Communication takes a lifetime to master. Thomas has seen his journey with mastering communication as an opportunity to focus on the path and not the destination. He is part of the theological program at the Shepherds Institute. He was involved in an organization called Send international and spent a year in Russia and we dive into his experience in this episode.

They were teaching English in a summer camp format during their time in Russia. Thomas shares about what the three biggest challenges to overcome.

1. The cultural differences
2. How to show people we love them without words, but through emotions and body language
3. Working with the church about logistics without a shared language and vocabulary.

We discuss overcoming the often negative stereotypes of Americans in Russia which Thomas described as an uphill battle. We discussed how in any communication there is a difference between perception and reality. That gap is called disparity. When addressing a group of people the perception of how you might perceive it is going as the communication may be different than the way the listeners are perceiving.  The goal of successful communication is learning to close that gap.

Thomas described hurdles he faced when trying to close that disparity gap during his time in Russia. Understanding what they needed and what they were looking for when they attended class versus what he thought they needed. This fits perfectly into an idea often discussed in classes by Bart which is being listener focused instead of teacher-focused.

Thomas also discussed how cultural differences communicated more than he intended. For example, when offered tea, he may have refused because he preferred water or not wanting people to go through the trouble of preparing tea, but in Russian culture sharing tea was a staple and often people would be offended by his refusal of tea.

Thomas also shared about his wife’s experience as a woman in Russia, which is a largely patriarchal society. We discussed the power of a woman’s voice in effective communication and transforming lives.

When asked about what’s next, Thomas shared some potential plans they have for their future.

We spent time talking about the cultural differences between churches in Russia to churches in America. For example, there is less influence of consumerism, mostly smaller, there are small changes in government restrictions.

Nelson Mandella said, “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.” Tina is a great example of the idea of taking education and using it as a weapon to produce change.

Giving students the power to communicate helps them with college interviews, presentations, and sets a foundation for key relationships in their lives.

In 2008, Bart was able to travel to Kenya to work with juniors and seniors in an orphanage. It was during this trip that Bart felt called to give a million people their voice. It was during this time that Tina asked Bart to consider coming to her high school and working with her students.

Tina is a dedicated teacher who goes above and beyond with her students. Bart has worked on and off with Tina and her students over a six-year period and they talk about the effects of investing in the communication skills of these young people.

“It has been transformational both for the students and in my life to see these young people that have struggles beyond what we could imagine walking into your class and in three days walk out transformed.” – Tina

Tina shares examples of students who experienced transformation in their confidence to speak and engage with others and share their beliefs as they learn to live their purpose.

Guadalupe was a young woman who took the class and went from a young lady with low self-esteem to the next year running for homecoming queen.

“I think that’s what this class does better than anything, it empowers the student to be their best self.” – Tina

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. If you joined us last week, I began a series on virtual communication. And last week, I spent the majority of our time together giving you the structure of what the meeting needed to look like. I shared with you that there were three key pieces to do it, doing something virtually successfully.

[00:01:29] Number one, there’s the pre virtual meeting, getting all the logistics set up there is the actual meeting itself. Whether you’re on Microsoft teams, you’re on WebEx; you’re on zoom, whatever kind of a platform you’re using. And then there’s the post virtual. Meeting critical to drive the listener forward the organization forward, get them to take the action steps that you so desire.

[00:01:58] This is the second major piece of that, and this is around the actual virtual meeting. But within that virtual meeting, you must have some type of structure that you can work with then. And all the world travel that I’ve had an opportunity to do in my 30 years of working with this skillset and helping organizations.

[00:02:26] One of the key things that I always enjoy is the architectural structures of things that I’ve had the privilege of seeing walking on the great wall of China, seeing. No true Dom seeing sacred heart, seeing things in the United States, seeing buildings and architecture all over the world. Now having spent most of my life in the Bay area as my home, that part of the world had two structures that I always admired.

[00:03:01] One is the golden gate bridge and the other. It is the Hoover dam. Both of those structures to me are just mind-boggling about how they were built, how they’ve created, how they have been timely and timeless, and what they brought to you. And I not only visually, but to get from one side of the bay to the other and in the Hoover dam to produce electricity and just the visual sight of such a structure.

[00:03:36] Most people. When we talk about structure, they want to fight me on this idea around content. They will say, Bart, that’s not me. It constricts me. It makes me feel like it’s too tight. I’m just one of those guys. That’s gotta be pure freestyle. I love those people. Whether you want to be freestyle or you, want to work within a structure that you are authentic to who you are, but I want you to realize that in my example of.

[00:04:05] The golden gate bridge and the Hoover dam that structure, the structure that they use gives the bridge and the dam strength. It allows it to be continuous. It allows it to be consistent. It allows it to be timely and timeless and what it brings to us. I want your content, whether you’re talking personally or professionally.

[00:04:31] To be timely and timeless with the people that you’re sharing it with. One of the key things that will help you be successful in any communication situation is having a content structure that you work with them. Now today, guys are I dive into that second aspect around virtual communication.

[00:04:57] What I want you to do is walk away with the elements of the content structure that you can use anywhere. Why it is so important in the virtual world is because the level of complexity, intensity, and confusion can skyrocket purely because of the mode that we’re communicating in. When it’s face to face, we can reduce some of those things.

[00:05:22] But if we take these exponential factors that we have to deal with, we have to think of ways to make it seamless, effortless, make it so a listener can retain the information and, more importantly, in my mind so that they remember it. Remember, if you spend any time with me at all, you’ve heard me say, it’s not about how do I tell them more. It’s how do I get them to remember more?

[00:05:47] That becomes so critical. I want to make sure that your content, whether it’s five minutes, 50 minutes, or five hours, you’re doing a whole day kind of an event that people walk out the door, absorbing what you said, structure. Is the beginning piece. It is the key critical factor that will set you out from everybody else.

[00:06:13] Guys, if you will study a good keynote speech, if you will look at any successful book, if you will look at any successful movie, there is a structure that the directors, the writers, and the creators all build within. When I think about good movies. When I think about movies like Star Wars and avatar, though, some of those kinds of movies have followed a structure, and nine times out of 10, the structure that the directors followed was some form of the hero’s journey.

[00:06:53] You’ve heard me speak of this many times. So with that idea, let’s dive into this idea of our virtual content structure for the actual meeting that you’re doing.

[00:07:06]Now, when I started this process with you, we talked about three major areas, the pre-meeting, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting; we’re talking now about the structure within the actual meeting. This is where I’m going to focus on our time together. I want you to remember a simple principle that there are freedom and structure.

[00:07:27] I also want you to remember. We never, we memorize what we put in it. We memorize the structure itself. If you memorize the structure, you can plug and play anything you want. You can move the pieces around if you want. But here’s the hard thing. We have to do the hard work and keep it simple for our listeners, especially in the virtual world.

[00:07:51] That is the principle. Number one, you have to be able to do the hard work. You gotta be able to keep it simple, do the hard work and keep it simple. I want you to remember that a confused mind will always say no. So if they’re confused, they’re not even going to absorb what you’re talking about. So now that’s principle number one, guys, let’s take a look at principle.

[00:08:16] Number two. It’s what I call the 75% rule. Now, this rule has been saved many times. Let’s say someone invites you to come in, and they’re going to give you an hour to speak. You go back to your office, you go back to your acute cubicle, and you’re starting to craft content. And most of you are probably crafting content in PowerPoint.

[00:08:43] Now here’s what I want you to remember about the 75% rule. It’s 75% of the time you’ve been given is what you should try to fill. So if I’ve asked you to fill 60 minutes, And you apply the rule. That’s 45 minutes. That’s what everybody’s going to think, but I want you to realize that is not correct.

[00:09:09] There’s one of the things that I want you to consider factoring in. I want you to back out what you and I would call your Q and time or your banter time or the time when you’re just going to really have a conversation. Maybe that’s all the way through. Maybe that’s just at the end, depending on how you’ve laid out the communication situation you’re in.

[00:09:33] So if I’ve given you 60 minutes and you follow the 75% role, you’re going to think, okay, I need to fill 45. Now, remember that’s incorrect. So you take your 60 minutes back out what you want for banter Q and a. So let’s make life easy and say that’s 15 minutes. That leaves you 45 minutes. Now you want to take 75% of that to fill with your content.

[00:10:03] Now, a lot of you are well, Bart, that doesn’t seem like very much. That’s because you have such a mindset of how do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? And my mindset to help you is how do you get them to remember more? I’ve what I’m telling you. If I invited you to a meeting at it ended five minutes early, would you be happy or sad?

[00:10:26] That you’d be happy you go, Oh, great. I just got five minutes back, especially if they were thorough. It is better, far better to end on time and start on time than end late. Because what you’re saying is you’re not respectful of their time. Now, if you’ve engaged them if they felt wow, this is really awesome.

[00:10:50] And they’re saying, that’s interesting. Tell me more. And you go over your timeframe. Then you are winning. But most of us want to try to cram 60 minutes of information into that 60-minute slot. And you leave yourself no leeway for conversation banter or even a question that takes you down a rabbit hole that you need to address.

[00:11:13] And it may take a moment or two before you come back out and then you’ve really lost time. And if you have dictated everything you’re doing by PowerPoint now, you’re going okay, what do I have to do? Now I have to go through these sides really quickly. And guys, look what you’ve just done.

[00:11:29] You’ve just compromised your information. You just said to this executive audience; this is of no value you’ve already lost. So let’s say you walk in the door, and they gave you 60 minutes, and the executive says. I’m really sorry. We’ve had some time changes. You’re down to 30 minutes. Okay. Now, if you said to them, all right, based on the 10 things I was going to share with you, and my time is roughly cut in half, which five would be the most important to you, and I’ll cover those.

[00:12:06] Now you need to think through that 75% rule based on that. But what you’re saying in that first page says my information is a value and I’m not willing to compromise it. Don’t compromise. Your information uses 75% role have the mindset that I’m trying to get you to remember more, not tell you more. You set a precedent.

[00:12:29] It is your content. This is your valuable information. Don’t sell it. Short principle. Number one. There is freedom and structure. Do the hard work. Keep it simple. The second principle, the 75% rule, that let’s go for the third.

[00:12:48]The third principle I want you to walk away with is the structure process. So if you have a pen and paper out and you’re at home, you’re listening to this. Or if you’re driving, just keep listening. Then guys just keep listening and come back and make these notes. There are five steps in the process, and if you just follow these five steps every time you have to craft content, to work through the structure, you’ll win every single time.

[00:13:19] Number one, you have to set your goals. What is it you’re trying to achieve? Are they more strategic goals? Are they more tactical goals? That drives everything. Are you trying to paint the vision? Where do I want to take the customer? Where do I want to take the client? Or you deep into the implementation and process of getting something put into place, and you not need to talk about tactical steps.

[00:13:46] The next thing you want to know is your listener analysis. Everybody will tell your listener, know your listener, and guys, nobody takes the time to understand their listener. What do they want to know? What do they need to know? What’s their knowledge level on the topic. Do you want to be able to answer these basic questions?

[00:14:05] Now, the ones I always start with are what I call the five high gain questions, high gain question. Number one. What’s your compelling event. What’s driving this. Why? All of a sudden, do you care about this? If you can get them to articulate their compelling event, you can map your solution, tool, or product to that.

[00:14:27] And you could just stop. You could be done. You probably got enough. Now, remember you can’t walk up to them or have a conversation with them. What’s your compelling event. They’re going to think that you’re strange. I always ask it. Why is this on your radar screen? That’s how I ask it. Or w why do you care about this?

[00:14:47] All of a sudden, why haven’t you been worried about it before? Anyway, you want to ask that a compelling event is your first high gain question. Second high gain question. What are the top three internal pains that you’re facing around X? Whatever the topic is around risk around performance, around security, around innovation, whatever the topic would be.

