I ran a workshop last week and mid-session I realised how rusty I’d gotten.
I used to do live stuff all the time. I stopped during the first lockdown because the kids were home and I feared a reenactment of that dude from the BBC. I remember now that practicing your presentation alone and delivering your presentation to a real audience is sooooo different!
Do you do webinars or workshops to promote your services?
If so. These few tips might be useful.
- Make sure you have no deliveries due to arrive that day! You can be sure they’ll show up just as you go live!! 🤦🏻♀️
- Make sure your phone is on ‘Do not disturb’ mode so that the delivery guy who calls you 5 times doesn’t interrupt your flow.
- Make sure you have your background looking tidy and ‘on-brand’. I keep many of my work-related books just behind me in the shot
- Make sure your face is well lit so that people can see who is talking
- Make sure you know your presentation well so that you don’t have to read from your slides
- Drink tea, or water, not coffee (I start to get jittery and talk too fast if I have too much coffee)
- Ask people to comment in the chat to increase engagement and participation
- Make sure content is focused and you’re not cramming in your entire career’s worth of knowledge into one presentation – people will just tune out and get overwhelmed with too much info. (🙋♀️Guilty)
- If the purpose is to deliver valuable content AND pitch your services, make sure you give enough time to the pitch
- Don’t wait until you feel 100% ready before doing live presentations, because that’s likely never going to happen.
I definitely ballsed up my pitch this time around. I was so focused on sharing the content of the workshop that I just skimmed past the offer! Pfff, Claaaaaire!!! It was nice to be back at it though. I get a real buzz delivering to a live group, answering questions, and noticing what I can do better next time.
- I felt about 60% ready for the session last Friday.
- Happy with the content – check
- The slides looked good – check
- I knew my content – check
- 2 weeks of promotion to fill all 30 of the seats – check (The reality of free events: 30 seats filled means 15 people might show up and that’s exactly what happened)
- Had doubts about the content last minute and wanted to edit everything and add loads more stuff – check
Honestly, 60% is about as ready as I ever feel when publishing stuff. The last 40% comes AFTER I do the thing. Weird ‘innit!
Now I know exactly what to update for the next time. I’m glad I didn’t wait to feel 100% ready because I’d likely still be tweaking and editing slides now.