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Online Trainer Tips
© Velg Training
Version 1.0 October 2014
velgtraining.com
Disclaimer
Velg Training has used its best endeavours to ensure that this document is correct and
current at the time of publication, but does not give any warranty nor accept any liability in
relation to the contents. If any law prohibits the exclusion of such liability, Velg Training
limits its liability to the extent permitted by law.
Acknowledgements
In creating these materials, Velg Training would like to recognise the following creative
people as contributors to the development of this resource.
• Roger Courville
1080 Group, LLC
Credits
Extracts from, or references to, the following publications have been used to develop this
resource tool.
• The Virtual Presenter
Enquiries
The Copyright Act 1968 (Commonwealth) protects this material. Requests and enquiries
concerning this material should be directed in writing to:
Velg Training
Chief Executive Officer
1/52 Jeffcott Street, Wavell Heights Q 4012
Velg Training – Webinar Presenter Guide - Version 1.0 October 2014
Table of Contents Disclaimer .................................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... 2
Credits ......................................................................................................................... 2
Enquiries ...................................................................................................................... 2
Online Trainer Tips ........................................................................................................ 5
So you’re speaking as a webinar ................................................................................. 5
Where everybody starts ............................................................................................. 5
What kind of presentations work in webinars ............................................................... 5
How pros tackle webinars ........................................................................................... 5
Always assume your webinar presentation can improve. ............................................... 5
Three pillars of great webinars ....................................................................................... 6
Purpose: WIIFM? ....................................................................................................... 6
Movement: ................................................................................................................ 6
Interactivity: ............................................................................................................. 6
If you begin in PowerPoint .......................................................................................... 6
Finishing as well as you began .................................................................................... 6
The best interactivity begins here ................................................................................... 7
Getting started .......................................................................................................... 7
One size doesn’t fit all ................................................................................................ 7
Audio: listening in ...................................................................................................... 8
Screen sharing .............................................................................................................. 8
Polls ............................................................................................................................. 9
Why polls are your friend ........................................................................................... 9
Relate to content on a slide ........................................................................................ 9
Learn how to frame your presentation ......................................................................... 9
Chat ............................................................................................................................ 9
Be careful! ............................................................................................................... 10
Text based chat ........................................................................................................ 10
Six ways your chat panel is superior for presenters ...................................................... 10
Hands up .................................................................................................................... 11
Annotation tool ............................................................................................................ 11
Video .......................................................................................................................... 11
Webcam ...................................................................................................................... 12
Adapting to the webinar stage ...................................................................................... 12
Text and language .................................................................................................... 12
Don’t be boring ........................................................................................................ 12
Bullet points ............................................................................................................. 12
Less than less is more ............................................................................................... 13
Visualise it ................................................................................................................ 13
Test sizing of your font ............................................................................................. 14
Animation troubles .................................................................................................... 14
Print a notes copy of your PowerPoint ........................................................................ 14
Tips for a great rehearsal .............................................................................................. 14
Do what the pros do ................................................................................................. 14
Reading is boring ...................................................................................................... 15
Delivery ................................................................................................................... 15
Planning for the unplannable ..................................................................................... 16
Online Trainer Tips
So you’re speaking as a webinar
Webinars are known as online presentations designed to engage remote audiences with
content that can be delivered via your computer. Much like face-to-face training, webinars
are designed to be interactive and engaging. Webinars provide many benefits to your
attendees as they do not have to travel to attend the Professional Development. Webinars
also make it possible for remote presenters to deliver content from the comfort of their
office or home.
Where everybody starts
It is customary for presenters new to webinars to have one of two perspectives. The first is
natural and entirely explainable. Not many people enjoy public speaking – let alone doing it
in a new environment. The second approach is the most deadly, to have no fear and a
bloated sense of their ability to ‘pull off a room’.
Presenting webinars is a great place to be, you can focus on your content, voice and
attendees in a new way. Nobody will know if you spilt your coffee of forgot your line.
Apprehension of something new is normal.
What kind of presentations work in webinars
Presentations fall into three general categories – inspirational, informational and influential.