[00:15:14] The top three internal pains. The third I quick question. High-gain question. Just going to go to the other side, guys. So what are the top three external pains that you’re facing around X? Now? Here’s the beauty of these too many times. Those two things are interrelated. They’re connected in some way, shape, or form.

[00:15:38] If you can find that connection, that can make it very powerful. And then the next two are the two that I think 99.9% of most people. Miss. Typically, what’s your challenge. What’s your issue? What’s your pain. What’s your problem? That’s one side of the coin I like to go to the other side of the coin is, what are the top three initiatives that you’re working on around act?

[00:16:01] Now, remember if a company has got an internal initiative, they’re already working at solving a problem. So your job is to enhance what they’re already doing. Many of your solution tools and products and services that you bring can do that very easily. And then the fifth tag going high gain question is what’s that external initiative in the marketplace or outside your department or your division still within your company, maybe that you’re working on.

[00:16:34] Those five high gain questions for me, open up a discovery session. That can be very powerful, very conversation with no threat. That’s why I liked those questions. So in the process, number one sets the goals. Number two, have a solid understanding of your listeners. Number three, you’ve gotta be able to craft your open and your close.

[00:16:57] Now notice that I didn’t say do the body yet. Most people want to do the middle first. I don’t think that’s correct. You need to have a starting place and an ending place. And based on that starting place in any place you can decide. What’s the best thing to do to fill in between, to me, an open and a close, if it is done properly and done well, it is the GPS unit of your content.

[00:17:27] So think about getting in your car to go someplace with your family or friends that you’ve never been before, whether you’re using your GPS in your car or using it on your phone, you plug in the destination where you want to go. You plug in the address; your GPS unit picks up where you’re at that moment.

[00:17:45] And then does it not give you the fastest, most effective way to reach your destination? That’s exactly what an open and a closed does. It gives you a starting place and an ending place and then helps you narrow down what piece of content, the body that you need to share to take them from the open to the close.

[00:18:08] But if you do it the other way around, here’s my principle. You just show up and throw up instead of it being clean, crisp, and there’s a flow to your content. You want to develop your content what needs to go in the middle based on what that opens and closes. Those are typical. What are your major points?

[00:18:30] Most people would say I’m going to cover three points or five points or six points or eight points. I can’t encourage you enough. I would never do more than four. Three is the golden number four boy. You’re on edge after five. They can’t remember. Now, if you do seven, eight, nine, you’re back to that principle of I’m here to tell you more, instead of how do I get you to remember more and then step number five, all that hard work, all that hard work you turn into whatever visual seems appropriate.

[00:19:05] Is that a PowerPoint? Great. If it is super, if it’s not, how about you want to do a whiteboard more, have a conversation, or maybe you’re going to bring in a physical prompt. Whatever you decide, there’s not a right or wrong. I would ask yourself the question. What is the best way for me to visually enhance my content, guys?

[00:19:27] If I’m in an audience of saying a hundred or more, I will use PowerPoint just from a readability perspective. If I have a smaller group, my favorite is a flip chart or a whiteboard, it’s far more interactive, but those are my choices. You make the right choice. But I would think through the visual that will best reinforce and enhance the content you’re trying to share with your listener.

[00:19:55] So that was principle number three, principle number four. It’s what I call the simplicity factor. Now, remember that we’re doing the hardworking. We’re keeping it simple. We’re doing the hard work, and we’re keeping it simple. The simplicity factor really has four pieces to it. Number one, remember that we talk to people, we look people in the eye, and we have a conversation.

[00:20:24] Now, if you’re doing something virtually, remember you’re not talking to your screen. You’re talking to your camera. You’re talking to your camera, not to the screen. And if I could encourage you, if it’s a small group camera’s on. Small group camera’s on. If I’ve got 15 or fewer people, I want everybody to have their camera on because I want to see their bright smiling faces because as well as I do, if you allow them to have their camera off, they’re going to do something else.

[00:20:51] They’re going to do their email. They’re not going to pay any attention to you. I know in my home because my home is way out in the country. When I’m doing something, and it’s a large group virtually say, for example, on zoom. Because my internet is not that great, if I turn my camera off, I have a steadier signal.

[00:21:12] It works more effectively. But when I do that, I’ll tell the people on my call, that’s what I’m going to do, but I will stop and do a lot of check-ins. Remember, it’s about a conversation with folks—second simplicity factor. Get to the point, be clear, concise, and to the point. When you’re doing something virtually, this is no place to be ribose.

[00:21:39] Cause you’re going to lose people. They won’t say focused. Nobody wants to stare at that screen or a PowerPoint side for that long period of time without something changing. And then guys, remember, you want to say it over and over again. Now that brings me back to the seven-factor phrase. Remember that the listener has to hear something seven times before they remember it.

[00:22:01] Seven times. And you’re going to go bar, how do I say something? Seven times in an hour? Seven times in an hour is pretty simple. What I always get a kick out of is when my MBA students would say, boy, how do I say cite something times, seven times in five minutes, but I get them to do it. And it is revolutionary because, at the end of every five-minute talk, I’ll say now, what was Sam’s seven-factor phrase?

[00:22:26] And the class will call it out. Remember their goal is to get them to remember more, not tell them more. And then in everything that you do, it has to be clear, guys. It has to be easy to understand if it is not, you’re going to lose your listener, especially in the virtual world. Now let’s go-to principle number five, and this is what I call the four H’s.

[00:22:57] Now I want to remind you that people buy with emotion, and they verify with the fact people buy with emotion, and they verify with fact, so there are four simple ages that I want to share with you. And if you’ll keep these in mind as you craft content, it will help the first H is the word help. Be there to solve a pain, solve an issue, assist them, educate them, somehow help them achieve what they’re trying to accomplish.

[00:23:31] Walk in the door and say, how can I empower you? How can I make a difference? What can I do, too, for you to help you come in with that attitude? Your first His help. The second one is the heart. Now you may think, okay, Bart, you’re getting squishy on me, but when I’m talking about heart, I’m talking about captivating their emotions through stories, through examples, through experiences, but you have to be able to share them, share your company’s story, share your personal story, share with them why you get up every day and want to go fight this battle.

[00:24:09] Share your heart a little bit. So they get to know you. Remember, they’re going to buy you first, and then they’re going to get your company or your tool or your product or your service. And the third I would inspire, which is hope, inspire them to take and make a difference, inspire them to recycle that they’re trying to achieve that hope and heart are very closely interrelated.

[00:24:36] Now, remember that when you’re sharing that kind of hope and heart, it’s always relevant. You’re vulnerable, but it’s relevant, you’re vulnerable, but it is relevant. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to be vulnerable enough to share with them your stories and your examples. And remember that it is your failures that inspire people, not your successes because you’re sharing with them how you’ve overcome.

[00:25:08]That fourth H is humor. The best thing to help an audience relax is just a little fun—a little humor, guys. Remember, jokes are at high risk, low return. I’m not talking about jokes, natural humor, self defacing humor. A funny story about yourself. A funny story about one of your children. So if you’ll think about allowing them to laugh, inspiring them, to achieve capturing their emotions and saying that you’re going to help them those four H’s, those four H’s will take you a long way when you add in your content.

[00:25:50] But remember you got to do the hard work, and you got to keep it simple. And most people won’t think how do I help? How do I share my heart? How do I give them hope? And how do I make them laugh today? That’s principle number five.

[00:26:03]Now, principle number six is what I call drivers. These are what drive your actual virtual meeting. Now, this is extremely important. So, guys, I don’t want you to miss any of this. Number one, you need to define your purpose for doing this meeting. Let me give you some examples. Is the purpose of selling is the purpose of teaching?

[00:26:29] Is the purpose of educating or is the purpose just to build awareness around what you bring to the table? You’ve gotta pinpoint what that purpose is because that dictates what you do within the virtual meeting itself. The second driver is audience size. Now, here is something for you to remember.

[00:26:54] If it’s one to 10, the content can have greater complexity. Because it’s a small group, you can banter, they can ask questions. There could be more feedback. You can go back and forth if the group is small. So if the group is small, raise the complexity of your content. If the group is large, 25, 35, 45 50, if you’ve got a big group that you’re doing a virtual situation around, you have to keep it simple.

[00:27:29] You have to keep it simple because nobody can interact in that group environment. Oh sure. You can do a show of hands. You can do something in the chat room, but realize that 50 people in your session, you’ve got 50 different people, probably thinking 50 different things, smaller the group, the greater complexity, the larger the group simpler.

[00:27:50] The content has to be. So you pinpointed your purpose. You’ve worked with your audience size. The third key driver is the outcome or the goal you’re trying to achieve. Now, I want to give you three outcomes that I want you to pinpoint. Every time you do a virtual meeting, this is what I want you to be able to answer at the end of the meeting, what do you want them to think?

[00:28:20] What do you want them thinking when it’s all said and done, the second one, what do you want them to do? And the third one is what do you want them to feel? What do you want them to think? What do you want them to do? And what do you want them to feel? Any time I get asked to give it. Give a keynote type of feature, a Ted type talk.

[00:28:46] I always ask the person inviting me to come to speak those three things. When I’m all said and done if you could write the script, what do you want them to think? What do you want them to feel, and what do you want them to do? And I have them tell me, and then I began to twist and tweak and work with my content, so I can drive those things because I want that person who’s asked me to be satisfied in this situation, say you’re a selling situation.

[00:29:12] You want to be able to dictate that, okay. On my first sales call, what do I want them to think? What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to do? What do I want them to think is the fact that this solution tool or product will work for them, whatever I want them to feel. I want them to feel hopeful and inspired that they can get this done.

[00:29:31] And what do I want them to do? I want them to set up—one more meeting. I want them to set up to come in and do some type of demonstration on the solution tool or product. It’s very pinpointed. So, guys, I’ve just walked you through six different principles, ideas. As we think about the actual virtual meeting itself, those are the principle foundation ideas that we will build the structure from.

[00:30:04] Now, this is going to be a two-part session. What I’ve covered the first one was the idea of what the meeting looked like from an overall perspective. There’s the pre virtual meeting, the actual meeting, and the post that’s at its highest level. Now we’re working within the actual meeting, and I’ve given you the principles to build.

[00:30:26] Now, I want to come back to something that I shared with you earlier. That structure is key to your success. What I want you to begin to do is implement some of these principles, start integrating them into your next virtual meeting. Think through some of these ideas and make sure you’re actually building into your meeting content.

[00:30:48] Now, if it’s not a virtual meeting, these things will apply in your face to face a small group or large group. I want to make sure that your information is timely. I want to make sure that it is timeless, meaning it can be shared over and over again with others. And more importantly, I want you to walk into the situation, confident that you can achieve what you’d like to achieve.

[00:31:14] Now, don’t miss our next session where I’m actually going to break into the content structure components. We’ve got to be able to bring these two pieces together. And I look forward to sharing that with you. So, guys, this has been the remarkability Institute. This is Bart queen, your host. I can’t wait to see you at our next podcast.

But remember, in the virtual world, everything is compounded. It’s compounded more difficult and the challenges that you’re facing. So how do I counterbalance and find all that? Now those are just some principles that are the foundation to you being successful virtually. Now let me mention some communications statistics, I think, are always important to keep in front of you.

[00:01:24] Don’t let go of these. In a face to face situation, you have 30 seconds to engage that audience. That’s all you get is 30 seconds. Anything after that far more difficult in the virtual world. You have eight seconds, so if you have not said something in the first eight seconds in this virtual meeting that you’re doing on your podcast, on your conference call, that engages the audience more difficult.

[00:01:52] So you don’t have the time to say, good afternoon, guys. Let’s give everybody a chance to settle in. You’ve already lost because now I’m doing my email. I’m trying to catch up on what I need to get done.

