I just wrapped up a series of three webinars, Presentation Boot Camp for Power Agents, with our friends at TruliaPro. I have attended plenty of webinars and given many talks to audiences of all sizes, but presenting a webinar was an entirely new experience.

What was hardest to get used to was…the silence! I wasn’t nervous about talking to 1,000+ people, but I realized how much I depend on visual and audio cues to develop a connection with my audience, to read how things are going, and adjust. It was as disconcerting as the first time I rehearsed my Ignite talk with the slides timed to auto-advance every 15 seconds. But, just like the Ignite talk or any new presentation experience, practicing was the key. By the third session, the host and I had developed a comfortable back-and-forth dialogue to keep things moving, even though we’ve never actually met in person! (Hai-5, Jovan!)

Session 1: Three Keys to Presentations that Wow


Presentation Rehab & Workshop – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

In the first session, Three Keys to Presentations that Wow, we covered some presentation best practices that are central to Haiku Deck, but that can be applied no matter what presentation tool you’re using: in a nutshell, keep things simple, beautiful, and fun. We also touched on the #1 mistake that most presenters make (and which I’ve certainly made myself in the past), which is treating your slides like content-rich documents instead of visual aids to illustrate and enrich your message. Using the Haiku Deck Notes feature is a great way to avoid this pitfall.

Session 2: Twelve Ways to Transform Your Real Estate Marketing

In the second session, Twelve Ways to Transform Your Real Estate Marketing with Haiku Deck, we touched on creative ways to build relationships, business, and thought leadership with exactly the kind of beautiful, standout communication pieces Haiku Deck is designed to create easily.


12 Ways To Transform Your Real Estate Marketing – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

I also shared five “power templates” that can be used for inspiration (and adapted for just about any field):

(I’ve also started a Pinterest board to collect templates–we’d love your submissions and ideas!)

Session 3: Five Strategies for Renovating Your Listing Presentation

In the third session, Five Strategies for Renovating Your Listing Presentations, we covered ideas for rethinking the listing presentation, one of the most important tools for real estate professionals. I shared the story of how John James (now a Haiku Deck Guru) used Haiku Deck to rework his listing presentation—under time pressure—and scored a $1.4M listing, and we examined some strategies to help break out of the typical “formula.”

Five Strategies for Renovating Your Listing Presentation (Haiku Deck and TruliaPro)

Click to view the full Haiku Deck with Notes

I also shared a couple of “before” and “after” slide renovations to illustrate the concepts we’d talked about (great inspiration no matter what field you’re in):

If you’d like to discuss a webinar series for your team or organization, please get in touch: catherine (at) haikudeck (dot) com. These topics and materials could be easily tailored to just about any field.