The Cannabis Marketing Masters Virtual Summit – Speakers Manual

Presentation Format

All presentations must use the provided PowerPoint or Keynote Template (coming soon) for their Summit Session. 

Prepare Your Presentation

• Use the template provided.
• Make sure all slides are simple, complete, clear.
• Follow the approved outline.
• Avoid reference to proprietary products or selling of any kind.
• Mention the tool/asset you are providing to the audience.   
• Consider beginning your session with a grabbing statement or question to capture your audience’s attention.
• Tell quick relevant stories to support your key points.
• Since the sessions for this event will be pre-recorded, avoid reference to “today’s” event (like a news story, weather event, etc.).
• Ensure key points are recapped on the last slide. 

Prepare Your Environment 

• Find a room with great lighting, it is better to have lighting in front of you than behind. Backlighting creates shadows on your face.
• Find a room with furniture. A room with carpet, walls, furniture etc. helps with acoustics. Cloth items absorb sound and prevent an echo.
• Eliminate distractions (children, pets, outside lawn work/repairs, cell phones etc.).
• Close the door to your office (or whatever room you are presenting from).
• Have water or other something close by to drink at any time. 

Prepare Yourself  

Print out or write down your notes, do not rely on digital notes as it takes time to toggle back and forth between screens. As you present and hit each point, cross them out or have 1-2 points per sheet for you to easily track where you are.

Practice presenting before your live presentation. Practicing in advance will help eliminate nerves, help you manage your time to ensure you are not running over your time limit and will help ensure you do not speak too fast or too slow.

Get plenty of sleep the night prior to your presentation.  Take care of your voice, avoid a lot of caffeine and dairy at least 3-4 hours before you present.

Dress appropriately, avoid wearing attire or accessories that are distracting to the audience and if you are wearing headphones, avoid wearing jewelry or accessories that could cause interference or sound feedback for the attendees.

Prepare Your Technology

Reboot your computer a few hours before you do the recording to avoid any automated updates that could launch during your recording.

Consider using headphones, headphones help with sound clarity and help eliminate any background noise. Avoid using a cell phone as your speaker.Make sure your video is in the center of your screen and on speaker view, this allows for an appearance that you are always looking at the audience.

Play to the camera, do not angle your camera too low or too high. Too low may give you the appearance of a double chin, and too high makes it difficult for eye contact. Ensure your shoulders and the crown of your head are in the frame.

We encourage you to close all other windows and applications on your computer during the time of your session.

Shoot Your Session

We will need a video recording of your session with both your presentation and yourself on the screen. 

First, you will have to decide what software you will use to shoot your video session. There are plenty of free options out there but if you have not done this before we recommend you get the OBS Studio. It is free and open-source software that works with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Here is an instructional video for you on how to install and set-up your camera, screen recording, sound, and all the rest in the software. 

The video file must be saved in MP4 format and your session should not exceed 45 minutes, where the minimum you should cover must be 25 minutes. 

Your recording must be in HD(High-definition) or FHD ( Full High-definition) quality. The resolution must be as following: 

• 720p (HD) Resolution (pixels) -1280×720 and 
• 1080p (FHD) Resolution (pixels)1920×1080

Send Your Session

As the files are expected to be large we will be sending you individual DropBox links in order to move the files around.