[00:02:02]The second statistic I want you to become aware of is what I call the four to six-minute kind of a rule. Every four to six minutes, you have got to change it up. Now in the face-to-face world, guys that could mean stand up, sit down. If you’re doing something up on a big stage, move from the left to the right of the right to the left move forward or backward, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish and our virtual world, it could mean stop and ask a question.

[00:02:30] It could mean change slides. Anything that you can do now, this principle is based on a typical 30-minute American sitcom. If you study one of those guys, you’ll see that every four to six minutes, you typically get an advertisement. The producers are brilliant at keeping you involved in that 30-minute story.

[00:02:55] So I want you to have that same type of brilliance and say every 46 minutes, I change. I need to change it up. I’ll get systems engineers who will come in and say to me, Bart; we are going to do a. Demo. It’s a four-hour demo with a customer. My response is you’re crazy. Who’s going to be looking at a demo seated in front of a computer for four hours.

[00:03:20] This is just not going to happen. It’s hard to keep a focus for an hour 30 minutes. You’re pushing it. So if that’s the case, how do I create that kind of interaction and banter? Keep them focused and change it up every four to six minutes.

[00:03:37] The other thing I want you to remember, and this goes across the board. I find this statistic fascinating. Our face to face communication really takes up. People will argue anywhere from 70 to about 95% of what you do on a day to day basis. A very small percentage is what you and I would call public speaking or presenting.

[00:04:01] That’s not the number I want you to remember. The number I want you to remember is that all of that 78 to 95%, 40 to 60% of what you communicate, gets forgotten. So let’s just take a look at this podcast, guys. Now, this is roughly going to be 30 minutes. I’m going to have to face the fact that 50% of what I tell you will forget.

[00:04:30] So the question for me is not, how do I slam dunk more information into this podcast for you? I could speak so fast that you could not keep up. That doesn’t serve me. It doesn’t serve you. So the question is, how do I communicate in this 30 minutes with you so that you walk out the door and share a principle or two with someone else?

[00:04:55] If you’re driving in your car on your way to work and you got to work and say, I just listened to a podcast from Bart, and he talked about this one principle. I think we should try to integrate that into what we’re doing. Then we both win. That’s what I want for you.

[00:05:10]Now, I’ve laid out some challenges that we’ve got to overcome. And I laid out some statistics that give us a foundation to build from. So now, let’s really take a look at the virtual meeting structure. Now, when I say that, most of you will think about the actual virtual meeting you’re doing.

[00:05:31] We’re doing this on Tuesday from 12 to one. That’s all you’re thinking about, but if you’re going to communicate virtually if you’re going to communicate successfully. In that communication in that medium, that channel, you have to have three aspects to your overall meeting structure. There’s the pre-meeting setup.

[00:05:58] There’s the actual meeting, and there’s the post-meeting interaction. So if I’m doing a conference call, I would encourage you to have these three. If you’re doing a webcast, Microsoft teams, a zoom type of a platform, you’ve got to have all three, the pre-meeting setup, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting interaction.

[00:06:22] Now let me break each one of those apart. I think these are critical to your success. The pre virtual meeting is, in essence, what most people are; salespeople will call it your discovery call. It’s getting on with the person who’s inviting you in. It’s getting with the person who’s driving this idea that they want you to speak to their teams.

[00:06:49] It understands their pain, their issues, and their concerns. Now, if you’re not driving and just listening, you have a pen and paper. I want you to write this down. No pain, no value, no business, no pain, no value, no business. So during this discovery call, you’ve got to be able to bring forward, pull out, find out, discover what the three major issues, challenges, pains, concerns that you’re trying to solve are.

[00:07:19] You’ve got to be able to connect your virtual meeting to some type of an issue. Otherwise, why should people listen to you? I love the guy that says, I want you to come in, demo your product, your solution for us and show us everything. And I will tell that person that’s a failure, just looking for a place to happen.

[00:07:43] Cause they’re not going to link it to anything, and you’re not going to be successful. You’ve got to be able to link it to pain and issue a challenge or a problem. So that’s the first piece. This pre virtual meeting is your discovery. The second is to confirm and layout what the meeting logistic ground rules are.

[00:08:08] Now. Some of those are pretty simple. You can make them as complex or as simple as you like for me, I always start on time, and I will tell that person, Mr. Smith, when I come in next week, I will most importantly, I will start at noon, and I will end by one in the afternoon. If that’s the time slot you’ve given me because most people are going, Oh, it’ll take him 10 minutes to get started.

[00:08:32] Nope. I start right on time. that’s extremely important in this virtual world that you set that precedent that you become known for starting on time and ending on time. Now other ground rules could be at the bottom of the hour. I’m going to open it up for questions. I like to do that after 30 minutes.

[00:08:52] That’s just one way of changing it up if the group is small. If I have less than 15 people, that I’ve got a list of names who are on there, and I will ask very specific questions, and I will call them by name. Cause I’m trying to drive interaction, whatever ground rules you decide to set up whatever those are, to make your meeting work, hold to them.

[00:09:19] There is. A tremendous book by Roger Schwartz called the skilled facilitator by Roger Schwartz. It’s a pretty thick book. I think you may find value in that when he gets into some of the ideas around facilitating and organizing the structure of what your meeting looks like. It’s a great reference.

[00:09:43] I use it often. The other thing that you want to make clear in the pre virtual meeting is what is the purpose for us having this meeting, the actual meeting? What kind of awareness do I need to do? Is this a teaching meeting? Is this a selling meeting? What type of meeting is this? You want to pinpoint that.

[00:10:07] If it’s a teaching meeting, maybe I’m going to turn the camera off because I’ve got a fair amount of slides. I want to show if it’s a conversation, maybe I want the camera on. If it’s a selling type of a call, maybe I’m going to go camera on camera off, ask questions, keep my content down to a minimum, depending on what I’m trying to do.

[00:10:32] Make sure you pinpoint your purpose. One of the bigger complaints that the executive gives about any type of meaning, the meeting lacked purpose; it lacked objectives. You want to make sure those are definitely on the front end. Then you’ve got all that information, guys. Now lay out the meeting agenda, but the meeting agenda, the actual agenda for the actual meeting, is based on what you did in the pre virtual meeting.

[00:11:02] You’ve already got the person inviting you into sign off. Yes, this is what we want to be covered. Great. You’re on solid ground. Now, does that mean when it gets out that somebody doesn’t say, what about this, and what about that? No, of course, you may have to flex some that are part of the skill that you bring to the table, but you want to keep that as tight as possible.

[00:11:29] And then I would ask what’s their communication preference. Meaning as far as follow up additional conversation, is it, do you prefer email? Do you prefer text? Are you the type of person who wants to get on the phone? Find out what their communication preferences, when you do that, you’re being listed focused, and you hold them more accountable.

[00:11:54] Extremely important. If I said to a good friend of mine, Joe, now, as we communicate this, what’s the best way for me to reach you. Email, voicemail, or texting? Joe says, Bart, from my perspective, texting always works the best for me. Okay, Joe, no problem. Now, when I text Joe, does he feel more accountable to want to respond or less?

[00:12:20] No. I asked him, and he said text. He’s gonna feel that he needs to respond to me because I took the time to ask.

[00:12:27]this last point is a make or breakpoint in my mind, in the virtual world,

[00:12:34]guys, in that, setting up the followup call. Most people will do a virtual meeting. They’ll do a demo, they’ll do something, and they’ll think, you know what I’ll call. I’ll call them in a couple of days and see how they feel like it went. If they need additional information, you don’t want to do that. You want to build in the interaction point.

[00:12:59] So if I was going to set up a meeting, let me come back to my friend, Joe again with Joe, and we’re going to do this virtual meeting, I might say. Okay, Joe, at the close of our meeting at one o’clock, I would just like to schedule a brief two or three, four-minute call with you to debrief. what went on, how you felt like it went, and what we, what are our next steps?

[00:13:19] Joe says, okay. Bart that sounds great. Call me at one Oh five or call me at one 10. Call me at one 15. And I’ll give you 15 minutes. Great. That now has already been scheduled. You’ve built that touchpoint in, but if you don’t do your pure, your pre virtual meeting, you’re not going to have an opportunity to do that.

[00:13:44] And then it’s all up in the air. You have no idea how it went, your pre virtual meeting, and your post virtual interaction. Critical to your success and what you do in the actual meeting.

[00:13:59]No, guys, let me get into some of these ideas around the second major bucket, which is your actual virtual meeting. And this is where you all wanted to focus. So a couple of things, when you use your camera, The camera should be eye level with you. So my setup at home, if I’m doing any type of a virtual meeting, I have a separate little table, separate chair.

[00:14:26] Now, in my chair, I pull a kitchen chair. I got to put a couple of pillows in it to prop it up, prop myself up a little bit. They’re wooden. So it’s a little hard to sit on for an hour. And then I have to set my laptop on a box because if I’m seated straight in my chair, And I’m looking at my camera. Now I have a webcam that sits on top of my laptop.

[00:14:51] I can’t encourage you enough to invest in a simple webcam instead of just the camera on your laptop. Just from my experience, it’s been a far superior experience. Now here’s the hard part, team. When I’m looking at that webcam, then it should be eye level with my eye. So many times you’ll see people who set their laptop on the desk, it’s slower, and the camera is looking up their nose.

[00:15:19] You don’t want that guy. You want it to be more Ida? I remember that part of what we’re trying to do was create a connection. I want to feel like I’m having a conversation with you. If that camera’s looking at your nose, that’s on a conversation—the second thing I want you to remember that most people forget.

[00:15:40] Guys, don’t talk to the screen. Don’t talk to the screen. You talk to the camera, which you’re going bar, but I need to look at my slides. Okay. When you talk, you’ll look at the camera. When you glance down, look at your slide, get what you need. Come back up, talk to the camera. Do you want a connection? You don’t get a connection.

[00:16:00] If I’m looking down at my screen and they can tell I’m looking down at my screen, having this conversation, it takes practice. But remember, we talked about the perfect storm, and part of the perfect storm is you getting a competitive advantage. That means you have to do the hard work. That means you have to keep it simple.

[00:16:24] The next time you’re watching the news, BBC C CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox News, or whoever you watch. And you’re seeing these people. Doing these virtual meetings, whether they’re talking to their laptop, to the journalists, pay attention that a lot of them will be seated back and you get more of what I’m going to talk say really is the top third of your body shoulders, maybe some hands face compared to looking at people’s nose.

[00:16:59] So the second thing you have to do is not only speak to the camera, look at the camera, but the laptop should be arm’s distance away from you. Arms, distance. That way, you get more of this full feel to the experience. But most people are really right on top of it. What the listener experiences isn’t near as powerful.

[00:17:24] If you’re not if you’re more of an arm’s distance away.

[00:17:28]The other thing that I think is so important, guys, make sure that you face the light force. So if you want to put a laptop, you want to put a lamp in front of you. You want to be facing the light source. Not have it behind you. Now, this may sound silly to you, but when I’m doing my virtual at home, there is a picture behind me.

[00:17:52] If I have left the kitchen light on, cause I have a great room where the kitchen and kind of the family room are in one spot. That picture actually picks up the lights from the kitchen, and there are spots across that picture. You want to make sure that’s all turned off. You also want to make sure that you reduce any background noise and any background distractions.

[00:18:24]During one of these sessions, I was watching on the news. They did a special segment on just tearing people’s backgrounds apart, messy bookshelves, pictures, tilted plants, dying. It was hilarious at what they were sharing. You want to make sure that any distraction in the background is to a minimum, and you want to make sure the background noise is to a minimum.

