Frequently Asked Questions about

The Presentation Skills Masterclass Series

On-demand, self-paced professional development for professionals who refuse to give #DeathByPowerpoint talks and lectures anymore.

Frequently Asked Questions

General questions about the course

  • You will have 12 months to access the 4 courses and visual database add-on course.

    The 12 month timeframe begins on the date of purchase.

    You will have permanent access to:

    • My personal visual database links (if you bookmark them while you still have access to the program).

    • The downloadable materials from the course (if you download them while you still have access to the program), which include custom-designed workbooks and reference handouts.

  • This masterclass program was made for busy people, because my clients tend to be high performing busy professionals (academics, researchers, evaluators, etc).

    The TOTAL time to complete all 4 courses is about 32 hours, or the length of 4 full-day workshops.

    But EACH COURSE is broken up into digestible sections and short videos. Most videos within the courses are 5-15 minutes. Some videos are longer (about 25-30 minutes).

    Even though the entire program is relatively short, you will have a full 12 months of access, so you can go at your own pace.

  • Let’s work together instead.

  • I’d LOVE that! My 1:1 services are here.

  • Many strategies apply broadly across many cultures and we’ve had students from across the globe find value in our training.

    However, please be aware that this course was made by a native English speaker from the United States.

    We recommend that you take this course only if you are able to easily understand videos spoken in English (all downloadable materials are in English, as well).

    While I have done my best to create a training program that is broadly applicable — and some accessibility/design principles are universal — by nature of my limited experience, you will likely find that you need to make adjustments for your audience and culture.

    At this time, courses 1 and 2 have closed captions in English.

    We hope to fully caption courses 3 and 4 in the future.

  • Due to the nature of the training we share in this course, all sales are final.

    It’s just that knowledge is not a returnable product. It’s one of those things that once you have it, you can't give it back.

    Once you watch even just the first few videos in the course, you will have already learned a new way of thinking about and approaching your presentations that will make them better and more accessible.

    If you aren’t sure an online course is for you (or, you aren’t sure my strategies will help), then here are some options:

  • These are not disconnected, interchangeable, modular courses.

    This is a structured learning program and each course heavily references the previous courses.

    So, I don’t recommend it. But, you get access to all 4 courses in the bundle so you can if you want.

  • I must first emphasize that this is NOT a PowerPoint training program. The courses are 90-95% software neutral so you can use whatever slide software you want.

    I personally use PowerPoint and it is what I recommend for a few reasons:

    • It has more robust features (especially for automation) than Google Slides, Keynote, and Canva.

    • Most people I work with already have it and know the basics, so it reduces the learning curve.

    • Most people I work with also need to use Microsoft Office for other things, and staying in that ecosystem saves time if you already use Excel to make data visualizations.

    • Staying in that ecosystem saves even more time if you also need to create infographics, posters, social media graphics, or reports.

    With that said, this is NOT a PowerPoint training course & there are plenty of people who find value in this course who don’t use PPT!

    • The tech videos are ultimately a SMALL portion of each course.

    • The tech videos are only shown in 1 version of PPT (I have an Office 365 subscription and I use Windows).

    • The tech videos are not 100-level tech training (e.g., how to format fonts).

    • The tech videos are more so I can show you how to use software to your advantage for the strategy we just talked about in the course.

    • I’m showing it in PPT so you can see an example, BUT sometimes other slide software will have the same feature. I’m trying to show you the tech strategy behind that feature, so you can apply that strategy to whatever app you use.

  • Yes! Start with Fail-Proof Slide Design here.

“Does this work for X presentation?”

  • If you have already applied for academic positions (or already have a campus invite), I recommend you purchase my Job Talk Escalator instead.

    As a backup plan, courses 1-3 will help you design effective job talk/teaching demo slides. Then, we should do 1-3 sessions to work through your storyboard/script (i.e., what you will say) and to finalize the design together.

  • YES!

  • YES!

  • Well, these are unique presentations…

    Regardless of what you’ve been told, the Primary goal of these is to check the academic boxes and GET YOUR DEGREE 👩‍🎓.

    These are usually more about showing that you can follow the academic rules, and less about having an engaging defense presentation.

    While it’s (of course) always helpful to have a well-designed presentation, a smart strategy is to keep the design on the more conservative side of things.

    You don’t want walls-of-text, but you also don’t need to create a mind-blowing, life changing experience for your committee.

    The first three courses will be more than you need help you achieve that goal. What we recommend for defenses is to go ahead and learn everything in courses 1-3, but then tone it down based on what your advisor tells you.

    GET YOUR DEGREE. That’s #1.

    …and then as soon as you have some freedom (like the conference presentation you’ll do about your masters or doctoral work), then go full out and use all of courses 1-4 🙌.

  • YES! 100%, no question this will help you have a memorable and powerful keynote.

    I would also recommend getting on Zoom with me so we can really tailor it to the presentation context and fine tune your script and storyboard.

    But, courses 1-4 (especially course 4) will be a gamechanger for you if you have something important like a keynote!

  • lol yes this a thing, can you believe it? Academia and tenure is SO competitive right now, it’s massively unfair.

    But that is the unfortunate reality, so if you are gearing up to do a pre-tenure tour then you absolutely want to make sure those talks are powerful and memorable. Courses 1-4 will help you achieve that goal.

  • Yup!

  • Most definitely!

  • 100%!

Who should NOT purchase this bundle?

Do not enroll in the course if these apply. Or, at least, contact us first at hello@echorivera.com.

  • The strategies you learn in the course are for adult learners. We are, unfortunately, not the right program for you and kindly ask that you do not enroll in the program as it will not meet your needs.

  • If you are a business owner/entrepreneur then I recommend you email me first and tell me a little bit more about your business. I may have better options that are more tailored to a business setting.

  • Please do NOT take this course if you are a slide designer or if you design slides for other people.

    That’s a completely different strategy than what is taught in the course.

    This course will NOT help you with that and your clients/colleagues/boss will be totally freaked out if you applied these strategies on their talks (trust me, I know, I used to be a slide designer and it…yeah. Just no).

    Plus, to use some legal language, it’s a violation of our usage terms and is grounds to remove your access to the course without refund. 😬 Let’s just avoid that whole thing.

  • That’s like, a major intellectual property and copyright violation. 😒

    Even if you planned on doing it for free, this is not okay.

    This course is for people who want to learn these skills for THEMSELVES, it is not a train-the-trainer program.

    If you enroll, we’ll definitely remove you from the course without refund (and may pursue things further).

    So yeah, don’t do that.