07 August 2020
Getting Webinar Ready
Picture Tiger Woods striding down the 18th fairway at Augusta, a 16th major in his sights. He raises his arms to gee up the crowd. Or All Black Aaron Smith charging down the touchline heading for the deadlock breaking try with two minutes on the clock. Or Apple’s Tim Cook, with great theatre, unveiling a new technology that will transform the way the world lives and learns. Or Fletcher Building Chairman Bruce Hassall selling a revolutionary business model to investors that will redefine the construction industry forever. But wait – there is no crowd, no live audience, nobody to engage with to give that extra 10% that is going to help ensure success.
Sustaining engagement, energy, excitement and enthusiasm to an unseen crowd or audience is a skill few are born with. It’s learned and it requires hard work and preparation.
A general rule of thumb used by media and presentation skills trainers suggests that 55% of the impact of an on-camera performance is through posture, gesture and the eyes while a further 38% is as a result of vocal performance – voice, tone and inflection. For all the hard work crafting a beautifully curated piece of presentation content, there’s a disappointment in store - content makes up a mere 7% of the impact of a performance.
COVID-19 and the associated periods of lockdown made it acceptable for media to broadcast remote interviews and for businesses to deliver investor, product and other key commercial information from a ‘virtual’ platform. Public tolerance for information, education and news delivered this way means these platforms will – and maybe already have - become the ‘new normal’. But public tolerance for poorly delivered content will have a short life – even as technology will undoubtedly improve.
Getting “camera ready” is becoming a mandatory for aspiring and established business people. The ability to connect and engage with shareholders, staff, customers, suppliers and more via a video will be an essential skill in their content delivery toolbox.
Working the room and feeding off the cues provided by an audience to keep energy levels up and engagement high is a whole different proposition when you’re on a screen or behind a presentation.
We’ve been adding what we call ‘camera ready’ training to our media training offering. Talk with us to see how we can develop a bespoke session that will provide important general skills training or provide performance techniques for a specific event, conference or briefing.