As a presenter you should aim for your presentation to cover all three. Very few events are
being designed to inspire – but that doesn’t mean that you cannot do it.
How pros tackle webinars
Attitude is the key to success in any presentation. Every ounce of energy you put into a
webinar presentation is an act of giving on behalf of your attendees. You should always
assume that your first draft is not your final product; it is recommended that you write, edit
and practice before your live presentation.
Always assume your webinar presentation can improve.
It can’t help, and it will force you to grow.
Three pillars of great webinars
Remember that you are always designing a webinar for a reason; you have a goal in mind.
You need to have a ‘what’s next’ and ‘that’s nice, but how do I remember all this’ mindset.
Your three pillars are: purpose, movement and interactivity. Great webinars are delivered
with all three pillars.
Purpose: WIIFM?
Your audience will not care about you as much as they care about ‘what’s in it for me’. Use
this knowledge to clarify your purpose before starting to design your slides.
This pillar answers ‘what’s in it for me?’
Movement:
Unlike a face-to-face training session, people who attend webinars are easily about to
‘change the channel’, if you keep your webinar content interesting, they will keep coming
back.
This pillar challenges attendees not to wander away for too long.
Interactivity:
A humans short-term memory only holds a limited amount of information. Your goal as a
presenter is to influence your attendee’s knowledge and/or skills. It has been proved that
adults learn more when they are actively engaged than when passively watching.
This pillar is critical to memory and influence. Converse or die.
If you begin in PowerPoint
When you are starting to create your PowerPoint presentation ensure that you are doing this
using the ‘slide sorter’ view as this will give you a similar big-picture view to laying out your
sticky notes.
Finishing as well as you began
If your presentation ends with hesitation, lingering questions of lack of definition than you
lose your opportunity for your session to end on a high note. A great webinar ending will
create momentum. The exact content of this will depend on the purpose of your
presentation.
The best interactivity begins here
When it comes to designing a webinar the idea of making a presentation face-to-face still
applies. When you communicate with people there are natural ways that we interact. From
asking everybody to put their hands up in the travelled over 100km to attend the session to
responding to a ‘hands’ up question, the odds are that there is some measure of interactivity
in the ways you engage your audience.
If the webinar environment is new to you, it is likely that you will do unnatural things. To
get over this phase quickly, begin with doing the same things that you would do in person.
This will help to give you a jumpstart on imagining how to do things virtually and what tools
you will need to accomplish that.
Imagine how you would interact with a face-to-face audience.
Getting started
A frequently asked question when designing webinars is “How do I keep my audience from
multi-tasking?” Easy – don’t be boring. But in the real world this is not a helpful answer,
with the age of technology we are currently living in, it is virtually impossible to stop your
attendees from multi-tasking. Choosing the right tools to encourage your attendees to
engage begins with realising that they are your lifeline to conveying to the audience what
they can’t see. A complete set of webinar skills requires you to adapt to the medium.
You are going to have to learn based on your instruments for success. Your tools are you
steering wheel, compass and altimeter.
One size doesn’t fit all
You have most likely attended and or presented keynote presentations, hands-on
workshops, collaborative strategy sessions and new-hire trainings. As a face-to-face
presenter, the way you work the room greatly depends on your audience. Similar to the
face-to-face session, you will be more collaborative and flexible with a smaller audience,
meaning you can ask more questions or let others contribute. With a larger audience you
will need a little more structure.
A great place to start developing your webinar presentation is by thinking though how you
would present this session and interact if you attendees were in the room with you. Would
you ask for a show of hands? Use a whiteboard to display your work? Would you allow
verbal questions?
Once you have thought about these questions, you should choose the best tools for you
webinar session. GoToTraining and GoToWebinar allow you to pick and choose tools to turn
on and off.
Audio: listening in
Think about a face-to-face event that you have attended with a large audience, the
presenter has a certain amount of content to get through in a specified period of time. Put
yourself in that presenter’s shoes, you have planned your interaction and ideally you have a
sense of how much time you want to spend on each topic.
