Online Trainer Tips
Š Velg Training Version 1.0 October 2014
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Acknowledgements In creating these materials, Velg Training would like to recognise the following creative people as contributors to the development of this resource. •
Roger Courville 1080 Group, LLC roger@1080group.com
Credits Extracts from, or references to, the following publications have been used to develop this resource tool. •
The Virtual Presenter
Enquiries The Copyright Act 1968 (Commonwealth) protects this material. Requests and enquiries concerning this material should be directed in writing to: Velg Training Chief Executive Officer 1/52 Jeffcott Street, Wavell Heights Q 4012 Velg Training – Webinar Presenter Guide - Version 1.0 October 2014
Table of Contents Disclaimer .................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... 2 Credits ......................................................................................................................... 2 Enquiries ...................................................................................................................... 2 Online Trainer Tips........................................................................................................ 5 So you’re speaking as a webinar ................................................................................. 5 Where everybody starts ............................................................................................. 5 What kind of presentations work in webinars ............................................................... 5 How pros tackle webinars ........................................................................................... 5 Always assume your webinar presentation can improve. ............................................... 5 Three pillars of great webinars ....................................................................................... 6 Purpose: WIIFM? ....................................................................................................... 6 Movement:................................................................................................................ 6 Interactivity: ............................................................................................................. 6 If you begin in PowerPoint.......................................................................................... 6 Finishing as well as you began .................................................................................... 6 The best interactivity begins here ................................................................................... 7 Getting started .......................................................................................................... 7 One size doesn’t fit all ................................................................................................ 7 Audio: listening in ...................................................................................................... 8 Screen sharing .............................................................................................................. 8 Polls............................................................................................................................. 9 Why polls are your friend ........................................................................................... 9 Relate to content on a slide ........................................................................................ 9 Learn how to frame your presentation ......................................................................... 9 Chat ............................................................................................................................ 9 Be careful! ...............................................................................................................10
Text based chat ........................................................................................................10 Six ways your chat panel is superior for presenters ......................................................10 Hands up ....................................................................................................................11 Annotation tool ............................................................................................................11 Video ..........................................................................................................................11 Webcam ......................................................................................................................12 Adapting to the webinar stage ......................................................................................12 Text and language ....................................................................................................12 Don’t be boring ........................................................................................................12 Bullet points .............................................................................................................12 Less than less is more ...............................................................................................13 Visualise it................................................................................................................13 Test sizing of your font .............................................................................................14 Animation troubles ....................................................................................................14 Print a notes copy of your PowerPoint ........................................................................14 Tips for a great rehearsal..............................................................................................14 Do what the pros do .................................................................................................14 Reading is boring ......................................................................................................15 Delivery ...................................................................................................................15 Planning for the unplannable .....................................................................................16
Online Trainer Tips So you’re speaking as a webinar Webinars are known as online presentations designed to engage remote audiences with content that can be delivered via your computer. Much like face-to-face training, webinars are designed to be interactive and engaging. Webinars provide many benefits to your attendees as they do not have to travel to attend the Professional Development. Webinars also make it possible for remote presenters to deliver content from the comfort of their office or home. Where everybody starts It is customary for presenters new to webinars to have one of two perspectives. The first is natural and entirely explainable. Not many people enjoy public speaking – let alone doing it in a new environment. The second approach is the most deadly, to have no fear and a bloated sense of their ability to ‘pull off a room’. Presenting webinars is a great place to be, you can focus on your content, voice and attendees in a new way. Nobody will know if you spilt your coffee of forgot your line. Apprehension of something new is normal. What kind of presentations work in webinars Presentations fall into three general categories – inspirational, informational and influential. As a presenter you should aim for your presentation to cover all three. Very few events are being designed to inspire – but that doesn’t mean that you cannot do it. How pros tackle webinars Attitude is the key to success in any presentation. Every ounce of energy you put into a webinar presentation is an act of giving on behalf of your attendees. You should always assume that your first draft is not your final product; it is recommended that you write, edit and practice before your live presentation. Always assume your webinar presentation can improve. It can’t help, and it will force you to grow.
