virtual presentation skills checklist

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Tamsen Webster

Empowering Keynote Speaker and Presentation Strategist

Presenting virtually? Here’s a checklist to make it great.

One of the things that’s most different about these past few weeks is how much we’ve had to meet, and present, virtually. While we may know, or sense, that the biggest enemy of virtual presentations is your multitasking (on the part of your audience), often our focus is on minimizing that multitasking, it helps to understand the role our senses play in that.

Remember actually being in a meeting, or at a conference?  All of your senses — touch, taste, smell, hearing — all experienced the same thing: “I’m at an event.”  Even the incidental experiences, like the scratchy fire-retardant fabric of the chairs and the carbtastic snacks in the hallway, said, “You’re in a different place, doing a different thing. Pay attention.”

But now? Those senses are split. Your audience  sees  something that reads to their brains as something like “cat video” or “something I have to watch for work.” The smells, tastes, and sounds are mostly familiar ones — of  home .

And that makes the “off” sound… you. You don’t “belong.” But rather than pay more attention (as humans are usually wired to do), your audience pays less attention. Why? Because the majority of their senses are saying, “You’re home, you’re safe, carry on.” And so their attention wanders to the things that matter more to them in the moment, which is usually anything BUT you.

So, what to do? Well, rather than try to battle multitasking (you can’t), my experience is that the answers lie in leaning into it: maximize the multisensory . Engage as many of your audience’s senses as possible so you tip the sensory scales from “You’re home, you’re safe, carry on,” over to “You may be in the  same  place, but this is is a different thing. Pay attention.” You can’t do anything about smell or taste, but you  can maximize your message across sight, sound, and touch.

How? Well, here’s a quick checklist (most links are affiliate links, fyi, and thanks to the sudden rush on these kinds of things, many of these are currently out of stock):

To capture their EYES:

• Can you put the video of yourself and your slides up at the same time? YOU are often the most important part of keeping your audience’s attention, so keep yourself onscreen and on-camera as much as possible. Your movement helps keep their attention. Related to that:
• Have you chosen someone to imagine you’re giving it the presentation to? (Consider putting a picture of them next to the camera to “warm-up” your onscreen persona)
• Have you considered getting an external webcam? (E.g., Logitech c920, Logitech Brio, Razer Kiyo, etc.) A higher-quality of image of you helps you look more dimensional and “real” to your audience, and thus harder to ignore. 
• If you aren’t using a headset mic, have you considered getting an external microphone? (Blue Yeti, Samson GoMic, etc.)
• Can you stand, if possible? You breathe differently when you stand, which usually means you have more energy.
• Have you made sure you have a light source in front of you (but not behind you)? It’s easy to ignore someone you can’t see clearly, so put your light source in front of you.
• Have you minimized distractions in your background? The last thing you want is people distracted by what’s going on around you. Something solid and stationary is often best, or you can use an artfully arranged corner of your home. Be very thoughtful about the use of virtual backgrounds and green screens. Virtual backgrounds can potentially be a way to communicate personality, but some folks seem to be inherently suspicious of “fake” backgrounds (though I would argue an artfully arranged background has some measure of unreality to it, too). The big thing with virtual backgrounds is to make sure you contrast with them (or you’ll get weird “fuzzing out” of your edges), so again, make sure you’re well-lit from the front. I live in a VERY small space (675 square feet), and do almost all of my work on-camera and virtually, so I chose to get a pop-up green screen I could use to (a) face a window and (b) hide the kitchen behind me. I usually use as my background either a two-tone pattern that’s in line with my brand standards or a picture of my living room. That picture is what you would see if I had my back to the window and was presenting from there. Here’s what that looks like:

The only light I’m using is from the window that’s now in front of me, though it looks like it’s behind! If you’re wondering how I blurred the background to look like it would with a fancy camera: you can either take a blurry picture, or use a photo editing software (I like  Acorn  — way cheaper than Photoshop!) to add a “bokeh blur” filter. Either can help recreate the depth of field you lose with a green screen or virtual background.

• Are you wearing a solid color or wide pattern?  Avoid thin stripes and other small patterns — they create movement that’s distracting.
• Have you practiced flipping the orientation of your gestures to the audience’s view? Yes, you can “mirror” yourself on-camera, but that means any text you hold up will be unreadable. It takes some practice, but eventually you can learn to reverse your gestures so that you’re creating them from your audience’s point of view. Pro tip: anything you do right-to-left will appear to them as left-to-right (like a timeline).
• Do they contain only ONE idea?
• If they need to contain more, do the slides build those ideas one-by-one?

