This article originally appeared on DrJarodCarter.com.

I recently put on a live online workshop that generated about $4,000 worth of new telehealth patients for my private practice. Yes, you read that correctly, and now that recorded presentation has been turned into an “evergreen webinar” so it can continue to generate new leads and patients on autopilot.

I’ve found online workshops to be the second fastest way to generate new business for my practice during COVID-19 (which is currently only seeing telehealth patients). With all the above statements, you’re probably wondering:

  1. How exactly did you create that much business from a webinar?! (or perhaps “how do you even create a webinar?”)
  2. If that’s the second fastest thing, what’s the fastest?!?

I’ll quickly answer No. 2 first: Converting your current patients to telehealth visits and reactivating past clients to try your online services can generally be done faster than setting up, filling, and producing a successful webinar.

But as you can see, online workshops/webinars (I use the terms synonymously) can be incredibly powerful if done right, and my Mastermind students are getting similar results with their patient-producing webinars as well.

I’ve spent the last several weeks teaching them every single step from webinar topic creation all the way to post-webinar follow up and lead conversion tactics, and I’ve now put all that information and step-by-step guidance into: The Online Patient Attraction System — a course showing you how to create webinars that generate loads of telehealth patients for your private practice.

Pro tips to prepare for a patient-producing online workshop

Getting ready to deliver a live, online workshop involves a dizzying number of factors… and failing to attend to any number of them can create embarrassing or even catastrophic problems during the event. Fortunately, a bit of planning and testing can enable you to eliminate all those potential sources of trouble in advance so you can knock it out of the park when you go live!

In the video below, I’ll walk you through the steps you’ll want to take to get ready for a high-quality online workshop. I cover all the technical aspects, content, production process, presentation, and mindset elements you can manage in advance as well as last-minute items to check on the day of the event.

I also share some examples of the sort of things that are easily missed and how you can prevent them from creating problems during your workshop. You’ll also hear some tips about your follow-up strategy after you’ve successfully concluded the workshop.

The checklist and video below will help you remember all the last-minute details you’ll want to check on before you go live. Armed with these strategies, you’ll be ready to deliver a smooth, professional webinar that produces the maximum amount of value for your audience and the maximum amount of business for your practice.

Pre-workshop and webinar-day checklist

  • Confirm that reminder emails and any last-minute signup emails/social posts have gone out.
  • Double-check any special-offer landing pages, booking pages, booking links, etc. to make sure no lost leads/sales.
  • Run through your slides and talking point notes one more time.
  • Deep breaths.
  • Phones silent and notifications off.
  • Computer notifications and noises turned off.
  • Any other possible distracting noises you can minimize.
  • Lighting on.
  • Mics plugged in.
  • Computer power cord connected.
  • Check that you’re on the right internet/Wi-Fi profile if you have more than one.
  • Turn off/close any apps, webpages, etc. on your computer that you won’t need during the webinar to maximize your internet/computer speed.
  • Let staff/family know you’ll be going live in ___ minutes and not to interrupt.
  • Go to the bathroom — even if you don’t feel like you need to in that moment.
  • Water to sip as needed, but don’t drink a bunch of water right before.
  • Any changes needed to the space around and behind you?
  • At least 10-15 minutes before start time, follow the list you created in your test-run to start the webinar feed, silence yourself and others, bring up welcome image/PowerPoint title page, paste welcome comment in chat, adjust any other settings for camera, etc.
  • Deep breaths! Set your intention to be as helpful and valuable as possible for all attendees. You know this stuff inside and out, and it is extremely valuable information. Now just go help some people.
  • Activate your camera and mic, and dive in!
  • As noted in the presentation creation module, as you welcome attendees and introduce yourself, have them type in the chat that they can see and hear you. Also mention that your assistant can help troubleshoot if any issues (which is typically to make sure their computer settings allow audio/video from your webinar platform and/or telling them to open a different browser and rejoin the webinar).
  • Assistant is ready to paste in links to chat box as you mention your CTAs.
  • Put on an awesomely helpful workshop and generate as many future-success stories as possible for your practice.
  • End the webinar and take a moment to mentally celebrate this win.
  • Continue to implement any of your follow-up system that’s not already scheduled/automated.
  • Know the times when follow up emails are scheduled to go out, and double check that they did (don’t just assume).
    • You and staff to follow up diligently with all leads acquired in the workshop.
  • Perform post-workshop and post-follow-up analysis to see what you can change to improve the next one.