Probably the most important thing about presenting online and this is where it's different from face to face presentations, is you've got to really work almost every second of your of your presentation, interaction. You need to be asking people questions, giving them an excuse, and motivating them to do something back. They can post a comment on a chatroom, you want to be asking for questions constantly. You may want to put forth a question in a polling format. If you have the sort of software where you can see who is online, reference them, you can say and, Jamie, you had a similar experience with this with your company in Kansas City. Can you share with us briefly how that happened?
Now, if they have the chance to come on with our audio, great if you're not using a system that allows that level of interactivity, maybe You simply reference Jamie in Kansas City because you spoke to her earlier that day or a week earlier or a year earlier. When somebody hears their name, it's human nature for them to better pay attention. So reference the people in the room. Give them homework assignments, toss out questions. Because again, your guns don't got to worry about people starting to listen to you. But I got a text from a friend.
What he can't come tonight. Oh my and you've lost them. It is so much easier to lose people in online presentations. And that's why I've got to stress again and again and again, interactivity. The more questions you ask people, the more polls, the more you reference actual individuals who you know are in the audience, the better it's virtually impossible to be too interactive. Now.
Of course, you Have to deliver core content. You have to put forth good useful ideas. You've got to demonstrate your expertise. But what you can't do is do a big data dump and not give people a chance to ask questions. By the way, every so often just stop and say, am I making sense so far? Are you with me?
In a normal presentation, you can do that by looking at the eyes of the people in your audience, because they're kind of like that will send you a signal to go back and give another example, another case study on the point you just hit. But when it comes to online presentations, we lose all of these verbal cues. And that's why it's critically important. toss out questions, toss out polls, reference people, again and again and again, throughout.