Presenting Virtually

Be a virtual presentation star.

Ten years ago conference calls were the norm but following lockdown and the rise in remote working, video calls are the way many of us spend our days.

It doesn’t matter what tool you use, Zoom, WebEx, or Teams, people are consistently using them badly, failing to deliver the message they intend and often wasting a lot of time. So in bid to save everyone’s sanity, here are a few tips on running better, more effective video calls.

Start on time and end early. Start on time. Go on, don’t wait for people to join because that means you’ll finish late and its likely that personnel will have another call right after yours. So, start on time and aim to get everything done in 20 mins for a 30-minute call, 45 min for an hour’s call. If you don’t practice this, your key personnel (the busy one’s) will leave before you have got to the point. You could even be really smart and book a call for 11:05 and avoid the ‘top of the hour’ over run.

Treat the call like a presentation. Use the classic framework, tell them what you will tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them. Bear in mind attention spans may wander, children may walk in, people are making a brew, signing for a parcel, reading an email, messaging a colleague (or friend) so give them as many opportunities as possible to receive the key, core message you set the call up to convey.

Have an agenda – Keep it short and punchy, an agenda can be as simple as a simple statement ‘this call is to discuss X and what I’d like use to decide on is whether we do Y or Z by the end of this call’ if you have a few things, list them out 1,2,3 and at the start of each point refer to it by number. That way those inattentive attendees understand where we are in the call and can pipe up ‘what was 2?’ before it’s too late.

Use Voice and Video – Use video not only to show you slides or spreadsheets (oh we will come to those in a moment) but also to show you. It is much easier to gain understanding if you can see someone as they present, it humanises the experience. Gesture, smile and wave – be human. Just voicing over slides will not carry your message adequately. When using video, think about your background – it is part of how you come across, raise your laptop so you are not looking down at the audience (and they are not looking up your nose). Every night on the news there some shocking examples of people who should know better sharing their nasal hair with the nation. Don’t do it. Think about the lighting where you are – sit in front of a window or light, not with the window/light behind you. Otherwise, all you will be is a silhouette.

But you voice still matters – While you might have you video now sorted, don’t forget your voice still matters. Convey your passion and interest in your subject by using tone and modulation. Do not just drone on looking downwards it is a sure-fire way of turning off your audience. Treat the call as if you were presenting (though don’t continue with bad habits if you are a gravely poor presenter), use peaks in volume, pauses and drama (if appropriate) to gain and maintain interest.

Think about any content you are sharing - To be more effective, do take the time to think about how your content looks when presenting. The window your attendees will see is smaller – not everyone has 2 screens at home and some that do may not have your presentation on that bigger screen (they’ll have Netflix on there) so make your fonts bigger, if sharing go into presentation mode or at least remove the band at the top of an excel file (little arrow on the right). Help your audience follow your story by zooming in on what is relevant. Remember, you may be familiar with the content but your audience will not be so help them understand what you are showing (use a laser pointer if this feature is available). Even better, tailor content to the call. After all a successful outcome for you is landing your message so give yourself the best chance of success.

If you are a senior group of leaders, presenting to an all hands – Do everything in this blog add in more practice and then ensure you all meet beforehand to review your content. Agree on the key messages you want to land, be careful with your choice of words and don’t talk over one another or make each other’s points for each other. One more tip – don’t open with ‘I’m excited to speak to you’ come on, an 8 year old at a water park is excited, you can’t be that excited to be a an all hands call. Just say hello and crack on.

Take some training – All of the major vendors have online training courses to aid adoption and usage of their tools so make the time to take the training. You will find some new features and get more from the tool as well as ensuring your calls run smoothly.

I know that many of these tips are blindingly obvious, but experience suggests some of these will be news to many. Please feel free to share, if we all work together, we can improve the quality of video calls and protect ourselves from some of the horrible hours we have all endured over the last few years.

Smooth Communication specialises in improving presentation skills through enagaging workshops and 1-1 coaching. www.smoothcommunication.co.uk