This morning, I was supporting an online masterclass event. I didn’t have to present, but I worked on the deck and helped the speaker manage the chat, Q&A, and so on.
For my colleague, it was the first event of this kind. He had spent many hours on the deck and practicing his timing. But five minutes into the call, despite nearly 30 people registering, there was only one person in the room.
“I guess we’ll do a one-on-one session, then!” my colleague said with a chuckle. Then, he began. He presented calmly without disruptions. In the meantime, I pinged another coworker to try and get more people into the session. Over time, 12 folks showed up. Better than expected!
When you’re presenting, it’s hard to pay attention to anything but your slides, maybe speaker notes, and what you’re saying. I’m not sure our host noticed how many people came in. In his head, it might really have been a one-on-one session all throughout. Still, he did it exactly the way he would have done it if we had maxed out Google’s meeting cap of 1,000 people. Kudos!
Performing live is hard enough as it is. Doing it in front of an empty theater? That’s brutal. But how you do anything is how you do everything—so why would your theater ever be full if you don’t rock the stage when no one shows up? Keep being a star even when you’re the only sparkle far and wide.
