As a marketing professional it never ceases to amaze me how many pitiful presentations I’ve been forced to sit through. During webinars, in business meetings, or conferences where I (insert my employer) paid a large sums of money for me to attend.

Folks using default PowerPoint templates, terrible clip art they purchased at Best Buy, and animation that makes the deck impossible to follow. And of course the worse offense of all. Reading your bullet points back to me like your audience is bunch of four-year-olds.

Well Meryl K. Evans of Content Maven has put together a comprehensive list of 70+ PowerPoint and Presentation Resources. Do yourself, and more importantly your audience a favor and bookmark the article and check out all these resources before you put together your next presentation.

Solid presentation skills are learned over time. That means if you want to dazzle your clients and prospects with your slide show or have them cheering after your speech you need to practice. Unfortunately since formal presentations for many business executives are an infrequent occurrence, you can’t become a master overnight. Below are a few tips we’ve learned over the years that can immediately help improve your next presentation.

Tip #1: Be Ready for Questions

Polished professional speakers prepare for common questions in advance, so they have a short and focused response. But if you don’t have the experience or a question throws you off balance, you can maintain composure by rephrasing the question back to the audience members to give you more time to think on your feet.

Tip #2: Pause; Don’t Trip

When you are nervous, everything becomes magnified. During a presentation forgetting what you intended to say or losing your flow of speech can be terrifying. When this happens remember to stop and take a deep breath. This pause feels incredibly unnatural, but it is usually barely noticed by the audience.

Pausing is far superior to tripping over your words and throwing out incoherent sentences. Most people end up speaking too fast when they feel nervous, so intentionally slowing down and taking time to pause can prevent tripping over your words which is a lot more noticeable.

Tip #3: Write Your Headings, Not Your Entire Speech

If you have to talk for over five or ten minutes, it can be difficult and incredibly time-consuming to prepare every single word of your speech and memorize it. Many professional speakers instead choose to just write major topic headings so they understand the structure, order, and the flow.

When you practice your presentation (which should always be done), note the places where you trip up. For these sections write out few sentences or bullet points you can refer back to during your presentation. The easy parts of your speech will continue to flow and you can be thoroughly prepared to handle the harder parts.

Tip #4: Don’t Distract With PowerPoint

PowerPoint slides are the standard for most business presentations. But remember that as a speaker you want the focus to be on you. Slides should enhance your presentation, not we the primary focal point. If your audience can get all the information they want from your slides why are they going to listen to you?

If you watch any presentations done by hugely successful speaker and marketer Seth Godin, you quickly notice how many of his slides are nothing more than a single image or word. These slides enhance the message he is trying to convey but they don’t steal the spotlight or distract the audience.

Oh, and one final tip, smile. To a large extent your audience will take on your tone and manner and if they feel you are having fun they’ll be much more likely to enjoy and recall what you have to say.

Late last week Cisco agreed to acquire webinar firm WebEx for $3.2 billion in cash (press release). WebEx in 2006 generated nearly $50 million in profit on about $380 million in revenue. They have $300 million or so in cash on hand, so the net deal value is $2.9 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of WebEx for $57 per share. Ouch, that is a pretty steep price per share I would think.

There is some more detailed analysis and commentary here:

• Q&A: Inside Cisco’s $3.2 Billion WebEx Bet (Network World)
• WebEx: What Cisco Gets From Acquisition (Linux World)
• Why Cisco Bought WebEx (O’Reilly Radar)

WebEx may be the leader from market share point-of-view, but it

1. Choose Your Webinar Vendor Wisely

Not all software vendors are alike. Many have hidden costs. Some require meeting attendees to install software on their machines to view your meeting.
So choose a vendor that works with a variety of operating systems and
is reliable and scalable. Also, consider vendors experienced in the
latest techniques in application sharing, polling, chat, and recording
features.

2. Choose the Date and Time of Your Web Meeting Carefully

Plan to host the Webinar at least twice to accommodate different time zones and people’s busy schedule.
Avoid Mondays or Fridays as these are peak busy days and attendance is
often much lower regardless of the quality of the content. Times such
as 10 AM and 2 PM are optimal, to ensure most are at their desks and
available before or after lunch.

