You can use a lot of different words to describe the monthly webinars developed by Devin Gaffney, FSCP, LUTCF. Just don’t call them required. 

“That's a dirty word for us,” said Gaffney, who has been an agency sales training and professional development manager for the past five years. 

Aside from mandatory sessions on compliance, all training webinars are merely strongly recommended by Gaffney’s company. The advisors themselves decide whether they will attend. It’s up to Gaffney and his colleagues to convince them to make that decision. 

He seems to be succeeding. Right now, he is averaging 150 attendees per session, which can be broadcast remotely or from the company home office in Livonia, Michigan, USA. His current goal, as it has been for the past five years, is to boost that number even higher. 

The best tool he has to work with is the content. The substance needs to have value on its own merits.

“If it's going to take time out of their schedule, where they make money seeing people, and spend that time with you, then it has to bring value,” Gaffney said. “They have to get something out of that that they can immediately take back and implement.” 

Yet, style matters, too. Five years of producing webinars has taught him that people pay closer attention and remember more when the presentation holds their interest.  

“I just always, always, always try to remember what it was like to be on a virtual training from the other side,” he said. 

Here are the styling tips he uses to turn optional training into must-see TV.

1. Energy

“These cannot stink,” Gaffney said. “I don't care what is going on in our days, it has to be the most exciting thing when we get on camera.” Right away, the bluntness of Gaffney’s webinars makes ears perk up, especially delivered in his gruff speaking style. It’s easy to imagine the hold he has when in emcee mode, which he is careful to channel in every presentation. He has found that the audience's energy matches his own, so he makes sure to exude excitement. 

His energetic presentation style is buttressed with advanced presentation skills. Gaffney has learned to stare directly into the camera to appear as if he's making direct eye contact with audience members. He has also learned to shed his headset microphone that was disrupting his preference to use movement while presenting. Now, he has a swivel arm attached to his desk that holds a microphone in place. 

2. Digital bells and whistles 

Complementing Gaffney’s presentation skills is a visually engaging display. Gone are the solid walls of words written on simple PowerPoint slides. Gaffney pairs essential information with graphics that keep eyes focused on the screen. Exhibit A is a Bitmoji version of Gaffney. Bitmoji is a personalized emoji avatar platform that allows users to create cartoon-like avatars of themselves. Gaffney added one to the mix while exploring how to incorporate things like videos and animations into his webinars. 

“The next thing we knew, the chatbox was lighting up with people saying, ‘It looks like him,’” he said. “We actually had to pause and acknowledge the chatbox, to get them focused back on the content, because they were that distracted by it.”  

The Bitmoji is now a hallmark of Gaffney’s presentations and remains something people pay attention to. “Everybody refers to it now as ‘little Devin,’ and it's got almost a life of its own,” he said. 

A second enhancement came with the arrival of Powtoon, a web-based software platform that enables users to create animated videos and presentations. Gaffney’s team created a one-minute introduction that displays key points on a loop in the minutes before a webinar starts.  

3. Interaction 

One timeless, low-tech presentation hack is audience participation. As mentioned, allowing participants to make comments through a chatbox is always an effective way to promote an invested, shared viewing experience. Except when Gaffney purposefully disables it, so that participants focus solely on the presented content. 

“On our last product launch, I changed it up on them because I said, ‘You're going to only have the Q&A, you're not going to have the chat,” he said. He has also trained himself to call out names of participants as he’s working through his presentation — not to put them on the spot, but just to make sure he has their attention. 

Finally, he also makes use of polls and quizzes, and creates word clouds from audience responses.   

4. Different formats 

Most of Gaffney’s webinars are slideshow-based with him as the single speaker. But he does mix it up when the opportunity presents itself. Sometimes he co-hosts with another leader from the company or assembles a panel of experts to speak on a topic. 

“We're getting ready to do one that will be a panel with our underwriters for field underwriting,” he said. 

5. Accessibility

Timing of the webinars significantly affects how many people show up. Gaffney schedules webinars only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The largest concentration of advisors in his company is in the U.S. Pacific Time Zone, so he starts when it is 10 a.m. in that region. “They've gotten into their office branch, they’re settled in and started the day,” he said. “We're not hitting them right as they're walking in the door. We do think about that.” 

Occasionally, he gives multiple presentations of the same material to capture advisors who had a scheduling conflict.

6. Feedback 

Audience participation doesn’t stop at soliciting input while webinars are happening. After an event, participants are surveyed. Gaffney assesses the success of each session, in part, by the percentage of attendees who agree the webinar was beneficial to their role. “We have to have a 91% or better,” he said. “We're maintaining 96% on that answer.” 

Surveys shape the topics and content, too, as advisors are asked what specific topics they want to see covered. Their responses drive future programming. 

If all this seems like a lot of effort just to add some razzle-dazzle to training, remember that engaged advisors learn better than disengaged ones. And if the standard for your training presentations is high, the standard for advisors’ own presentations to clients will be high as well. That’s because, in addition to training them on core job functions, you're also showing them how to make presentations more engaging and meaningful. 

Contact: Devin Gaffney dgaffney@aaalife.com