Three pillars of great webinars Remember that you are always designing a webinar for a reason; you have a goal in mind. You need to have a ‘what’s next’ and ‘that’s nice, but how do I remember all this’ mindset. Your three pillars are: purpose, movement and interactivity. Great webinars are delivered with all three pillars. Purpose: WIIFM? Your audience will not care about you as much as they care about ‘what’s in it for me’. Use this knowledge to clarify your purpose before starting to design your slides. This pillar answers ‘what’s in it for me?’ Movement: Unlike a face-to-face training session, people who attend webinars are easily about to ‘change the channel’, if you keep your webinar content interesting, they will keep coming back. This pillar challenges attendees not to wander away for too long. Interactivity: A humans short-term memory only holds a limited amount of information. Your goal as a presenter is to influence your attendee’s knowledge and/or skills. It has been proved that adults learn more when they are actively engaged than when passively watching. This pillar is critical to memory and influence. Converse or die. If you begin in PowerPoint When you are starting to create your PowerPoint presentation ensure that you are doing this using the ‘slide sorter’ view as this will give you a similar big-picture view to laying out your sticky notes. Finishing as well as you began If your presentation ends with hesitation, lingering questions of lack of definition than you lose your opportunity for your session to end on a high note. A great webinar ending will
create momentum. The exact content of this will depend on the purpose of your presentation.
The best interactivity begins here When it comes to designing a webinar the idea of making a presentation face-to-face still applies. When you communicate with people there are natural ways that we interact. From asking everybody to put their hands up in the travelled over 100km to attend the session to responding to a ‘hands’ up question, the odds are that there is some measure of interactivity in the ways you engage your audience. If the webinar environment is new to you, it is likely that you will do unnatural things. To get over this phase quickly, begin with doing the same things that you would do in person. This will help to give you a jumpstart on imagining how to do things virtually and what tools you will need to accomplish that. Imagine how you would interact with a face-to-face audience. Getting started A frequently asked question when designing webinars is “How do I keep my audience from multi-tasking?” Easy – don’t be boring. But in the real world this is not a helpful answer, with the age of technology we are currently living in, it is virtually impossible to stop your attendees from multi-tasking. Choosing the right tools to encourage your attendees to engage begins with realising that they are your lifeline to conveying to the audience what they can’t see. A complete set of webinar skills requires you to adapt to the medium. You are going to have to learn based on your instruments for success. Your tools are you steering wheel, compass and altimeter. One size doesn’t fit all You have most likely attended and or presented keynote presentations, hands-on workshops, collaborative strategy sessions and new-hire trainings. As a face-to-face presenter, the way you work the room greatly depends on your audience. Similar to the face-to-face session, you will be more collaborative and flexible with a smaller audience, meaning you can ask more questions or let others contribute. With a larger audience you will need a little more structure.
A great place to start developing your webinar presentation is by thinking though how you would present this session and interact if you attendees were in the room with you. Would you ask for a show of hands? Use a whiteboard to display your work? Would you allow verbal questions? Once you have thought about these questions, you should choose the best tools for you webinar session. GoToTraining and GoToWebinar allow you to pick and choose tools to turn on and off. Audio: listening in Think about a face-to-face event that you have attended with a large audience, the presenter has a certain amount of content to get through in a specified period of time. Put yourself in that presenter’s shoes, you have planned your interaction and ideally you have a sense of how much time you want to spend on each topic. You need to retain maximum control over your presentation, meaning you also need to be able to pick and choose which questions you respond to. Velg Training recommends that you choose questions to answer that best support your point and best provide value to your audience. Velg Training recommends that in order to achieve this you leave all attendees in ‘listen only’ mode as this allows you as a presenter to maintain optimum control.
