I am sometimes cranky. Hmmmm. OK – often cranky.

But sometimes, with good reason.

Coaching presenters in the live, non-online world, I would tell them that fumbling with their laptop to get their PowerPoint running when in front of their audiences is an amateur move.

Plus, it is so easy to correct and the effect is substantial.

Imagine a speaker being introduced, then stepping to the front of the room. They mumble something about “hanging on for a second” while they get their Windows ’95 laptop working.

Five minutes later they find the file, load it and get it projected on the screen. Opps… wrong file.

Bad form.

Now imagine that same presenter stepping up and starting powerfully and effortlessly with just a click of the ol’ clicker.

That’s a pro move.

We can almost do a similar deal online. Almost. And it will also make us look like the cool, seasoned professional that we are.

Let’s say you are being introduced in a Zoom presentation. Have your PowerPoint loaded and ready to go. Turn off all the other apps in the background. Then when you share, switch to the PowerPoint screen, punch in presenter mode and you are off and running.

Smooth move.

It’s all about looking your best and smoking your competition.

To your success,
Tom, Ready2Speak.com

“Welcome to the WXYZ Evening Eyewitness News.”

“We have a lot to cover: A Newtown baby drives her family car to get an oil change. Elderly women finds her old handbag with 10,000 dollars in it. And you won’t believe what these squirrels did to the inside of this garage.”

“So, let’s get right to it…”

The consultants at WXYZ invented clickbait long before the Inter Web. They knew their job, the job of the news, was to keep eyeballs glued to the set so their viewers would see each and every commercial.

They use these little incomplete teasers at the beginning of the newscast and before every commercial.

They will often figure out what the most teaseable story is and re-tease it before every break knowing or hoping you will stay locked into the TV.

It is pretty shameless and almost as bad as the clickbait we all see on just about every website.

These days, especially online, people are so easily distracted. As online presenters, we can use this technique, without being quite so sleazy or manipulative, to keep our audience focused on our message.

It might sound like this:

“Blah, blah, blah. By the way, if you stick with me through this presentation, I have a special downloadable gift for you at the end. More blah, blah, blah.”

Or you could format your content to accomplish a similar objective.

“Today, I will show you the top five ways you can use the common banana to decorate your favorite hat.”

Everyone, of course, will want to stick around to hear all five valuable ways to accomplish this critical task.

You don’t have to be quite so slimy as Joe TV-Boy when you promise something valuable at the end of your presentation. Just be honest, tell your audience you have a reward for them and make sure it was worth their kind attention.

Now stay tuned for my next email: 10 Ways to Have Perfect Strangers Paint Your House.

To your success,

Tom, Ready2Speak.com

P.S. Let’s get really good at this online presentation thing and smoke our competition. OK?

My 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online is loaded with all the step-by-step strategies and techniques you need to succeed in our new virtual presentation world. Just the thing you need to stand head and shoulders above the wannabees and the lazy.

It’s ridiculously cheap. Go to https://ready2speak.com and check it out.

It will be available starting Monday, June 15th. I will give you 50% off for pre-registration, this week only.

Besides all the great info you will get 5 amazing bonuses that are worth the price all by themselves. And there is a no-risk guarantee, if you are still unsure.

Go to https://ready2speak.com and use the code 4DAY50 for your discount.

Your online success is waiting…

Question and answer sessions. Arrrrg! If it’s a live in-person presentation, sooner or later we all have to do them – tacked on to the low energy end of an hour-long presentation.

You have wound down your talk, given your three closing points, put up the slide with your contact information and then opened up the floor for disaster.

Oh, the first two questions are ok. Usually specific, direct and on point. Then there is always a guy (no gender intended) who wants to tell you a long story their brother experienced that is just slightly relevant to your topic. Or there is the guy who wants to pick a philosophical fight about the tiniest part of your presentation.

Then there is someone who wants to tell you about their cat. (This has never really happened, but it could)

When you are in front of a live audience, question and answer sessions are where your well-planned presentation goes to die a slow, miserable low-energy death.

I am sure you can just see all the attendees streaming out of your presentation as the room drains of its life blood.

In an online talk, the effect is even worse. No one has to sneak out. They just leave. In droves.

There is a very cool way to not only negate this but use Q&A time to your advantage when you are online: Sprinkle some mini Q&As throughout.