3. Develop Quality Content

Invite an industry expert, customer, or partner to participate. This
will stimulate more interest, drive participation, and create synergy. A big brand name partner can add cache and even double or triple your attendance.
But don’t cram too much type or information on your slides. Keep them
simple and leave plenty of white space. You may also want to use
sponsorships to defray your promotional costs or to expand your reach
through their customer list(s).

4. Webinar Etiquette

Join your meeting early and verify that all links and presentations
are working. Share a “Welcome” slide that says your meeting will be
starting shortly. Before your meeting begins, provide a quick review of
housekeeping items, such as how to use the chat feature, that they
should mute their phone, or how the Q&A session will be handled.
Have each speaker identify themselves when speaking, and add a photo
and bio of the speakers for more personalization.

5. Avoid PowerPoint Only Webinars

The most captivating
presentations tend to be multimedia. Include animation, flash, photos,
application sharing, or other visual aids to make your presentation
more interesting. Engage your audience by including polling
questions at key points in your presentation. This will help keep your
audience’s attention and help improve future sessions.

6. Conduct Surveys Before and After

Ask qualifying questions during registration. This gives you
important insight into your audience. Use this information to tailor
your presentation accordingly. As people exit the Web Meeting ask them a short series of follow up questions to further qualify them. Questions like these can provide vital information for your sales reps.

7. Record Your Webinar

Post a recorded version of the Webinar on your site for future viewing. Build a reference library of past Web Meetings for your customers and prospects to review at their leisure.
Recorded Webinars and their Q&As and polls can also be very helpful
in training new employees or reviewing customer input prior to a new
product launch, sales meeting, or internal business strategy sessions.

8. Follow up Leads

Send a follow up email to participants thanking them for their
attendance. Include additional relevant information, such as inviting
them to your next Webinar. Send a “sorry we missed you” e-mail to registrants who did not attend and links to the recorded session.
Nurture these prospects to entice them to attend your next event. Pass
all registrants and participants to sales for follow-up, include the
survey and qualifying information.

9. Review and Refine Your Presentation

Review all feedback gathered from the Webinar. Consider variations
in the registration process, presentation, and Q&A session to
determine what could make the Web Meeting even more engaging.

If you follow these nine steps, which I’ve been using for more then five years, your next Webinar will be a successful one.

Finding out how to identify your needs and what to look for in a Webinar vendor can be a daunting task. When beginning your search for a Web conferencing or Web meeting solution, it is important to review a number of vendors, visit their Web sites, review live demos, seek client testimonials and, most important, ask a lot of questions.

Before taking
these steps, be sure to determine your objectives, note the features
and benefits you require, and set your monthly budget. Once
these objectives are established, be prepared to spend the time
required gathering information from each vendor under consideration.

The basic areas that should be addressed before talking to each vendor include:

• How many participants do you expect will attend your Web meetings?
• Will the number of participants remain consistent from meeting to meeting or will the number fluctuate? If so, how much?
• How many meetings will be conducted each week, month, or quarter?
• What type of content will be presented (PowerPoint slides, applications, documents, or spreadsheets)?
• What degree of interactivity do you require (polling, application sharing, instant messaging, live video, file sharing, etc.)?
• How much support do you need before, during, and after your
  meeting? It is vital to keep in mind the degree of customer service
  offered varies greatly from vendor to vendor.
• What is your monthly budget?
• Are there any special security requirements you need to deal with?
• Are your attendees accessing your meeting behind corporate firewalls?
• What types of operating systems do you need the service to support?

Once you’ve determined your requirements, it’s time to select a Web meeting vendor. Here are a few suggestions.

1. Select a pricing model: When you shop for Web meeting
technology, you’ll find a wide range of pricing plans and conditions.
Web conferencing typically is priced either on a software user-license
basis (pay-per-seat) or per minute of usage (pay-per-use).

