From
Hana Smiddy <hana@presentingvirtually.co.uk>
To
Lis Clarke, Marian Rooney-Ashby
Subject
Presenting Virtually proposal — Impactful Engagement for DMU
An Impactful Engagement programme for your academics.
Giving DMU's academics the confidence, structure and techniques to be as compelling in front of a prospective audience as they already are in front of their own students.
Loom
A quick walkthrough
Rob and Hana walk you through the proposal.
A short video summary of the programme — the learning journey, what it covers, and why we've structured it the way we have. Watch first, then read the rest at your own pace.
01
The Challenge
Three things stood out from the conversation.
Each of these comes straight from what you raised on the call. They show how the programme is built.
01
The audience has changed
A lecture is a one-direction transfer of knowledge to people who already chose to be there. An open day is a different conversation. The audience has not chosen yet. Parents and carers are sitting alongside, weighing the decision. The pace, the hooks and what "good" looks like all shift.
02
The message lands harder from outside
Academics often respond differently to the same advice when it comes from a neutral external voice. Bringing in someone whose only job for the day is to coach them resets the dynamic, gives them permission to be coached, and turns "we keep saying this" into something they can actually hear.
03
Bigger than open days
As Lis put it on the call: "it's not just the open days that I think this could add value to." The same skills land at offer holder days, applicant days, schools engagement, online subject talks and fairs — and, almost always, back in the classroom. That's the feedback we hear most often from previous cohorts.
02
Outcomes & Benefits
After this programme, your academics will…
01
Open with intent
Land an audience inside the first 60 seconds with a hook that makes prospective students sit up and parents lean in. No more "Hello, I'm…" preambles.
02
Run the room as a conversation
Use simple, well-rehearsed engagement techniques — show of hands, named questions, deliberate pauses — that turn a passive audience into a participating one.
03
Close on something memorable
End with a clear, repeatable line the audience carries away and repeats in the car on the way home.
04
Move from good to great
As Rob often puts it: "You're already at 6 or 7. This is about getting to 8 or 9." Optimisation, not remediation.
03
How We Can Help
Years of work with academics in exactly this position.
The pattern across every one of those engagements is consistent: highly interactive, no-lecture, mirror-and-build sessions where the facilitator models a technique, the academics try it themselves with their own subject matter, and a layered set of skills builds across the day.
Four principles shape how we run the day.
i. Their material
Their material, not ours
Every academic brings their own subject matter into the room and works on it. No generic templates. The work they leave with is the work they walk into their next open day with.
ii. Pair work
Pair work over passive listening
A lot of the day is academics critiquing each other's opening hooks, journey maps and closes. Cross-discipline cohorts deepen the learning rather than dilute it.
iii. Not salespeople
Not turning your academics into salespeople
You said it on the call — DMU's academics aren't there to sell. They're there to be authentic, informed and engaging in front of a prospective audience. What we do is feed in what it feels like to land an engaged, informed response from a prospective student, parent or carer — and rebuild from there.
iv. Optimisation
Optimisation, not fix
Most academics in the room are already good in front of their own students. The frame is good-to-great, not "you've been doing this wrong".
04
Two delivery options
Same investment. Different shape.
Option 1 spreads the impact widest with two cohorts in one day. Option 2 goes deeper with one cohort working straight through, including the slide-design dimension Lis flagged on the call.
Option 1
Two cohorts, one day
Widest reach · 16 academics
£3,500
Morning
9:30 – 12:30
Cohort A · 8 academics
Engagement skills
Afternoon
13:00 – 16:30
Cohort B · 8 academics
Engagement skills (same content, fresh group)
- 16 academics trained in a single day
- Two cohorts of 8 — same content, fresh group each session
- Best when the priority is reach before the next open-day cycle
- Slide work covered separately as an optional virtual add-on (see below)
Includes slide work
Option 2
One cohort, all day
Deeper cohort · 8 academics
£3,500
Morning
9:30 – 12:30
8 academics
Engagement skills
Afternoon
13:00 – 16:30
Same 8 academics
Slide design & PowerPoint
- 8 academics, both engagement skills and slide design in one day
- Morning on the core engagement skills
- Afternoon on slide design principles, working faster and smarter in PowerPoint
- Best when the priority is taking a smaller cohort further
05
Cost Calculator
Work out the investment for your cohort.
Tell us how many academics you'd like to put through the programme and which option you're leaning toward — we'll work out what it costs in real time.
Which option?
Add-on (Option 1 only)
Estimated total
£0
+ VAT
Indicative only. Final scope, dates and price confirmed in the follow-up call on 19 May.
06
Add-ons & Adjacent Services
If you want to go further than the day itself.
Optional · Add-on
Slide design & build, delivered virtually
If Option 1 is the right shape for the live day but you still want the slide piece covered, we can deliver a separate virtual slide-design and slide-build session afterwards. A regular pattern with our university clients. Scoped and priced separately based on cohort size and depth — we will follow up with a short Loom video showing a redesigned slide set, before and after.
Separate service
PV builds the slides for you
If at any point you would like us to take some of your existing decks and rebuild them, that is a separate service we can scope on request. Different scope, different price — but worth flagging now so you know it sits in our wheelhouse.
07
The Team
The people in the room.
Four presentation coaches. Thousands of hours in front of senior corporate audiences and academic cohorts.
David Trevaskis
Presentation Coach
Andrea White
Presentation Coach
Richard Matthews
Presentation Coach
Rob Geraghty
Presentation Coach
08
Who we've worked with
Universities running impactful presentation programmes with us.
A selection of the institutions we've delivered for, alongside what their academics said afterwards.
“
Excellent engaging presenter, very inclusive style supporting all people in the session. Much better than expected.
Sandie Dann
Head of the Department of Chemistry
“
Excellent session. Engaging and good fun. Good to see what others do.
Hilary Coyle
Head of School of Accounting and Finance
“
Really enjoyable. It helped me hone my existing skills while also helping me to identify areas for development. Very supportive and a collegiate atmosphere.
Chris Allen
Associate Professor · School of Criminology
“
Very informative and useful session. Great to see range of practice and approaches from different disciplines across the university.
Saba Imanzadeh
Role to confirm
“
Excellent session. It built both a skills and knowledge base for the team, but more than that it built confidence. The team left in a much stronger position than they entered.
Dan Rolfe
Director of Global Enrolment Management
09
What Happens Next
A simple path to our next meeting on Tuesday 19 May.
This week
Read this and watch the Loom
Share with anyone at DMU who needs to see it. The Loom at the top gives you a quick walkthrough — together they cover everything you need before we meet again.
Tuesday 19 May · 11:00
Follow-up call with Rob and Hana
We pick this up properly — questions, scope, dates. By that point you'll have everything you need.
In the meantime
I'm your direct contact
hana@presentingvirtually.co.uk — anything at all, send it across.
Next step
Ready to go ahead?
Click an option to open a pre-filled email to Hana confirming your choice. Cohort size and add-ons are pulled from the calculator above.
Or — got questions first? Email Hana · We'll see you at the 19 May follow-up