[00:18:56] Now, for those of you who know me a little bit, I live on a little teeny farm. And for those of you who know me, you’ll know that I have peacocks. And one of my favorite peacocks loves to come to sit on the railing on the front porch. And if I’m doing my virtual session and that peacock comes and roosts on the front porch, if he decides to bark and make his sound, Oh my gosh, everybody hears it.

[00:19:24] But now I want to offer a thought with all that in the virtual world that you and I are beginning to live with, then it allows for a moment of humanity. So if you have children, sometimes they come running in, especially that little two or four-year-old and wants to see mom or dad. Those are moments of humanity.

[00:19:43] The cat comes barreling, and the dog barks. Those are all moments of humanity. Do your best to keep those at a minimum, but don’t let those things destroy what you’re doing. They build a connection. So if all of a sudden my Bernese mountain dog came and jumped in my lap, and now he’s in the camera. What would happen with every other person that enjoys pets or likes dogs?

[00:20:11] Come back to something I shared with you earlier today, they’re going to go, Oh my gosh. Bart has a Bernese mountain dog. I’ve always wanted one of those. we have a golden retriever. No, we have a lab. We have a German shepherd. No, we have a poodle, but you get me-too factor. What happens when you get the meat?

[00:20:26] You factor, you get greater trust. You get a greater connection, and you get rid of greater relationships. Now in this section, guys, I want to cover one more piece. And that is the actual conversation during your virtual meeting. you’re probably going to laugh about this, but I want you to take on the idea of being a TV personality.

[00:20:56] Let yourself come forward. Don’t feel like you have to be all stiff and formal when you do this. I’m not saying to be a comedian. I am saying, let your natural self come forward. Keep your information brief. Keep your content simple. Keep your slides simple. Start on time. End on time. Start with an opening engagement line.

[00:21:25] Something that grabs their attention immediately. And make sure you start, Y whatever you’re sharing is important, don’t leave that out. And from a clothing perspective, think through what you’re wearing. No stripes, no plans, no things that as you’re looking through the camera, it makes, it looks like it’s shifting.

[00:21:48] You don’t want that kind of an effect. You want to make sure that you have reduced tractions as much as possible. And we keep it as simple as pie.

[00:22:00]Now let me address one more, one more point, guys. In this particular session, I want to talk about your virtual meeting interaction because that’s part of the challenge that we are facing. So let me give you some engagement tips, things that I think will help you take engagement and interaction to the next level.

[00:22:22] Tip number one. I want you to realize every time you transition a slide, that is an opportunity to reengage. When you transition slides, that is an opportunity to reengage. So if you’ve been on a slide for a little bit, and you’re going to go to your next slide, realize, gosh, I have an opportunity to grab them, pull them back in Murray, get their attention.

[00:22:49] Your use of questions in the virtual world should be more specific overbroad. Don’t say, what do you think too broad? You want to ask very specific questions and if you can use names in your interaction even better. I always appreciate my virtual meetings that are 15 or less in the number of people. If I’ve got 25, 30, 40, or 50 on it, virtual meeting, much more.

[00:23:19] Yeah. Difficult to have a complete list of names and be able to call people out. And in those situations, you will truly find that most people turn their camera off. Remember that your use of names is one of the most powerful things we can do. And it is the most underutilized interaction tool. In my mind, please remember that the sweetest word in any language is your own name.

[00:23:46] Use of names in this virtual world is important

[00:23:49]also to keep interaction higher. More stories, more examples, more experiences, remember stories, keep people involved. For example, keep people involved. If you’re just doing a data dump and the virtual world, and I’m scaring staring at your screen, probably not very engaging. So guys, the way you work a room when you’re face to face, you have to work the room virtually.

[00:24:16] How do we do that? we worked the room by using names. We work the room by re-engaging. Every time we change slides, we work the room by use of questions.

[00:24:28]in all of that. Make sure you’ve done two things. You’ve double-checked your audio. Make sure your sound is good and make sure you reduce again any background noise that you may be experiencing. Anything you can do to minimize that is the best thing you can do.

[00:24:47]Now, the last piece of everything that we’re looking at in these three major buckets, which was your pre virtual meeting, your actual virtual meeting, and your post virtual meeting interaction. Or engagement is your followup. This has gotta be immediately done. 10, 15 minutes at the most. You’ve got preset that meeting up in your pre virtual meeting.

[00:25:11] And this is where you have outlined your next steps. This is where you verify those things. This is where you find out if they need additional information. And this is where you get your feedback from what you’ve just done. This piece in this structure. The third piece, your post virtual meeting followup, critical to your success in moving the customer forward.

[00:25:34] So remember, guys I shared with you, the challenge is not the meeting. The challenge is getting them to schedule, to come to your meeting, and then driving them to action. And if you have no followup, you have the inability to drive them forward. These three pieces, from an overall perspective, are the things that set you up for success.

[00:25:58] Don’t think that you can just do your virtual meeting. You need your pre virtual meeting, and you need your post virtual meeting. Remember that our goal, when I opened this up today, this first in this podcast, was to get you to go from virtually literate. So virtually fluent in what you’re doing. I want you to be able to master this environment in the way you communicate.

[00:26:26] Now, as we leave the podcast today, what I’m going to ask you to do is take one of the principles we’ve talked about and incorporated into your next virtual meeting. And if you’re starting from scratch, I want you to build all three pieces. Build your pre virtual meeting, plan out your actual meeting. And then your post now, and our next couple of sessions, I’m going to break down the structure that you need to look at in your next, in the actual virtual meeting itself.

[00:26:56] You don’t want to miss that. You need both of these pieces in order to be successful. Guys, I know that this is the forefront and important to everything that you’re doing today. Being able to communicate in the face to face world and now in the virtual world is what will give you the competitive advantage across the board, whether you’re a salesperson, you’re marketing, you’re an engineer, or you’re an entrepreneur.

[00:27:22] Your ability to connect, have a conversation, and build your confidence is what will set you apart. We don’t have a choice. Failure is not an option. These are required,

[00:27:39]guys. This is a bar queen. This has been the remarkability Institute, and I’ll look forward to seeing you at the next session.

[00:27:49]

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. If you joined us last week, I began a series on virtual communication. And last week, I spent the majority of our time together giving you the structure of what the meeting needed to look like. I shared with you that there were three key pieces to do it, doing something virtually successfully.

[00:01:29] Number one, there’s the pre virtual meeting, getting all the logistics set up there is the actual meeting itself. Whether you’re on Microsoft teams, you’re on WebEx; you’re on zoom, whatever kind of a platform you’re using. And then there’s the post virtual. Meeting critical to drive the listener forward the organization forward, get them to take the action steps that you so desire.

[00:01:58] This is the second major piece of that, and this is around the actual virtual meeting. But within that virtual meeting, you must have some type of structure that you can work with then. And all the world travel that I’ve had an opportunity to do in my 30 years of working with this skillset and helping organizations.

[00:02:26] One of the key things that I always enjoy is the architectural structures of things that I’ve had the privilege of seeing walking on the great wall of China, seeing. No true Dom seeing sacred heart, seeing things in the United States, seeing buildings and architecture all over the world. Now having spent most of my life in the Bay area as my home, that part of the world had two structures that I always admired.

[00:03:01] One is the golden gate bridge and the other. It is the Hoover dam. Both of those structures to me are just mind-boggling about how they were built, how they’ve created, how they have been timely and timeless, and what they brought to you. And I not only visually, but to get from one side of the bay to the other and in the Hoover dam to produce electricity and just the visual sight of such a structure.

[00:03:36] Most people. When we talk about structure, they want to fight me on this idea around content. They will say, Bart, that’s not me. It constricts me. It makes me feel like it’s too tight. I’m just one of those guys. That’s gotta be pure freestyle. I love those people. Whether you want to be freestyle or you, want to work within a structure that you are authentic to who you are, but I want you to realize that in my example of.

[00:04:05] The golden gate bridge and the Hoover dam that structure, the structure that they use gives the bridge and the dam strength. It allows it to be continuous. It allows it to be consistent. It allows it to be timely and timeless and what it brings to us. I want your content, whether you’re talking personally or professionally.

[00:04:31] To be timely and timeless with the people that you’re sharing it with. One of the key things that will help you be successful in any communication situation is having a content structure that you work with them. Now today, guys are I dive into that second aspect around virtual communication.

[00:04:57] What I want you to do is walk away with the elements of the content structure that you can use anywhere. Why it is so important in the virtual world is because the level of complexity, intensity, and confusion can skyrocket purely because of the mode that we’re communicating in. When it’s face to face, we can reduce some of those things.

[00:05:22] But if we take these exponential factors that we have to deal with, we have to think of ways to make it seamless, effortless, make it so a listener can retain the information and, more importantly, in my mind so that they remember it. Remember, if you spend any time with me at all, you’ve heard me say, it’s not about how do I tell them more. It’s how do I get them to remember more?

[00:05:47] That becomes so critical. I want to make sure that your content, whether it’s five minutes, 50 minutes, or five hours, you’re doing a whole day kind of an event that people walk out the door, absorbing what you said, structure. Is the beginning piece. It is the key critical factor that will set you out from everybody else.

[00:06:13] Guys, if you will study a good keynote speech, if you will look at any successful book, if you will look at any successful movie, there is a structure that the directors, the writers, and the creators all build within. When I think about good movies. When I think about movies like Star Wars and avatar, though, some of those kinds of movies have followed a structure, and nine times out of 10, the structure that the directors followed was some form of the hero’s journey.

[00:06:53] You’ve heard me speak of this many times. So with that idea, let’s dive into this idea of our virtual content structure for the actual meeting that you’re doing.

[00:07:06]Now, when I started this process with you, we talked about three major areas, the pre-meeting, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting; we’re talking now about the structure within the actual meeting. This is where I’m going to focus on our time together. I want you to remember a simple principle that there are freedom and structure.

[00:07:27] I also want you to remember. We never, we memorize what we put in it. We memorize the structure itself. If you memorize the structure, you can plug and play anything you want. You can move the pieces around if you want. But here’s the hard thing. We have to do the hard work and keep it simple for our listeners, especially in the virtual world.

[00:07:51] That is the principle. Number one, you have to be able to do the hard work. You gotta be able to keep it simple, do the hard work and keep it simple. I want you to remember that a confused mind will always say no. So if they’re confused, they’re not even going to absorb what you’re talking about. So now that’s principle number one, guys, let’s take a look at principle.

[00:08:16] Number two. It’s what I call the 75% rule. Now, this rule has been saved many times. Let’s say someone invites you to come in, and they’re going to give you an hour to speak. You go back to your office, you go back to your acute cubicle, and you’re starting to craft content. And most of you are probably crafting content in PowerPoint.

[00:08:43] Now here’s what I want you to remember about the 75% rule. It’s 75% of the time you’ve been given is what you should try to fill. So if I’ve asked you to fill 60 minutes, And you apply the rule. That’s 45 minutes. That’s what everybody’s going to think, but I want you to realize that is not correct.

[00:09:09] There’s one of the things that I want you to consider factoring in. I want you to back out what you and I would call your Q and time or your banter time or the time when you’re just going to really have a conversation. Maybe that’s all the way through. Maybe that’s just at the end, depending on how you’ve laid out the communication situation you’re in.

[00:09:33] So if I’ve given you 60 minutes and you follow the 75% role, you’re going to think, okay, I need to fill 45. Now, remember that’s incorrect. So you take your 60 minutes back out what you want for banter Q and a. So let’s make life easy and say that’s 15 minutes. That leaves you 45 minutes. Now you want to take 75% of that to fill with your content.

[00:10:03] Now, a lot of you are well, Bart, that doesn’t seem like very much. That’s because you have such a mindset of how do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? And my mindset to help you is how do you get them to remember more? I’ve what I’m telling you. If I invited you to a meeting at it ended five minutes early, would you be happy or sad?

