“YOU ARE ON MUTE!”

It is not much fun when your virtual audience shout this at you.

And yet it happens all the time.

When you are waiting your turn to present, you don’t want to unmute too early, otherwise the lightest sound will be picked up.

But leave it too late and you end up in a ‘keyboard panic’ to make sure your mic is on.

Or, even worse, the adrenaline gets the better of you and you forget to unmute and start speaking.

Here is one simple tip to help you.

Do this a minute or two before it is your time to speak.

Find the cursor on your screen.

Move the cursor on the screen so that it is hovering over the unmute button.

When it is time to unmute, simply press the button.

Then go for it!

In theory it is easy to unmute, but often the toolbar on which it is located can disappear temporarily.

It might only re-appear once the cursor is moved in the right direction.

This can take a few extra seconds (or longer) which feels like an eternity when you are under time pressure.

So, hover over that unmute button.

And remove one challenge from the equation and your audience shouting, “You are on mute”.

There are plenty of other challenges for you to focus upon.