The Exceptional Presenter Goes Virtual: Lead Dynamic Online Meetings

By Tim Koegel

This is a critical tool for any professional who needs to deliver effective, engaging presentations at a distance. It covers all types of virtual, online, or distance presentations. It includes conference calls, webinars, virtual meetings, and video blogs. Sales calls, speeches, interviews, negotiations, this book covers it all, offering practical tips, tricks, worksheets, and checklists for overcoming the hurdles to engagement that occur when you aren't in the same room with your audience. 

This is the first of its kind on the national market. Every day, more and more professionals are required to present to distant audiences - to save money, to save travel time and costs, and to connect with new customers and colleagues. No other book on the market offers business people the tools they need to approach these presentations with confidence. It is written by a presentation guru at the forefront of online engagement.

​Through his work with such companies as Cisco Systems, a leader in virtual technology, and Forbes Online, the leader of online content delivery, Timothy Koegel has garnered unique insights into what it takes to deliver persuasive, compelling presentations at a distance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Jul 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781632994561

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

OPPORTUNITY AWAITS

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT LEADING PRODUCTIVE VIRTUAL MEETINGS, HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR MATERIAL, ORGANIZE YOUR TEAM AND DELIVER YOUR MESSAGE. IT IS NOT ABOUT HOW TO USE THE SOFTWARE. THE SOFTWARE CAN’T CONDUCT THE MEETING FOR YOU.

THE METEORIC RISE OF ONLINE COMMUNICATION, since the onset of COVID-19, has created an opportunity for those who take the necessary steps to improve their virtual communication proficiency.

The challenges of communicating with remote audiences are more daunting than those of communicating face-to-face. If you want to maximize your impact, elevate your personal brand, stand out from the masses and accelerate your career trajectory, then becoming an exceptional virtual communicator is not an option; it’s a necessity.

Prior to the March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, online meetings were an afterthought. They were used for internal meetings and perhaps some low-stakes client interactions. COVID-19 changed everything. All face-to-face interactions were halted and virtual communication was the only option. High-stakes meetings, interviews, prospecting calls and proposals were now exclusively conducted via Zoom, Teams, Webex and a host of other meeting software. Most business professionals were underprepared to excel in this, now mandatory, virtual environment.

More than a year after the lockdown, online meetings are not much better than they were pre-COVID-19. They have been consuming most of our business lives, but the quality and execution of these meetings remains underwhelming. Success is defined by making it through a meeting without appearing upside-down, having a cat filter over your face, getting caught using the bathroom or getting disconnected from the call. The standards are still exceedingly low. Meeting leaders have become more competent operating the software, but few have mastered the art of organizing and leading a productive meeting.

Virtual communication is not going away. It has become an important and practical business tool for communicating with clients, prospects, coworkers and employees.

If you already possess strong in-person communication skills, this book will help you transfer those skills to virtual meetings. If your in-person communication skills are less than exceptional, this book offers you a second chance to elevate your game.

What follows will teach you not only how to organize your team and material but also how to deliver your information to achieve the greatest impact.

An additional bonus comes from using the techniques in this book: By learning how to organize and deliver virtual communication with greater clarity and impact, you will simultaneously improve your in-person communication skills.

If you forget everything else you read in this book, remember these three principles:

1. Your on-screen presence and communication style represent your personal and professional brand.

2. Your meeting must be relevant, or it will be ignored. It must be engaging, or it will be forgotten. It must keep moving, or it will be abandoned.

3. You are the messenger. The technology can’t organize your message or prepare your team. It is you who must move the audience to take action.

The skills outlined in this book don’t depend on the software being used. They are fundamental communication techniques that apply in any virtual setting. The software and technology will continue to evolve. Don’t let that worry you. The technology doesn’t impact your ability to craft and deliver a powerful message.

The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we’re ready for it.

—Arnold Glasgow

OPERATING THE SOFTWARE VS LEADING A VIRTUAL MEETING

Operating the meeting software is akin to sitting on your sofa playing a Madden NFL football video game on your PS5 or XBOX. Leading a virtual meeting is like being on the football field competing against the best players in the National Football League. You might be the top Madden NFL quarterback on the planet yet have no chance of completing a single pass in an actual NFL game. The skills required are completely different.

There are literally tens of millions of video tutorials online that show you how to use the features and functions of virtual meeting software. As far as I know, you are reading the only comprehensive source covering the skills you need to prepare for and lead a productive online meeting.

