Jeremy Cassell on why virtual presenting is here to stay

By Jeremy Cassell

Flexible working is the new reality. Whether we like it or not. If we don’t up our business skills and adjust, the danger is we lose our competitive edge.

Just 2 years ago I co-wrote ‘The Leader’s Presenting’ (UK business book of the year) and we made no mention of virtual presenting. Times have changed rapidly and there’s no guarantee that even the best face-to-face communicators will adjust to presenting online with success.

Many of us will not be going back to the office in the near future and for many of us, revolution is in the air.

Since the arrival of broadband in the early 2000s, commentators have predicted a revolution in home working. And it hasn’t materialised.

The number of homeworkers did indeed rise slowly but they had to endure those tedious jokes about daytime TV and working in their pyjamas.

Before Covid-19, only around 7% globally of us worked from home.

In March, the future arrived with a bump. Flexible working is now part of the fabric of many working lives which means many of us have to adapt and sharpen our skills.

I was coaching the managing partner of a professional service firm recently to deliver a virtual town hall.

As part of the preparation, the firm asked its employees – do you like working from home? Over 74% said yes.

Over 45% of us in Ireland and the UK currently work from home and the latest YouGov suggests 61% like it.

In a recent US Forbes survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, 51% said business travel will never return to the levels before the pandemic, partly replaced by virtual conferencing.

Hybrid, flexible, agile working. All now part of the lexicon.

Of course, office work will return in some shape and is required for the extroverts and for innovation, bonding, and positive mental health.

Many businesses, however, are now actively encouraging choice, so that employees can chart their own working path.

This all means we have to learn new ways of doing things – new ways to sell, to influence, to negotiate, to communicate, and run effective remote meetings.

In particular, we need to improve our abilities as virtual presenters.

If we want to deliver exceptions virtual town halls, pitches, client seminars, and other high stakes presentations.

I have now delivered 75 hours of webinars, trainings, and pitches since lockdown.

I have been working with numerous ‘C’ suite leaders and senior teams to improve their virtual presenting skills.

I have also attended hundreds of virtual events as a participant.

From what I have seen there is, to use the vernacular, ‘room for improvement’. Current virtual presenting skills are patchy.

Jeremy Cassell: 5 adjustments to make to visual presentation

In a nutshell, if you don’t want to be left behind and recognise that virtual presenting is different to face presenting then here are 5 practical adjustments you can make right now:

• Engage with your audience. Individuals at home are easily distracted, have a 5-minute attention span, and if you want to avoid confusion or boredom you have to involve them. The days of the broadcast only presentations are dead in the water. Use interactive engagement software such as Mentimeter and ask questions, use polls and test your points of view

• Reduce your content. Less is more. Think about your core messages. If you make your presentation too content-rich, you risk cognitive overload and confusion. Confused buyers don’t buy and demotivated audiences don’t take action

• Use visual slides, because of the picture superiority effect. This is the phenomenon whereby pictures and better than words if you want your audience to recall and remember key information. Avoid the mass of bulleted slides that are so prevalent. They bore people.

• Remember presenting is a performance. Audiences will respond better to you if you are high energy. Think CBeebies presenter!

• Voice is much more important in the virtual world of presenting. Focus on vocal variety. If you want to be credible: be slow, monotone, use pauses and ensure your inflection goes down at the end of the sentence.

If you want to connect with your audience and come across as friendly, use your voice in exactly the opposite way.

If your clients or your teams are no longer predominantly office-based, you’re going to need to inform, persuade, and motivate through virtual presentations. You need to adapt and learn virtual techniques or be perceived as a presenting luddite.

I have good news for you. Virtual presenters are made, not born. For those that recognise virtual presenting as a business priority, this is all learnable. For the others, they risk being left behind.

Jeremy Cassell works as a presentation coach to senior leaders worldwide. He worked for L’Oréal and Pepsi, has written 5 business books including Brilliant Selling and The art of an engaging virtual presentation and offers one-to-one coaching, group training and a new online video training course called Design & Deliver: www.jeremycassellcoaching.com

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