In just a little bit I’ll be doing a free webinar, Public Speaking for Business Development, designed for attorneys and legal marketing professionals. It is currently “sold out” at 100 seats.

We will be recording this program and will post a link on this blog as well as our CLE website, Pincus Professional Education.  Update: here is the recording.

As I prepare for the webinar, a few quick reminders came to mind that I can pass on.

First – when you’re doing a webinar, you should really test things out the day before and then again about one to two hours before the program, to give you lots of time to fix things.

Second,  check your speaking notes and your slides.  I just noticed a few minutes ago that my notes had not been put back in the right order!  OK, that would just be a bummer to discover 10 minutes into my presentation.

Third, always have a back up. Currently I have to staff members with my presentation and slides at different locations. One has “host” capability and one has “presenter” capability, so that if my system crashes, we can keep on going regardless.  They can move the slides, which I really don’t need to see, and I can keep talking.

Fourth, and this may seem pretty obvious, but people get nervous before speaking, so the reminder is needed: turn off all phones – cell, office, anyone else’s phone if they are sitting in your office when you are speaking, etc.  For example, my bookkeeper is here today and I just reminded her to turn her cell on quiet.

I recommend creating a little check-list that you keep with you various presentations, related to the type of presentation, stuck right in there with the speaking notes:

• one check list for your webinars
• one check list for your local in-person speeches
• one check list for your speeches that require travel

If you’re on today’s call, don’t hesitate to post a comment here or on our facebook page.

Cheers!