Virtual Meeting / Presenting – Tip #8 Random Advice for Putting Your Best Foot Forward (Part 2)

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Virtual Meeting / Presenting – Tip #8

Random Advice for Putting Your Best Foot Forward Part 2

By Joe Friedman, Zehren♦Friedman Associates, Ltd.

Welcome to our new world. As someone who has worked from home for the past 27 years, today is…Wednesday, just like any other one, unless I’m in a classroom.

Most of our business (pre-Covid-19) has been delivered in-person, 75% of which are two-day classes, the other 25% are one-day. Several years ago, we started experimenting with the various web-based platforms and created a concept we call the Virtual Classroom, and yes, it’s the next best thing to being there in-person. We do role plays, there are large and small group discussions, we white board; participants are talking, others are sending instant messages. I’m talking, typing and listening. (It also takes two people to deliver the class – I have a producer / co-facilitator helping me.)

We’ve had years to figure this out, and we’ve had a LOT of practice doing it. So now, you find yourself working at home, involved in virtual meetings and you think technology will “make it easy.” It won’t!

Each Virtual Presenting tip will come in a bite-sized chunk, so it can be implemented more easily. Plus, as this spills out of my brain, I’ll one day organize all of these tips into a book on the subject. (That was just a thought bubble, right?)

And one shamelessly salesy moment before I launch in…all of our classes (sales, presentation skills, negotiation skills and influence) can be delivered virtually!

You can contact Joe Friedman (love to speak of myself in the third person) by phone or email –
312-841-3364, jfriedman@zehrenfriedman.com. Zehren♦Friedman Associates website is www.zehrenfriedman.com.

Tip #8 – Putting Your Best Foot Forward Part 2

In several of the blogs so far, I’ve talked about the message, the images and how to control the flow of information. Since I had way too many tips to cover in the last blog, following is an additional list of things to think about, in order to make your virtual meetings / presentations more successful.

These continue to be random thoughts. Some just popped into my head, others came from comments about the blog series. (Keep questions and topics coming, by the way!)

Meeting courtesy / protocol:

  • In the last blog, I mentioned the option of having a slide with “Housekeeping” rules on it. Many of the people that we work with have split screens, multiple screens or ADD (which in this case creates the need to multi-task during meetings or presentations). If you can remember a time when you did this, imagine the announcement right before a movie or live event starts. “Silence your phones, no flash photography,” etc. Read the Housekeeping rules, or announce the courtesy you expect. Some levity is OK.

    • “It’s a short presentation, then I’ll open up the floor for comments or questions.”

    • “Please keep your multi-tasking to a minimum, and you know who I’m talking to out there!” (This would be for a group you know.)

    • “I want this to be as interactive as possible, so I’m going to unmute all of the phones.” (This would be for whatever you consider a small group – fewer than 10?)

    • “I’ll be calling out for live comments a lot during this meeting, so be prepared.”

 

Meeting / Presentation kick-off

  • We call this the “greeting and rapport” part of a presentation. It can be long or short and is appropriate for virtual meetings too. Here’s the short version:

    • “It looks like everyone is here, so let’s get started.”

  • The long version depends upon the number of people attending, and your familiarity with the audience. (I’ll address a more in-depth audience analysis in a future blog.) Depending upon the objective of the session, audience and any other considerations, following is a set of options that can be mixed and matched as needed:

    • Introduce yourself (if any attendees don’t know who you are).

    • Position yourself:

      • This is a two-sentence (maximum) oral biography of key personal attributes to generate credibility with the group (“I grew up poor in downstate Illinois and had to walk to school in bare feet. Nonetheless, I became a lawyer and the 16th President of the United States”).

      • Have a slide with a picture and biography – this allows you to highlight key points quickly

    • Position your organization:

      • Same options as positioning yourself, but builds organizational credibility (if presenting to people outside your organization, or outside of your department)

    • Meeting objective – “Our goal is that by the end of this session…”

    • Meeting agenda

    • Housekeeping guidance

    • Time frame for the meeting, which could be the end time, the time when you’ll open the floor for questions, the time when you’ll turn over the meeting to someone else, etc.

