Show Notes
But remember, in the virtual world, everything is compounded. It's compounded more difficult and the challenges that you're facing. So how do I counterbalance and find all that? Now those are just some principles that are the foundation to you being successful virtually. Now let me mention some communications statistics, I think, are always important to keep in front of you.
[
00:01:24] Don't let go of these. In a face to face situation, you have 30 seconds to engage that audience. That's all you get is 30 seconds. Anything after that far more difficult in the virtual world. You have eight seconds, so if you have not said something in the first eight seconds in this virtual meeting that you're doing on your podcast, on your conference call, that engages the audience more difficult.
[
00:01:52] So you don't have the time to say, good afternoon, guys. Let's give everybody a chance to settle in. You've already lost because now I'm doing my email. I'm trying to catch up on what I need to get done.
[
00:02:02]The second statistic I want you to become aware of is what I call the four to six-minute kind of a rule. Every four to six minutes, you have got to change it up. Now in the face-to-face world, guys that could mean stand up, sit down. If you're doing something up on a big stage, move from the left to the right of the right to the left move forward or backward, depending on what you're trying to accomplish and our virtual world, it could mean stop and ask a question.
[
00:02:30] It could mean change slides. Anything that you can do now, this principle is based on a typical 30-minute American sitcom. If you study one of those guys, you'll see that every four to six minutes, you typically get an advertisement. The producers are brilliant at keeping you involved in that 30-minute story.
[
00:02:55] So I want you to have that same type of brilliance and say every 46 minutes, I change. I need to change it up. I'll get systems engineers who will come in and say to me, Bart; we are going to do a. Demo. It's a four-hour demo with a customer. My response is you're crazy. Who's going to be looking at a demo seated in front of a computer for four hours.
[
00:03:20] This is just not going to happen. It's hard to keep a focus for an hour 30 minutes. You're pushing it. So if that's the case, how do I create that kind of interaction and banter? Keep them focused and change it up every four to six minutes.
[
00:03:37] The other thing I want you to remember, and this goes across the board. I find this statistic fascinating. Our face to face communication really takes up. People will argue anywhere from 70 to about 95% of what you do on a day to day basis. A very small percentage is what you and I would call public speaking or presenting.
[
00:04:01] That's not the number I want you to remember. The number I want you to remember is that all of that 78 to 95%, 40 to 60% of what you communicate, gets forgotten. So let's just take a look at this podcast, guys. Now, this is roughly going to be 30 minutes. I'm going to have to face the fact that 50% of what I tell you will forget.
[
00:04:30] So the question for me is not, how do I slam dunk more information into this podcast for you? I could speak so fast that you could not keep up. That doesn't serve me. It doesn't serve you. So the question is, how do I communicate in this 30 minutes with you so that you walk out the door and share a principle or two with someone else?
[
00:04:55] If you're driving in your car on your way to work and you got to work and say, I just listened to a podcast from Bart, and he talked about this one principle. I think we should try to integrate that into what we're doing. Then we both win. That's what I want for you.
[
00:05:10]Now, I've laid out some challenges that we've got to overcome. And I laid out some statistics that give us a foundation to build from. So now, let's really take a look at the virtual meeting structure. Now, when I say that, most of you will think about the actual virtual meeting you're doing.
[
00:05:31] We're doing this on Tuesday from 12 to one. That's all you're thinking about, but if you're going to communicate virtually if you're going to communicate successfully. In that communication in that medium, that channel, you have to have three aspects to your overall meeting structure. There's the pre-meeting setup.
[
00:05:58] There's the actual meeting, and there's the post-meeting interaction. So if I'm doing a conference call, I would encourage you to have these three. If you're doing a webcast, Microsoft teams, a zoom type of a platform, you've got to have all three, the pre-meeting setup, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting interaction.
[
00:06:22] Now let me break each one of those apart. I think these are critical to your success. The pre virtual meeting is, in essence, what most people are; salespeople will call it your discovery call. It's getting on with the person who's inviting you in. It's getting with the person who's driving this idea that they want you to speak to their teams.
[
00:06:49] It understands their pain, their issues, and their concerns. Now, if you're not driving and just listening, you have a pen and paper. I want you to write this down. No pain, no value, no business, no pain, no value, no business. So during this discovery call, you've got to be able to bring forward, pull out, find out, discover what the three major issues, challenges, pains, concerns that you're trying to solve are.
[
00:07:19] You've got to be able to connect your virtual meeting to some type of an issue. Otherwise, why should people listen to you? I love the guy that says, I want you to come in, demo your product, your solution for us and show us everything. And I will tell that person that's a failure, just looking for a place to happen.
