Show Notes
Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. If you joined us last week, I began a series on virtual communication. And last week, I spent the majority of our time together giving you the structure of what the meeting needed to look like. I shared with you that there were three key pieces to do it, doing something virtually successfully.
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00:01:29] Number one, there's the pre virtual meeting, getting all the logistics set up there is the actual meeting itself. Whether you're on Microsoft teams, you're on WebEx; you're on zoom, whatever kind of a platform you're using. And then there's the post virtual. Meeting critical to drive the listener forward the organization forward, get them to take the action steps that you so desire.
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00:01:58] This is the second major piece of that, and this is around the actual virtual meeting. But within that virtual meeting, you must have some type of structure that you can work with then. And all the world travel that I've had an opportunity to do in my 30 years of working with this skillset and helping organizations.
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00:02:26] One of the key things that I always enjoy is the architectural structures of things that I've had the privilege of seeing walking on the great wall of China, seeing. No true Dom seeing sacred heart, seeing things in the United States, seeing buildings and architecture all over the world. Now having spent most of my life in the Bay area as my home, that part of the world had two structures that I always admired.
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00:03:01] One is the golden gate bridge and the other. It is the Hoover dam. Both of those structures to me are just mind-boggling about how they were built, how they've created, how they have been timely and timeless, and what they brought to you. And I not only visually, but to get from one side of the bay to the other and in the Hoover dam to produce electricity and just the visual sight of such a structure.
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00:03:36] Most people. When we talk about structure, they want to fight me on this idea around content. They will say, Bart, that's not me. It constricts me. It makes me feel like it's too tight. I'm just one of those guys. That's gotta be pure freestyle. I love those people. Whether you want to be freestyle or you, want to work within a structure that you are authentic to who you are, but I want you to realize that in my example of.
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00:04:05] The golden gate bridge and the Hoover dam that structure, the structure that they use gives the bridge and the dam strength. It allows it to be continuous. It allows it to be consistent. It allows it to be timely and timeless and what it brings to us. I want your content, whether you're talking personally or professionally.
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00:04:31] To be timely and timeless with the people that you're sharing it with. One of the key things that will help you be successful in any communication situation is having a content structure that you work with them. Now today, guys are I dive into that second aspect around virtual communication.
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00:04:57] What I want you to do is walk away with the elements of the content structure that you can use anywhere. Why it is so important in the virtual world is because the level of complexity, intensity, and confusion can skyrocket purely because of the mode that we're communicating in. When it's face to face, we can reduce some of those things.
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00:05:22] But if we take these exponential factors that we have to deal with, we have to think of ways to make it seamless, effortless, make it so a listener can retain the information and, more importantly, in my mind so that they remember it. Remember, if you spend any time with me at all, you've heard me say, it's not about how do I tell them more. It's how do I get them to remember more?
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00:05:47] That becomes so critical. I want to make sure that your content, whether it's five minutes, 50 minutes, or five hours, you're doing a whole day kind of an event that people walk out the door, absorbing what you said, structure. Is the beginning piece. It is the key critical factor that will set you out from everybody else.
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00:06:13] Guys, if you will study a good keynote speech, if you will look at any successful book, if you will look at any successful movie, there is a structure that the directors, the writers, and the creators all build within. When I think about good movies. When I think about movies like Star Wars and avatar, though, some of those kinds of movies have followed a structure, and nine times out of 10, the structure that the directors followed was some form of the hero's journey.
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00:06:53] You've heard me speak of this many times. So with that idea, let's dive into this idea of our virtual content structure for the actual meeting that you're doing.
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00:07:06]Now, when I started this process with you, we talked about three major areas, the pre-meeting, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting; we're talking now about the structure within the actual meeting. This is where I'm going to focus on our time together. I want you to remember a simple principle that there are freedom and structure.
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00:07:27] I also want you to remember. We never, we memorize what we put in it. We memorize the structure itself. If you memorize the structure, you can plug and play anything you want. You can move the pieces around if you want. But here's the hard thing. We have to do the hard work and keep it simple for our listeners, especially in the virtual world.