THE FUTURE IS NOW

The use of online communication now extends far beyond the business meeting to almost all communication (medical examinations, trade shows, conferences, interviews, tours, product demonstrations and training, among others). The following list appeared in my book The Exceptional Presenter and was included to illustrate the many places in which we can find ourselves presenting. Look at the list and check the situations in which we can now communicate virtually:

▢  Proposals

▢  Job interviews

▢  Negotiating

▢  IPO road shows

▢  Fundraising

▢  Client reviews

▢  Casual conversations

▢  Recruiting

▢  Board meetings

▢  Talking to your children

▢  Arguing

▢  Gossiping

▢  Sales meetings

▢  Voice mail

▢  Phone conversations

▢  Counseling

▢  Prospecting calls

▢  Customer service

▢  Training

▢  Radio or TV appearances

▢  Social functions

▢  Banquets

▢  Brainstorming sessions

▢  Interviewing candidates

▢  Mentoring

▢  Sharing your vision

▢  Debating

▢  Teaching

▢  Staff meetings

▢  Networking

▢  Instructing others

▢  Cold calls

▢  Keynote speeches

▢  Team presentations

▢  Key account meetings

▢  Hosting an event

▢  Luncheons

▢  Selling products

▢  Coaching

▢  Talking with your peers

▢  Introducing others

▢  Product introductions

▢  Q&A sessions

▢  Reading at services

▢  Questioning clients

▢  Updating superiors

▢  Talking with your spouse

▢  Working convention booths

We can check every situation on the list. We have reached the point in time when, by simply carrying a smartphone, we can present our information, ideas, solutions and data to just about anyone, anywhere in the world.

UNDERSTAND THE CHALLENGES, OR THEY WILL TRIP YOU UP

The reality is that when it comes to presenting, most people fall well short of their potential. They don’t learn how to craft a clear, concise and compelling message. They don’t develop effective presentation delivery skills that reflect their level of competence and professionalism. And they are unaware of what it takes to keep an audience engaged and involved in a meeting.

How can anyone expect to achieve exceptional results with less than exceptional skills? And taking those skills and placing them in a virtual setting poses additional challenges and complexities to the planning and delivery of your information such as

•Presenting to silent or muted audiences

•Presenting to invisible audiences

Steve was thrilled that his travel time and his golf scores dropped simultaneously.

•Receiving little or no feedback or input from the audience

•Connecting participants and keeping them connected

•Navigating a set of web tools that a gamer would have difficulty operating

•Presenting to a remote audience that is probably surfing the web, emailing, texting, catching-up on work or otherwise multitasking

The multitasking alone is enough to dilute the impact of your message. In some organizations, online meetings are viewed as an opportunity to get other stuff done. I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t freely admit that they surf the web, check their email, read unrelated material and handle other ancillary work during their online meetings.

One executive laughed as he told me, I swear I heard a toilet flush during my meeting. Perhaps he could consider that action an evaluation of his meeting.

HOW THIS BOOK WILL HELP YOU

Virtual meetings command an extra level of detail and planning, a more assertive delivery style and relentless effort to keep your audience engaged. In order to thrive in this digital environment, you must possess a systematic process for planning and executing your virtual meetings.

Until now there hasn’t been a resource that provided meeting leaders with a systematic method of preparing for and delivering online meetings. Most of the best practices I have seen are a collection of suggestions for using the bells and whistles that the various online meeting options offer. These best practices include suggestions such as Be interactive, dynamic and engaging, Ask questions, Use the tools, Smile with your voice and Have fun.

I agree that we should smile with our voice, and we should have fun. Where these best practices fall short is that they offer few, if any, suggestions as to how to make your online meetings dynamic, engaging, interactive and fun. They don’t address the most basic elements, including how to plan and sequence your topics or how to create an in-person atmosphere. Asking questions is one way to get the audience involved, but there are additional ways to engage the audience.

The Exceptional Presenter Goes Virtual provides the process

for planning and executing high-impact meetings. The goal is to make them less daunting by changing your setup, your preparation and your delivery. This book will break a virtual meeting into its components and then provide techniques, skills and practice methods that enable you to improve each skill incrementally. The incremental improvement of multiple skills leads to significant overall improvement in effectiveness and consistency.

Once you are competent at applying these techniques, you will be able to use them in ANY virtual communication environment.

This book is not about the technology. It’s about how to organize and deliver your message using the technology.

The Exceptional Presenter Goes Virtual is organized into three segments.

Segment 1: Keep it relevant

Segment 2: Keep it engaging

Segment 3: Keep it moving

Keep it relevant

Your virtual meeting must be relevant, or it will be ignored. What must be relevant? Everything.

•The purpose

•The topics

•The message

•The agenda, timing and flow

•The technology you choose

•The participants and their roles

Keep it engaging

Your virtual meeting must be engaging, or it will be forgotten. Every segment should engage your audience. Make your message more interesting than anything that might distract your participants.

•Be resourceful. The same old same old doesn’t work here.

•Start with the most interesting topic.

•Grab the attention of your audience with a dynamic and professional delivery.

•Involve members of the audience early and often.

•Don’t fly solo.

•Create an in-person look and feel using more effective camera placement, lighting, surroundings and background.

•Use stories, examples, humor, visuals, video, sound and music.

•Make it fun.

Keep it moving

Your virtual meeting must keep moving, or it will be abandoned. Do not waste time. Downtime is the kiss of death in this environment.

•Create