One of the most memorable pieces of advice I have read in the past few months was the one that said to never sign up for webinars. The reasoning behind this seemed to be that in th opinion of the author that most webinars we poorly disguised sales pitches, composed mostly of teaser information and “Special Limited Time Offers.”

In my experience, this viewpoint is largely correct. I related before my experience with SuchaVoice, and there have probably been a few others that I have forgotten about, and therefore don’t rank mentioning.

When the workload falls low, however, it is a good time to try to learn something in order to find more work, so in a recent lull I signed up for a Gravy For The Brain webinar. This info came to me through my Bodalgo membership, which is a topic of a future post when I have more of an opinion about them, but apparently there is a strong partnership between the two.

The GFTB webinar was pretty much as expected:

• A prerecorded broadcast striving for the spontaneity and atmosphere of a live teleconference (do people still know the term “teleconference?” )
• A live person answering questions and making comments in the chat window
• The usual mix of participants, from brand newbie to “expert”
• The inane comments in the chat window that prompt you to resize the screen so you can’t see the text
• The unending string of follow up emails offering this or that.

A topic that often gets some attention in many conversations about Voice over Work is “the race to the bottom,” which basically is Voice over Workers providing their insight on billing rates. This was mentioned, as well as some other items of limited to modest interest. If you have attended any of these, you have probably experienced a similar thing, not completely captivating, but not a complete waste. I found this to be about 40% worth the time, which is well above average for this format, taking into account that there was no charge. Overall, not a bad time to get a few tidbits of useful info while completing some administrative Voice over Work.

Amazingly, when I didn’t take advantage of the limited time offer within the webinar to sign up for the discounted rate, I received an email a few days later in which they were extending that offer. This included two weeks of free, full access to the GFTB website and a supposedly reduced monthly rate. I will admit that I am taking advantage of the free trial period, and will poke around the resources they have to see what I can learn. More on that front, if it is postworthy, later.

If you have experience with a useful webinar in general, or with GFTB specifically, please share that with us here!

Categories: Voice over Work