10 Ways to Optimize Your Virtual Presentation or Webinar

Even when the pandemic subsides, working from home will be remain a constant (at least part of the time) for many lawyers, clients, referral sources, and many others. So, most of us should continue to work on optimizing our virtual presentation and webinar skills. Here are 10 tips:

1. Prior preparation prevents poor performance and helps you put your "best foot" forward, so make the time to plan and prepare well ahead of time to make the most out of your presentation/webinar (PW) performance and maximize your results.
2. Define your objectives, i.e., what do you want to see result from your PW? If your objective is to develop leads and opportunities (i.e., business or client development) from your PW, remember that the main hurdle in virtual PWs is that you are not physically in the same room with them and are unable to meet them in person, one to one, shake their hand, make direct eye contact, etc. This is a hurdle to developing a strong connection because in-person contact is an important factor in many (but not all) buying decisions.
3. Prepare/package the content of your PW in sections or chunks.
4. Plan for ways to insert audience/attendee interaction into your PW to overcome the lack of in-person, physical contact with attendees. Look into and use the audience interaction features of the webinar/video-conference system you will be using.
5. Summarize what you are going to cover at the beginning of your remarks and summarize what you covered at the end. Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them.
6. In your PowerPoint or other slides — do not put more than five words across and five words down on any single slide. Use colors, graphics and images as appropriate (use only material you own, not copyrighted material downloaded from the Internet).
7. Plan at least 30%-40% of your allotted presentation time for questions/comments and audience interaction/participation, but also be prepared if there are not many questions, you are ready to pose and answer a common question on the subject. Be sure to mention that you will be emailing a copy of the slides used (if you have not sent them ahead of time, which you should) immediately after the PW.
8. Build "calls to action" into your PW at appropriate points throughout, but especially at the beginning and end of your presentation. For example, in the beginning, let attendees know they can ask questions or make comments and describe how to do so. At the end, have a slide with a list that suggests/offers specific, additional materials, a suggested reading list, site links, etc. where they can find out.
9. Audience polling questions are an effective way to insert audience interaction into a webinar and keep audience attention. If your presentation is a 1/2-hour long, use only up to two polling questions. If your presentation is 1-hour long, insert an audience polling question every 10-20 minutes to break up the pace and retain attention. Be sure to practice polls several times before you use them to avoid fumbles/bumbles.
10. Start and end the webinar on time no matter what glitches may have arisen.

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