• Pay-per-use: You pay only for the time you and your attendees spend in Web conferences.
• Pay-per-seat: You pay a flat monthly fee for a certain number of concurrent users (“seats”).

At first glance the trade-offs may seem straightforward, however,
the answer is much more complicated. Some additional considerations
are:

• Minimum number of seats: Most vendors
  require that you buy a minimum of five seats in a pay-per-seat license
  model. For example, at $100 per seat, your monthly cost is $500.
• Contracts: Most pay-per-seat plans require a
  long-term commitment ranging from three months to one year. If you are
  beginning to use Web conferencing for the first time, you will most
  likely not make full use of your pay-per-seat plan in the first month
  or two, but you will pay the full price anyway. You are also obligated
  to pay if you determine that the technology does not meet your
  requirements. With pay-per-use, you have more flexibility to make sure
  the technology meets your needs in a live environment and your costs
  grow with your actual usage.
• Set up fees: Many vendors charge a set up fee for
  pay-per-seat pricing (usually ranging from $1,000 – $4,000). Amortized
  over the first year of the service, the fees increase the monthly
  pay-per-seat cost. These fees can be negotiated particularly if you are
  purchasing a large number of seats. Very few pay-per-use plans require
  a set-up fee.
• Overage charges: In a pay-per-seat model, when the
  number of concurrent users exceeds the number of seat licenses you
  purchased, your vendors will apply an overage charge. For example, if
  you have a five-seat license and conduct a Web meeting with 10 users,
  you will have to pay for those extra five attendees. These fees are
  typically charged by a fraction of an hour and can cost as high as $15
  per quarter hour. Pay-per-use plans let you include as many attendees
  as you want at the same per minute price.

2. Make sure it’s easy to use: Most vendor brochures list the same
set of features and functionality. The real difference between
solutions comes down to how well it functionally works, reliability,
and usability. Ask to demo the service as both a participant and meeting host.
In each scenario, test each of the features to see how well they work
and how easy they are to use. Ask the vendor if free trials are
available.

3. Get the features you need: Some Web conferencing solutions only
support online presentations, while others offer full-featured packages
that include polling, chatting, application-sharing, white boarding and
group Web surfing. Do
you seek the ability to record and archive the event for playback? Can
you transfer files within the meeting? Make sure the product meets your
needs.

4. Customer support levels: Determine the customer support level
that you require and find out if there are any additional costs
involved. There are two types of customer support that you will most
likely need.

• Real-time technical support:
  Attendees will inevitably need help from time-to-time joining your
  meeting. If so, you cannot afford to get voice mail when contacting
  technical support. Make sure your vendor has live support available, at
  least during business hours, without waiting on hold forever. The
  best thing to do is call each vendor’s customer service number and see
  if you get a live person vs. voice mail or a never-ending phone menu.
• Pre-conference training and consultation: Is training
  and meeting planning support available? Is there an extra fee? Is there
  a telephone number available so that you can contact a support person
  or is only e-mail support offered? Does the firm offer complete
  documentation (online and PDF)?

5. Consider security requirements: Depending on the audience and the information being shared, security might be a concern. Most solutions are secure enough and do not store meeting data any place except on the presenter’s PC.Participants
only see a graphical representation of the data through a standard Web
browser. Some services provide pass-code authorization, SSL encryption,
and the ability to lock and unlock the meeting.

6. Make sure the service works with corporate firewalls: If
you are meeting or presenting to individuals at business locations,
make sure the service will work through multiple Internet ports in the
event a primary port is blocked by a firewall.

7. Cross platform support: Find out what the system
requirements are. Does the solution support multiple operating
platforms including: Microsoft Windows (95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP), MAC
(which versions?), and Linux?

Pay-per-use
pricing is the better conservative choice for most companies learning
how to leverage Web conferencing for their businesses. You
avoid set up fees and you don’t have to monitor the number of
concurrent users in order to avoid overage charges. You can always
start with a pay-per-use plan and switch to a pay-per-seat plan once
there is a clear, long-term financial advantage.