Uplevel Your Presenters and Keep Your Virtual Attendees Engaged
Underwhelmed by the presenters at your sales kick-off? Was your normally charismatic CEO less than dynamic during her speech to your investors? Are you wishing the public speaking skills of your engineers matched their hands-on brilliance during your recent user conference?
Going virtual means even the best presenters need some help to be engaging. Kennedy Events Partner and Chief Everything Officer Maggie Kennedy caught up with our go-to Communications and Performance Coach Kelsey Crouch to find out her secrets for guiding presenters to success in the world of virtual events. Without an engaging presentation, your audience is going to tune out or click away.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Maggie Kennedy: Hi, Kelsey. Thanks for joining us today. We're so excited to have you here today. We've worked with you for many years and I'm not even going to say what you do. I'm just going to start by saying, Kelsey, tell us a little bit about what you do in the events world with your car.
Kelsey: Here's the elevator pitch. I am a communication and performance coach, which means I'm helping professionals to have the kind of impact they’re wanting to have on their audience through a clear and concise message. What it means for the events world is that I'm helping a speaker connect with their audience; and now that it's virtual, often connecting with audiences that aren't signed on, but are going to be watching their video later on.
Maggie: Tell me, how do you do that? How do you work with these clients to make them come alive in the now-virtual world?
Kelsey: So most speakers tend to think that the gold of their presentation is the content; it's what they say. But honestly, if it was only the content that mattered, just send me the deck. I don't even need to show up for the presentation. So it's not that; it has to also be more. It's often their delivery that we’ll work on. The delivery though, of course we know that has to be confident and it has to be grounded. It has to be in a flow state. So I end up working on three things—it's their content, it's their delivery, but it's also their confidence—and we'll work on all of those three things depending on how many sessions we have together and how much time they have before their presentations. I like to have two weeks with them if we can so we hit these sweet spots nicely. But, even one day before a presentation, we can take them to at least 80% of where they were. Maybe not Olympic level—that takes a couple of weeks, but certainly a place that's more grounded. It's more clear, it's more concise, more powerful for their audience.
Maggie: And I love when you have the base of your triangle as confidence, I think that is, you know, a nervous speaker, which I certainly could be, it's, you know… Everybody wants a confident speaker cause you're rooting for them and you want them to feel that power.
Kelsey: Yeah, but it's also the foundation of whatever it is they're going to say. So, if they're lacking confidence when they create their content, it's going to show in their words. And if they lack it when they deliver it, of course, it's going to show in how they're showing up as well.
Maggie: What other tips do you have for…as people make the transition to the virtual world? I can see, for instance, you are using hand gestures to great effect, and like, how do you coach people to liven up what is a two-dimensional experience at this point?
Kelsey: Yeah. The larger question is “how is virtual different?” And in many ways, really different. Most people want to do exactly what they normally do, but turn the camera on. And you just can't expect to have the same impact on an audience because this technology is different. The experience for an audience member sitting at their kitchen table at home is different than sitting in the velvet-lined chair of an audience of a thousand people like they'd normally be. So it means that it's up to the speaker; it is the speaker's responsibility to create an experience for their audience. You can't just turn the camera on. So everything: that content, that delivery, and the emotional state that you bring has to be designed for the medium and for that audience.
Just talking hand gestures as an example. If I want to be really excited on stage, I might normally go like, “yes, this is amazing.” Obviously, you can see through my open chest, through the fact that I'm using a gesture, that I'm confident, that I feel something, but you can't see what my hands are doing. So, if I were to say something like, “we're going to talk about three things today, we're going to talk about A, B, and C.” Here, because I've intentionally brought them within the frame of the camera, now I'm being more generous with my message, with my body, and I look like, quite honestly, like I'm a professional, like I know what I'm doing. And all that I'm doing is being aware that this is as far as I can gesture anywhere else past this and the message is lost.
There are a couple of quick, quick tips that I can give. Make eye contact with the camera. That is your lens to speaking with all of the audience members. If you've got some notes, put them up close to the camera so you can still cheat if you need to; certainly don't read the whole thing though. That's again, “send me the deck if you're just going to read to us.”
Maggie: You have one great tip that I've seen great success. Will you tell us a little bit about the photo tip?
Kelsey: Yeah. The most common complaint that I get about presenting virtually is how hard it is to present to a “Brady Bunch” of blank squares because no one's turned their camera on in the audience, and that's so hard. Most speakers are getting their energy, getting the feedback from their audience in real-time, and so the first thing that I say is that one, they’re not alone. Teachers are doing this as well right now. So many of us are doing this and that they are not the pioneers. Broadway, theater actors are the pioneers of this; speaking to an audience where you can't see any of those faces because the lights are dark. And the trick comes from the theater as well: you kind of have to fake it. You have to, as the speaker, be fully present and then do the work to empathize and imagine what your audience might be feeling; so then you're having both sides of the conversation for them. But the trick that I think you're talking about is putting a photograph of someone that you love a child or a partner right behind the camera lens. So at least one person that you know, believes in you is smiling at you the whole time.
Maggie: I love that trick because it is very hard to talk to nothing and to bring exciting energy and just having that photo is such a great idea. So I know you work with many of the top speakers and I'm wondering what are the best people doing? Like what is it about them that makes them so engaging in this potentially very unengaging media?
Kelsey: The answer to this is the same for in-person as it is for virtual: the best speakers are bringing something new, some creativity and innovation to the stage. Of course, they are already bringing content that is solid, a delivery that is dynamic, that is full of life, and of course, that confidence. But the best speakers are looking for something new they can bring to their audience. And it's a new idea, or it's a new story, or here virtually, it's using the platform in a way that is new for the audience or in some way, dynamic. We have chat, we have videos and music, and other things that we now can layer into a virtual experience. So that's where I would start with a professional speaker. How else can you bring creativity and your own flare, your own innovation to your presentation?
Maggie: Okay, Kelsey. I could ask you a thousand more questions about best practices, but it's clear that any event would be elevated with services like yours. So thank you so much. I'm so excited to work with you again.
Kelsey: I'm excited to work with you too, Maggie.
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