Mastering Virtual Communication - Part One

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. I am especially excited for the four-part series that I will run over the next couple of weeks on virtual communication  guys. I think we're in the absolute perfect storm. So let's take a look at what's happening right now.

[00:01:27] Number one technology is constantly improving, and the competitive advantage is to have the right technology in the right situation. Number two, where we're working really hard, no matter what industry you're in, whether you're with a big company or an entrepreneur, to somehow have that cutting edge, that one thing that inches you above everybody else.

[00:01:57] And then, of course, we are currently facing world challenges, both from a health perspective and from other political and business perspectives. When all of those come together in my mind, we're facing really the perfect storm. I believe that you and I have the ability to overcome that perfect storm.

[00:02:22] And I believe one of the things that we can do to do that is to be able to master the way we communicate from a virtual perspective. Most of us, especially if you're in sales, especially if you do any type of customer-facing situation, face the importance of being face to face and having a conversation.

[00:02:43] But if we look at the challenge that the world is throwing us right now, some of that opportunity is taken from us. So how do we find a place? How do we take what we've normally done face to face, where you feel comfortable, take all that strength. And now somehow put it in this virtual format into this black box into technology, into a computer screen and take your personality and make it come forward through that in this four-part series, I'm going to cover two major buckets bucket.

[00:03:24] Number one, I'm going to spend a fair amount of time. On the actual overall look at what this virtual communication should be, meaning that I believe that there are three key pieces. There is pre your virtual meeting. There's the actual meeting, and there's a post virtual meeting. That's the first two segments.

[00:03:46] So really looking at what your meeting should look like. And the second piece, two parts. Again, I'm going to break that up into the structure that I believe will help you communicate the most effectively. What I want you to do is not only become virtually literate. I want you to become virtually fluent in how you communicate with your -clients, with your customers, with the people you need to interface with.

[00:04:20] What I want you to do today is began to learn at a higher level. Some of the aspects that you need to build awareness around and begin to incorporate them into the way you're communicating virtually. I want to make sure that in these next four sessions, you come across as confident you come across as conversational, no different than if you were having a coffee cup at Starbucks.

[00:04:49] And I want to make sure that you have the ability to just connect with the people that you're communicating virtually. Yes. So let's really begin to dive into this, and what it looks like from my perspective, we've got some virtual challenges that we've gotta be able to take a look at and begin to figure out how we're going to handle.

[00:05:14] Most people, if you look at the virtual world, are going to say that the biggest challenge is the actual meeting. The biggest challenge is right now; I'm using zoom. I'm using a webcast. I'm using Microsoft teams. I'm using some flop platform to communicate with my customer, my listeners right now; this moment is the biggest challenge.

[00:05:39] I don't believe that's true. Correct. The biggest challenge you and I face is getting people to schedule commit to coming to your meeting to your virtual situation, to your virtual training class, to your virtual sales call. I think that's one of the bigger challenges. And the second one is then once you've got them to commit, 

[00:06:02] how 

[00:06:02] Bart: do you move them to action?

[00:06:05] Really, the actual meeting is really 10%. That is 10% of your challenge, 90% getting them to commit and then getting them to move to action.

[00:06:16]Now, once you've got them there, that third real big challenge is how do I create interaction? You and I have sat in enough webcasts in enough virtual meetings,  where you're just looking at a slide, and it is all one way coming at you. There's no interaction. So the challenge for you and I, how do we build interaction into what we're doing?

[00:06:45] Okay, a bigger challenge, especially if you're more of a global company. If you're a global entrepreneur and reach all parts of the world, you've got cultural and language issues that offer a challenge. And then you add on top of that time zones, I was doing some virtual training for several of my clients, and one of my clients was in Singapore, and she said, Bart, this won't work for us.

[00:07:11] And I said, what's the biggest challenge. He goes, it's the wrong time. Even though I've scheduled it for most of the East coast and most of Western Europe, what I failed in my thinking was to realize that the Asia pack part of the world has a 12-hour difference. So if I'm doing something at noon, it is midnight, their time.

[00:07:31] That doesn't work. So how do I need to do to PA? Do I need to do two virtual meetings? One at 6:00 AM, which is 6:00 PM in Asia pack and parts of Asia pack, and then one at noon hitting more of the United States and Western Europe challenges. And then what platform am I going to use? What technology is best?

[00:07:57] When I first started doing virtual meetings, I laid it all out, mostly through zoom. Then, one of my clients came to me and said that our department will not let us do zoom due to security issues. You're going to have to do Microsoft teams. So I'd take everything I learned in zoom. Learn Microsoft teams.

[00:08:18] Now, both of them are fairly similar guys. I get that. But there are some nuances and things that just add a degree of difficulty that you have to think through. Those are some of the challenges that you and I are going to face. We've got to be able to overcome them. If we want to come across and connect with our customers, if we want to be able to have a conversation, and we want them to perceive me to be confident,

[00:08:44]But now let's just look at it from a communication perspective. Those were more virtual challenges, but just purely communication. Number one, creating engagement. How many of you have been on some type of virtual meeting webcast? Whatever it may happen to be, let's say your executive team was running some type of kickoff, and you were at your home office.

[00:09:09] You're in your cubicle, and you're paying attention.

[00:09:11]Be honest with me now, what else are you doing? Yeah, if you raised your hand and said, Oh my gosh, I'm doing email. You'd be correct. You're doing something else because you're not engaged. So how do I create that engagement? And I've gotta be able to do that quickly. And then, how do I develop a connection?

[00:09:34] Now, if you're face to face, you're looking people in the eye, there's a greater connection, but how do I connect through this screen? And especially if you've turned the camera off because you've got a large group of people. I know when I do some virtual communication from home guys because my internet is hot, not hardwired.

[00:09:54] It comes in actually through my television. The system isn't that stro...