[
00:07:43] Cause they're not going to link it to anything, and you're not going to be successful. You've got to be able to link it to pain and issue a challenge or a problem. So that's the first piece. This pre virtual meeting is your discovery. The second is to confirm and layout what the meeting logistic ground rules are.
[
00:08:08] Now. Some of those are pretty simple. You can make them as complex or as simple as you like for me, I always start on time, and I will tell that person, Mr. Smith, when I come in next week, I will most importantly, I will start at noon, and I will end by one in the afternoon. If that's the time slot you've given me because most people are going, Oh, it'll take him 10 minutes to get started.
[
00:08:32] Nope. I start right on time. that's extremely important in this virtual world that you set that precedent that you become known for starting on time and ending on time. Now other ground rules could be at the bottom of the hour. I'm going to open it up for questions. I like to do that after 30 minutes.
[
00:08:52] That's just one way of changing it up if the group is small. If I have less than 15 people, that I've got a list of names who are on there, and I will ask very specific questions, and I will call them by name. Cause I'm trying to drive interaction, whatever ground rules you decide to set up whatever those are, to make your meeting work, hold to them.
[
00:09:19] There is. A tremendous book by Roger Schwartz called the skilled facilitator by Roger Schwartz. It's a pretty thick book. I think you may find value in that when he gets into some of the ideas around facilitating and organizing the structure of what your meeting looks like. It's a great reference.
[
00:09:43] I use it often. The other thing that you want to make clear in the pre virtual meeting is what is the purpose for us having this meeting, the actual meeting? What kind of awareness do I need to do? Is this a teaching meeting? Is this a selling meeting? What type of meeting is this? You want to pinpoint that.
[
00:10:07] If it's a teaching meeting, maybe I'm going to turn the camera off because I've got a fair amount of slides. I want to show if it's a conversation, maybe I want the camera on. If it's a selling type of a call, maybe I'm going to go camera on camera off, ask questions, keep my content down to a minimum, depending on what I'm trying to do.
[
00:10:32] Make sure you pinpoint your purpose. One of the bigger complaints that the executive gives about any type of meaning, the meeting lacked purpose; it lacked objectives. You want to make sure those are definitely on the front end. Then you've got all that information, guys. Now lay out the meeting agenda, but the meeting agenda, the actual agenda for the actual meeting, is based on what you did in the pre virtual meeting.
[
00:11:02] You've already got the person inviting you into sign off. Yes, this is what we want to be covered. Great. You're on solid ground. Now, does that mean when it gets out that somebody doesn't say, what about this, and what about that? No, of course, you may have to flex some that are part of the skill that you bring to the table, but you want to keep that as tight as possible.
[
00:11:29] And then I would ask what's their communication preference. Meaning as far as follow up additional conversation, is it, do you prefer email? Do you prefer text? Are you the type of person who wants to get on the phone? Find out what their communication preferences, when you do that, you're being listed focused, and you hold them more accountable.
[
00:11:54] Extremely important. If I said to a good friend of mine, Joe, now, as we communicate this, what's the best way for me to reach you. Email, voicemail, or texting? Joe says, Bart, from my perspective, texting always works the best for me. Okay, Joe, no problem. Now, when I text Joe, does he feel more accountable to want to respond or less?
[
00:12:20] No. I asked him, and he said text. He's gonna feel that he needs to respond to me because I took the time to ask.
[
00:12:27]this last point is a make or breakpoint in my mind, in the virtual world,
[
00:12:34]guys, in that, setting up the followup call. Most people will do a virtual meeting. They'll do a demo, they'll do something, and they'll think, you know what I'll call. I'll call them in a couple of days and see how they feel like it went. If they need additional information, you don't want to do that. You want to build in the interaction point.
[
00:12:59] So if I was going to set up a meeting, let me come back to my friend, Joe again with Joe, and we're going to do this virtual meeting, I might say. Okay, Joe, at the close of our meeting at one o'clock, I would just like to schedule a brief two or three, four-minute call with you to debrief. what went on, how you felt like it went, and what we, what are our next steps?
[
00:13:19] Joe says, okay. Bart that sounds great. Call me at one Oh five or call me at one 10. Call me at one 15. And I'll give you 15 minutes. Great. That now has already been scheduled. You've built that touchpoint in, but if you don't do your pure, your pre virtual meeting, you're not going to have an opportunity to do that.
[
00:13:44] And then it's all up in the air. You have no idea how it went, your pre virtual meeting, and your post virtual interaction. Critical to your success and what you do in the actual meeting.