To capture their EARS:

• Do they reinforce the key points?
• Do they avoid serving as a script?
• Are they leveraging what visuals do better than words? (pictures, processes, visualized data, etc.)
• Have you listened to recordings of yourself (or of your rehearsal) to find opportunities to improve?
• Do you know what your  “green,” “yellow,” and “red” sections or lines are? (I discuss this concept starting at about the 26-minute mark in the interview)
• If possible, can you do a “hot seat” (where you interact with an audience member, and their voice) or have a co-host you can interact with so you have a variety of voices? Hearing a different voice, or having the opportunity to use their own, gives the audience’ brains a break in the “sameness” of sound. That’s yet another way to reengage their attention.

To capture their HANDS:

• Have you sent the handout out in advance? (Do this! Also, post links to it early and often in your presentation, and let your audience know that you’ll be referring to it… and then do so.)
• Are you having the audience type responses to polls, questions, etc.? Yes, this is a callback to the earlier question. But if you have the technology, have people interact with you — via their fingers — in polls, the chat, etc.

Want even more detail? My husband Tom and I went deep on this on the latest episode of  The Freenoter , so you can get your fill (and Tom’s different perspective) there.

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10 Tips For Giving Effective Virtual Presentations

September 26, 2016

Presenting online? Try these suggestions to improve your results. | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

As audiences go global and you need to reach more people through technology (including webinars, conference calls and teleconference), you must consider the challenges to connecting with a virtual audience. Here I pinpoint 10 valuable best practices to ensure you communicate successfully.

1. Be Brief

Audiences begin to lose attention after roughly 10 minutes of hearing from the same presenter. If you have more than 10 minutes of content, use interactive activities to keep your audience engaged (for example, take a poll, give quizzes, or ask audience members for their opinions via chat).

2. Be Simple

Keep slides simple — avoid too many words, graphics and animation features. Less is definitely more!

Light yourself well | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

3. Be a TV Personality

Look straight into your camera, not the screen. Wear clothing that is neutral in color (no plaids or stripes). Light yourself well and from above. Be mindful of what appears behind you in the background. Invest in a good microphone.

4. Be Standing

Even though your audience cannot see you, stand when you present. This allows you to stay focused and use good presentation delivery skills such as belly breathing, vocal variety, and pausing.

5. Be Prepared

Practice delivering your presentation with your technology in advance of your talk. Make sure all of the features of the technology work. Record your practice using the recording feature of your tool. Watch and listen to learn what works and what you can improve.

6. Be Assisted

Have someone available to deal with technical issues and to field email/text questions. Also, if you have multiple remote audience members in one location, be sure to pick one of them to be your “eyes and ears.” Ask them to queue up questions and facilitate discussion on your behalf.

7. Be Specific

Ask pointed questions to avoid too many people answering at once. For example, rather than ask, “Are there any questions?” try “Who has a question about the solution I provided?” Set a ground rule that people state their names prior to speaking.

Imagine your audience | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

8. Be Synchronized

Transitions are critical. You must connect what you just said to what is coming next when you move from point to point. Transitions between topics and slides are good opportunities to get people reengaged to your talk.

9. Be Connected

Imagine your audience even though you can’t see them. You can place pictures of audience members behind your camera so you can look at people as you present.

10. Be Early

Encourage your audience to access your call or webinar in advance of the start time so you can iron out any technical issues in advance and get them familiar with the technology.

Matt Abrahams is a Stanford GSB organizational behavior lecturer, author, and communications coach.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

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Presentation Checklist: What to do Before and After Delivery

October 27, 2017 - Dom Barnard

Before you give a presentation, you might want to work through this checklist to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

Purpose of the presentation

• What is the purpose of your presentation?
• What is the end goal?
• What would you consider a successful outcome?

