Golden rules to do a great Live coaching
First of all, a coaching should not be a lecture where the teacher/coach (you) talk and the attendants listen. This can be done way better in a video. Instead, a coaching should be more like a school where there is a lot of interaction between teacher and students. There should be questions from the teacher to the students as well as the other way around. Whenever you think about the content of your coaching, think about why it would be good to do this in a coaching format rather than just release a video about it. 4 tables of live play can be done just as well in a video as in a live coaching, with the added advantage that the video doesn't have a time restriction. Just the option for the user to ask comments is not enough, there should be more!
On top of that, coachings should be entertaining and fun to visit.
The most important question is "What makes a great Live coaching?" In general we believe a great Live coaching induces the following comments:
"This coaching was fun and exiting"
"I enjoyed watching the entire coaching"
"I really learned something from this coaching"
To ensure this, here are the Five Golden Rules that will help you achieve this mission.
1. Be professional
Being professional includes many things. In general, it is about showing appreciation to your viewers. Therefore:
• Be on time! Be in the coachingplayer at least 5 minutes before the coaching starts. Update coaching description and start up everything you need.
• Don't smoke/eat/swear
• Show respect to other players and viewers
• Avoid any sounds and pop-ups from softwares and other devices, such as: skype/facebook/msn/e-mail/any other messenger/cell phone
• Ensure a good audio quality
• Due to contractual reasons we cannot have footage from non partner poker rooms, make sure your coaching will not feature any of these
2. Be prepared
Being prepared is important because it will greatly improve your presentation and the structure of your coaching. This makes it easier for the viewer to follow your story and remember something afterwards. Before you start your coaching:
• Choose a clear/specific topic
• Know what you want to say, have a story line in mind
• Any presentation tools (such as powerpoint) should be well structured, have a good layout and use proper language
• Prepare sample hands, ranges, calculations before recording (if applicable)
3. Show and induce passion
To not lose your viewers after a few minutes, you have to be able to keep your audience interested. Of course an important factor would be to tell something interesting, but the way you tell things definitely counts as well.
• Have a good and up to date coaching thread. Make sure you are also active there outside your coaching and that you advertise your coaching there
• Be enthusiastic about what you say
• Encourage users to ask questions and answer them as good as you can
• Encourage participation of users in forums discussions and link them to your coaching thread
4. Have good didactics/explanations
To teach your viewers something it is important that you explain things well. A mistake that is easily made is that you start reporting situations, instead of deducting them and explaining your thought process. Therefore always think about:
• Build attention bridges by e.g. introducing your topic with a question that will be answered during the coaching
• Explain the 'why' and your though processes
• Talk about alternatives, create ''what if'' scenarios
• Try to talk in ranges, wherever possible
5. Interact with the audience
Interactive tasks are a great tool to increase the attention span of your viewers.
• Ask a question
• Ask the user to answer it for themselves or write in the chat
• Give them some time, while you maybe repeat the question or explain something around the question
• Give the answer/explanation to the question
• Discuss answers that users posted, help them realize why it was maybe not the correct answer
Asking questions keeps your audience more involved and helps them learn more. This will also have a big impact on your listening time.
6. Have a good opening/closing
• Start and end with 'This is XYZ for PokerStrategy.com', welcoming the members and encourage them to ask questions
• Keep your introduction crisp, come straight to the point
• End with summary/key learnings and answering the question from the users
If you stick to these golden rules, then the community will receive your coaching well and it will contribute to a great poker school offer.
