Confessions from a webinar newbie

Ok, so I’m not a total webinar newbie: I’ve participated in a couple, but I’ve never led one before. Last week was my first chance as I led a webinar for the Nonprofit Workforce Coalition on our newest publication, Work With Me: Intergenerational Conversations for Nonprofit Leadership. I admit, I was kind of scared.

At first, I couldn’t figure out why. Once I thought about it more I realized three key differences: one, I’m actually very comfortable with public speaking – that is, speaking in front of people. However, in a webinar setting you can’t see anyone you’re talking to. *gulp* How was I supposed to know whether they got it or not? Whether they were bored or excited? Two: I’ve only ever given one presentation with PowerPoint. I know, I know, PP seems ubiquitous these days. But most of the public speaking I’ve done has involved training small-ish groups, MC-ing, or introducing other speakers. Therefore, there was no real need for PowerPoint. Uh oh. And three: of the webinars I’ve attended, only a couple weren’t totally awful. I didn’t want to be awful. Lucky for me there are experts in all sorts of fields, including webinars and presentations.

The first person I went to, not surprisingly, was Michele Martin (you might have noticed that I write about her a lot). She gave me all kinds of great tips on the flow of the webinar, how to use PowerPoint with it, how to manage questions, keeping it interactive, and much more. Being the super cool person that she is, she also sat with me while I practiced it a couple of days before the actual webinar and gave me a few last minute tips. I’ll leave the full list of tips and ideas to her, but I did want to share a couple of things that ended up being key:

• Practice, practice, practice, practice…and then practice some more – Michele stressed this to me at the beginning and she was totally right. With each new slide you add or tweak you make to the verbal presentation, the chance of stumbling or losing your place increases. I practiced the verbal part of the presentation at least 3 times and the full webinar with slides at least 3 additional times. That practice made me much more comfortable with the material and flow.
• Keep the slides moving – Michele suggested changing the slide every 30 to 45 seconds. I thought that sounded like a lot, but when you’re listening to someone drone on over the phone, having a steady stream of eye candy can keep you engaged and interested (even when you’re presenting the topic).

The other expert I consulted (though not in person) was Andy Goodman. He spoke at the 2008 Nonprofit Congress about his book “Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes.” He also handed out copies of that excellent publication to those of us at the session. The book provided me with a couple of other great tips (I HIGHLY recommend that you visit Andy’s website and download this publication – it can only make you a better presenter, and it’s free!):

• Start with a story – unless you earn it by starting your presentation off right, you really only have the audiences’ full attention for 2 to 3 minutes max. Why waste that time by explaining what you’re presentation is about, how long it’s going to take, what your credentials are, etc. You can always give that to them a bit later, after you’ve engaged them with a story or anecdote.
• Wrap-up, then questions, then close – it’s not a good idea to end on questions, because they can lead the group in a different direction or even be hostile to you or your subject matter. Andy recommends wrapping up your presentation, allowing time for questions and then bringing everyone together for one last quote, anecdote, or other summation.
• Keep the PowerPoint animation simple – this one especially rang true for me, as one of the many victims of over animated PPs. Things come bouncing at you from every angle, they dissolve without explanation, and fly in from out of nowhere. I put some animation into my slides, but it was very basic, so as not to overwhelm people.

At the end of the day (or the webinar), I felt confident and gave a good presentation. More importantly, I learned a lot in a short period of time and will be able to make use of that information in the future. Now that’s the kind of confession that’s good for the soul.

P.S. In a couple of weeks I’ll be recording the verbal part of the webinar and posting it on our website. Keep your eyes peeled for that!