Screen sharing There is nothing quiet as powerful in a webinar as the ability to share anything on your desktop with the entire audience. It enables you to collaborate on a document, brainstorm on a whiteboard, making a demonstration or demonstrating a software program. Screen sharing makes it possible to have a flexible visual element to accompany your audio. Here are a few screen sharing tips to save you heartache: 1. Close all other programs/applications including email. You do not want these popping up on the screen while you are trying to demonstrate an idea. 2. Check your options, especially if you are using two screens. GoToTraining and GoToWebinar allow you to share one screen at a time, ensure that this is the screen you PowerPoint and assisting documents will be displayed on.
3. There may be times you don’t want to share your screen. You might feel that a poll, test or chat may be more beneficial. It is important that you know your options and risks.
Polls Polls offer you the opportunity to ask multiple-choice questions and allow you to share these results with your audience. You are also able to ask an open ended question and encourage your attendees to respond via the chat window. Velg Training has designed PowerPoint slides to use when you are displaying polls as they take over the PowerPoint presentation while they are displayed. This service will allow you to see which attendees responded to which polls and the answers they chose in a ‘post-event’ report. Why polls are your friend Polls are an excellent multi-purpose tool. Here are a few things that you can do: Get people engaged right away When speaking, sometimes an opening question is not about the answer someone gives but more about that way to get your attendees engaged. You need to demonstrate to the audience that you are going to interact. Polls are a great idea for opening questions. Relate to content on a slide Image you have asked your attendees to draw a house, once they have drawn their house you put up four different pictures of houses and ask you attendees to choose which one their drawing most closely resembles. Learn how to frame your presentation Ask questions early to assess your attendees experience, desires and/or expectations. Use polls to learn valuable information from your audience and improve your dialogue.
Chat The chat on GoToTraining is very similar to instant messaging. On GoToWebinar, attendees can only communicate via the Questions pane, this does not allow attendees to see what other attendees have posted unless a response is made and communicated to ‘all audience’.
Be careful! Always double check who you are chatting to before hitting ‘enter’ or pushing send, the last thing you want to do is private message the wrong attendee. Text based chat The chat panel is your friend. The chat pane is extremely important when it comes to engaging your attendees interactively while still maintaining order and momentum. Watching questions appear in the chat bar while you present your webinar is like watching hands go up in an audience, except it is better. It gives you the opportunity to see what they are asking and decided whether or not it is the appropriate time to answer their question. If something goes wrong during your session, the audience will tell you through the chat window. Velg Training will monitor the chat pane while you are presenting and make you aware of any issues that need to be resolved. However, we also recommend that you are also keeping an eye on the chat pane every couple of minutes. Velg Training captures a full copy of the Chat transcript and emails it out to all attendees within 48 hours of the completion of the webinar. When in the live webinar session you are able to ‘undock’ the chat panel from your control panel to expand and make the window larger. The last thing you want to do is spend precious time scrolling through the chat to find a question that has been asked. If the chat pane is undocked and open, you can glance at it in a fraction of a second, while your attendees are responding to a poll or while a Velg Training staff member is wrapping up your session. The Chat panel is not something to only look at occasionally, keep it open at all times. Six ways your chat panel is superior for presenters 1. You are able to ‘ignore’ questions from the chat panel for a period of time without your attendees feeling ignored. The same being when your attendees have raised their hands to verbally ask questions 2. You are able to ‘park’ the questions your attendees have asked you. If you feel that the question needs to be privately answered you are able to do that.
3. You can pick and choose the questions you would like to answer. This is especially helpful when multiple people are asking similar questions. 4. You can better manage your time. If you can see that you are running out of time you are able to leave some questions until the end. Similarly, if you have plenty of time up your sleeve you are able to direct your attendees to the chat window. 5. As a presenter you are able to have other people from your organisation on the live session so that they can help you answer questions. Velg Training staff members are also online to help out with questions, especially if they are basic FAQ style of question.
