It’s difficult enough holding your audience’s attention in virtual meetings/presentations because of all the potential distractions each attendee faces. Nowadays, they are in their home or home office surrounded by all their “stuff.” In addition, they may have to contend with children demanding their time, pets wanting attention, ringing telephones, running dishwashers, deliveries at the door, or a multitude of other distractions.
With all the potential chaos each attendee may be dealing with, it’s critical the speaker avoids the following vocal and verbal no-no’s:
VOCAL NO-NO’S:
- Speaking too softly or too loudly
- Using fillers such as “ums”, “ahs”, “you knows”, “right?”, “okay?”
- Perhaps they’re speaking too quickly or slowly
- Using inflection inappropriately so everything sounds like a question (upspeak)
- Finally, one of the worst no-no’s, speaking in a monotone
VERBAL NO-NO’S:
- A weak, bland introduction
- Very disorganized flow with an unclear central message and indistinct key points
- Ending with no summary or clear call to action
In a virtual setting, any one of these no-no’s would be difficult to overcome. Combining them will pretty much guarantee the speaker will crash and burn. The audience will be angry they wasted their time and no one will know what they were supposed to know, do, feel, or believe going forward.
Fortunately, there are a number of skills in Communispond’s Virtual Presentation Skills™ (VPS) course, that teach you how to avoid these no-no’s and how to be clear, concise, and complete for any communication. Clear as to what’s your point? Concise as to what you need to know versus what’s nice to know information for each audience. Complete in that your attendees know what the situation is; what your action step is and the benefits of that action; and finally, what’s the next step? If a speaker is clear, concise, and complete, he/she will be viewed as interesting, organized, and informative.
Avoid those vocal and verbal no-no’s by visiting https://communispond.com/presentation-skills/virtual-presentation-skills/ for information on VPS as a corporate or public seminar offering.
______________________
About the Author
Jim Moushon is a Senior Master Trainer at Communispond. Jim’s areas of expertise are in executive coaching, presentation skills, media interviews, persuasive dialogue, interpersonal communication, business writing and sales effectiveness. In addition, he does train-the-trainer for Communispond as well as for many of Communispond’s clients.
You can connect with Jim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-moushon-b33b1810/