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00:07:51] That is the principle. Number one, you have to be able to do the hard work. You gotta be able to keep it simple, do the hard work and keep it simple. I want you to remember that a confused mind will always say no. So if they're confused, they're not even going to absorb what you're talking about. So now that's principle number one, guys, let's take a look at principle.
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00:08:16] Number two. It's what I call the 75% rule. Now, this rule has been saved many times. Let's say someone invites you to come in, and they're going to give you an hour to speak. You go back to your office, you go back to your acute cubicle, and you're starting to craft content. And most of you are probably crafting content in PowerPoint.
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00:08:43] Now here's what I want you to remember about the 75% rule. It's 75% of the time you've been given is what you should try to fill. So if I've asked you to fill 60 minutes, And you apply the rule. That's 45 minutes. That's what everybody's going to think, but I want you to realize that is not correct.
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00:09:09] There's one of the things that I want you to consider factoring in. I want you to back out what you and I would call your Q and time or your banter time or the time when you're just going to really have a conversation. Maybe that's all the way through. Maybe that's just at the end, depending on how you've laid out the communication situation you're in.
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00:09:33] So if I've given you 60 minutes and you follow the 75% role, you're going to think, okay, I need to fill 45. Now, remember that's incorrect. So you take your 60 minutes back out what you want for banter Q and a. So let's make life easy and say that's 15 minutes. That leaves you 45 minutes. Now you want to take 75% of that to fill with your content.
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00:10:03] Now, a lot of you are well, Bart, that doesn't seem like very much. That's because you have such a mindset of how do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? And my mindset to help you is how do you get them to remember more? I've what I'm telling you. If I invited you to a meeting at it ended five minutes early, would you be happy or sad?
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00:10:26] That you'd be happy you go, Oh, great. I just got five minutes back, especially if they were thorough. It is better, far better to end on time and start on time than end late. Because what you're saying is you're not respectful of their time. Now, if you've engaged them if they felt wow, this is really awesome.
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00:10:50] And they're saying, that's interesting. Tell me more. And you go over your timeframe. Then you are winning. But most of us want to try to cram 60 minutes of information into that 60-minute slot. And you leave yourself no leeway for conversation banter or even a question that takes you down a rabbit hole that you need to address.
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00:11:13] And it may take a moment or two before you come back out and then you've really lost time. And if you have dictated everything you're doing by PowerPoint now, you're going okay, what do I have to do? Now I have to go through these sides really quickly. And guys, look what you've just done.
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00:11:29] You've just compromised your information. You just said to this executive audience; this is of no value you've already lost. So let's say you walk in the door, and they gave you 60 minutes, and the executive says. I'm really sorry. We've had some time changes. You're down to 30 minutes. Okay. Now, if you said to them, all right, based on the 10 things I was going to share with you, and my time is roughly cut in half, which five would be the most important to you, and I'll cover those.
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00:12:06] Now you need to think through that 75% rule based on that. But what you're saying in that first page says my information is a value and I'm not willing to compromise it. Don't compromise. Your information uses 75% role have the mindset that I'm trying to get you to remember more, not tell you more. You set a precedent.
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00:12:29] It is your content. This is your valuable information. Don't sell it. Short principle. Number one. There is freedom and structure. Do the hard work. Keep it simple. The second principle, the 75% rule, that let's go for the third.
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00:12:48]The third principle I want you to walk away with is the structure process. So if you have a pen and paper out and you're at home, you're listening to this. Or if you're driving, just keep listening. Then guys just keep listening and come back and make these notes. There are five steps in the process, and if you just follow these five steps every time you have to craft content, to work through the structure, you'll win every single time.
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00:13:19] Number one, you have to set your goals. What is it you're trying to achieve? Are they more strategic goals? Are they more tactical goals? That drives everything. Are you trying to paint the vision? Where do I want to take the customer? Where do I want to take the client? Or you deep into the implementation and process of getting something put into place, and you not need to talk about tactical steps.