[00:10:26] That you’d be happy you go, Oh, great. I just got five minutes back, especially if they were thorough. It is better, far better to end on time and start on time than end late. Because what you’re saying is you’re not respectful of their time. Now, if you’ve engaged them if they felt wow, this is really awesome.

[00:10:50] And they’re saying, that’s interesting. Tell me more. And you go over your timeframe. Then you are winning. But most of us want to try to cram 60 minutes of information into that 60-minute slot. And you leave yourself no leeway for conversation banter or even a question that takes you down a rabbit hole that you need to address.

[00:11:13] And it may take a moment or two before you come back out and then you’ve really lost time. And if you have dictated everything you’re doing by PowerPoint now, you’re going okay, what do I have to do? Now I have to go through these sides really quickly. And guys, look what you’ve just done.

[00:11:29] You’ve just compromised your information. You just said to this executive audience; this is of no value you’ve already lost. So let’s say you walk in the door, and they gave you 60 minutes, and the executive says. I’m really sorry. We’ve had some time changes. You’re down to 30 minutes. Okay. Now, if you said to them, all right, based on the 10 things I was going to share with you, and my time is roughly cut in half, which five would be the most important to you, and I’ll cover those.

[00:12:06] Now you need to think through that 75% rule based on that. But what you’re saying in that first page says my information is a value and I’m not willing to compromise it. Don’t compromise. Your information uses 75% role have the mindset that I’m trying to get you to remember more, not tell you more. You set a precedent.

[00:12:29] It is your content. This is your valuable information. Don’t sell it. Short principle. Number one. There is freedom and structure. Do the hard work. Keep it simple. The second principle, the 75% rule, that let’s go for the third.

[00:12:48]The third principle I want you to walk away with is the structure process. So if you have a pen and paper out and you’re at home, you’re listening to this. Or if you’re driving, just keep listening. Then guys just keep listening and come back and make these notes. There are five steps in the process, and if you just follow these five steps every time you have to craft content, to work through the structure, you’ll win every single time.

[00:13:19] Number one, you have to set your goals. What is it you’re trying to achieve? Are they more strategic goals? Are they more tactical goals? That drives everything. Are you trying to paint the vision? Where do I want to take the customer? Where do I want to take the client? Or you deep into the implementation and process of getting something put into place, and you not need to talk about tactical steps.

[00:13:46] The next thing you want to know is your listener analysis. Everybody will tell your listener, know your listener, and guys, nobody takes the time to understand their listener. What do they want to know? What do they need to know? What’s their knowledge level on the topic. Do you want to be able to answer these basic questions?

[00:14:05] Now, the ones I always start with are what I call the five high gain questions, high gain question. Number one. What’s your compelling event. What’s driving this. Why? All of a sudden, do you care about this? If you can get them to articulate their compelling event, you can map your solution, tool, or product to that.

[00:14:27] And you could just stop. You could be done. You probably got enough. Now, remember you can’t walk up to them or have a conversation with them. What’s your compelling event. They’re going to think that you’re strange. I always ask it. Why is this on your radar screen? That’s how I ask it. Or w why do you care about this?

[00:14:47] All of a sudden, why haven’t you been worried about it before? Anyway, you want to ask that a compelling event is your first high gain question. Second high gain question. What are the top three internal pains that you’re facing around X? Whatever the topic is around risk around performance, around security, around innovation, whatever the topic would be.

[00:15:14] The top three internal pains. The third I quick question. High-gain question. Just going to go to the other side, guys. So what are the top three external pains that you’re facing around X? Now? Here’s the beauty of these too many times. Those two things are interrelated. They’re connected in some way, shape, or form.

[00:15:38] If you can find that connection, that can make it very powerful. And then the next two are the two that I think 99.9% of most people. Miss. Typically, what’s your challenge. What’s your issue? What’s your pain. What’s your problem? That’s one side of the coin I like to go to the other side of the coin is, what are the top three initiatives that you’re working on around act?

[00:16:01] Now, remember if a company has got an internal initiative, they’re already working at solving a problem. So your job is to enhance what they’re already doing. Many of your solution tools and products and services that you bring can do that very easily. And then the fifth tag going high gain question is what’s that external initiative in the marketplace or outside your department or your division still within your company, maybe that you’re working on.

[00:16:34] Those five high gain questions for me, open up a discovery session. That can be very powerful, very conversation with no threat. That’s why I liked those questions. So in the process, number one sets the goals. Number two, have a solid understanding of your listeners. Number three, you’ve gotta be able to craft your open and your close.

[00:16:57] Now notice that I didn’t say do the body yet. Most people want to do the middle first. I don’t think that’s correct. You need to have a starting place and an ending place. And based on that starting place in any place you can decide. What’s the best thing to do to fill in between, to me, an open and a close, if it is done properly and done well, it is the GPS unit of your content.

[00:17:27] So think about getting in your car to go someplace with your family or friends that you’ve never been before, whether you’re using your GPS in your car or using it on your phone, you plug in the destination where you want to go. You plug in the address; your GPS unit picks up where you’re at that moment.

[00:17:45] And then does it not give you the fastest, most effective way to reach your destination? That’s exactly what an open and a closed does. It gives you a starting place and an ending place and then helps you narrow down what piece of content, the body that you need to share to take them from the open to the close.

[00:18:08] But if you do it the other way around, here’s my principle. You just show up and throw up instead of it being clean, crisp, and there’s a flow to your content. You want to develop your content what needs to go in the middle based on what that opens and closes. Those are typical. What are your major points?

[00:18:30] Most people would say I’m going to cover three points or five points or six points or eight points. I can’t encourage you enough. I would never do more than four. Three is the golden number four boy. You’re on edge after five. They can’t remember. Now, if you do seven, eight, nine, you’re back to that principle of I’m here to tell you more, instead of how do I get you to remember more and then step number five, all that hard work, all that hard work you turn into whatever visual seems appropriate.

[00:19:05] Is that a PowerPoint? Great. If it is super, if it’s not, how about you want to do a whiteboard more, have a conversation, or maybe you’re going to bring in a physical prompt. Whatever you decide, there’s not a right or wrong. I would ask yourself the question. What is the best way for me to visually enhance my content, guys?

[00:19:27] If I’m in an audience of saying a hundred or more, I will use PowerPoint just from a readability perspective. If I have a smaller group, my favorite is a flip chart or a whiteboard, it’s far more interactive, but those are my choices. You make the right choice. But I would think through the visual that will best reinforce and enhance the content you’re trying to share with your listener.

[00:19:55] So that was principle number three, principle number four. It’s what I call the simplicity factor. Now, remember that we’re doing the hardworking. We’re keeping it simple. We’re doing the hard work, and we’re keeping it simple. The simplicity factor really has four pieces to it. Number one, remember that we talk to people, we look people in the eye, and we have a conversation.

[00:20:24] Now, if you’re doing something virtually, remember you’re not talking to your screen. You’re talking to your camera. You’re talking to your camera, not to the screen. And if I could encourage you, if it’s a small group camera’s on. Small group camera’s on. If I’ve got 15 or fewer people, I want everybody to have their camera on because I want to see their bright smiling faces because as well as I do, if you allow them to have their camera off, they’re going to do something else.

[00:20:51] They’re going to do their email. They’re not going to pay any attention to you. I know in my home because my home is way out in the country. When I’m doing something, and it’s a large group virtually say, for example, on zoom. Because my internet is not that great, if I turn my camera off, I have a steadier signal.

[00:21:12] It works more effectively. But when I do that, I’ll tell the people on my call, that’s what I’m going to do, but I will stop and do a lot of check-ins. Remember, it’s about a conversation with folks—second simplicity factor. Get to the point, be clear, concise, and to the point. When you’re doing something virtually, this is no place to be ribose.

[00:21:39] Cause you’re going to lose people. They won’t say focused. Nobody wants to stare at that screen or a PowerPoint side for that long period of time without something changing. And then guys, remember, you want to say it over and over again. Now that brings me back to the seven-factor phrase. Remember that the listener has to hear something seven times before they remember it.

[00:22:01] Seven times. And you’re going to go bar, how do I say something? Seven times in an hour? Seven times in an hour is pretty simple. What I always get a kick out of is when my MBA students would say, boy, how do I say cite something times, seven times in five minutes, but I get them to do it. And it is revolutionary because, at the end of every five-minute talk, I’ll say now, what was Sam’s seven-factor phrase?

[00:22:26] And the class will call it out. Remember their goal is to get them to remember more, not tell them more. And then in everything that you do, it has to be clear, guys. It has to be easy to understand if it is not, you’re going to lose your listener, especially in the virtual world. Now let’s go-to principle number five, and this is what I call the four H’s.

[00:22:57] Now I want to remind you that people buy with emotion, and they verify with the fact people buy with emotion, and they verify with fact, so there are four simple ages that I want to share with you. And if you’ll keep these in mind as you craft content, it will help the first H is the word help. Be there to solve a pain, solve an issue, assist them, educate them, somehow help them achieve what they’re trying to accomplish.

[00:23:31] Walk in the door and say, how can I empower you? How can I make a difference? What can I do, too, for you to help you come in with that attitude? Your first His help. The second one is the heart. Now you may think, okay, Bart, you’re getting squishy on me, but when I’m talking about heart, I’m talking about captivating their emotions through stories, through examples, through experiences, but you have to be able to share them, share your company’s story, share your personal story, share with them why you get up every day and want to go fight this battle.

[00:24:09] Share your heart a little bit. So they get to know you. Remember, they’re going to buy you first, and then they’re going to get your company or your tool or your product or your service. And the third I would inspire, which is hope, inspire them to take and make a difference, inspire them to recycle that they’re trying to achieve that hope and heart are very closely interrelated.

[00:24:36] Now, remember that when you’re sharing that kind of hope and heart, it’s always relevant. You’re vulnerable, but it’s relevant, you’re vulnerable, but it is relevant. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to be vulnerable enough to share with them your stories and your examples. And remember that it is your failures that inspire people, not your successes because you’re sharing with them how you’ve overcome.

[00:25:08]That fourth H is humor. The best thing to help an audience relax is just a little fun—a little humor, guys. Remember, jokes are at high risk, low return. I’m not talking about jokes, natural humor, self defacing humor. A funny story about yourself. A funny story about one of your children. So if you’ll think about allowing them to laugh, inspiring them, to achieve capturing their emotions and saying that you’re going to help them those four H’s, those four H’s will take you a long way when you add in your content.

[00:25:50] But remember you got to do the hard work, and you got to keep it simple. And most people won’t think how do I help? How do I share my heart? How do I give them hope? And how do I make them laugh today? That’s principle number five.

[00:26:03]Now, principle number six is what I call drivers. These are what drive your actual virtual meeting. Now, this is extremely important. So, guys, I don’t want you to miss any of this. Number one, you need to define your purpose for doing this meeting. Let me give you some examples. Is the purpose of selling is the purpose of teaching?

[00:26:29] Is the purpose of educating or is the purpose just to build awareness around what you bring to the table? You’ve gotta pinpoint what that purpose is because that dictates what you do within the virtual meeting itself. The second driver is audience size. Now, here is something for you to remember.

[00:26:54] If it’s one to 10, the content can have greater complexity. Because it’s a small group, you can banter, they can ask questions. There could be more feedback. You can go back and forth if the group is small. So if the group is small, raise the complexity of your content. If the group is large, 25, 35, 45 50, if you’ve got a big group that you’re doing a virtual situation around, you have to keep it simple.

[00:27:29] You have to keep it simple because nobody can interact in that group environment. Oh sure. You can do a show of hands. You can do something in the chat room, but realize that 50 people in your session, you’ve got 50 different people, probably thinking 50 different things, smaller the group, the greater complexity, the larger the group simpler.

