One of the webinars you present in the future will go wrong. It's just going to happen. Something weird, something technical is going to come up, but I want you to be prepared for it. To be prepared, practice your webinar first, reboot your computer before presenting, and have a backup computer ready to go.
Once I was on a webinar and the host arrived five minutes late. Then he spent another five minutes trying to get his PowerPoint working but by the time he did, he realized he created it in such a way that it simply would not present on the screen he was showing it on. All of this could've been avoided if that webinar presenter had rehearsed ahead of time. If that webinar marketer had simply spent five minutes on a dry run practicing him starting the webinar, practicing firing a PowerPoint and going through the slides, he would have avoided the headache of having to get embarrassed, get nervous, and having to reschedule the webinar. Practice your webinar ahead of time and you'll thank me later.
Also, I would recommend that you reboot your computer before starting your webinar. This ensures that all your programs are closed and there is a much less likelihood of your computer crashing if it has just been turned on. When you're on a webinar, you don't want to have all kinds of windows open so close all unused browsers, instant messaging clients, and other distracting programs. When you're on your webinar, you want to be 100% focused on the exact thing you are presenting.
And finally, your computer might crash or something else might happen that's beyond your control. For example, one time in the middle of a webinar my internet connection died. Nothing I could've done to prevent it, it simply died. What did I do? I immediately picked up my phone, switched the audio to the dial-in option and continued speaking without a hitch to my webinar audience. If you're computer crashes and you're waiting for it to boot back up, switch over to a second computer. I always have a laptop on my desk, that way if something goes wrong with the main computer, I can join under the laptop to the webinar and continue until the main computer is back. An even better advantage to having a laptop is you can join as a guest and see exactly what guests see. So if you forgot to show your screen or your screen is not displaying correctly or showing the wrong screen, you will see exactly what your attendees see on your laptop computer.
That's how you're going to plan for technical difficulties on your next webinar: Practice at first, reboot just before, and have a backup. Become a teacher. Become a marketer. Become someone who has authority and expertise. Use webinars to run your own live presentations, online pitches, and information products at www.webinarcrusher.com.