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00:13:46] The next thing you want to know is your listener analysis. Everybody will tell your listener, know your listener, and guys, nobody takes the time to understand their listener. What do they want to know? What do they need to know? What's their knowledge level on the topic. Do you want to be able to answer these basic questions?
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00:14:05] Now, the ones I always start with are what I call the five high gain questions, high gain question. Number one. What's your compelling event. What's driving this. Why? All of a sudden, do you care about this? If you can get them to articulate their compelling event, you can map your solution, tool, or product to that.
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00:14:27] And you could just stop. You could be done. You probably got enough. Now, remember you can't walk up to them or have a conversation with them. What's your compelling event. They're going to think that you're strange. I always ask it. Why is this on your radar screen? That's how I ask it. Or w why do you care about this?
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00:14:47] All of a sudden, why haven't you been worried about it before? Anyway, you want to ask that a compelling event is your first high gain question. Second high gain question. What are the top three internal pains that you're facing around X? Whatever the topic is around risk around performance, around security, around innovation, whatever the topic would be.
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00:15:14] The top three internal pains. The third I quick question. High-gain question. Just going to go to the other side, guys. So what are the top three external pains that you're facing around X? Now? Here's the beauty of these too many times. Those two things are interrelated. They're connected in some way, shape, or form.
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00:15:38] If you can find that connection, that can make it very powerful. And then the next two are the two that I think 99.9% of most people. Miss. Typically, what's your challenge. What's your issue? What's your pain. What's your problem? That's one side of the coin I like to go to the other side of the coin is, what are the top three initiatives that you're working on around act?
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00:16:01] Now, remember if a company has got an internal initiative, they're already working at solving a problem. So your job is to enhance what they're already doing. Many of your solution tools and products and services that you bring can do that very easily. And then the fifth tag going high gain question is what's that external initiative in the marketplace or outside your department or your division still within your company, maybe that you're working on.
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00:16:34] Those five high gain questions for me, open up a discovery session. That can be very powerful, very conversation with no threat. That's why I liked those questions. So in the process, number one sets the goals. Number two, have a solid understanding of your listeners. Number three, you've gotta be able to craft your open and your close.
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00:16:57] Now notice that I didn't say do the body yet. Most people want to do the middle first. I don't think that's correct. You need to have a starting place and an ending place. And based on that starting place in any place you can decide. What's the best thing to do to fill in between, to me, an open and a close, if it is done properly and done well, it is the GPS unit of your content.
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00:17:27] So think about getting in your car to go someplace with your family or friends that you've never been before, whether you're using your GPS in your car or using it on your phone, you plug in the destination where you want to go. You plug in the address; your GPS unit picks up where you're at that moment.
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00:17:45] And then does it not give you the fastest, most effective way to reach your destination? That's exactly what an open and a closed does. It gives you a starting place and an ending place and then helps you narrow down what piece of content, the body that you need to share to take them from the open to the close.
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00:18:08] But if you do it the other way around, here's my principle. You just show up and throw up instead of it being clean, crisp, and there's a flow to your content. You want to develop your content what needs to go in the middle based on what that opens and closes. Those are typical. What are your major points?
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00:18:30] Most people would say I'm going to cover three points or five points or six points or eight points. I can't encourage you enough. I would never do more than four. Three is the golden number four boy. You're on edge after five. They can't remember. Now, if you do seven, eight, nine, you're back to that principle of I'm here to tell you more, instead of how do I get you to remember more and then step number five, all that hard work, all that hard work you turn into whatever visual seems appropriate.
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00:19:05] Is that a PowerPoint? Great. If it is super, if it's not, how about you want to do a whiteboard more, have a conversation, or maybe you're going to bring in a physical prompt. Whatever you decide, there's not a right or wrong. I would ask yourself the question. What is the best way for me to visually enhance my content, guys?