[00:27:50] The content has to be. So you pinpointed your purpose. You’ve worked with your audience size. The third key driver is the outcome or the goal you’re trying to achieve. Now, I want to give you three outcomes that I want you to pinpoint. Every time you do a virtual meeting, this is what I want you to be able to answer at the end of the meeting, what do you want them to think?

[00:28:20] What do you want them thinking when it’s all said and done, the second one, what do you want them to do? And the third one is what do you want them to feel? What do you want them to think? What do you want them to do? And what do you want them to feel? Any time I get asked to give it. Give a keynote type of feature, a Ted type talk.

[00:28:46] I always ask the person inviting me to come to speak those three things. When I’m all said and done if you could write the script, what do you want them to think? What do you want them to feel, and what do you want them to do? And I have them tell me, and then I began to twist and tweak and work with my content, so I can drive those things because I want that person who’s asked me to be satisfied in this situation, say you’re a selling situation.

[00:29:12] You want to be able to dictate that, okay. On my first sales call, what do I want them to think? What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to do? What do I want them to think is the fact that this solution tool or product will work for them, whatever I want them to feel. I want them to feel hopeful and inspired that they can get this done.

[00:29:31] And what do I want them to do? I want them to set up—one more meeting. I want them to set up to come in and do some type of demonstration on the solution tool or product. It’s very pinpointed. So, guys, I’ve just walked you through six different principles, ideas. As we think about the actual virtual meeting itself, those are the principle foundation ideas that we will build the structure from.

[00:30:04] Now, this is going to be a two-part session. What I’ve covered the first one was the idea of what the meeting looked like from an overall perspective. There’s the pre virtual meeting, the actual meeting, and the post that’s at its highest level. Now we’re working within the actual meeting, and I’ve given you the principles to build.

[00:30:26] Now, I want to come back to something that I shared with you earlier. That structure is key to your success. What I want you to begin to do is implement some of these principles, start integrating them into your next virtual meeting. Think through some of these ideas and make sure you’re actually building into your meeting content.

[00:30:48] Now, if it’s not a virtual meeting, these things will apply in your face to face a small group or large group. I want to make sure that your information is timely. I want to make sure that it is timeless, meaning it can be shared over and over again with others. And more importantly, I want you to walk into the situation, confident that you can achieve what you’d like to achieve.

[00:31:14] Now, don’t miss our next session where I’m actually going to break into the content structure components. We’ve got to be able to bring these two pieces together. And I look forward to sharing that with you. So, guys, this has been the remarkability Institute. This is Bart queen, your host. I can’t wait to see you at our next podcast.

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 strong. So if I turn off my camera, I get less challenge in my internet. And then there’s just as a technology work at times, making it difficult for us to communicate. So we’ve got a couple of things. We’ve got virtual challenges, and we’ve got communication challenges that you’ve got to be able to deal with.

[00:10:25] So, with those challenges in mind, let me lay out some principles that I think are important to help us overcome those. Now, if you followed me in any of the podcasts, some of this may be a review for you and some of you, if you’re just joining me, you may find this to be new information, but these are foundational pieces.

[00:10:50] We’ve gotta be able to do the ordinary things extraordinarily well. And if we’re not, we’re missing out on some of these basic communication principles. So let’s go with the first one. The first one is this idea. Okay. Here is my choice. Tell them more, or get them to remember more. Most of us are show up and throw up most of us when we do these types of things; you are going so fast through slides.

[00:11:17] I would not call it a PowerPoint presentation. I’d call it a movie. Now you’ve spent hours and hours crafting those slides, but you barely give me time to absorb them, let alone have a conversation. So if there’s one paradigm shift, I would want you to take both faces to face, and virtually it’s to go from, tell me more.

[00:11:39] This idea. Pardon me for telling them more about the idea of how do I get them to remember more? How do I get somebody to walk out of this podcast? And remember some of the principles that I’ve taught you or shared with you? That’s my goal. My goal is not to overwhelm you with information in any podcast that I do.

[00:12:00] I want you to walk out with principles that you can use, whether that’s with your family, with a business situation, you’re an entrepreneur, or you’re adding the information and do a Ted type talk or a keynote type of speech. Now with this idea of building the conversation and building connection.

[00:12:21] Everything that I teach and share is based on three major goals. How do I build trust? How do I build a relationship, and how do I build engagement from a hundred thousand foot level? Those three goals should drive everything you do from a communication perspective.

[00:12:37]If I could write the script for you, mom, dads every morning when you wake up. When you put your legs over the edge of the bed, you’re wiping up, sleep from your eye before you ever stand up before your feet ever hit the ground. Ask yourself one question. How do I deepen the trust between my spouse and me?

[00:13:02] And how do I deepen the trust between my children and me? How do I deepen my trust between my parents and me? It should be the number one thing you think about. The CEO of Pepsi. I heard her once say that the new global currency will not be money. It’s going to be trusted. There’s one of my favorite books, called God, is a salesperson.

[00:13:25] And it talks about this idea that people buy trust before they buy a solution tool or product, and that they buy trust before they buy the provider. Meaning you or me? That’s gotta be a key ingredient now; virtually, it’s even harder. Guys. It’s even harder. So now, how do we tighten that up? How do we shorten that process around building trust?

[00:13:51] When it comes to relationships, just remember that people buy from people, and they buy from people that they like. So if I just stopped right there and said, guys, you have two key factors. You have to build your trust factor and your likeability or approachability factor that comes through on your laptop.

[00:14:10] Ask yourself that, okay, next week, when I do this virtual class, how do I get that trust factor to come through? How do I get my approachability and my likeability factor to come through? When all they hear is my voice, they can’t see my smiling face. They can’t see what I’m doing. Now. We haven’t even talked about how do I engage them?

[00:14:33] How do I can keep that gauge high? We talked about interaction. How do I engage them in the first eight seconds? How do I make that happen? Those three goals to me just naturally blend into what I call the three-levels of selling there’s. So what me too. And I need that, or I need you. If somebody opens up and says, hi, my name is Bart Queen.

[00:15:02] This is the company I work for. We’ve been around for 25 years. Our numbers are X. We’ve got this number of employees, and we’re globally located anywhere in the world. You’re going to go. So what, who cares? I don’t care. You’ve heard that a million times from people. If you’ve listened to a salesperson, come in and present it to your company.

[00:15:23] What I want them to say about you is me too. I’m just like that. Or I’ve had that similar experience. So think about people that have gone to the same university. They experienced the me-too factor—the same. If you go to the same church, you get to meet your factor. If you’ve been in an aspect of the military, you have me too factor.

[00:15:47] We can physically look at me to movement with women. We can see that the me-too factor. You can see the me-too factor and people who have gone through a cancer experience, a horrible tragedy, and a hurricane. That’s all part of me, too. What you should be driving them to say is I need that. I need that solution.

[00:16:08] I need that product. I need that service. Now, if you think about them saying, I’ve got to have it, I need that. Is that price or value? That’s all value. But if there’s, so what, that’s all price; you’re going to get pushback. It’s not what you want. Again, your overall goal with trust, relationship, and engagement is connection conversation in confidence.

[00:16:37] That’s what you want to be the outcomes: connection conversation and confidence, connection, conversation, and confidence. Now, within that, in my mind, in any communication situation that you’re in, you have three things you’ve gotta be able to control. Number one, you have to be able to control yourself.

[00:17:01] Number two, you have to be able to control your content. And number three, you gotta be able to control your circumstance or the situation that you’re in. let me give a little bit more detail on each one of those. You gotta be able to control yourself. I remember once seeing a politician up on a stage pre-election, and one of the people in this town hall meeting was asking this potential a candidate a couple of questions. They were pushing, and they were pushing, and they were pushing.

[00:17:34] And the candidate finally lost control and got right up in this person’s face. What was in the news the next day was not the constituent. It was the candidate having lost control, lost their patience, lost control of the situation that he was in. You’ve seen that in sales situations where a CEO or an executive comes after-sales for what about this?

[00:18:01] What about this? What about this? And then all of a sudden, the salesperson gets defensive. They start backing up; they fold their arms, their voice goes up, they’ve lost control. And as soon as you lose control of yourself, you’re real, you’ve lost. The second place you have to be able to control is your content.

[00:18:22] And what I mean by this guy is somebody takes you off track. I am talking about solving compliance and regulatory issues, and some person asks a question about acts and takes me way off track. now you have a choice. Do I go down that rabbit hole, address the comment, and come back. Is this valuable?

[00:18:45] Do I stay there for a while? Or a short amount of time? You’ve gotta be able to control your content, but I will toss to you if you’re not crisp and what your number one message is what your three supporting messages are. And your three key to why’s you can’t come back on track. Cause you don’t have any signposts that you can grab hold of and bring everybody back.

[00:19:14] When I’m helping somebody with a press and media situation, I will ask them, what’s the one single message you’re trying to drive, and they’ll give me a whole bunch of stuff. Now, what’s your one single message. They’ll give me a whole bunch of stuff, and I’ll come back, and I’ll say, okay, let me put it to you in this way.

[00:19:30] What do you want the headline in the article to be? And what do you want? The main sentence, the Twitter type message. Do you want them to remember to put in that article? They’ll give me a Ph.D. speech. They won’t give me a sound bite. So in that press and media situation, you have to have a sound byte.

[00:19:49] Cause that’s all that reporter wants. You may get a reporter who says to you I’ve gotten an article. I just need one, one little sound bite from you and your company. And you’re going to give them a 45-minute presentation. That’s not what they’re looking for. They’re looking for that sound bite. You gotta be able to control your content.

[00:20:10] And that last piece is you have to be able to control the circumstance. Now, a lot of this is your facilitation skills or your skills when it comes to answering questions. One of the principles I teach in controlling the circumstances this if someone in your audience asks a question: When you finish the answer to that question, it should drive the next question.

[00:20:39] When you answer that question, the last sentence should cause that audience or that individual to ask you the next question. If you’re doing that, you’re driving the conversation. They are not that controlling the situation or the circumstance. Those are all skills, and they’re just as. Applicable in the virtual world.

[00:21:02]

Jeff shares a heart-wrenching story about the kid’s at his son’s high school raising money for Josh, whose grandfather was hit and killed by a car while picking him up from the bus. He felt powerless and knew he needed to do something to help make it right. After meeting with a bunch of guys, they decided to build him a house from scratch.

Bart met him after hearing this story and brought a camera crew to help tell the story. This led to a lifetime friendship between the two. Later, Jeff introduced him to Yogi. Jeff felt called to serve at the AME church in Birmingham and believed Bart’s communication courses could benefit some of the women at his church.

So Bart, already committed to the power of story, spent 3 days unpacking some powerful communication tools for Yogi and the women at the AME Church.

Although she was currently a performer, she felt it would be important for her to attend. She has gone through many struggles in her life and went into it with the attitude of learning to tell her story with courage and heart. One of her key takeaways was thinking of the audience and what they take away or remember from your story.

Yogi shared about the challenges she faced, how she overcame them, and the lessons that she can share with you that can apply to your life.

Jeff shares his experience of being a white man in a predominantly black church and what he has learned from his experience.

Jeff has learned the lesson of relevant vulnerability. Being able to share our weaknesses and what we have overcome is more impactful. Our words are containers that hold things. They either hold people up or tear them down.

Three keys that Yogi hit on:

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. I’m incredibly excited today. As we dive into a different communication topic, I was having a conversation with a colleague earlier in the week. We ended up boiling down things into three major kinds of buckets. Again, number one.

[00:01:59] Building the conversation, number two, building the connection, and then building your confidence. And as we got into a discussion on each one of those topics, I made the point that the number one thing that every one of us should do in building our confidence is to focus more on building our trust factor.

[00:02:24] And when I, when he, when I said that to him, he said, what do you mean by this idea of a trust factor? I had shared with him earlier that we had three major goals of building trust, building relationships, and building engagement and building that trust factor is critical to our success—both personally and professionally.