You need to retain maximum control over your presentation, meaning you also need to be
able to pick and choose which questions you respond to. Velg Training recommends that
you choose questions to answer that best support your point and best provide value to your
audience. Velg Training recommends that in order to achieve this you leave all attendees in
‘listen only’ mode as this allows you as a presenter to maintain optimum control.
Screen sharing
There is nothing quiet as powerful in a webinar as the ability to share anything on your
desktop with the entire audience. It enables you to collaborate on a document, brainstorm
on a whiteboard, making a demonstration or demonstrating a software program. Screen
sharing makes it possible to have a flexible visual element to accompany your audio.
Here are a few screen sharing tips to save you heartache:
1. Close all other programs/applications including email. You do not want these popping
up on the screen while you are trying to demonstrate an idea.
2. Check your options, especially if you are using two screens. GoToTraining and
GoToWebinar allow you to share one screen at a time, ensure that this is the screen
you PowerPoint and assisting documents will be displayed on.
3. There may be times you don’t want to share your screen. You might feel that a poll,
test or chat may be more beneficial.
It is important that you know your options and risks.
Polls
Polls offer you the opportunity to ask multiple-choice questions and allow you to share these
results with your audience. You are also able to ask an open ended question and encourage
your attendees to respond via the chat window. Velg Training has designed PowerPoint
slides to use when you are displaying polls as they take over the PowerPoint presentation
while they are displayed. This service will allow you to see which attendees responded to
which polls and the answers they chose in a ‘post-event’ report.
Why polls are your friend
Polls are an excellent multi-purpose tool. Here are a few things that you can do:
Get people engaged right away
When speaking, sometimes an opening question is not about the answer someone gives but
more about that way to get your attendees engaged. You need to demonstrate to the
audience that you are going to interact. Polls are a great idea for opening questions.
Relate to content on a slide
Image you have asked your attendees to draw a house, once they have drawn their house
you put up four different pictures of houses and ask you attendees to choose which one
their drawing most closely resembles.
Learn how to frame your presentation
Ask questions early to assess your attendees experience, desires and/or expectations.
Use polls to learn valuable information from your audience and improve your dialogue.
Chat
The chat on GoToTraining is very similar to instant messaging. On GoToWebinar, attendees
can only communicate via the Questions pane, this does not allow attendees to see what
other attendees have posted unless a response is made and communicated to ‘all audience’.
Be careful!
Always double check who you are chatting to before hitting ‘enter’ or pushing send, the last
thing you want to do is private message the wrong attendee.
Text based chat
The chat panel is your friend. The chat pane is extremely important when it comes to
engaging your attendees interactively while still maintaining order and momentum.
Watching questions appear in the chat bar while you present your webinar is like watching
hands go up in an audience, except it is better. It gives you the opportunity to see what
they are asking and decided whether or not it is the appropriate time to answer their
question.
If something goes wrong during your session, the audience will tell you through the chat
window. Velg Training will monitor the chat pane while you are presenting and make you
aware of any issues that need to be resolved. However, we also recommend that you are
also keeping an eye on the chat pane every couple of minutes.
Velg Training captures a full copy of the Chat transcript and emails it out to all attendees
within 48 hours of the completion of the webinar. When in the live webinar session you are
able to ‘undock’ the chat panel from your control panel to expand and make the window
larger. The last thing you want to do is spend precious time scrolling through the chat to
find a question that has been asked.
If the chat pane is undocked and open, you can glance at it in a fraction of a second, while
your attendees are responding to a poll or while a Velg Training staff member is wrapping
up your session. The Chat panel is not something to only look at occasionally, keep it open
at all times.
Six ways your chat panel is superior for presenters
1. You are able to ‘ignore’ questions from the chat panel for a period of time without
your attendees feeling ignored. The same being when your attendees have raised
their hands to verbally ask questions
2. You are able to ‘park’ the questions your attendees have asked you. If you feel that
the question needs to be privately answered you are able to do that.
3. You can pick and choose the questions you would like to answer. This is especially
helpful when multiple people are asking similar questions.
4. You can better manage your time. If you can see that you are running out of time
you are able to leave some questions until the end. Similarly, if you have plenty of
time up your sleeve you are able to direct your attendees to the chat window.