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00:19:27] If I'm in an audience of saying a hundred or more, I will use PowerPoint just from a readability perspective. If I have a smaller group, my favorite is a flip chart or a whiteboard, it's far more interactive, but those are my choices. You make the right choice. But I would think through the visual that will best reinforce and enhance the content you're trying to share with your listener.
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00:19:55] So that was principle number three, principle number four. It's what I call the simplicity factor. Now, remember that we're doing the hardworking. We're keeping it simple. We're doing the hard work, and we're keeping it simple. The simplicity factor really has four pieces to it. Number one, remember that we talk to people, we look people in the eye, and we have a conversation.
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00:20:24] Now, if you're doing something virtually, remember you're not talking to your screen. You're talking to your camera. You're talking to your camera, not to the screen. And if I could encourage you, if it's a small group camera's on. Small group camera's on. If I've got 15 or fewer people, I want everybody to have their camera on because I want to see their bright smiling faces because as well as I do, if you allow them to have their camera off, they're going to do something else.
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00:20:51] They're going to do their email. They're not going to pay any attention to you. I know in my home because my home is way out in the country. When I'm doing something, and it's a large group virtually say, for example, on zoom. Because my internet is not that great, if I turn my camera off, I have a steadier signal.
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00:21:12] It works more effectively. But when I do that, I'll tell the people on my call, that's what I'm going to do, but I will stop and do a lot of check-ins. Remember, it's about a conversation with folks—second simplicity factor. Get to the point, be clear, concise, and to the point. When you're doing something virtually, this is no place to be ribose.
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00:21:39] Cause you're going to lose people. They won't say focused. Nobody wants to stare at that screen or a PowerPoint side for that long period of time without something changing. And then guys, remember, you want to say it over and over again. Now that brings me back to the seven-factor phrase. Remember that the listener has to hear something seven times before they remember it.
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00:22:01] Seven times. And you're going to go bar, how do I say something? Seven times in an hour? Seven times in an hour is pretty simple. What I always get a kick out of is when my MBA students would say, boy, how do I say cite something times, seven times in five minutes, but I get them to do it. And it is revolutionary because, at the end of every five-minute talk, I'll say now, what was Sam's seven-factor phrase?
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00:22:26] And the class will call it out. Remember their goal is to get them to remember more, not tell them more. And then in everything that you do, it has to be clear, guys. It has to be easy to understand if it is not, you're going to lose your listener, especially in the virtual world. Now let's go-to principle number five, and this is what I call the four H's.
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00:22:57] Now I want to remind you that people buy with emotion, and they verify with the fact people buy with emotion, and they verify with fact, so there are four simple ages that I want to share with you. And if you'll keep these in mind as you craft content, it will help the first H is the word help. Be there to solve a pain, solve an issue, assist them, educate them, somehow help them achieve what they're trying to accomplish.
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00:23:31] Walk in the door and say, how can I empower you? How can I make a difference? What can I do, too, for you to help you come in with that attitude? Your first His help. The second one is the heart. Now you may think, okay, Bart, you're getting squishy on me, but when I'm talking about heart, I'm talking about captivating their emotions through stories, through examples, through experiences, but you have to be able to share them, share your company's story, share your personal story, share with them why you get up every day and want to go fight this battle.
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00:24:09] Share your heart a little bit. So they get to know you. Remember, they're going to buy you first, and then they're going to get your company or your tool or your product or your service. And the third I would inspire, which is hope, inspire them to take and make a difference, inspire them to recycle that they're trying to achieve that hope and heart are very closely interrelated.
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00:24:36] Now, remember that when you're sharing that kind of hope and heart, it's always relevant. You're vulnerable, but it's relevant, you're vulnerable, but it is relevant. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to be vulnerable enough to share with them your stories and your examples. And remember that it is your failures that inspire people, not your successes because you're sharing with them how you've overcome.
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00:25:08]That fourth H is humor. The best thing to help an audience relax is just a little fun—a little humor, guys. Remember, jokes are at high risk, low return. I'm not talking about jokes, natural humor, self defacing humor. A funny story about yourself. A funny story about one of your children. So if you'll think about allowing them to laugh, inspiring them, to achieve capturing their emotions and saying that you're going to help them those four H's, those four H's will take you a long way when you add in your content.