Presentation preparation

• Check how long your presentation slot is
• Check that your presentation doesn’t overrun on time
• Rehearse your presentation to friends or colleagues
• Rehearse your presentation using  virtual reality  to reduce nerves
• Prepare speaker notes or cue cards
• Take a  presentations training course  to improve your skills
• Think about where to breathe and pause
• Number your notes in case you drop them
• Ensure  your introduction  explains your objectives and grabs the audiences’ attention
• Clearly define the points of the presentation
• Check the main points are in  logical order  and flow well
• The conclusion should be clear, concise and tie with the introduction
• Make sure you are knowledgeable about the topic you are presenting

Presentation slides

• Keep slide designs  simple and concise  – use minimal text and high quality pictures
• Make sure there are no grammar or spelling errors on the presentation slides
• Check and facts you display and make sure you can back them up
• If appropriate, post slides to the web, include URL at end of talk
• Saved your presentation onto two different formats (USB, cloud storage, etc.)
• Confirmed that the audio-visual equipment you require will be in the room
• Ensure you  practice with your presentation slides  to get the correct timings

Visual aids and handouts

• Check the  visual aids  are easy to read and understand
• Make sure they tie into the points you are trying to communicate
• Ensure they can be easily seen from all areas of the room
• Prepare any handouts  you want to give out and proof read them
• Make sure you have sufficient handouts
• Double check the visual aids are working (especially if it’s a demo)

Audience analysis

• Think about  who will be in the audience
• Determine if there will be decision makers
• Think about their knowledge of the topic
• Think about if their native language is the same language as the presentation
• Check if the organiser can provide a rough demographic

Audience questions

• Think about possible  questions you will be asked  and have spare slides to address them
• Decide how long you will leave for questions at the end
• Decide if you want to specify areas you are willing to answer questions on

Other speakers at the event

• Found out who else will be speaking and what they will be speaking about
• Check if other speaker topics are related to yours
• Check if someone else will introduce you or if you need to do it yourself
• Determine whether you will be presenting alone or as part of a group

Location and type of event

• Check the floor, room and location of the event
• Find a contact persons email or number in case you are running late
• Get directions to the venue, including parking vouchers if required
• Try to find last year’s programs to determine the style of the event
• Check if there are reviews of the event on blogs or social media
• Check the type of event – is it an industry event where you’re expected to address professionals? Is it a seminar for aspiring leaders looking for inspiration and motivation?
• Check the style of presenting you’ll be doing (indoors, outdoors, standing, sitting, etc.)
• Understand the size and layout of the room you will be presenting in

Your appearance

• Make sure you are dressed and groomed appropriately and aligned with the audience’s expectations
• First impressions  are very important for credibility, maintain a polished and professional look
• Practice your speech paying close attention to your body language and posture, both of which will be assessed by the audience
• Decided what to wear the day before
• As a rule of thumb, dress slightly better than your audience members

On the morning of the event

• Eat a good breakfast to give you energy on stage
• Get some light exercise in
• Check your laptop is charged
• Check you have your slides ready on your laptop
• Avoid unnecessary stress by getting to the venue early

Bring with you to the event

• Bottle of water in case your throat goes dry
• Your laptop and any necessary cables
• Backup slides on a USB or hard drive
• A remote to  control your slides  if required
• Extension cord if required
• Any physical demo, handouts, or other visual aids if required
• Your presentation notes or cue cards

At the event

• Register and let the organiser know you’ve arrived
• Find your room and watch another speaker present
• If time allows, mingle and  meet people  who might be in your audience
• Return to the room before the speaker before you finishes, maximising your time to set up
• Get your laptop hooked up to projector immediately – most problems occur here
• Test your slides and any videos
• Walk around on stage and get comfortable with the room
• Run through the first couple of minutes of your presentation
• Make sure you have a glass or bottle of water with you
• Sit in the back row and make sure your text is readable
• If you’re nervous, distract yourself by going for a walk
• Turn your mobile on silent

After the event

• Make yourself visible so people can find you to ask questions about your talk
• Write questions from attendees on their business cards so you can answer in email later
• Post slides online or to  SlideShare  if appropriate
• Email people who gave you their cards, answering their questions
• Thank the organiser and ask for any feedback
• If your talk was filmed, ask for a copy so you can learn from it

Your Virtual Presentation Checklist

by Karen Cortell Reisman | Jul 21, 2020

Picture you’re running a livestream meeting for your Board of Governors, or you’re giving a presentation to an international association or you’re talking 1:1 to your million-dollar client.

You’re doing all of this from your dining room table.

Last week I became a Certified Virtual Presenter from eSpeakers after “demonstrating the tools, environment and skills to perform a quality remote presentation using live video.”

While you do not need this certification to do your work, I want to share some tips I learned that will improve your ability to conduct your virtual meetings and communication.

