You're running into obstacles. What do you do?

Estimated read time: 1.3675 minutes.

Webinar problem-solving central! (The replay is below!)

Webinar problem-solving central! (The replay is below!)

You walk into a conference room. Your presentation is gorgeous. You have butterflies in your stomach because the next hour feels like a chance to establish your credibility with an important group of stakeholders. You set up your laptop, connect to the projector, and...

Thud! Bleep! Bam!

The projector doesn't work.

Actually, your sound effects are probably more like this... &^*%*%($#@#

Participants are due to arrive any minute. What do you do?

Have you ever experienced something like this? Maybe this description is enough to make you stop breathing. There's hope! Keep reading.

I've had mucho experience with things going wrong this week (thank you webinar technology fairies) and have lived to share my lessons learned with you.

Here is what you do:

  1. Breathe. Ground yourself so you can feel your feet on the floor and your butt on the chair. This gets you ready to do #2.
  2. Remember why you are doing what you're doing. What's the bigger picture? What do you want your audience to learn? Stay connected to the bigger picture which enables you to do #3.
  3. Problem solve. Problem solve. Problem solve. Send someone out to make copies of the slides while you deliver a riveting introduction. Talk to your slides while doing interpretive dance. Suppose the webinar system doesn't send out any reminders for your upcoming event. Problem solve by setting up another system to send the reminders. Then, maybe, the webinar system fixes their issue and sends out all four reminders at THE SAME TIME. (All examples are purely hypothetical, of course). Move to #4.
  4. Maintain your sense of humor. Seriously, all four reminders at once? No projector? It's comedy. Laugh out loud. A sitcom couldn't do this better. And #5 brings you home.
  5. Remember that people are on your side. Be transparent about what's happening and how you're fixing it. Use the obstacles as a chance to ask for help and show that you value your stakeholders and what they want. They want your success as much as you do, and your situation makes them feel better about the times they've been in the hot seat.

You can trust yourself to handle anything that happens. Hit reply and tell me a story about a time you creatively problem-solved an obstacle.

It's been a week!

I hope this helps.

Christina