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00:25:50] But remember you got to do the hard work, and you got to keep it simple. And most people won't think how do I help? How do I share my heart? How do I give them hope? And how do I make them laugh today? That's principle number five.
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00:26:03]Now, principle number six is what I call drivers. These are what drive your actual virtual meeting. Now, this is extremely important. So, guys, I don't want you to miss any of this. Number one, you need to define your purpose for doing this meeting. Let me give you some examples. Is the purpose of selling is the purpose of teaching?
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00:26:29] Is the purpose of educating or is the purpose just to build awareness around what you bring to the table? You've gotta pinpoint what that purpose is because that dictates what you do within the virtual meeting itself. The second driver is audience size. Now, here is something for you to remember.
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00:26:54] If it's one to 10, the content can have greater complexity. Because it's a small group, you can banter, they can ask questions. There could be more feedback. You can go back and forth if the group is small. So if the group is small, raise the complexity of your content. If the group is large, 25, 35, 45 50, if you've got a big group that you're doing a virtual situation around, you have to keep it simple.
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00:27:29] You have to keep it simple because nobody can interact in that group environment. Oh sure. You can do a show of hands. You can do something in the chat room, but realize that 50 people in your session, you've got 50 different people, probably thinking 50 different things, smaller the group, the greater complexity, the larger the group simpler.
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00:27:50] The content has to be. So you pinpointed your purpose. You've worked with your audience size. The third key driver is the outcome or the goal you're trying to achieve. Now, I want to give you three outcomes that I want you to pinpoint. Every time you do a virtual meeting, this is what I want you to be able to answer at the end of the meeting, what do you want them to think?
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00:28:20] What do you want them thinking when it's all said and done, the second one, what do you want them to do? And the third one is what do you want them to feel? What do you want them to think? What do you want them to do? And what do you want them to feel? Any time I get asked to give it. Give a keynote type of feature, a Ted type talk.
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00:28:46] I always ask the person inviting me to come to speak those three things. When I'm all said and done if you could write the script, what do you want them to think? What do you want them to feel, and what do you want them to do? And I have them tell me, and then I began to twist and tweak and work with my content, so I can drive those things because I want that person who's asked me to be satisfied in this situation, say you're a selling situation.
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00:29:12] You want to be able to dictate that, okay. On my first sales call, what do I want them to think? What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to do? What do I want them to think is the fact that this solution tool or product will work for them, whatever I want them to feel. I want them to feel hopeful and inspired that they can get this done.
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00:29:31] And what do I want them to do? I want them to set up—one more meeting. I want them to set up to come in and do some type of demonstration on the solution tool or product. It's very pinpointed. So, guys, I've just walked you through six different principles, ideas. As we think about the actual virtual meeting itself, those are the principle foundation ideas that we will build the structure from.
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00:30:04] Now, this is going to be a two-part session. What I've covered the first one was the idea of what the meeting looked like from an overall perspective. There's the pre virtual meeting, the actual meeting, and the post that's at its highest level. Now we're working within the actual meeting, and I've given you the principles to build.
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00:30:26] Now, I want to come back to something that I shared with you earlier. That structure is key to your success. What I want you to begin to do is implement some of these principles, start integrating them into your next virtual meeting. Think through some of these ideas and make sure you're actually building into your meeting content.
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00:30:48] Now, if it's not a virtual meeting, these things will apply in your face to face a small group or large group. I want to make sure that your information is timely. I want to make sure that it is timeless, meaning it can be shared over and over again with others. And more importantly, I want you to walk into the situation, confident that you can achieve what you'd like to achieve.
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00:31:14] Now, don't miss our next session where I'm actually going to break into the content structure components. We've got to be able to bring these two pieces together. And I look forward to sharing that with you. So, guys, this has been the remarkability Institute. This is Bart queen, your host. I can't wait to see you at our next podcast.