A curious solicitation arrived that piqued my interest. Would I be interested in doing a Webinar once a month? Intriguing, as vanity rises in the back of my mind in that somebody thinks that what I have to say is important enough that other people would be interested in watching and hearing me. When it comes to lawyers, vanity is always a great hook.
The deal was one hour of preparation of a powerpoint presentation. One hour of live webinar on the subject of my choice. A total of two hours a month. No big deal, right?
The cost to participate in my webinar would be $250. The cost to watch it later would be $250 as well. I would receive a 50% royalty for this. That’s a whole lot more than book publishers offer, which ranges from 10 to 15% of sales, which doesn’t even come close to compensating for the time it takes to write and update a book.
But the Webinar wasn’t for CLE credit, like the Lawline offering which is similarly expensive but pays the presenters zip. They are compensated with the glory of being a presenter and the comfort of knowing that they helped Lawline make money.
And so I inquired further. How many people would pay for the privilege? The answers were vague. Why no CLE credit? Viewers could apply for it on their own. A strange odor emanated from my telephone.
I called someone who, according to the website, had taken the deal that was being offered to me. He was a great guy and very forthcoming. He opened by telling me that he was flattered by the request, being somewhat less than a household name in the world of law. “Me too,” I said. We laughed. How much money did you make? Nothing. They say they pay once a year, within 45 days of January 1st (huh?), but they wouldn’t tell him how many people watched his webinar or whether there was a dime coming.
Then he started getting emails offering to allow him to put the webinar on his website. For a fee. Or an iPhone app, for a huge fee. We laughed again. It was like Superlawyers, or Super-De-Duper Lawyers, or whatever is created to appeal to our egos and marketing budget.
I responded to the offer with a list of my requirements:
1. An advance payment against royalties of $1000 per program.2. Payment of royalties within 30 days of the airing of a webinar.3. The right to access and use of my webinar(s) on my websites.4. Powerpoint presentations prepared by your staff based upon my information.5. Editorial approval of powerpoint presentations and webinar titles/captions.
They declined. I declined.
Would you pay $250 just to see my puss on your computer screen? Don’t feel bad. I wouldn’t either. I’m happy to do CLEs for associations that serve the greater good, if not to help out friends and contribute to the profession. And I’m happy to let anybody who’s interested read my thoughts here. I’m not happy, however, to give two hours of my life to this company so it can try to make money off me by selling my vanity production back to me.
Still, what does it say about lawyers that others think we are so desperate, so vain, so desirous of fame and fortune, that we will suspend sound judgment and allow ourselves to be taken in by scams and kinda-scams. It doesn’t speak well of lawyers.
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Scott,
Glad you took the time to look into this. I received this offer as did a colleague of mine. I’m sorry to say that I advised her to look into it further, because typically these “crowdsourcing” ventures charge $250 for a webinar and don’t pay the provider ANYTHING. Because this company was actually offering a 50% share, I thought that it was somewhat more credible. Little did I know that they are just a little smarter (or more dishonest) about marketing their package. I won’t even return the email, but I’ll pass this on to my colleague (though she is pretty savvy and will probably discover this on her own).
I was sufficiently taken in to do some due diligence, though I had a hard time believing that they could get people to pay $250 (a LOT of money) for a Webinar with me, without even CLE credit. Imagine how much ego must be involved to take that seriously for even a minute.