Webcast Fail: Speaker no-shows

The other day I was moderating a webcast for a large technology company, and as usual we all dialed in a half hour early to make sure everyone’s phone was working, the presenters were comfortable pushing their slides, and generally just to ensure we were all set to go at our allotted start time.

As the clock was ticking to the top of the hour, one of the members of our team was MIA.  Unfortunately it was our featured presenter, who was giving a very detailed technical presentation that only he was familiar with.  So, his “handlers” reached out via email, cellphone, called his manager, used the company’s internal IM system – nothing.  He had vanished with just a few minutes to go before start time.

We began frantically looking for a substitute presenter – ANYBODY who might have seen his slide deck before and felt comfortable presenting on this topic.  No joy there either.  So our production team and the marketing folks from my client got ready for Plan B, which meant telling the audience our speaker had an emergency and that we’d have to reschedule.  As we hit our scheduled start time, I posted a message to all the attendees asking them to stand by for a few minutes as we were having technical difficulties (OK, I lied to buy time).   Attendees began streaming in – hundreds had registered for this event – and everyone on our pre-call began to panic as we hit five minutes past scheduled start.

Just as we were about to pull the plug on the event, someone located our missing presenter.  Where was he?  Was he OK?  He had simply had the event on his calendar for an hour after the actual start time, and was rushing to a phone where he could dial in.

He joined the call at 10 minutes past the hour, flustered and without benefit of logging in to the console to view the webcast live.  I told him to get ready, took my time with the introduction so he could gather his thoughts, and then I began to push his slides, letting him know what the audience was seeing as he presented from a printout of his deck.

We had planned for an hour webcast and now had to cram it into less than 50 minutes, so I gently rushed him along, quickly moving through his slides and managing to get to the end with about a minute to spare.  One audience question and we wrapped up.

Although the worst case scenario was avoided we lost several attendees waiting for him to arrive.  Our post-event email will invite all those who had to leave to view the event in archive, but certainly some damage was done.

SO… Best practice number one:  Contact your presenters 24 hours before the event and make sure they know when to be on the live call, and re-contact them once again an hour before to remind them.  If possible, have a backup presenter waiting in the wings to take over should an emergency arise.  And keep the aspirin handy.

Ready, Set, Plan For The Worst

Earlier this week I hosted a webcast featuring a great speaker – a well known  author, engaging presenter and communications coach.  We’d done events together in the past and knew each other’s style, had a great topic and a huge audience.  Of course Murphy struck with a vengeance. 

Our featured speaker was calling in from a hotel room – not uncommon at all.  His room had a broadband connection, his phone sounded great, but as we got underway the bandwidth to his notebook just went to hell in a hand basket.   Suddenly, as he advanced his slides, he couldn’t see the slide changes on his screen.  Thinking he wasn’t advancing the slides properly, he kept pushing the advance button till he was way out of sync with the slides everyone else was viewing.

Once we realized what was happening he passed control of the slides over to me and I gave him verbal cues as to what the audience was seeing and we continued to complete a great session with excellent audience participation.  All in all a successful event.  But for a few minutes it was clear that we were having some kind of trouble.

We didn’t find out exactly what happened until the post-webcast wrap up call, but once we did we discussed what we could do to ameliorate the problem should it crop up again during our next event together.

Here are some things to keep in mind when running your next webcast.

Your internet connection isn’t reliable.  Don’t expect you’ll have the bandwidth you need – or for that matter the connectivity you need at the time your event goes live.  Always have a hard copy of your presentation in front of you so you can keep presenting when your technology fails.

Have a “presentation buddy”.  If your slides have lots of builds and subtle transitions that are key to your presentation, ensure there’s somebody else on the call who can take over the job of advancing the slides for you.  This could be the event moderator, a colleague in another location or a dedicated event producer if there is one.  Do a complete dress rehearsal with those people so they will clearly understand your cues for advancing the slide or build.

Hide the extension phones.  There is a legendary story at Ziff-Davis eSeminars about a presenter whose visiting mother-in-law picked up an extension phone during a webcast and began to blindly dial and say “Hello?  Is this thing working?” when she heard unexpected voices on the line.  That particularly embarrassing event happened to me a few years ago.   While you’re at it turn off your iPhone, pager, Blackberry, PC speakers and anything else that will make noise you don’t want to share with a few hundred of your closest friends.

Check the equipment before you start.  If you’re in a hotel room or unfamiliar office ensure you can mute your phone for those times someone else is speaking or presenting.  And if you are doing a long event – some virtual trade shows I’ve participated in have run three hours or longer – work from a wired phone so you don’t run the battery down on your cordless handset or headset.  I’ve had presenters ‘disappear’ in the middle of an event when their phone died.

Have a drink.  If you’re speaking for a while you’ll get thirsty.  Have a tall glass of water handy when you start to wet your whistle when necessary.  And take a bio-break before you start, just in case.

Have you had an event melt down?  Let me know what other disasters we can help avert together.

Webcast Prep – Speaker Readiness and Rehearsal

What are the two most frequently heard syllables on webcasts? Easy – “um” and “uh”.

I suppose it could be worse. I remember a teenager I worked with years ago who could not complete a sentence without at least five “like”s and six “you know”s. I’d raise a finger to count each one, driving her crazy but hopefully getting the point across.

When you or someone you work with is preparing to make a presentation to scores or hundreds of potential customers, being ready to present means more than knowing your content cold.  You might have given the same presentation in person or to a group, but not having live audience feedback – not being able to see their faces and gestures – can wreak havoc with your timing and sense of how the events is going.  The result can be hesitation bringing with it silent pauses or those nasty filler syllables.

Here’s some thoughts on how best to prepare yourself (or your speakers) when getting ready to webcast.