[00:02:45] I also mentioned to him that for most of us, Trust is something that we leave to a whim. It’s not something that we strategically look at it and layout a game plan. Most of us don’t get up every day and say, Hmm, how do I build trust with my wife or husband? How do I build deeper trust with my children?

[00:03:11] I don’t know how you’d build a deeper trust with my best buddy or friend. We don’t even think about that with the customer. We know that with a customer, it’s critical to build trust because they’re not going to buy or deal with this or have a relationship with us if we don’t come across as trustworthy.

[00:03:29] But I come back to the idea. Most of us just look at it more from a whim than from looking at more at a strategic kind of. The focused thing that you’re going to think about today. I want you to focus on that, the idea of how do you build your trust factor. And guys, as we discuss this, I would like you to put it in context, more of the people that are immediately around you, your spouse, your significant other, a child, a good friend, a family member.

[00:04:06] Or a close client, but I want the circle to be pretty tight as we look at it. I’m asking you to do that because I want you to begin to think of immediate application on some of the ideas that I’m going to share with you now in our time together today, to me, which is a short 30 minutes for today, I want you to understand trust from a different perspective.

[00:04:31] I want you to look at it differently, and I want you to begin to pick up tidbits’ ideas on how you can build your trust factor and make it stronger. Now, if you’ll do that for me in the next 30 minutes, here’s what I think you’re going to find. Number one, you can strengthen and deepen the relationships that you’re in.

[00:04:54] Number two, from a business perspective, you can build greater loyalty. So your customer only wants to do business with you. And more importantly, in my mind, in the first two, you get a connection, and you deepen that connection. Today, guys, I’m going to do more of a broad sweep on this idea of trust.

[00:05:18] That way, I can just give you tidbits. If you care to go deeper, each one of these will allow you to do that. The first thing I want to look at is what I call trust, foundational concepts, three simple key ideas that I think layout a foundation for us to work with. I believe that the effectiveness of our communication, whether that’s face to face, it’s virtually it’s over the phone, it’s a large group or a small group, relies more on the character of the messenger of you and me, then the content of the message.

[00:05:55] If you think about it, most of us put all our focus on the message. You’ll spend hours and hours trying to craft the perfect PowerPoint slide and not even really think about what do I need to do? What do I need to say to create that trust factor? It’s the exact opposite of what we think, where the real effectiveness of our communication lies in our character as the messenger.

[00:06:20] So I want to remind you that people buy what they see before they buy what they hear. They’re evaluating you. They’re looking you up. They’re looking you down and making an assessment already before you’ve opened your mouth, whether they’re going to trust you or not. And then as you begin to share, they’re going to be evaluating the things that you bring to the table.

[00:06:43] And this is where your executive presence, your sense of authenticity, and your confidence need to come forward. Part of the character of the messenger is then developed through the stories you share through the examples that you give. So that first paradigm shift, I want you to think about and building your trust factor.

[00:07:08] Is that we need to focus on the character of the messenger, you and I, more than we need to focus on the content. First the second thing I want you to realize is that credibility is a thing that makes the difference. And I found an interesting fact in my research, it said in the first six months of relationship communication, overrides credibility; so think about when you first met somebody that you dated, and maybe that person became your spouse in the first month as you went out, you had a good time.

[00:07:46] You shared stories, you talked, you were building your credibility, but it was the connection you were creating through things that you shared experiences, that you had places that you went. But what I found interesting out of this study was the second six months’ credibility overrides communication. So now, I want you to think about the communication you have with your spouse over a longer period.

[00:08:19] Let’s say you’ve been married ten years or longer in a relationship, ten years or longer. Hopefully, you both have a bank account of trust that you make deposits into, and you take money out of it, or you take trust out of it. There’s an exchange back and forth. If you’ve built this account up strongly, there are moments when you have a bad day, and something doesn’t happen.

[00:08:46] You fail to call something that doesn’t work out. And the credibility holds for you, even though the communication did not so if we think over the long haul in building a business if you think of a long haul in a relationship with one of your children in a relationship with your spouse, that credibility.

[00:09:09] Becomes critical after six months over the communication that we have. It’s that level of trust that we have. And the third thing I want you to realize from a foundational perspective is when credibility continues when it grows, and it strengthens that connection grows and strengthens, they learn to rely on you and depend on you, and they trust you.

[00:09:38] But when credibility discontinues, the connection discontinues. So we can see this in marriages where someone broke. Their trust. We see that with politicians, where we had trust in someone, and something happened, they broke that trust. And then there becomes a disconnect you’ve had that happen with a friend where you had a falling out credibility fell apart.

[00:10:06] There was a disconnect and maybe a long period that you didn’t talk. Now, if that relationship begins to heal, You find that credibility bit builds again. You find that the connection builds again; these three basic foundational ideas are foundational to laying the trust factor and building it the way you see fit.

[00:10:34] So now let’s look at some of the challenges. Some of the things we have to overcome are the challenges with trust that become critical for you. And I.

[00:10:44]One of the number one things that happen with a lack of trust in business, it stymies innovation, it stymies optimization, it stymies growth, and it stymies progress. It almost puts it to a halt and slows it down. Suppose the trust factor is not high enough. If the trust factor is also not high enough, it can create the perception.

[00:11:10] Now, the perception of a hidden agenda. And if you’re trying to sell me something and I feel like you have a hidden agenda, I’m going to put my hand out and give pushback. Cause I’m not trusting that. One of my favorite sayings is a confused mind will always say no. So if they feel like they’re trying to pull something over on you, if you feel like there’s a hidden agenda in there, you’re going to push back because the trust levels are so low.

[00:11:42] The other thing that happens in my mind is that the decision making process becomes very, very long, and drawn out—an example. I gave it a couple of weeks ago in class. I was sharing about a man that I met to talk about helping me with podcasts. We met this young man just at a coffee shop, and the idea was, find out what he does, how he could help us, and what it would look like.

[00:12:10] If we decided to commit to doing podcasts, I brought my assistant along so we could just banter and talk. She was very much interested. We walked into the coffee shop within the first few minutes. I had already made the decision that I trusted this man. And we walked out the door after it was all said and done.

[00:12:30] My assistant said he’s a good guy. I trust him. And it was an automatic decision that we would do business with him because of the trust factor established so quickly. He was honest. He was upfront. He shared what worked and what didn’t work. You got a very clear perspective. Now, the result of that higher trust was the decision-making process was fairly simple, but you know what it’s like when you’re don’t trust the person; a lot of times, you won’t do business with them, or you take your time before you make that decision.

[00:13:05] The other thing that happens is productivity across the organization gets very slow. Because people don’t trust the people around them, and they’re in self-preservation and self-protection mode. You don’t want that. You want productivity to go high. So if we’re looking to look at these challenges and say, how do we speed up innovation?

[00:13:27] How do we get rid of hidden agendas? How do we speed up the process of making a decision and increase productivity? You got to go to the other side; you’ve got to be able to build that trust factor. But we don’t walk in the door thinking, how do I build that trust again, we leave it to whim, but if we’re going to look at the challenges, we’ve got to look at the benefits,

[00:13:49]the number one thing that happens, I don’t care whether it’s a personal relationship or a professional relationship. Trust strengthens that relationship. It deepens that relationship, and it creates a powerful connection because you’ve got trust. I know for myself, I’m just one of those guys that trust is a major issue.

[00:14:10] If I’m going to do business with someone, that trust factor has to be high if I’m going to be in any type of relationship, that trust factor has to be high. It is probably the number one thing in my own life that I would make many judgments by and who I spend time with and the businesses I associate with.

[00:14:32] Now, one of the greatest benefits of strong trust is the idea of loyalty. So if you think about it with your customer base, if you’re thinking about it from a funnel perspective, at the top of that funnel is the beginning of the building trust process. And at the tip of that upside-down funnel, the very tip is brand loyalty that they only want to do business with you.

[00:14:56] Now remember that’s because of who you are. Not necessarily because of the business we buy from people we don’t buy from companies. So you have to come back to where I opened about around your character. Now, if you’re doing business again, the results of that, it speeds up the process. It develops greater collaboration, and it drives results forward because people trust that you’re going to take them where you said you’re going to take just some of the simple benefits of trust.

[00:15:29] We could have a long list. I’m just trying to hit a couple. That makes sense—both on a personal and professional basis.

[00:15:36]But if you’ve been with me before, and if you’ve spent any time with me, that Y is pretty important because I believe in what Simon Sinek teaches us, that people buy, why you do what you do before they buy what you do. So let’s answer the question. Why is trust so important. Number one.

[00:15:59] I think it’s because we are capable of more than we think we are. We’re more capable than we think we are. And when trust is higher, we get the freedom to express that capability. Think about when someone encourages you or says you do a great job. Think about maybe that was a child when you praise a child.

[00:16:22] A lot of times, they just want to do. More, they want to try harder. In school, we see that in sports, especially when the coach says, I know you can do it, run harder, run faster, jump higher because someone believes in you, they trust in what you’re capable of. And when they become again to trust in what you’re capable of, let’s think about what happens.

[00:16:49] Number one, people get a firm belief in your reliability. I know I can count on Bart. I know I can count on Bill. I know I can count on Mary. You become far more reliable. They know you’re going to get the job done. There’s a firm belief in the truth that you speak the truth. Here’s where I’m coming from.

[00:17:11] Here’s what I think will work. Here’s what I think will not work. And because there’s a high level of trust, you’ll accept those things and question it less. There’s also a stronger belief in your ability that you can bring to the table. If you look at a customer and say, I can take you from point a to point B, and we can do that in nine months on schedule and under budget.

[00:17:40] If the trust factor is high, they’re going to believe that you can meet that goal. And when it gets tough, when things aren’t going so well, when it doesn’t seem so smooth, if your trust factor is high, they will stay with you because they believe in your abilities. If they don’t, that trust factor will come down, and they’re going to question your abilities. Then there’s one more important point, especially from a leadership perspective, they have a firm belief in your strength in leading the organization or the team to the destination or the goal.

[00:18:17] Now that could be just your strength in. Just yourself. It could be the strength in your team, or it could be the strength in your company leading forward,

[00:18:27]all of that reliability, the truth, your ability, and your strength gives you an opportunity to increase your authenticity to really who you are. And that authenticity is just equivalent to your character. Understanding why trust is so important should drive you to take it from this thing that you think about just on the whim to something that you are actively pursuing that you think about every day.

[00:18:59] Guys, if I would check if I could challenge you tomorrow morning when you wake up. Before you let your feet hit the floor and you’re sitting on the edge of the bed. Ask yourself this one. Very simple question. What can I do today to build greater trust with my family? What can I do today to build greater trust with my spouse?

[00:19:24] What can I do today to build greater trust with my son or my daughter? And if you’re a young person, what can I do to build greater trust with my mom or my dad or grandparents? And then just do that one thing. Just do that one thing.

[00:19:42]I am a fond follower of Bernay Brown. And you may recognize her as an author. You may recognize her from Ted talks. Maybe you even read some of her books. Two of my favorites are Dare to Lead and Daring Greatly. I think they have a lot to do and speak heavily on trust, authenticity, and vulnerability.

[00:20:10] But if you follow her a little bit, you’ll find that she has said that there are cell seven elements of what she describes of trust. The first one she mentioned is the boundaries that you have. Here’s where I will go. And here’s where I won’t go and understanding what those boundaries are. Builds.

[00:20:35] Trust. The second thing she talks about is reliability. Now I’ve mentioned that here, she is reinforcing it that you can trust that the person will do what they say. They’re going to do. You walk the talk. Do you live out what you say you’re going to do? The third point she brings up as an element is an accountability.