[
00:13:59]No, guys, let me get into some of these ideas around the second major bucket, which is your actual virtual meeting. And this is where you all wanted to focus. So a couple of things, when you use your camera, The camera should be eye level with you. So my setup at home, if I'm doing any type of a virtual meeting, I have a separate little table, separate chair.
[
00:14:26] Now, in my chair, I pull a kitchen chair. I got to put a couple of pillows in it to prop it up, prop myself up a little bit. They're wooden. So it's a little hard to sit on for an hour. And then I have to set my laptop on a box because if I'm seated straight in my chair, And I'm looking at my camera. Now I have a webcam that sits on top of my laptop.
[
00:14:51] I can't encourage you enough to invest in a simple webcam instead of just the camera on your laptop. Just from my experience, it's been a far superior experience. Now here's the hard part, team. When I'm looking at that webcam, then it should be eye level with my eye. So many times you'll see people who set their laptop on the desk, it's slower, and the camera is looking up their nose.
[
00:15:19] You don't want that guy. You want it to be more Ida? I remember that part of what we're trying to do was create a connection. I want to feel like I'm having a conversation with you. If that camera's looking at your nose, that's on a conversation—the second thing I want you to remember that most people forget.
[
00:15:40] Guys, don't talk to the screen. Don't talk to the screen. You talk to the camera, which you're going bar, but I need to look at my slides. Okay. When you talk, you'll look at the camera. When you glance down, look at your slide, get what you need. Come back up, talk to the camera. Do you want a connection? You don't get a connection.
[
00:16:00] If I'm looking down at my screen and they can tell I'm looking down at my screen, having this conversation, it takes practice. But remember, we talked about the perfect storm, and part of the perfect storm is you getting a competitive advantage. That means you have to do the hard work. That means you have to keep it simple.
[
00:16:24] The next time you're watching the news, BBC C CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox News, or whoever you watch. And you're seeing these people. Doing these virtual meetings, whether they're talking to their laptop, to the journalists, pay attention that a lot of them will be seated back and you get more of what I'm going to talk say really is the top third of your body shoulders, maybe some hands face compared to looking at people's nose.
[
00:16:59] So the second thing you have to do is not only speak to the camera, look at the camera, but the laptop should be arm's distance away from you. Arms, distance. That way, you get more of this full feel to the experience. But most people are really right on top of it. What the listener experiences isn't near as powerful.
[
00:17:24] If you're not if you're more of an arm's distance away.
[
00:17:28]The other thing that I think is so important, guys, make sure that you face the light force. So if you want to put a laptop, you want to put a lamp in front of you. You want to be facing the light source. Not have it behind you. Now, this may sound silly to you, but when I'm doing my virtual at home, there is a picture behind me.
[
00:17:52] If I have left the kitchen light on, cause I have a great room where the kitchen and kind of the family room are in one spot. That picture actually picks up the lights from the kitchen, and there are spots across that picture. You want to make sure that's all turned off. You also want to make sure that you reduce any background noise and any background distractions.
[
00:18:24]During one of these sessions, I was watching on the news. They did a special segment on just tearing people's backgrounds apart, messy bookshelves, pictures, tilted plants, dying. It was hilarious at what they were sharing. You want to make sure that any distraction in the background is to a minimum, and you want to make sure the background noise is to a minimum.
[
00:18:56] Now, for those of you who know me a little bit, I live on a little teeny farm. And for those of you who know me, you'll know that I have peacocks. And one of my favorite peacocks loves to come to sit on the railing on the front porch. And if I'm doing my virtual session and that peacock comes and roosts on the front porch, if he decides to bark and make his sound, Oh my gosh, everybody hears it.
[
00:19:24] But now I want to offer a thought with all that in the virtual world that you and I are beginning to live with, then it allows for a moment of humanity. So if you have children, sometimes they come running in, especially that little two or four-year-old and wants to see mom or dad. Those are moments of humanity.
[
00:19:43] The cat comes barreling, and the dog barks. Those are all moments of humanity. Do your best to keep those at a minimum, but don't let those things destroy what you're doing. They build a connection. So if all of a sudden my Bernese mountain dog came and jumped in my lap, and now he's in the camera. What would happen with every other person that enjoys pets or likes dogs?
[
00:20:11] Come back to something I shared with you earlier today, they're going to go, Oh my gosh. Bart has a Bernese mountain dog. I've always wanted one of those. we have a golden retriever. No, we have a lab. We have a German shepherd. No, we have a poodle, but you get me-too factor. What happens when you get the meat?
[
00:20:26] You factor, you get greater trust. You get a greater connection, and you get rid of greater relationships. Now in this section, guys, I want to cover one more piece. And that is the actual conversation during your virtual meeting. you're probably going to laugh about this, but I want you to take on the idea of being a TV personality.
