5 Essential Habits to Become an In-Demand Webinar Presenter

I love the spotlight. I am a born performer. However, I promise to never sing while I am a webinar presenter.

My Mother recalls the story of when my family went to a Gold Coast restaurant (Italian cuisine, I think) where their feature attraction was an old pianola. It played the popular tunes without anyone needing to have piano playing skills. The songbook was a classic list of family singalong tunes that even I as a child knew. Sure enough, my family settled in to sing and I remember proudly exercising my lungs having a great time belting out the tunes. Later my Mother told me that the restaurant owner confessed to her that after having heard thousands of patrons sing I was the worst singer he had ever heard. I suspect the unfortunate souls who sit near me at Church each week would also agree.

If you have attended one of my webinars this story might make sense to you. I proudly take centre stage when I present. I love welcoming everyone into the room and then teaching with enthusiasm from go to whoa. I am busy and I never hesitate to put my best foot forward. However, I don’t present webinars with energy and excitement because I want to be the centre of the Universe. Instead, I just want to teach to the best of my ability. My style is to do this by providing education while being entertaining. Being a confident edutainer is part of the package as to how I optimise the effectiveness of my webinars. Your style might be very different. Regardless of your style however, I believe there are 5 essential habits to become an in-demand webinar presenter. This video identifies and explains these 5 essential habits, all of which anyone can develop.

5 Essential Habits to become an In-Demand Webinar Presenter – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SusERXtqO5U

What are the 5 essential habits to become an in-demand webinar presenter?

My thoughts in this article are based partly upon my experiences presenting webinars. However, most of these ideas are centred around the many webinar presenters that I have had the opportunity to watch. A talented webinar presenter at full throttle is a beautiful wonderful thing to behold. OK, maybe that sounds a little over the top (to you, at least). However, I do know that a webinar presenter who lacks confidence and is unfamiliar with their equipment or content is a train wreck that none of us want to witness.

I present to you the 5 steps for you to become an in-demand webinar presenter.

1. Watch others

Watch others. Carefully. If you want to become an accomplished opera star then watch lots of high quality operas. Webinars are no different. If you want to subconsciously pickup the nuances and habits that the best webinar presenters possess then watch them ply their trade. Take notes if you like but watching without any conscious effort to learn will be helpful in itself. Also, just as importantly, don’t watch poor webinar presenters.

2. Be fully familiar with your content

You may have already heard me mention the 5 Ps elsewhere. Proper preparation prevents poor performance. As someone who has assessed presentation skills for more than 12 years, I can assure you that the 5Ps is more relevant than almost trainers typically recognise. Even if are not intuitively a planning person, it pays big dividends to comprehensively understand the content you are going to cover, including your session plan and likely questions.

3. Get ready early and prepare your equipment methodically

Whenever I am preparing to present a webinar, I block out my schedule for 1 hour before the webinar. I am fanatical about this because it gives me sufficient time to get my equipment ready and my head primed. Delivering a webinar requires a lot of mental focus so that your energy levels are ready and so that you are able to focus on multiple items at the same time (especially if you are doing everything yourself).

4. Cast fear aside

If you are nervous that is OK. In fact, being nervous is a really good thing. It reflects that the adrenaline is pumping and your body is ready for a challenge. More importantly, it is a signal that you care about your level of performance. I have heard about football players who routinely vomit before commencing a game. Gross, but true. I get personally concerned when I AM nervous, because it might be a sign that I don’t care. Being nervous is OK, but not controlling your nerves and letting them compromise your performance is a problem. I have heard sportspeople and stage actors describe how the nerves abate once they get started. I find it is the same. Within a couple of minutes of getting started with my presentation (either online or face-to-face) my nerves settle and I can concentrate fully on what is happening in the now.

5. Be brave and engage

This is probably my primary theme of this website’s content. Be brave. Put yourself out there. Engage with your webinar participants. Let them know that you care to case your inhibitions aside and open up to them about who you are and the content you want to teach. You are not an aloof lecturer, but someone who wants to share what you know and teach your participants while you learn from them too. This is the magic that draw your participants into you and your webinar. It creates trust and forgiveness if you have a technical problem or make an error.

What do you think is required to become an in-demand webinar presenter?

What do you think about my 5 essential habits to become an in-demand webinar presenter? Have I missed something that should be on the list? Please have your say in the YouTube video comments.

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