[00:21:01] Do you apologize when you need to apologize, you say you’re wrong when you’re wrong. Do you hold yourself accountable for what you say and what you do as an example to others? I know one of my key values has always been, it is never too late to do the right thing, and I can share with you that there are many times.

[00:21:26] When doing the right thing may have taken me months to get there to that point, to make that decision. And some of them, as you would probably know in your own life, maybe it’s gone several years, and you still have it not turn that wrong into a right. All part of our process of holding ourselves accountable.

[00:21:45] There’s not perfection at this. There’s the process of working at it. The fourth concept she brings up is what she calls the vault. And what she’s referring to is this idea. When someone shares something with you in confidence, do you hold it in confidence? In other words, do you keep your mouth shut? Do you keep the vault closed and not break that confidence?

[00:22:12] Now we’ve all known someone shared a little secret with us, or someone’s shared a piece of gossip maybe. And then you share the gossip. And then we lose trust, or we’ve broken someone’s trust because they shared something with us. And then we shared it with someone else. And that you live with that regret after it comes out that you’ve done that.

[00:22:32]The next one that she brings up is this idea of integrity. You do what you say you’re going to do when no one is looking. I think that’s a great definition of integrity. Do we do what we say we’re going to do when no? One’s when no one is looking. The last two, I especially liked one was nonjudgmental.

[00:22:55] Each one of us never hesitates to share our heart, our opinion, our mind, what we’re thinking. But when someone else does a lot of times, we’re judgmental that when they share their truth, you speak your truth. I speak my truth, but do you judge my truth? This is where that judgment nonjudgmental attitude allows you.

[00:23:18] The freedom to express yourself. Guys. I can remember that with my father. It was very difficult to express myself because I knew my father would be extremely. Critical of my opinion or what I was thinking, but my grandfather had this big open heart in this big open mind and him. I could talk about absolutely everything I can remember as a teenager, having great discussions with my grandfather about drugs, sex, and rock, and roll and having the freedom just to talk things through with him.

[00:23:53] I admired him immensely for the fact that he gave me the strength and the freedom to share with him. And then her last point is this idea of being generous of giving more than you needed to have walking that extra mile for someone, or when someone says need a buck, you gave him two when someone needs a coat that you gave them, not only your coat, but you gave him your scarf.

[00:24:21] That idea of being. Generous. These were the seven elements of what she believes create. Trust your boundaries, your reliability, your accountability, your ability to keep the vault closed, your integrity, the ability to be nonjudgmental, and the ability to be generous and give.

[00:24:45]Now, there are three key places that, from communication, I want to build, give you some practical things to do. There is a study by Albert Mehrabian on linguistics and communications professor from UCLA. It’s an older study, but I think the study is still relevant. He took a video camera and filmed people.

[00:25:10] In one-to-one situations, public situations, academic situations, political situations to figure out what caused people to trust and believe in what they were saying. He found that there were three key areas that you and I, as a listener and focused in on the first was the verbal words on a page. So if I sent you an email, you’d be getting words on a page.

[00:25:37] Now, if I color-coded it, capitalize it or underline it. You could infer context to it. I’m just talking about the words on a page.

[00:25:46]The second major bucket was vocal. This is not what you say, guys. This is how you say it. Maybe you’ve said to a child, or your parents said to you, it’s not what you say. It’s how you say it. It’s your pitch. It’s your tone. It’s your volume; it’s your rate. And then there’s the visual perspective. What do you see?

[00:26:12] So what I would like to do is look at each one of those and just offer some thoughts. So let’s go to the very first one about building trust visually. I want you to remember that people buy what they see before they buy what they hear; they buy what they see before they buy what they hear. If you followed my podcast in any way, shape, or form, you have probably heard me say that a million times.

[00:26:39] Now. Here’s what I want you to do in that context. I want you to build your mental real estate. Here’s what I mean by mental real estate. I want you to think about you get a meeting invite. It could be a meeting, listen to a talk or go to a presentation and you look at who it’s from, and you go, I would rather die than go to that.

[00:27:02] Or are there other people that you get that invite from or get invited to listen to them speak? And you think I don’t want to miss that for the world. How about from a faith-based perspective, you get the agenda, that’s going to happen at church, see who’s preaching, or who’s going to be speaking or sharing the homily, whatever it may happen to be.

[00:27:21] And you think, ah, I think we can skip Sunday, but there might be someone else who’s giving the sermon or the homily, or they’re talking you go, I don’t want to miss that. There are politicians that we might have an opportunity to listen to. Hear them speak, and you go, I want to go. And there are others that you say I could care less.

[00:27:42] That is mental real estate in an instantaneous moment. You decided on whether to go or not go. So my challenge to all of us is what kind of mental real estate you have built when you call a meeting at work? Do people go? I’m going to pass or do they say; I don’t want to miss it cause I know it’s going to be good.

[00:28:08] Do you have that kind of mental real estate? When you’re going to share with a friend, you have the mental real estate in their mind that you will bring value. You’ve probably got a best friend that when you have a challenge or a problem that you always go to because they’re, they’re a good sounding board.

[00:28:24] They have good mental real estate. That’s because you trust them. The second. Anything you want to do is be able to reduce distractions. Now, there are three main distraction buckets. I want you to think about distractions. You create distractions your listeners may have, and the distractions the environment has.

[00:28:46] So when I talk about distractions that are yours, I’m talking about your arms and your eyes. Do you do some type of a tick that you don’t even know that you’re aware of? Do you keep your hands directly in front of you do for you, ladies? Do you brush your hair back all the time, guys? Do you keep your hands in your pockets all the time?

[00:29:07] Do you fidget with your wedding ring? All those things become distractions. There’s their distractions, their cell phone. It’s on the table in front of them, their workload. A problem at home, a problem at work. It’s the holiday season. All those are natural distractions that are happening in your listener’s mind.

[00:29:33] And the third is then the environment, someone walking in and out, summing getting up and down out of a Pew at church you’re at school, the bell goes off. Those are all environmental kinds of destruction. The room’s too warm, the warm, the room’s too cold. All you can do is reduce those distractions. Now, guys, you can never hit zero, but it should be your goal to reduce those distractions as much as you possibly can.

[00:30:07] And then visually, last but not least, one of my favorite ideas, one of my favorite concepts, every single thing counts. Every single thing counts; what you don’t think counts. This includes your dress. This includes your behavior. This includes your message. This includes how you’re seated, how you’re standing.

[00:30:27] This includes how you respond. This includes how your email. This is how you get on the phone. This is how you walk down the hallway and interact with someone. Every single thing counts. But guys, if you’re going to have the philosophy, it’s only when I present. If that’s your philosophy, instead of how I communicate, you’re going to miss the Mark.

[00:30:52] The majority of your communication is that interpersonal communication, presenting public speaking, that’s a small, small percentage of what you do on a day to day basis. So there are some ideas on building trust visually. Now let’s take a look at building that trust from a verbal perspective. Now, this is just the words, right guys; this is your content.

[00:31:18] Now I shared this with you, and maybe you didn’t catch it, but a confused mind will always say, no, I want to add one more thing to that. And that’s always continue the conversation in their head. Advertisers are brilliant at this idea. So think about the week between Christmas and new years, and we really, you could look at the week after new year’s probably what’s the number one ad you’re going to hear about if you made the guests of fitness’d be correct.

[00:31:53] Jim’s advertising. Discounted rates to join. And the reason they’re pushing their ads during that time is that you’re thinking about your news, your new year’s resolution. This is a year I’m going to get in shape. This is a year I’m going to change the way I eat. All they’re doing is continuing the conversation in your head.

[00:32:13] So you’re far more receptive to it. But the only way for you and I in business to think about that is that we’ve made our discovery. We had a conversation with the customer and began to pick apart and understand what they’re thinking about, what they’re feeling, what their issues are, what their concerns are.

[00:32:32] Then the rest of it is if you followed me, it’s your content structure, it’s your choice of words. Meaning getting rid of jargon, it’s words that are simple and easy to understand. It’s back to that idea that we need to speak at an eighth-grade level. Some organizations will tell you at a fifth-grade level.

[00:32:53] Now, if you’re dealing with a Ph.D. audience, I want you to do a Ph.D. vocabulary. I’m talking sentence structure. It has to be simple. And this is taking a paradigm shift from a medium to a long sentence, to a short, to a medium sentence. And for most folks, that’s uncomfortable because you go Bart. I sound like I’m talking to a two-year-old those sentences.

[00:33:16] Like when you read to your child, see Jane run, watch spot follow to you. It sounds over simplified. To a listener, it’s crisp; it’s clean. It’s easy to understand no pushback, no confusion. And then the last thing you want to do is your competency. And what I mean by that are your personal stories, your experiences, and your examples.

[00:33:42] This is what makes you real. This is what makes you a thematic in the way you come across.

[00:33:48]Now that only leaves one more bucket, and that’s building your trust vocally, meaning how you say it. And it’s what I call the power. Five. Number one, the power of the pause. You’ve got to give people an opportunity to absorb what you’re saying. Now. Most people have this gut-level reaction. If I pause, some will interrupt me.

[00:34:12] I hear that a lot from women—number two. If I pause, people will perceive that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but the power of the pause creates the exact opposite effect. It people, it puts people on the edge of their seat, wanting to know what you’re going to say next. Think about Martin Luther King.

[00:34:35] Remember when he said I have a dream, and he paused. And you waited 250,000 people waited, Dr. King, what’s your dream? What’s your dream. And then he told them, think about John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy said, ask not what your country can do for you. He paused. And then he said, ask what you can do for your country.

[00:35:02] That pause made those two sentences pop and came to life. The second of the power of five is the power of listening. I just came across a quote today that said no one ever listened themselves out of a sale that just made me chuckle. Most of us talk ourselves out of a sale, but we never listen out of a sale.

[00:35:29] Most of us do more talking than we do listening, but in the business world, if you want to do trust, if you want to build trust with your relationships, you have to be able to listen. We are far too quick to want to respond and make a comment instead of just let them talk. Now, the power of listening leads you right to the power of questioning, which is your third of the power five.

[00:35:52] Asking the right questions, asking questions that show that you’re listening, that you’re listening. I always love the story of the mom that was with her children. And she’s got. That’s nice. Good for you. And the child finally comes back and says, mom, what did I just say? And she goes, Oh my gosh, I have no idea what my child has told me.

[00:36:13] Number one, she wasn’t listening. And she wasn’t asking questions and follow up. The fourth is the power of your voice. And this is your rate, your volume, your inflection, your pitch, and tone, and the power of the pause. Those five things make up the power of your voice—we under utilize that skillset. If you look at actors and actresses, they use it.

[00:36:40]if you’ll think about going back in history, president Reagan leave politics out of the whole conversation guys, but think about how he used his voice. He was known as the great communicator of the last millennium, but he learned those skills from acting. He knew what the power of his voice could do, and he used it to inspire us.

[00:37:02] And then there’s just the power of conversation, not the power of presentation conversation. If you think about presentation, you put yourself on a performance mode, and if you put yourself on a performance mode, you’re on a treadmill. And if you put yourself on the treadmill, it’s all about being perfect because you’ve got to perform, and then you lose the whole power of conversation.

[00:37:26] Those make the biggest difference in the way you come across. Guys, I have to come back to what I opened with, and that’s this idea. It is critical that you build your trust factor. Do not leave it to whim. Do not take that whole idea seriously if just not in your relationships with the people you love the most and with your children.

[00:37:54] What I’m asking you to do is think through some of the things I’ve shared with you today and find one place: one, the thing I’ve shared that you could begin to build and strengthen your trust factor. I want to make sure over the long haul that you deepen your relationships; you strengthen your relationships, you build the kind of loyalty and trust that you want.

[00:38:20] And you deepen that connection with the people you care about most, this is Bart queen. This has been the remarkability Institute.