Rehearsal

Rehearse like you are in front of an audience 

• Script out the first slide or two of your presentation to get you started
• Rehearse like you are in front of an audience
• Time your rehearsals and adjust as needed
• Have a dress rehearsal to determine the flow of the presentation
• Leverage interactive tools like polls and Q&A to engage your audience
• Prepare seed questions for Q&A session
• Have support staff help you manage Q&A queue
• Hosts: Script out intro and housekeeping

Preparation

Use this checklist to make sure everything is ready to go

• Review slides after they have been loaded into the webinar platform
• Print out a copy of slides
• Find a quiet place to present from
  • Avoid presenting from large rooms or public places
  • Turn off air or heating systems, your audience will hear the noise
  • Put a “Do not disturb” sign on your door
  • Turn cell phones off
• Plug computer into a charger
• Have a glass of water close by
• Present from headset or handset, no speakerphone or cell phones
• Have all speakers log into event 30 minutes before your webinar to run sound checks and make sure everything is working properly

Execution

Remember to make your webinar conversational

• Speak TO your audience, not AT them. Don’t give a presentation, have a conversation.
• Sneezes, coughs, throat clearing, or even the occasional mistakes are ok.  They simply remind people that you are real.
• Have someone dedicated to reviewing and prioritizing questions, so you can focus on the presentation
• Don't multi-task during the event - resist the urge to answer emails, etc. outside of Elite Studio
• Use the Team Chat tool in Elite Studio to communicate with other team members during the event
  • Keep in mind, everything entered into the chat is recorded in the webinar report
• Keep an eye on the time
  • Don’t extend the length of the webinar beyond the advertised time
  • Leave at least ten minutes for Q&A
• Don’t forget to breathe
• Have fun! If you have fun, your audience will too.

Connecting

First Time Presenter Access:

When presenter’s first access Elite Studio, they will be prompted to grant access to their webcam and microphone:

Presenters MUST click Allow in order to successfully connect to Elite Studio.
After clicking Allow, Elite Studio will automatically attempt to connect to the presenter’s default camera and microphone. If the presenter has multiple webcams and/or microphones available, they will be able to change the device that is used after the initial connection has been established.

After selecting the desired webcam and microphone, clicking Join Now will connect the presenter to the event.

Best Practices

• A wired connection is encouraged. Strong Wi-Fi connections are acceptable if they are stable. Unstable Wi-Fi due to congestion or other causes can result in connectivity drops adversely impacting a live event.
  • We recommend testing your connection to ensure you meet the 1 Mbps requirement for presenters.
  • Presenters with lower bandwidth can lower the Data Rate of their connection in Elite Studio by clicking on Settings from the Connection Panel (three vertical dots icon), and adjusting their Data Rate to Low or Medium.  Find more information on Presenter Bandwidth Requirements here.
• In order of preference, Google Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge are the supported browsers presenters MUST use.  Ensure your browser is up to date.
• Close unneeded browser tabs/windows and applications prior to accessing Elite Studio as a presenter or producer.
  • This will free up resources/bandwidth and result in an overall better experience during the presentation.
• Do not run another video/webcam/screen share in any other collaboration app while running Elite Studio.
• We recommend you clear the browser’s cache prior and restart your computer prior to the event.
• Connect to the event 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start time to test your connection.

Audio 

• If you are speaking into a microphone and have speakers on, the speaker sound return is suppressed by Echo Cancelation software; this software varies in efficiency. 
  • If not fully effective, the audio seems to stutter or get clipped a little. 
  • This can be avoided by wearing headphones or earbuds, anything that avoids the audio return being heard by the microphone.
• If joining the event by phone, avoid: 
  • Shared DSL/telephone line service - your voice will sound compressed and have a very limited frequency range.
  • VOIP vendors that offer service over the public internet - Most of the top VOIP manufacturers have very good voice quality within the company LAN, but there are a number of smaller manufacturers of VOIP gateways and systems that over-compress and gate their voice calls to gain bandwidth. This results in poor-quality audio.