Every 5-15 minutes when you make a shift, finish a section or just change your pace think about pausing for a quick question and answer session.

Marketing note: This is just the type of actionable, ready-to-go techniques and ideas I offer in my latest online 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online (see below).

There are a bunch of ways to manage and fine-tune this technique for online presentations that we will dive into. But in your quest to keep everyone on their toes and involved with your presentation, this idea is a million times better than that stampede-inducing closing Q&A deal we all hate.

To your success,

Tom, Ready2Speak.com

P.S. My shiny new 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online is loaded with all the step-by-step strategies and techniques you need to succeed in our new virtual presentation world.

It’s ridiculously cheap. Go to https://ready2speak.com and check it out.

Ready to get on board? It will be available starting Monday, June 15th. I will give you 50% off for pre-registration, this week only.

Besides all the great info you will get 5 amazing bonuses that are worth the price all by themselves. And there is a no-risk guarantee, if you are still unsure.

Go to https://ready2speak.com and use the code 4DAY50 for your discount.

Your online success is waiting…

The first time I sat in on an NSA (National Speakers Association) meeting I heard the master storyteller, Lou Heckler, speak.

I was instantly addicted.

In subsequent meetings, I heard dozens of other speakers who could hold an audience with their words and presence and elevate our spirits and our actions.

In my years since as a presentation designer (words, actions and slides) and coach I would often be asked to take an in-person, live presentation and help modify for video or online.

Online, there are many differences from in-person presentations. Some large and some subtle.

The one that trips many people up as they move online is the idea that making the same personal, human connection with your audience or viewers is almost completely nullified. Real, online connection is difficult.

Focus instead on engagement.

If you want to deliver your content, solve problems, change lives or sell stuff – think engagement.

You must keep their eyeballs on you and their screen. Not their phone, not their email and certainly not their cat.

The first tools at your disposal are to change your script and your slides to provide a stream of value that your viewers cannot afford to miss. Maybe tease them with something valuable at the end. Keep your stories short and pointed. Use the platform tools like chat, surveys, whiteboards and breakouts to move the conversation along.

Perhaps your message should be simpler and more concentrated. Your pace quick and varied.

There are dozens of ways to play this. Who knows, these skills may even translate well when we get back to speaking to a room of living, breathing people.

But for now, focus on engagement. Keep ‘em watching.

To your success,
Tom
Ready2Speak.com

P.S. I have been busy finishing my brandy-spanking new 4-Day Crash Course: How to Present Online. It is loaded with solid step-by-step strategies and techniques for building and delivering your pitch, presentation, interview, livestream, video or whatever you are doing online.

It is super cheap. Check it out at https://ready2speak.com

It will be available starting Monday, June 15^th. But if you are crazy enough to sign up now, I will give you 50% off this week only.

It will cover all sorts of cool stuff like how to get better on-camera, how to build a pro studio in your spare bedroom, how to modify your script and your slides, how to learn about your audience, even how to practice for maximum effect and become the real you. There are 5 amazing bonuses worth the price all by themselves. And there is a no-risk guarantee if you are still unsure.

Go to https://ready2speak.com and use the code 4DAY50 for your discount.

You will become an online superstar.

Way in the past, my wife and a few of our friends would gather for a game of Scrabble. We turned it into a drinking game. If you could create a definition for whatever crazy word you were attempting to put down on the board, no matter how outrageous, you got the points. We built some very unique entries.

But it was a game with no rules. Except that maybe the rule was to have a good time. And get a little sloshed.

That seems to parallel what we are in now — a game where, instead of no rules, the rules haven’t been written yet. So we are all trying to survive in a game without knowing how we should play.

This time it’s not fun. People are dying. People are scared. People are trying to get back to earning a living and put food on their table.

Yet we don’t know the real rules.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has had the top 3 layers torn off. We are all back to survival skills. We are trying to guess what will work, what will help us get through this in a game where we don’t know the rules.

Here’s a thought. We may have to learn new skills to survive. Which ones? Where should we start? We not only don’t know — we can’t know. The rules haven’t been written yet.

Perhaps our basic abilities will help us. Flexibility. Being agile. Creative. Positive.

We are in uncharted territory. With no rules. No compass. Not even a flashlight. We just have our wits. Our grit. Our humanity.

The only way is forward. Let’s go there.