Video can be a great way to connect with your virtual audiences during webinars.  By periodically and briefly using a webcam during online presentations, you can capture your audience’s attention and add a personal touch that helps them identify your voice with your picture.  Use the following tips to help your use of video be appropriate and captivating rather than just plain distracting:

1. Make limited use video.  Don’t leave it on for your entire presentation.  This creates a diverse visual experience without distracting your attendees. 

2. Look directly into the webcam when speaking.  This replaces face-to-face eye contact.  If you look down at your computer instead of into the webcam, you will look nervous, distracted, and dull. 

3. Tell the attendees what you are doing.  Tell them when you are turning the camera on and off, so they don’t get confused and so they can alert you if they are having technical difficulties. 

These simple steps will help you use video sparingly but effectively to create excitement for your virtual audience. 

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

Your goal while presenting is to be engaging, personable, and informative.  One of the easiest ways to increase your enthusiasm and connect with your audience while presenting is to tell a story.  But there are some guidelines you should follow to make sure your story doesn’t take you off topic.

1. Relevant.  If your story doesn’t relate to your topic or help highlight a point you are trying to make, don’t tell it!
2. Own.  Tell your own story, not someone else’s.  If you can re-live your own experiences, your personality, energy, and enthusiasm will shine through more than if you tell a story that didn’t happen to you.
3. Short.  Keep the story under two minutes.  If the story is much longer, it will distract from instead of enhance your presentation.
4. Enthusiasm.  The best stories are lively and fun, creating natural enthusiasm. 

Telling stories helps personalize the information you are presenting.  Use the above guidelines to tell an engaging story that will help your audience identify with your information.  

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

Whenever you give a presentation, you need to keep your audience’s attention so they leave informed and excited, not confused and bored.  Try implementing the following suggestions to keep your audience captivated throughout:

1. Personal Story/Anecdote:  Tell a brief (under two minutes) and relevant personal story to increase your own enthusiasm and connect with your audience.  Make sure to tie it in to the point you are trying to make.
2. Startling Statement or Statistic: Say something that might surprise the audience or cite an unexpected but relevant statistic.  This will both inform and excite them.
3. Use humor: If you share something funny that is related to what you are presenting, you can keep your audience engaged.  Don’t use offensive humor.
4. Quotation or Familiar Saying: Use a universal saying or quote a recognizable figure to help your audience identify with your information.
5. Question: ask an open-ended question.  Even if you don’t have anyone answer, your audience will at least be thinking. 

Using these tools throughout your speech helps keep your audience interested, excited, and on-track. 

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

When you deliver an online presentation, you want your slides to be captivating.  To achieve this, don’t simply take your existing slides from live presentations and put them into your webinar—it won’t work!  On a webinar, your audience is more easily distracted, has a shorter attention span, and can’t see you giving the information.  So to keep your slides interesting for the virtual format, make the following adjustments:

1. Use more slides.  Take the information that may have been on one slide for a live presentation, and spread it out over two or four slides for your webinar.  That way, you will be changing slides more frequently, capturing your audience’s attention.

2. Put less on each slide.  Make sure you only have 1-2 key points per slide.  This will help your audience focus and recognize the important information more easily. 

3. Use bullet points and a minimum font size of 24.  This will help your slides look clean, simple, and easy to read, and it will highlight your key points.

4. 4×6 Rule.  On each slide, try to use only four bullet points with six words per bullet point, or six bullet points with four words per bullet point.  This way, your slides won’t look busy or confusing. 

These guidelines will help your slides become attractive and concise, so that you can keep your audience’s attention. 

Make Every Presentation Great,

Sheri Jeavons

You want to be confident and relaxed so you can deliver presentations that make people listen and take action.  But even the most experienced presenter can get nervous before an important presentation.  One tool you can use to help reduce nervousness is to visualize your success.  If you imagine yourself succeeding, you will be more likely to do so in reality. Implement the following techniques prior to your next presentation to get on track for success:

1. Close your eyes and picture giving your presentation.  Imagine yourself gesturing.  Imagine the audience response: picture them smiling and nodding at what you have to say.  Even picture the room and the clothes that you will present in, so that you can see yourself realistically succeeding. 
2. Write out positive statements affirming your skills and the desired audience response.  Phrase the statements realistically and as if you have already given the presentation.  For example, write, “I calmly answered tough questions,” or “My boss said I sounded knowledgeable and convincing.”  Focus on these statements for a few minutes. 
3. Take deep breaths.  Slow, deep breathing releases tension in your body and slows down your heart rate.  Breathing puts you in a relaxed state that will help you keep an open mind about your presentation.

