I'm Doing What?

So the Marketing Department at work decides to do a Customer Satisfaction Survey and one of the results is our customers want more training. And the Sales Department decides that Yours Truly is the best person to offer this training on a live webcast.

My boss thinks this is a WONDERFUL idea.

So I speak with the Marketing Director and my boss about what should be covered in this webcast. Then we meet with Sales. They have a totally different idea.

Swell.

We--meaning the Marketing Director and the Sales Manager--come to a compromise. And I have to write up an outline. This is not easy, as I tend to be "off-the-cuff" when I train.

This training is supposed to be more advanced than the basic training Customer Service gives initially. There is no set manual or outline for that, so, while I know what I teach, I don't know how much detail my compatriots give. Since they are 3,000 miles away, there isn't an easy way for me to find out.

I have to please Marketing, Sales, Upper Management (who will be listening in, I'm told), and our customers.

This is the first time our company has tried anything like this.

It will either be a spectacular success or spectacular failure.

80 people RSVP. 56 actually log in.

Of course I have technical difficulties and so I'm late logging in myself. And it turns out our customers have lots of questions, which I end up answering even though I said we would limit the questions because of time constraints. I did not cover everything I hoped to. But I didn't fall flat on my face, either--although I did lose my train of thought at one point.

My boss was happy. The Sales Manager was happy (I think mostly because he wasn't answering any questions). The Marketing Director thinks the webcast went well, but there are a few things we need to tighten up.

I'm happy its over. I'm hoping the next webcast, which discusses using Excel, will be given by our resident Excel guru rather than me.

I'm also getting a few more Customer Service phone calls than usual because participants in the webcast are looking up my direct line. However, some of them don't seem to realize that I am on the West Coast and leave messages for me at 6:00 a.m. Or they don't care; they want to talk with me anyway.

Thank God the webcast did not include video. I have a habit of closing my eyes while I talk--it helps me focus. I also have a stress ball (it's a globe) that I bounce on my desk top when I'm thinking. I'm glad I didn't have to worry about my quirks as well as what I was saying!