5. As a presenter you are able to have other people from your organisation on the live
session so that they can help you answer questions. Velg Training staff members are
also online to help out with questions, especially if they are basic FAQ style of
question.
Hands up
The hands up tool allow you to gauge your attendee’s response to a simple yes or no
question. You are able to see exactly how many people have either agreed or disagreed with
your questions. You are able to encourage your attendees to ask verbal questions by raising
their hands and waiting to be unmuted. Make the most out of the hands up tool by
explaining to your attendees how and when to use the feature. The Velg Training team will
explain where the hands up button can be located at the beginning of your webinar. If you
do not want to use the hands up tool the Velg Training team recommend disabling this
feature so your audience are not getting frustrated when you do not respond.
Annotation tool
The annotation tools are your pointing, highlighting, drawing and writing tools for your
webinar since your audience is unable to see you.
The annotation tools help you to communicate visually in three ways:
1. They allow you to direct attention
2. Add visual interest as your attendees will naturally look at what is moving
3. When combined with Sightboard, you have a replacement flipchart!
If you have never used an annotation tool before, we recommend that you find one tool that
suits you and your webinar presentation and get comfortable with it. Over time you will
naturally grow from using one annotation tool to all of them.
Video
Full-motion video is a tool just like any other. The real question is “what are you going to do
with video that you can’t do without?” Sometimes videos are used for completely legitimate
reasons, however a lot of the time video is used simply as a crutch for the rest of your
presentation if it is low involvement.
Video in its current form does not serve you as the presenter well. Your audience will have a
high expectation of the video quality and performance due to the accessibility of them
online. Your attendees will be expecting your video to work as if they have downloaded it
themselves online. Velg Training does not recommend using videos as it slows down due to
internet speed.
Webcam
When presenting face-to-face training your tendency is to look at your audience rather than
your slides, whereas when presenting via a webinar. A great way to keep your attendees
engaged is to use the webcam feature. Velg Training has received a lot of feedback
indicating that they would like to be able to put a face to the voice they are hearing. Velg
Training recommends, when presenting a webinar, you are on webcam for the first five to
ten minutes.
Remember to look at the webcam, not your presentation. Glance at your notes like you
would in a face-to-face workshop.
Adapting to the webinar stage
Text and language
Your goal is to influence and impact all your attendees, whether they are attentive or not.
You are able to communicate your point/concept to your audience by including it in the title
of your session, this will help you as the presenter to stick on topic and view the content
from beginning to end.
Don’t be boring
Use active words as often as possible to illustrate your point with great power.
Bullet points
Bullet points are simply outlined text; they make your content quickly readable. If you are
going to use bullet points, turn your sentences into fragments that distil the essence of what
you are trying to say.
When writing bullet points you should not have a period (.) at the end of each bullet. When
using bullet points, do not forget to pay attention to your grammar.
Less than less is more
Your goal as a presenter is to influence your attendees, which only happens when you
impart knowledge and change behaviour. When creating your webinar PowerPoint slides,
the answer is to use even less. You should aim to have a key word, phrase or visual aid as
people can read faster than you speak, speed read your text and will be multitasking.
Visualise it
How can you turn simple words that provide an instruction into a visual? Start by displaying
the words on your PowerPoint. You are able to use ‘auto shapes’ or ‘charts’ to simply and
effectively add a new dimension and level of impact to your communication. Velg Training
recommends turning words into visuals when possible.
When presenting a webinar your attendees are not seeing your literal body language,
therefore it is important that the visuals you are using in your presentation replace your
body language. Wherever possible, create slides that are simple and visual, this will stop the
temptation of you reading straight from your slides as your presenting. Visuals deliver
impact that words alone can’t accomplish. There are three qualities to a great visual:
1. Easily grasped – does the image help your attendees to quickly understand the point
you are making?
2. Memorable – does the image improve your ‘stickiness?’
3. Tells a story – does the image
If trying to find the right graphic is too time consuming, a great way to make visual slides is
to use auto-shapes. Before creating your visual, get a clear idea on the key concept you
want to create. When using photo visuals and graphics think about the overall feel of the
presentation, does your graphic/visual support the tone and message you are trying to
convey? If you feel that your designer eye isn’t strong, try sticking to one type of graphic
element.
