“Slides are slides. Documents are documents. They aren’t the same thing. Attempts to merge them result in what I call the ‘slideument,’” says Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen. He’s referring here to dense, text-heavy presentation slides.

For best results, follow these tips:

Limit bullet points and text on your slides.

Put as much as you want in the speaking notes, which we can display for your reference only during the event, but put only key points on the slides. It’s called PowerPoint, not Power-Let-Me-Read-You-My-Whole-Presentation-From-These-Slides. Your slides will clarify and reinforce important info, but do not substitute for you as the speaker.

Your audience reads your slides faster than you talk. So if your slides are all text, they’re not listening – and they’re finished reading before you finish talking.

Use one slide for each idea or key statistic.

If you’re defining five terms, use one slide per term. Webinar participants do not want to look at the same slide for more than 1-2 minutes maximum. This means more slides, not fewer.

Add a slide for each interaction.

If you plan to ask a question that participants will respond to, include a slide that reminds you to pause there and ask. It will also make it clear to attendees that it’s their turn to participate. Your producer will help you by displaying the poll or providing instructions, if necessary. Allow up to 60 seconds for participants to respond before you discuss the outcomes.

Make use of visuals to illustrate your points whenever possible.

A powerful photo with just a few words on it will help participants remember your key points much better than a slide containing 10 bullet points in 12-point font.

Use a unique title on each slide.

This helps your audience focus on the main idea for that slide and makes it easier to navigate slides during the live event.

Use a simple template.

Your producer will generally provide an approved template for you. Please use the template colors and fonts without changing them.

Limit transition and animation effects.

These can get “wonky” and behave in unexpected ways in the virtual meeting room, so better remove animations or limit animation effect to “Appear.”

Your producer will help to shape and revise your slides once the content is approved.

He or she will add images if needed, break up dense content, adjust slide titles, and incorporate instructions for interactive elements of virtual events. Graphic design and editing will also revise the slides to create a stellar final product. Following the guidelines above will reduce the number of changes required after you submit your slides.

If you have any questions about how best to present or illustrate your material in slide form, your producer is happy to work with you.

Must-Know Guidelines for Webinar Presenters

If you’ll be on camera at any point during your webinar or training, the appearance of your physical space is a critical part of your on-screen image. Your producer will evaluate your physical space during preparation sessions and your event dry run, so it’s important to attend these meetings from the location you will present the live event if at all possible. Please use the following tips to make sure your space looks polished and professional.

Clear your background of any distracting items.

These include piles of paper or books; cups, plates, or other dishes; laundry; clutter; an open or glass door; a glass wall overlooking a hallway or roadway; etc. Any surfaces visible around or behind you should be clear except for tasteful décor such as family photos, small knicknacks, etc. Your producer will advise you of any distraction in the background during your preparation sessions.

Position your webcam so you can look directly at it while presenting.

Your camera should be pointed at the front of your face (not the side) and should be position at or near eye level (so you are not looking up or down to look into it.) This may mean that you put your laptop on a stack of books to achieve the correct height. Your producer will help you position your webcam during prep sessions and the dry run.

Light your face well and minimize shadows.

Make sure you have a light source directly in front of you or in front and slightly at an angle. You should not be lit from the back, directly above your head, or unevenly from the sides; these positions all cause a silhouette effect and unflattering shadows. You should not be lit from the back or unevenly from the sides. This may mean turning your workspace to make sure you’re not directly in front of a window, or possibly moving lamps around your desk. Your producer will work with you to achieve the best possible lighting for your space.

Close doors and windows to prevent interruptions and background noise.

We also recommend you put a sign on the outside of your door that says “Webinar in Progress – Do Not Disturb” and alert coworkers, family members, etc. that they should not knock or enter during the event time.

Exile pets and children.

When you close your doors and windows, make sure animals and children are on the other side. Cats love to walk in front of the camera while you’re speaking and to knock phones off the hook or lie on keyboards, dogs love to bark hysterically at critical points in any presentation, and kids love to scream in glee (or otherwise) when you most need silence. We can’t explain it, but it happens pretty much every time.