Visualizing is a simple way to relax and build confidence, which will help you give better presentations.  Visualizing your success helps make that success a reality!

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

When conducting webinars and web meetings your goal is to be a dynamic presenter and to engage your virtual audience.  Since your audience can’t see you while you present, you need to keep them interested and on-track using just your voice.  While you may be a dynamic speaker in person, you’ve probably noticed that you fall flat during web sessions.  So how do you adjust your voice to the virtual medium? The following steps will get you on track:

1. Push your enthusiasm. One of the easiest ways to become more dynamic online is to push your enthusiasm.  Your voice can lose a lot of energy and enthusiasm when you speak on conference calls or webinars, because you are usually just speaking to your computer screen instead of to an audience.  So to re-energize your voice, ask a colleague to sit in your office with you during the webinar.  That way, you will have a live (if small) audience that you can feed off of.  Presenting to even one live audience member will automatically increase your speaking volume and enthusiasm. 
2. Stand while you talk.  This will help energize your body and voice. If you are standing, you will be more likely to gesture, which will help you to be more relaxed.
3. No reading. Make sure you only use bullet points, not sentences.  If you have sentences on your slides or if you use a script you will read and sound very monotone.

Also consider telling a story, calling out someone’s name on the call or refer to an experience or conversation you had with one of the attendees. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll be on your way to increasing your vocal enthusiasm and being an engaging online presenter!

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

You want to gesture naturally and dynamically while presenting.  But you don’t know what to do with your hands when you talk in front of a group.  You feel silly and unnatural if you gesture too much, or boring and stilted if you gesture too little.  So how do you find a happy medium? 

First, unlock your hands.  Let them relax and rest at your sides.  Don’t worry, they will not stay there; they just have to be unlocked at the outset to be free to gesture.   Next, you must have your entire body facing the person you are speaking to.  This means your toes, hips, and shoulders need to face that person.  As you look to a new person, again align your body by taking a few steps and planting yourself.  Your free hands will swing up and begin gesturing once more. You don’t even have to think about the gestures: they will occur on their own.  Unlocked hands and proper alignment promote natural gestures.  It’s as simple as that! 

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

I know it’s tempting to sit at your desk and read over your notes or run through your speech in your head and call it a practice session.  In all reality, reviewing the information is helpful, but it doesn’t truly count as a practice session. The main problem is that it’s just not realistic. The added stress of standing up in front of an audience creates a whole new dynamic and it’s important that you practice under realistic conditions. The following tips will help you make the most of your practice sessions:

1. Strive for three complete practice sessions (using visual aids and speaking out loud).

2. Don’t memorize your presentation! Use your PowerPoint slides to prompt your memory and remember what to say.

3. Ideally you should practice in the same room (or a similar room) to the one in which you will deliver your presentation. Wear similar clothes to what you will wear on that day. It will help create a realistic situation, making you all the more comfortable when the day to present arrives.

Make Every Presentation Great,
Sheri Jeavons

Many of you struggle with developing content for your presentations. You may spend hours compiling information and putting it in a format that makes sense to you, only to deliver it to an audience of yawns and blank stares. There is an easy remedy for this problem called the TOP Mastery Craft Compelling Content Format.

The first step in this process is to think about your audience. Who are they? What do they want to leave your presentation knowing? What’s in it for them?

The second step is a compelling introduction. This consists of four elements and should be delivered in approximately two minutes.

1. Open/Goal Statement:  Highlight the audiences’ goal for your topic.
2. Current Situation: Briefly review the audience’s current situation as it relates to the information you are about to offer.
3. Agenda Topics: Briefly list the topics you will cover during the presentation to help solve your audience’s problems.
4. Value Statements: Highlight the value the audience will realize as a result of implementing your recommendation.

Make Every Presentation Great!

Sheri Jeavons

There is no doubt that heavy workloads have us all stretched to our limits these days. Executives are no exception. Their time is more valuable than ever. So, when you’re given a 10-minute meeting with an executive to pitch an idea, how do you make the most of your time?  Implement the Ten-Minute Solution Process:

1. Identify the pain or change opportunity
2. Propose goal-related solutions
3. Quantify solution options
4. Describe the pros and cons of each proposed solution
5. Urge specific action steps

Sticking to a short, goal-oriented agenda is sure to make your recommendations stand out from the crowd.

Make every presentation great!

Sheri Jeavons