    • How you want to manage questions:

      • Interrupt me any time

      • Raise your hand

      • Send an Instant Message

      • I’ve saved time at the end of each section / end of meeting

I know these are a lot of ideas, and you haven’t even officially gotten into the meeting / presentation content yet! As long as we’re talking about questions…

Manage Questions and Answers

I don’t know how many times I’ve talked about the need for a plan, so you’ll hear the advice again very soon. Following is the guidance we give for handling questions during one of the presentation classes we offer. It’s divided into two sections. First, what do you do to prepare for handling questions and second, how do you actually handle them – adapted of course for the virtual environment.

  • Prepare for Q&A

    • Anticipate the questions you think you’re going to hear. And if you know you’re going to get a specific question decide: 1) Should the answer be in the presentation or 2) What the best answer would sound like. You may even want practice what that answer sounds like out loud.

    • Set ground rules. As mentioned at the top of this page – it’s part of the Meeting Kick-Off.

    • Transition to Q&A. This takes a number of different forms:

      • If you want people to interrupt as you go along, at the end of each slide or segment, ask “are there any questions?” Then you have to wait (10 seconds).

      • If you asked people to hold their questions until the end, announce (before you get to that point) that you will wrap things up in a couple of minutes, then open the “floor” for questions.

      • What if there are no questions? One option is to “break the ice” by asking the first question yourself. Another option is to arrange with a participant in advance to ask the first question if nobody has one – I’m not giving them a question to ask, just to “be on call” if needed.

  • Taking (and Answering) questions:

    • Listen – until the other person is done speaking. Even if you know what the question is three words in, don’t interrupt or finish the question or start to answer. Interrupting them is rude. (What do you do with the person who isn’t asking a question, but making a presentation of their own? CUT THEM OFF! Use your judgement.)

      • This might be the very reason you need a partner when meeting / presenting virtually. It’s not just the ability to multitask yourself, it’s the ability to track all the hands up or questions popping up on Instant Message.

    • Clarify it – for yourself. If there is any chance that you haven’t heard it clearly or don’t understand, ASK! “Could you clarify that for me?” “What did you mean?” “What did you mean when you said…?” And yes, do it live – take that person off mute if you must. It’s too easy to misconstrue the meaning in writing.

    • Honor it – give the questioner some recognition, “Bill wanted to know…” if questions are being sent via Instant Messenger, or “I see there’s a question about fees,” or “we’re all looking to get back into the office.”

    • Answer it – and keep two things in mind: honest and concise. If people want to know more, they can ask for more.

    • Test it – “did that answer the question?” Another reason why you might want the questioner off mute.

      • Yes, the previous four bullets spell CHAT (Clarify, Honor, Answer, Test), an objection handling model we teach in our sales classes

    • Here are a few don’ts”

      • Don’t rate – “good question,” “great question,” “best question ever.” What is the “good” question? The one you know the answer to, or the one you don’t? Rating adds nothing.

      • Don’t thank people for asking. Do that, and when you don’t thank me, my feelings will be hurt!

      • Don’t BS – if you don’t know the answer, admit it and say when you’ll get an answer to the group. You can speculate, but announce that you’re doing it, AND that you’ll get a more specific answer out to the group.

  • What do you do if you’re presenting in a group virtually?

    • Designate someone as “Moderator” during the Q&A period.

    • The Moderator’s job is to either answer the question or farm it out to one of their teammates.

      • This is where private Instant Messages can help, so a teammate can say to the Moderator that they have an answer.

    • This takes some practice as the level of multi-tasking needed increases.

Managing your time most effectively takes planning – let’s say you’ve got an hour. How much content can you cover?

  • 5 minutes for “greeting and rapport” / opening the meeting

  • 5 minutes to wrap up at the end

  • 15 minutes for Q&A

  • That leaves 35 minutes of meeting or presentation time

I’ve frequently said (while teaching presentation classes) that you should bring about one-half the amount of content compared to the amount of time you have. My “back of the napkin” calculations above show you why – this is a major calculation you need to consider now that we’re meeting / presenting virtually.

Lesson? There are a lot of variables involved with running successful meetings and presentations. The better your plan, the better you will be able to have your event reflect positively on you!

Stay Safe!

And, if you have suggestions for future blogs on Virtual Meetings / Presentations, let me know!

Joe Friedman is co-founder of Zehren♦Friedman Associates, Ltd, which sells and delivers sales, presentation, negotiation and influence training. Joe spends over 100 days a year in the classroom (virtually and in-person).

You can call Joe directly at 312-841-3364 or email to jfriedman@zehrenfriedmam.com.