Hands up The hands up tool allow you to gauge your attendee’s response to a simple yes or no question. You are able to see exactly how many people have either agreed or disagreed with your questions. You are able to encourage your attendees to ask verbal questions by raising their hands and waiting to be unmuted. Make the most out of the hands up tool by explaining to your attendees how and when to use the feature. The Velg Training team will explain where the hands up button can be located at the beginning of your webinar. If you do not want to use the hands up tool the Velg Training team recommend disabling this feature so your audience are not getting frustrated when you do not respond.
Annotation tool The annotation tools are your pointing, highlighting, drawing and writing tools for your webinar since your audience is unable to see you. The annotation tools help you to communicate visually in three ways: 1. They allow you to direct attention 2. Add visual interest as your attendees will naturally look at what is moving 3. When combined with Sightboard, you have a replacement flipchart! If you have never used an annotation tool before, we recommend that you find one tool that suits you and your webinar presentation and get comfortable with it. Over time you will naturally grow from using one annotation tool to all of them.
Video
Full-motion video is a tool just like any other. The real question is “what are you going to do with video that you can’t do without?” Sometimes videos are used for completely legitimate reasons, however a lot of the time video is used simply as a crutch for the rest of your presentation if it is low involvement. Video in its current form does not serve you as the presenter well. Your audience will have a high expectation of the video quality and performance due to the accessibility of them online. Your attendees will be expecting your video to work as if they have downloaded it themselves online. Velg Training does not recommend using videos as it slows down due to internet speed.
Webcam When presenting face-to-face training your tendency is to look at your audience rather than your slides, whereas when presenting via a webinar. A great way to keep your attendees engaged is to use the webcam feature. Velg Training has received a lot of feedback indicating that they would like to be able to put a face to the voice they are hearing. Velg Training recommends, when presenting a webinar, you are on webcam for the first five to ten minutes. Remember to look at the webcam, not your presentation. Glance at your notes like you would in a face-to-face workshop.
Adapting to the webinar stage Text and language Your goal is to influence and impact all your attendees, whether they are attentive or not. You are able to communicate your point/concept to your audience by including it in the title of your session, this will help you as the presenter to stick on topic and view the content from beginning to end. Don’t be boring Use active words as often as possible to illustrate your point with great power. Bullet points
Bullet points are simply outlined text; they make your content quickly readable. If you are going to use bullet points, turn your sentences into fragments that distil the essence of what you are trying to say. When writing bullet points you should not have a period (.) at the end of each bullet. When using bullet points, do not forget to pay attention to your grammar. Less than less is more Your goal as a presenter is to influence your attendees, which only happens when you impart knowledge and change behaviour. When creating your webinar PowerPoint slides, the answer is to use even less. You should aim to have a key word, phrase or visual aid as people can read faster than you speak, speed read your text and will be multitasking. Visualise it How can you turn simple words that provide an instruction into a visual? Start by displaying the words on your PowerPoint. You are able to use ‘auto shapes’ or ‘charts’ to simply and effectively add a new dimension and level of impact to your communication. Velg Training recommends turning words into visuals when possible. When presenting a webinar your attendees are not seeing your literal body language, therefore it is important that the visuals you are using in your presentation replace your body language. Wherever possible, create slides that are simple and visual, this will stop the temptation of you reading straight from your slides as your presenting. Visuals deliver impact that words alone can’t accomplish. There are three qualities to a great visual: 1. Easily grasped – does the image help your attendees to quickly understand the point you are making? 2. Memorable – does the image improve your ‘stickiness?’ 3. Tells a story – does the image If trying to find the right graphic is too time consuming, a great way to make visual slides is to use auto-shapes. Before creating your visual, get a clear idea on the key concept you want to create. When using photo visuals and graphics think about the overall feel of the presentation, does your graphic/visual support the tone and message you are trying to convey? If you feel that your designer eye isn’t strong, try sticking to one type of graphic element.