In order to keep your attendees engaged, keep slides changing by creating more slides.
Velg Training PowerPoints are automatically Velg Training branded and have the colour
palette pre-set. Use the colours in the colour palette to leverage your presentation.
Test sizing of your font
When creating your PowerPoint presentation you need to remember that the font is going to
be smaller on a computer screen to a projector. Here is a quick way to test your font size:
1. Open PowerPoint in ‘normal’ mode
2. Select main slide area and resize to 50%
3. Imagine glancing at the screen and ask yourself if you can easily grasp what is being
said
Animation troubles
Velg Training does not recommend using animations as the animations can appear choppy
to your attendees. This normally has to do with your attendees own internet connection.
The least reliable part of your webinar experience is your own internet provider.
Print a notes copy of your PowerPoint
As a webinar presenter you should always have a hard copy of your PowerPoint slides
printed no matter how many you have. You never know what will happen while you are
presenting your webinar as technology tends to be very unpredictable. You might find that
your webinar PowerPoint may freeze, if this happens a Velg Training staff member will help
you try to resolve the issue, otherwise you might have to present the webinar while a Velg
Training staff member clicks through the slides for you. This is where your printed
PowerPoint slides would come in handy.
Tips for a great rehearsal
Do what the pros do
Your rehearsal does not have to be fancy, but they do need to happen. Velg Training
recommends that you verbally run through you PowerPoint presentation as this will point
out any areas that do not run smoothly or if you need to add or remove content.
A rehearsal in an investment in your attendees and your success.
Reading is boring
When it comes to presenting a webinar, although your attendees cannot see you, they are
still able to tell if you are reading straight from a script. As a webinar presenter you need to
nail both your openers and closers. The open creates momentum and desire while the closer
sends your attendees away with a sense of awe and accomplishment.
Delivery
When delivering your webinar presentation it is extremely common to be nervous. It is
important to have a think about the different ways being nervous affects you as a presenter.
Are you more likely to talk faster? Breathe quickly? Stumble on your words? Two common
things can occur when your adrenaline starts pumping is that your tempo speeds up and
your breathing becomes shallow.
Here are some helpful tips to remember when presenting a webinar. Avoid caffeine in the
lead up to your presentation as it increases your blood pressure making you more likely to
speed up. Breathe deeply and slowly, you should feel your abdomen slowly expand and
contract. Slow down while talking. If you are talking to fast, you will miss opportunities to
pause for effect or provide inflection that helps to deliver your point with emphasis.
You should close all the programs on your computer that are not directly related to your
webinar presentation. This will help free up some space and power on your computer while
you present. While closing down your programs, it is important that you disable popups.
This will ensure that no calendar reminders of email messages will display on your screen
while presenting your live webinar. You should also restart your computer just before you
get ready to log onto your webinar session, this will once again help to free up some space
and can help.
Make sure you have a glass of water beside you while you are presenting. Many presenters
find that they get a rush of energy or nerves before presenting and a common by product of
this is cottonmouth. Having a glass of water beside you will help prevent this from
happening. You should also ensure that you mobile phone is switched to silent. Velg
Training recommends that if this is your primary contact number then you should not turn it
off completely. If you lose audio through the session we will try to contact you via landline
or mobile to get you back on line as swiftly as possible.
A typical webinar audience will not ask a lot of questions, until they see that you are actively
trying to answer them. By answering a question early in the presentation, you should see
that the quality and amount of questions you receive will increase.
Planning for the unplannable
As a webinar presenter it is extremely important to remember that sometimes technology
fails. Throughout all webinars, you will experience a short delay between the screen you as
a presenter are currently seeing and what your attendees see. You are able to open
‘audience view’, as a presenter this will enable you to see when your attendees are looking
at the same screen as you to time both your speech and PowerPoint slide clicking. If you
see a mistake on your PowerPoint or accidently click through too many slides, do not draw
attention to this as the audience will most likely never notice.