Use a wired headset.

Whether joining audio by phone or VOIP, please use a wired headset. If tested extensively, a wireless headset may work but your producer will ask you to have a backup plan. If a headset is not available, please be prepared to hold the handset of your phone for the duration of the event. Speaker phone is not acceptable due to background noise, echo, and overall audio quality. Your producer will troubleshoot audio with you during prep sessions and the dry run.

What tips would you add? Leave a comment below!

That is not my desk. That is way neater than my desk is right now. Mine looks like the computer department at Best Buy threw up. For the last 5 hours I’ve had four computer monitors including a laptop, plus two landline phones, two cell phones, and an iPad running to make sure my current webinar doesn’t go down if I lose power or internet. I wanted to take a picture before I started breaking it all down, but that would have required unplugging something and I’m feeling risk averse today.

I realize that Snowmageddon 2016 is nowhere near me, seeing as how I’m in Florida and all. But today’s weather has been downright bizarre. One minute the sky is black, it’s raining sideways, and thunder is rattling my poorly sealed windows. Literally seconds later, the sky is blue and sun is shining. The wind is alternately nonexistent and terrifying. Welcome to the Gulf Coast.

I can’t take the chance of my system going down when I’m the only producer and my presenters, all up north, could also go down at any minute. Multiple logins on multiple machines, printouts of every slide, and cell phone hotspot backups probably sound like overkill to some people. Let me tell you this, though: The only time I have ever needed a backup is when I didn’t have it.

What’s your worst public tech failure? Mine is probably a tie between the time I went to take myself off mute when my moderator introduced me for a major presentation and accidentally hung up the phone, and the time my cat leaped across my desk to attack a lizard outside the window and disconnected my phone in the process.

Give me your best horror stories in the comments. 

What does your home office look like?

I started working part-time from home in 2003 and full-time from home in 2006. Although I’ve been someone else’s employee for the last 5 years of that, I still use all of the same techniques for staying focused and productive as an employee that I used as a freelancer.  Here are a couple of my favorite tips for productivity when you work from home:

• Have a designated workspace and keep it holy — Mommy’s desk is not for crafting, storage, kid snacks, or other non-work tasks.
• Have a designated phone line and keep it holy — work calls only on the work phone, whether cell or land line.
• Set and enforce regular working hours; limit “flexibility” to true emergencies. That means keeping work time for work (no mid-day errands or runs to the gym!) and keep personal time for personal (do not check your work email during dinner) unless you specifically plan set times to mix work and home.
• Get fully dressed every day (casual clothing and slippers acceptable); use regular video-conferencing in place of phone calls to fight the temptation to hang out in jammies all day.
• Create accountability by establishing interim deadlines for projects, and schedule voice or video check-ins with others about those deadlines.
• Go beyond email to reinforce human connections. Meet regularly with supervisors, project managers, and colleagues, whether by phone or by videoconference.It’s easier to stay focused and engaged when you feel a connection to the people you work with.
• Use productivity and organizational tools like OneNote, Todoist, and my Outlook calendar to keep track of deadlines, corral project information, and track progress through various tasks and subtasks.
• Create a workspace that supports what makes sense for your brain. I’m a piler, not a filer, so I have a lot of flat surfaces in my small home office where I can drop materials related to specific tasks or projects and keep everything organized. I also use lighting that energizes me and decor that motivates me to help me stay on task.
• Take advantage of working remotely by taking meaningful breaks to recharge. My favorite breaks are short bursts of exercise, like turning on my music and busting out a quick Zumba routine or grabbing my iPad to work through a brief yoga sequence using my favorite app. Whenever I get bored or distracted, these breaks help me get back on track.

What are some of your favorite ways to stay productive while working from home? Do you have a unique take on one of my suggestions? Leave a comment!