Here is your Speak For Yourself® Virtual Presentation Checklist that includes the obvious (you won’t believe how easy it is to NOT do this stuff all the time, so just do it) to the not-so-obvious items.

• Plug in your computer. Don’t rely on your battery.
• Get your natural lighting right. Pull the shades down if BEHIND you (or you’ll look 51 years older). Pull shades up if IN FRONT of you.
• Turn light on (in front of you) that highlights you without adding shadows.
• Turn off all the other programs and links on your computer. You will increase Internet speed and not reveal private info if you end up sharing your screen.
• Have Ethernet cable as a standby if you go wireless. Have wireless available if you’re using Ethernet cable.
• Cut & paste the zoom/WebEx link with password and keep it handy. You may get kicked off or frozen off and this is your golden ticket to get back in to your meeting … quickly.
• Plug in your mobile so you have lots of juice. If Internet fails you, you will use your hotspot on your phone and you’ll need all the battery power.
• Think about upgrading your Internet service. Click on https://fast.com/#  to see how fast your current system is. Ideally your Upload Bandwidth (Mbps) must be at least 1.5Mbs and your Network latency (ms) must be less than 100ms for reliable video streaming.

Have fun conducting business from your dining room table. Call us if you want to discuss the gory tech details.

© 2020 Karen Cortell Reisman, All rights reserved

#Speaking #PresentationSkills #BusinessCommunication #OrganizationalCommunication #Speaker #SpeakingSkillsCoach Karen Cortell Reisman, MS, Executive Communication Author & Speaker

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The Go-to Checklist for Prepping Your Online Presentations

As we head into the 12th month since scads of people around the world were sent home to work remotely in attempts to avoid a raging, deadly pandemic, professionals around the world have taken crash courses in better online communications. During that time, we’ve learned that there are important distinctions between delivering an in-person presentation and delivering a virtual one.

Presenting to an online audience certainly has its advantages. Many people are more comfortable speaking to a screen—even one filled with faces— than to a room full of people. Virtual presentations also can reach a much wider audience, but at the same time it becomes much harder to engage an audience through a screen. 

There’s no telling what kind of distractions audience members have in their remote locations, and obviously you’re trying to reach them with zero physical contact, including no face-to-face audio or visual. It’s almost impossible to know definitively if anyone is paying attention. Likewise, you don’t have any audience reactions to gauge whether your presentation is succeeding or if you should change course to recapture attention.

Ensuring a virtual presentation effectively conveys your message begins long before its delivery. It’s even more important that you make a brilliant first impression with your audience and plan for extra ways to keep people engaged with your online presentation and hold their attention. In fact, preparing to deliver a virtual presentation in many ways is more important than the online public speaking skills themselves.

Want to ensure your online presentation effectively communicates your message to a virtual audience? Be sure you prepare for plenty of professionalism and ample engagement.

The following checklist should help you prep to deliver a stellar virtual presentation:

Prep for Professionalism

First impressions really are everything. According to Quantified Communications, you only have 15 seconds to make a good first impression on your audience – although a University of Toronto study found it could be as few as 5 seconds . 

At the same time, 90 percent of listeners’ first impressions of a speaker remain unchanged even after hearing the entire content of the message. During this time, you must impress your audience with your professionalism, so preparation is key.

• Check for potential technical issues.

When your entire presentation relies on technology, you can’t afford to have any system or equipment glitches. There’s no such thing as winging it if your connection fails or if you lose audio. 

Before your presentation be sure you double and even triple check all internet connections – wired is more reliable than Wifi – as well as audio feeds, microphones, cameras, slideshows, monitors and any other technical aspect of your virtual presentation. 

Even after completing all those extra checks and rechecks, plan for the technical worst by preparing a backup plan should technology fail. 

• Eliminate all distractions

You might not be able to control your virtual audiences’ remote distractions, but you can make sure nothing interferes with your online presentation. Be sure you are recording in a well-lit area and pay attention to anything visually distracting behind you. 

Take every possible precaution to ensure you won’t experience any audio interruptions. You can’t help it if a stray dog starts barking outside the window, but you can try and make sure you don’t plan your presentation for the same time the garbage truck pulls up to your home. 

• Dress the part

What impression do you want to make on your audience? To make a professional presentation, you have to dress the part. Just because your audience has a more limited view of you, that doesn’t mean you don’t want a tidy appearance. 