[
00:20:56] Let yourself come forward. Don't feel like you have to be all stiff and formal when you do this. I'm not saying to be a comedian. I am saying, let your natural self come forward. Keep your information brief. Keep your content simple. Keep your slides simple. Start on time. End on time. Start with an opening engagement line.
[
00:21:25] Something that grabs their attention immediately. And make sure you start, Y whatever you're sharing is important, don't leave that out. And from a clothing perspective, think through what you're wearing. No stripes, no plans, no things that as you're looking through the camera, it makes, it looks like it's shifting.
[
00:21:48] You don't want that kind of an effect. You want to make sure that you have reduced tractions as much as possible. And we keep it as simple as pie.
[
00:22:00]Now let me address one more, one more point, guys. In this particular session, I want to talk about your virtual meeting interaction because that's part of the challenge that we are facing. So let me give you some engagement tips, things that I think will help you take engagement and interaction to the next level.
[
00:22:22] Tip number one. I want you to realize every time you transition a slide, that is an opportunity to reengage. When you transition slides, that is an opportunity to reengage. So if you've been on a slide for a little bit, and you're going to go to your next slide, realize, gosh, I have an opportunity to grab them, pull them back in Murray, get their attention.
[
00:22:49] Your use of questions in the virtual world should be more specific overbroad. Don't say, what do you think too broad? You want to ask very specific questions and if you can use names in your interaction even better. I always appreciate my virtual meetings that are 15 or less in the number of people. If I've got 25, 30, 40, or 50 on it, virtual meeting, much more.
[
00:23:19] Yeah. Difficult to have a complete list of names and be able to call people out. And in those situations, you will truly find that most people turn their camera off. Remember that your use of names is one of the most powerful things we can do. And it is the most underutilized interaction tool. In my mind, please remember that the sweetest word in any language is your own name.
[
00:23:46] Use of names in this virtual world is important
[
00:23:49]also to keep interaction higher. More stories, more examples, more experiences, remember stories, keep people involved. For example, keep people involved. If you're just doing a data dump and the virtual world, and I'm scaring staring at your screen, probably not very engaging. So guys, the way you work a room when you're face to face, you have to work the room virtually.
[
00:24:16] How do we do that? we worked the room by using names. We work the room by re-engaging. Every time we change slides, we work the room by use of questions.
[
00:24:28]in all of that. Make sure you've done two things. You've double-checked your audio. Make sure your sound is good and make sure you reduce again any background noise that you may be experiencing. Anything you can do to minimize that is the best thing you can do.
[
00:24:47]Now, the last piece of everything that we're looking at in these three major buckets, which was your pre virtual meeting, your actual virtual meeting, and your post virtual meeting interaction. Or engagement is your followup. This has gotta be immediately done. 10, 15 minutes at the most. You've got preset that meeting up in your pre virtual meeting.
[
00:25:11] And this is where you have outlined your next steps. This is where you verify those things. This is where you find out if they need additional information. And this is where you get your feedback from what you've just done. This piece in this structure. The third piece, your post virtual meeting followup, critical to your success in moving the customer forward.
[
00:25:34] So remember, guys I shared with you, the challenge is not the meeting. The challenge is getting them to schedule, to come to your meeting, and then driving them to action. And if you have no followup, you have the inability to drive them forward. These three pieces, from an overall perspective, are the things that set you up for success.
[
00:25:58] Don't think that you can just do your virtual meeting. You need your pre virtual meeting, and you need your post virtual meeting. Remember that our goal, when I opened this up today, this first in this podcast, was to get you to go from virtually literate. So virtually fluent in what you're doing. I want you to be able to master this environment in the way you communicate.
[
00:26:26] Now, as we leave the podcast today, what I'm going to ask you to do is take one of the principles we've talked about and incorporated into your next virtual meeting. And if you're starting from scratch, I want you to build all three pieces. Build your pre virtual meeting, plan out your actual meeting. And then your post now, and our next couple of sessions, I'm going to break down the structure that you need to look at in your next, in the actual virtual meeting itself.
[
00:26:56] You don't want to miss that. You need both of these pieces in order to be successful. Guys, I know that this is the forefront and important to everything that you're doing today. Being able to communicate in the face to face world and now in the virtual world is what will give you the competitive advantage across the board, whether you're a salesperson, you're marketing, you're an engineer, or you're an entrepreneur.
[
00:27:22] Your ability to connect, have a conversation, and build your confidence is what will set you apart. We don't have a choice. Failure is not an option. These are required,
[
00:27:39]guys. This is a bar queen. This has been the remarkability Institute, and I'll look forward to seeing you at the next session.