I love that I can watch amazing presentations on TED.com. The speakers always inspire me… and spark a bit of consternation, too. Could someone deliver a webinar as compellingly as a TED talk?
Take a look at the “stone tablet” that you will receive if you’re ever invited to step onto a TED stage. I’ll bet you can apply these commandments to an online presentation as well.
These work for webinars, too! But they would be easier to read on a Kindle.
Just in case you’ve misplaced your stone-tablet-non-glare reading glasses, here are those commandments again:
| 1 | Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick. |
| 2 | Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before. |
| 3 | Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion. |
| 4 | Thou Shalt Tell a Story. |
| 5 | Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy. |
| 6 | Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success. |
| 7 | Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness. |
| 8 | Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good. |
| 9 | Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech. |
| 10 | Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee. |
Anyone got a chisel?
Hang on a minute. I believe you CAN break the ninth commandment in a webinar,
if — and ONLY if — you do two things:
- Write your script exactly the way you talk so that you sound natural.
- Don’t dump the text of your script into slide bullets. Capiche?
I’d love to know if you’d change anything etched on this list!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I would submit that #7, Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage, is not only permitted but should be an integral part of most webinars, free or fee. HOWEVER – it should be done carefully, at the end of the presentation, and as resources to augment the topic. Sales in a webinar should be similar to back-of-the-room sales in a live presentation.
You might be right, Tom, but even a “careful” sales pitch in a webinar can backfire. Here’s what I’ve seen happen over and over.
A speaker spends 59 minutes delivering solid gold procedures, ideas, secrets, tips, discoveries, algorithms… then in the final 60 seconds mentions his __________. (Fill in the blank with whatever you like: book, agency, website, shoeshine stand, law firm, studio.) In that moment, the perception of the audience shifts from “Wow, this is THE __________ I can trust when I need real gold,” to “Damn, this guy didn’t say ANYTHING useful ‘cuz the real gold is only available in his __________.”
Because of that crazy shift in perception, I always tell speakers to omit the pitch. And you know what? They win customers anyway. Probably more!
Very interesting and provocative thoughts.