using Zoom for virtual meetings, what do you think are the best ways to profit from it? Obviously a lot of webinars and membership sites use Zoom, but I'm wondering if there's anything specific to the platform that stands out as especially interesting or profitable these days.
Looking forward to what you have to say about this. [Music]
Hey, Jan, what's up? Hope all is well in Toronto. I actually passed through Vancouver this week on my way to South Africa for a few days, South Africa via London. Hopefully another time I can stop in Toronto as well.
Okay, so let's look at this question profiting from Zoom. I think Jan is on the right track here for sure. So many more people are comfortable using online video these days. Webinars or scheduled meetings or mixers or otherwise scheduled content of any kind is where it's at. So scheduled content, what else could be like that?
And Jan did mention webinars, which I think is an obvious first start. The model there is you offer typically a free webinar and then you're kind of gently upselling people on how to implement what you've just explained or taught or the next level version of it or something more. You give away a portion of something and then the rest is available for purchase. That is a classic model, it still works very well. But what else could be like that?
Well, I saw a company doing online video with virtual speed dating recently. And so their model was basically to bring people together and facilitate intros, but then their job was done. Like the host is there to facilitate the intros, maybe to be there as a moderator if necessary, but mostly like they're just trying to fill seats. And then that's an example of using Zoom as a primary platform of a money-making operation. So it could be some other stuff, but I think in general, you can count on people being able to figure out the technology in a way that you couldn't count on until just a couple of years ago.
So a couple of tips perhaps make it easy for people to sign up, make it just super simple, make the commitment so easy, make it also easy to attend the meetings, send reminders, don't be afraid to spam them a bit. But also, the other side of the coin is if they can't show up to any particular meeting, if they can't make it, don't stress them out too much. Don't make them feel guilty about it because if they're paying a subscription, you don't want them to cancel their subscription. So it's kind of a delicate balance. If you're selling the scheduled content, you got a subscription, you wanna encourage them to come.
If you're trying to sell them on something at the webinar itself where the webinar is free, then you definitely wanna hit them pretty hard with the reminders, but you also want them to stay on your list, your email list or whatever else you're using to try to get them to attend. So a couple of tips there, but definitely think lots of options for using video content these days. Jen, good luck, listeners. Good luck to you as well. Much more is coming up as we move through the holidays.
I hope you take care of yourself and hope you do something to get closer to a goal you believe in. That's it for today. My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