In order to keep your attendees engaged, keep slides changing by creating more slides. Velg Training PowerPoints are automatically Velg Training branded and have the colour palette pre-set. Use the colours in the colour palette to leverage your presentation. Test sizing of your font When creating your PowerPoint presentation you need to remember that the font is going to be smaller on a computer screen to a projector. Here is a quick way to test your font size: 1. Open PowerPoint in ‘normal’ mode 2. Select main slide area and resize to 50% 3. Imagine glancing at the screen and ask yourself if you can easily grasp what is being said Animation troubles Velg Training does not recommend using animations as the animations can appear choppy to your attendees. This normally has to do with your attendees own internet connection. The least reliable part of your webinar experience is your own internet provider. Print a notes copy of your PowerPoint As a webinar presenter you should always have a hard copy of your PowerPoint slides printed no matter how many you have. You never know what will happen while you are presenting your webinar as technology tends to be very unpredictable. You might find that your webinar PowerPoint may freeze, if this happens a Velg Training staff member will help you try to resolve the issue, otherwise you might have to present the webinar while a Velg Training staff member clicks through the slides for you. This is where your printed PowerPoint slides would come in handy.
Tips for a great rehearsal Do what the pros do Your rehearsal does not have to be fancy, but they do need to happen. Velg Training recommends that you verbally run through you PowerPoint presentation as this will point out any areas that do not run smoothly or if you need to add or remove content. A rehearsal in an investment in your attendees and your success.
Reading is boring When it comes to presenting a webinar, although your attendees cannot see you, they are still able to tell if you are reading straight from a script. As a webinar presenter you need to nail both your openers and closers. The open creates momentum and desire while the closer sends your attendees away with a sense of awe and accomplishment. Delivery When delivering your webinar presentation it is extremely common to be nervous. It is important to have a think about the different ways being nervous affects you as a presenter. Are you more likely to talk faster? Breathe quickly? Stumble on your words? Two common things can occur when your adrenaline starts pumping is that your tempo speeds up and your breathing becomes shallow. Here are some helpful tips to remember when presenting a webinar. Avoid caffeine in the lead up to your presentation as it increases your blood pressure making you more likely to speed up. Breathe deeply and slowly, you should feel your abdomen slowly expand and contract. Slow down while talking. If you are talking to fast, you will miss opportunities to pause for effect or provide inflection that helps to deliver your point with emphasis. You should close all the programs on your computer that are not directly related to your webinar presentation. This will help free up some space and power on your computer while you present. While closing down your programs, it is important that you disable popups. This will ensure that no calendar reminders of email messages will display on your screen while presenting your live webinar. You should also restart your computer just before you get ready to log onto your webinar session, this will once again help to free up some space and can help. Make sure you have a glass of water beside you while you are presenting. Many presenters find that they get a rush of energy or nerves before presenting and a common by product of this is cottonmouth. Having a glass of water beside you will help prevent this from happening. You should also ensure that you mobile phone is switched to silent. Velg Training recommends that if this is your primary contact number then you should not turn it off completely. If you lose audio through the session we will try to contact you via landline or mobile to get you back on line as swiftly as possible.
A typical webinar audience will not ask a lot of questions, until they see that you are actively trying to answer them. By answering a question early in the presentation, you should see that the quality and amount of questions you receive will increase. Planning for the unplannable As a webinar presenter it is extremely important to remember that sometimes technology fails. Throughout all webinars, you will experience a short delay between the screen you as a presenter are currently seeing and what your attendees see. You are able to open ‘audience view’, as a presenter this will enable you to see when your attendees are looking at the same screen as you to time both your speech and PowerPoint slide clicking. If you see a mistake on your PowerPoint or accidently click through too many slides, do not draw attention to this as the audience will most likely never notice.