If delivering the presentation in a casual environment, it’s OK to match the style, but always ensure you’re dressed at least as professionally as your audience and any fellow presenters or speakers. It’s always better to err on the side of being overdressed than the alternative. 

Choose colors that will not clash with your background, and don’t wear anything with loud patterns that will create a visual distraction. Dress for success, and please, for goodness’ sake— no matter how much of you is or isn’t in the camera’s view— make sure you’re wearing pants!

• Practice controlling your body language

Nonverbal communication can be pivotal in an online presentation, as long as it’s controlled and appropriate. Hand gestures can be an effective nonverbal cue to hold a virtual audience’s attention or to emphasize a point. At the same time, those same hand gestures can become a distraction if too large or erratic. 

Keep in mind that while you might be tempted to sit at a desk or table and look into your webcam, you don’t have to deliver your virtual presentation while seated. You often can present a more authoritative and confident demeanor while standing.

• Screen record yourself

One advantage of delivering a virtual presentation comes from the ability to record yourself practicing since the playback will be exactly what your audience will experience during the real deal. 

Be sure you practice in the same room, with the same equipment and lighting that you’ll use during your live online presentation. Then use the screen record feature on your computer to capture the same view that your audience will see. That way, you can watch it back and make tweaks as you go along.

Prep for Engagement

Because you can’t look out upon your audience, it’s even more important to engage people and hold on to their interest and attention. Effective engagement during an online presentation requires advance preparation. The best engagement tools start as you prepare your virtual presentation.

• Plan a virtual icebreaker

Grab hold of your audience’s attention and connect with it from the start of your online presentation with an effective virtual icebreaker . Have audience members participate in a fun or humorous survey, calling on members to answer with their favorite memory, dream job or fantasy vacation. You can also break the ice by telling a silly joke or telling a short story related to the presentation topic and your message.

• ‡Prepare visual storytelling

Visual storytelling is extremely effective at boosting remote audience engagement. By its very nature, visual content describes and explains more clearly than written or oral communication. Online articles that feature images attract 94 percent more views than those with only text. 

Plan to integrate visual storytelling elements like an animated slide deck , photos, video , pictographs and other infographics into your online presentation . Adding visual elements to your online presentation is simple thanks to Beautiful.ai’s smart slide templates . Just add your content and watch the animated infographics automatically adjust based on principles of good design used by the pros. 

Beautiful.ai users also can search for visual content in Beautiful.ai’s integrated library featuring millions of vivid, public-domain (yup, that means free!) images, fonts, logos and attention-grabbing animations.

• Plan audience interactions

Because engagement is more challenging in a virtual environment, a few extra tips and tricks might be necessary to hold the audience’s interest. Props can help to explain concepts in the online presentation, but involving viewers with short quizzes or polls very effectively involves a virtual audience with your presentation. The presenter can also answer audience questions, calling on various remote viewers to ask about a certain topic or anything of their choosing.

• ‡Decrease complex animations to avoid rendering

With so much amazing free presentation software available, it’s only obvious to want to add complex animations to your virtual presentation. You must, however, remain mindful of audience members’ potential technical challenges. You don’t want to include content in your online presentation that will cause rendering issues for viewers with more limited connections.

• Send preview materials

Sending preview materials to the audience prior to an online presentation can promote audience engagement before the virtual presentation even starts. Send participants an email with an attention-grabbing teaser, as well as the agenda for your online presentation. 

You can also use this opportunity to include any additional infographics, tables or charts you’ll be using so your audience can take a closer look and reference themselves. Don’t forget to include the credentials and contact information of any principles who were involved in or team members who helped to produce the virtual presentation. After the presentation is over, you may want to follow up with the deck for the audience to revisit down the road. Sharing is easy with Beautiful.ai, simply share the presentation link and your recipients can open the presentation right in their own browser. 

• Practice looking in their eyes

In public speaking, it’s important to connect with the audience by looking at people, not over them, behind them or through them— or worse, at your notes, failing to look at the audience at all. But how can you make that face-to-face connection with a virtual audience? 

You look virtual audience members in the eyes by looking directly into the camera. You will be tempted to look at your screen, but that’s a sure way to lose their attention since to the audience it will appear you’re looking at the table in front of them or even their feet. Practice looking into the camera as you screen record yourself. And don’t forget to smile!

Samantha Pratt Lile

Samantha is an independent journalist, editor, blogger and content manager. Examples of her published work can be found at sites including the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, and Buzzfeed.

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