• Be the subject matter expert. Attendees want to hear the expert point of view.  If you’re not the expert find someone to bring you up to speed.
• Write a script and rehearse. You shouldn’t read your speaker notes or script word for word but you should have a great idea of what you’re going to say for each slide you present.  And that doesn’t mean reading the bullet points on the slide.
• Time your rehearsal. You can do this alone with a stopwatch or as part of a dry run walkthrough so you know your material will fit into the timeslot allotted for your presentation.  Many webcasting platforms and venues just cut you off at the end of your time slot.  I’ve seen great presentations ruined by the speaker running out of time before he made his big point.
• Do a dry run using the webcast tool.  You should be familiar enough with your webcasting platform to be able to pass control to somebody else if needed, either verbally or through the webcasting tool.  If you plan to advance your own slides you should be comfortable with the controls so you’re not fumbling – or panicking – during your live event.  Make sure you know what to expect on your screen during the event – some platforms show audience polls, special agenda slides and speaker headshots that briefly obscure what you’re presenting.  If you know they’re coming and see them in action beforehand you won’t break your stride during the webcast
• Have some answers ready.  If you’re going to have a live Q&A session prepare a few seed questions to get the ball rolling.  Most audiences don’t start asking questions until they’ve heard one or two answered, so think of a few that would amplify or clarify some key points and use them to get the juices flowing.
• Ask for help.  There are plenty of coaches who can help you get all this done.  Don’t be afraid to reach out to professionals for assistance in any part of the process.

Do you have a personal presenter pet peeve?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Great Webcasts? Begin with a great plan

You’ve decided to use webcasts to market your product or service.  Now what?  Grab a company executive, slap her in a chair with the latest PowerPoint sales presentation, a PC and a phone, and voila!  Well, although that’s probably the most popular way to get a webcast done, there’s a lot more that goes into a great webcast.  The best webcasts start long before the event, with a solid strategy and execution plan to maximize the return on your marketing dollars.

Webcasts are social media – a two-way conversation between your panelists and the attendees.  You should be plan to listen as well as talk, and be prepared to have the conversation change based on what you are hearing.  Here are some key points to ponder when you start planning your webcast

First, understand your goal.  Most B2B webcasts are lead generation activities for a specific product or designed to raise brand awareness for your company.   You might want to be viewed as a thought leader to your target audience or respond to changing market conditions or a public relations issue.  Whichever it is, know what measureable action you want to occur as a result of your presentation.

That leads directly to who you’re talking to.  Are you targeting business executives?  Technical buyers?  Consumers?  Resellers or partners?   Existing customers?  Each of these groups hears messages in different ways, and each has different hot buttons that your presentation should be pushing without being “pushy”.

Once you’ve got your goal and audience in mind, it’s time to determine your overarching theme and message – the big takeaways you want to leave your attendees with.  That’s ONE theme and 3-4 major points – don’t try to cram in every detail or feature.  You want to leave attendees with the key benefits you’re offering and a desire for them to take some action to find out more.

Next, build your presentation team.  Don’t make the mistake of having a single presenter drone on for 40-50 minutes, it’s almost guaranteed to lull your audience into inaction.  Can you find a customer who’s willing to share a positive experience?  Great.  A partner or reseller who has worked with you on a successful project?  Wonderful.  Even unbiased third parties – industry analysts and the like – provide credibility to your story.  And every presentation should tell a story, not just sell a product or service.  You should round out your team with a moderator who can keep your event flowing smoothly, assist with audience interaction, Q&A and transitions, and maintain a conversational flow in your webcast.

You’ve got a topic, lined up speakers, and now you need to tell your potential audience about your story.  Writing an abstract and invitation is one of the most critical steps in the webcast process.  The subject of your invitation should get your key theme across without sounding like a sales pitch, and give a compelling reason for your audience to show up.  The body of your invitation should highlight the takeaways and encourage attendees to come with their own questions for you to address either throughout the webcast or during a dedicated Q&A session following the presentation.  And don’t be afraid to offer an incentive to get people to register for your event.   Even inexpensive giveaways like iPod Shuffles given to a random attendee can boost registration, attendance, and prospects.

Now it’s time for your presenters to craft their presentation story.  It should be graphic rich and text light, have a beginning, middle and end, and have different presenters telling different parts.  Plan to build interactivity in from the start.  You can begin with an audience poll, have attendees submit questions or comments related to a point a presenter is making, offer a demonstration and plan for a post-webcast survey where your attendees can tell you what they liked, what they didn’t – and collect more information about them in the process.

How do you get the word out?  You might have your own mailing list, but chances are you want to expand your horizons by using a rented list or media partner to help promote your event.  Depending on the audience you’re looking for there are a number of companies (many with established webcast programs) to help you in this regard.  Ask for registration guarantees and to have your webcast archived on their event page – often you’ll get more attendees for a recorded version of your webcast than you will at the live event.

So what webcasting platform should you use?  There are certainly enough choices, from the popular On24, Citrix Online’s GoToWebinar and Cisco Webex and BrightTalk to a staggering array of newcomers who offer a numbing array of features ranging in price from free to thousands of dollars per event.  When you work with a media partner you may have little choice though – many offer a bundle of services including the promotion, use of their platform, and archival on their site – all for a fixed fee.  If you’ve got your technology lined up you might be able to negotiate for a promotion-only price – your mileage will vary depending on the partner you’ve chosen.

Seem like a lot to do?  Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  It’s much better to put in the up-front time to help ensure the result and ROI that will make your company want to webcast again.

Michael Krieger has crafted and moderated over a thousand webcasts for start-ups to Fortune 100 companies.  You can reach him at Michael@webcastmaven.com