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.

1. Make sure you have no deliveries due to arrive that day! You can be sure they’ll show up just as you go live!! 🤦🏻‍♀️
2. 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.
3. 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
4. Make sure your face is well lit so that people can see who is talking
5. Make sure you know your presentation well so that you don’t have to read from your slides
6. Drink tea, or water, not coffee (I start to get jittery and talk too fast if I have too much coffee)
7. Ask people to comment in the chat to increase engagement and participation
8. 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)
9. If the purpose is to deliver valuable content AND pitch your services, make sure you give enough time to the pitch
10. 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.