Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as Two Screens, Two Missions: Webinar vs Virtual Training (and how to nail both!)
You’ve got ideas worth sharing and skills worth teaching. The trick is choosing the right stage. A webinar is a stage for reach, story and a crisp next step. A virtual training is a classroom for practice, feedback and behaviour change. Match the format to the mission and your sessions feel lighter, livelier, and much more effective.
What’s the Difference—Really?
In plain English: webinars create awareness; virtual trainings build ability.
A webinar is showtime. You’re there to guide a large room through a clear narrative, using visuals that carry meaning, sprinkling in light interaction, and then pointing everyone to a single (clear) next step. Because attention naturally ebbs online, a well-paced webinar keeps people watching and gives them an easy way to act when their energy is highest.
A virtual training is a working session. Here the spotlight shifts from you to the group. You give enough context so that people can try the thing, compare their notes, and get feedback. Breakouts are the main course, not the garnish. This way, participants get to have their own experience of your topic and their biggest win is what they will do differently next week. With this in mind, you get to design for doing, not just knowing.
A handy rule: if you want reach and resonance, run a webinar. If you want skill and transfer, run a virtual training.
Picking the Format (and When to Stack Them)
Launching a new idea, sharing some IP, running a panel, or opening a sales pipeline? This is webinar territory. The benefit is momentum: A clean story → clear action. Coaching skills, leadership behaviours, tools, feedback, a reflection on experience? This is the space for virtual training. You get to have smaller groups, purposeful activities, and tangible takeaways.
You can also stack them. You can spark interest with a short webinar, then invite the keen to a deeper training within a couple of weeks. The first builds relevance and helps people connect to purpose; the second builds capability and gives a deeper dive .
Nailing the Webinar (Own the Stage)
Think storyboard, not slide dump.
Open with a promise in the first minute so people know why to care. Use visuals that can be understood at a glance; your voice brings the ideas together. Think about interactions like asking where people are on the planet, or share a poll early to build engagement and set the scene for ongoing participation. This also helps you to learn something about the room to help you personalise the experience. Think of changing gears every 10 minutes or so. Bring a story, a visual (image/chart), a quick pulse check or something else so that attention resets instead of drifts. Because this is more of a ‘presentation’ feel, don’t worry of people are not on camera. Where possible try to encourage people to be on screen, but I wouldn’t stress about it if they are not.
Why these moves work:
Early interaction signals “you belong here” and increases later participation. Varied pacing reduces audience fatigue. And a single, clear outcome prevents cognitive overload and makes action easier. Remember that many people attend webinars while doing other things (driving, emails etc.), so clear communication and engagement draws them in to want to learn more.
A simple plan (45–60 min, explained):
→ Share your hook and promise
→ Quick poll to engage and connect with the room
→ Three tight ideas with one short case/story to make it concrete → time-boxed Q&A so questions are answered without dragging
→ Close with one clear next step while energy is highest.
What’s a CTA here (and why it matters)?
A call to action (CTA) is the one thing you want people to do when the webinar ends—download the playbook, join the cohort, book a consult. In a webinar, your CTA translates interest into momentum. Keep it singular and obvious (button, link, QR code). Too many options = no decision. Very simply, now that they have listened to your webinar, what is the one action they should take to move forward.
Inclusion that helps everyone (woven into delivery): Turn captions on. Use high-contrast slides with large fonts so meaning survives small screens and split attention. Describe key visuals briefly for anyone who’s reading rather than watching.
Nailing the Virtual Training (Coach the Room)
Here you’re designing experience, not just content. State your outcomes using verbs (doing words like ask better questions, structure a 20-minute coaching session, use the model in a real conversation). Then get into action and practise fast—give a short input, then an activity. Spend time in the debrief, exploring the patterns and insights that emerged. This is where the learning sticks.
Create regular interaction and use the chat. If you are hearing voices, you can listen to 2 or 3 people, encourage others to share their experience in the chat. This broadens engagement and gives you more insights to weave into the debrief. Keep breakouts small—2-5 people, and give them a clear task, time frame and roles (timekeeper, notetaker, reporter). When they return, debrief for insights, learning or patterns, not perfection:
- “What worked?”
- “Where did you wobble?”
- “What will you try differently?”
Why these moves work:
Adults learn by doing and reflecting. By providing frequent, small interactions, you help them keep their brain engaged without flooding it. Small breakouts raise connection, contribution and confidence, and written instructions reduce uncertainty and cognitive load. All of this is designed for participants to have an experience that brings rich insight for the debrief discussion.
An activity arc you can trust:
Brief input (context or short teaching)
→ A guided practice (in breakouts)
→ Crisp feedback in the large group
→ Finish with an application plan for the next 7 days.
What’s a CTA here (and why it matters)?
In training like this, the CTA is the transfer step: what will you do, by when, with whom? It could be a micro-experiment, a peer practice commitment, or booking a coaching session. This CTA carries the learning beyond the Zoom room and helps participants turn their insight into habit.
Inclusive by design (baked into flow):
Offer multiple ways to contribute (voice, chat, polls). Share task instructions verbally and in the chat. Avoid fast-flashing slides; keep visuals calm. People process differently—your design should welcome that.
Producer Power (Your Unseen Super-Ally)
A good producer makes you look brilliant – AND makes your job easier by allowing you to focus on your content and your audience.
- In webinars they handle the chat, queue questions, drop links and keep time while you get to stay in flow.
- In trainings they spin up breakouts, share task instructions, rescue tech wobbles and watch engagement signals. Agree a back-channel (WhatsApp/Slack), a simple code (“Tempo+” to speed up; “Qx2” to take two questions), and a plan B (poll fails → run A/B/C in chat).
You’ll feel calmer, and the room will feel cared for. Please make sure you discuss the plan with your producer. Zoom has the ability for the producer to change the participant view meaning that they can spotlight you during teaching moments and move back to the large group for debriefs. These little things can make a big difference to the experience your audience has.
Metrics That Matter (A Quick Take, So You Improve Each Time)
For webinars:
- you’re looking for registrations, attendance %, average watch time, and CTA clicks—did the story land and did people act?
For trainings:
- track completion, quality of activity artefacts, confidence shift, and 7–30-day transfer—did behaviour move? A simple dashboard can help you turn each event into fuel for the next one.
Your next three moves:
- Choose your next topic and pick the format (stage or classroom).
- Draft a lean run-of-show (schedule or timeline) and shave off 10% to create some breathing room.
- Book a tech rehearsal with your producer so that you can align with them about the purpose of the event, and what you need from them as well as to test captions, polls, breakouts and your closing CTA link.
Wrap Up
Remember that virtual isn’t an online replacement for what we do in-person; it’s a completely different (and exciting) canvas. When you match your format with your mission, you can create sessions that are kinder on attention, richer in connection, and far more effective – for you and your audience. Step onto the stage when you need reach. Open the classroom when you want change. Then bring your coaching brilliance to both.
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