If you are tired of holding Zoom meetings and watching your audience drift away, get distracted by their phones, the dog, the postman or the weather and wish you could present more effectively and with greater confidence, then this is the webinar recording for you.

Rory Berry, Roaring Berry, shares his top tips for navigating all things presentation in our new and virtual world but these skills are certainly transferable for when we revert back to face-to-face meetings, seminars and conferences.

WEBINAR RECORDING

These are his top six tips to ensure that you feel more confident and your audience are more engaged:

1.   Practice, practice, practice.  Make tech your friend by checking consistency of connection, that your microphone and earphones are working, that you understand fully how to use the video conferencing platform that you have chosen to use and so do your guests.

2.  How do you look?  You only have a tiny square to project your personality and your audience can only see your head and shoulders -  so make the most of it.  Ensure that you are fully in the frame and that you have a comfortable posture that enables you to project your voice.  Position your laptop so that you are looking directly at the camera.  Rory explained that he prefers to stand while presenting because it gives him more confidence.

3.  Consider whether it is worth investing some money in the tech.  Ring lights can now be purchased at reasonable rates and can provide a source of light that is consistent and can be adjusted.  Do your research and ensure that, if you are going to invest in microphones and earphones, these are appropriate for the kinds of presentation that you will be undertaking whether that is a podcast, a webinar, training or team meetings.  Ask for recommendations from friends and colleagues.

4.  Try to put yourself in your audience shoes and think about what they are seeing - try to remain facing the camera, ensure that any visual aids are visible and, if you are using slides, try to avoid reading what is on the screen.  It is important to add value to the experience.  If you are reading something on autocue then you may as well have sent it to your audience to read for themselves!  

5.  Include your audience and take them on your presentation journey.  An interactive presentation where the audience are expected to contribute is so much more engaging than a static one where the audience are passive participants.  Human beings are captivated by the power of a story, so try to make your presentation flow freely - avoid asking your co-presenter to move on by saying 'next slide', always retain your flow by integrating your cues into the presentation, for example saying ' ......and, on the next slide you will see' - be subtle.  Use the power of the 'pause' or silence to emphasise a point and use pace to vary the flow.

6.  And finally........keep to your time slot.  Start and end your presentation on time so that you do not eat into the time frame of other presenters.  Rory recommends that, if your presentation allocation is 20 minutes, for example, plan for 17 minutes so that, if you 'add  value' with unplanned content or reactions to your audience, you have time to do so.

If you would like more information about presentation from Rory, his contact details are as follows:

Rory Berry - [email protected] - 07721 425951 - http://www.roaringberry.com/