In what seemed like an overnight shift, our new normal became virtual meetings, webinars, online classes and digital conferences. As we continue to navigate this new normal, the idea of working from home has
The Problems with Interactive Whiteboards
From a use case point of view, interactive whiteboards have been and are still being sold with the promise of complex collaborations where you can do all sorts of things. Manufacturers make promises about how dozens of people can connect and write at the same time and how we are all going to diagram everything in our next meeting. Fun fact, most people don’t do that! When was the last time you asked ten of your colleagues to collaborate with you on the same google doc simultaneously? The truth is this seldom happens.
The issue our industry faces is, team collaborations are oversold, and we target the wrong personas. Manufacturers routinely go after complex uses cases such as engineers, architects, and designers where they are all ‘designing’ together or ‘collaborating’ together.
Overnight, our society has transitioned to remote everything. From kids’ school, family get togethers to even virtual karate lessons. Now that we are comfortably numb to this change, we are never going to go back to the old way of doing things.
One type of remote meeting seems to be much harder than ever – the remote sales presentation. A lot of sales reps scrambled to continue to do what they do, in the virtual forum. Make ‘phone calls’, have ‘meetings’ and continue to ‘present’ but how is this working?
Is every meeting blurring into the next these days? Are you bored and distracted when someone is presenting?
Are you still struggling to keep your customer engaged during your remote sales presentations?
Best Tips from Fred Diamond
Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Fred Diamond, the co-founder of the Institute for Excellence in Sales (IES). I wanted to tap into his knowledge and discover the key ingredients for a great remote sales presentation.
The three most important things to consider:
Did you differentiate yourself?
How clear was your value articulation?
Were you customer centric?
Differentiate yourself in your next online presentation
When you sell face to face, you know the drill. You dress the part, show up on time, and are professional and organized. Building trust and presence is Sales 101. Then why do we all stumble so much in our remote meetings? We turn off the camera, make our deck be full screen and talk and talk until our customers are falling asleep.
You need to realize that your presence is more important than your content. Your customer can read your deck faster than you can say it, just repeating the information that is printed is not effective. They need to see you and connect with you. Your presence has to be elevated in a remote meeting.
Do you articulate value during online meetings?
Just talking endlessly doesn’t mean that you made your point. Remember, we learn more with our eyes versus any other sense. You need to show your value visually.
Bring up the customer testimonial video and show that this is real. Show the pictures from the installation that happened last week. Bring up your spec sheet and compare against the competition and highlight how your product is more effective. Don’t let the customer second guess your talk track by being visual and proving to them that your products and services are better.
Millions of people around the world rely on Microsoft Teams to connect and communicate. Recently Microsoft released a new set of features designed to make video calls a little less boring during this post pandemic era. These new presenter modes allow you to customize how you appear when you’re presenting in Teams.
Standout mode lets you float above content as a silhouette on top of a slide deck. Reporter mode lets you put your content behind your shoulder like a reporter. And the third option, Side-by-side, displays your webcam feed alongside content you’re presenting.
Is this the solution for ending meeting boredom and engaging your customers?
Just Like Watching TV
All three modes are part of a bigger push from Microsoft to respond to feedback around making meetings more engaging during remote work.
“The way I look at it now, is we need to make presentations more like TV shows.”
Nicole Herskowitz, general manager of Microsoft Teams
So, lets break this down. We want these meetings to be as engaging as watching TV? I really don’t know if I agree with that. TV is a very passive experience where there is no conversation. TV has no interaction and very little engagement. We need our meetings to be NOT like watching TV.
In what seemed like an overnight shift, our new normal became virtual meetings, webinars, online classes and digital conferences. As we continue to navigate this new normal, the idea of working from home has
As the numbers continue to increase with the idea of working from home, many are wondering if interactive whiteboards are useful for team collaborations. Roughly 1 million of the 32 million global corporate boardrooms are equipped with some form of interactive whiteboard. But do they really help? I have found that interactive whiteboards in most boardrooms collect dust or are being used as glorified TVs to project the typical PowerPoint presentation. Or they are used as ‘one-click to join meeting’ devices. Is there nothing better for these devices?
Reactiv suite is the best useful software for increasing productivity of remote meetings. Reactiv SUITE can help make your remote meetings memorable with a free trial.
Reactiv SUITE is an interactive presentation tool that was designed exclusively to help you make your remote meetings memorable and transform your next agile remote meeting.
With Reactiv SUITE, you can elevate your remote meetings to new levels by being:
Dynamic – open up any type of content: images, videos, weblinks, presentations and spreadsheets fluidly as the conversation evolves.
Interactive – Present, ink and markup any type of content to visually express ideas and comments, generate notes and save ink back into the file for follow-up.
Memorable – Manage not only your content, but your presence! Be next to your content and dynamically alter the layout to serve your objectives.
With this tool, you’ll be able to perfectly emulate the in-person meeting experience in any online meeting. Regardless of which video conferencing software you choose, Reactiv SUITE helps improve your virtual meeting platform experience. You’ll find that your audience is much more engaged than they were in the past when you were just reading out text or data and that you’ll need to spend less time on calls as you’ll be getting a lot more done, faster.
Reactiv SUITE is an interactive presentation tool that was designed exclusively to help you make your meetings memorable and transform your next virtual meeting.
With Reactiv SUITE, you can elevate your virtual business meetings to new levels:
Be Dynamic – Easily bring in any type of additional content and media files on the fly as the conversation between you and your audience progresses.
Be Interactive – Present, take notes, mark things up and be visual so you can help your audience focus and build consensus.
Be Memorable – Be front and center with your content by bringing your camera up alongside your content, and not allowing the deck to take over.
With this tool, you’ll be able to perfectly emulate the in-person meeting experience in any online or virtual meeting. Regardless of which video conferencing software you choose, Reactiv SUITE helps improve your virtual business meeting platform experience. You’ll find that your clients are much more engaged than they were in the past when you were just reading out text or data and that you’ll need to spend less time on calls as you’ll be getting a lot more done, faster.
Make your presentations and meetings rock! Experience live coaching with Nick Kindler and Av Utukuri
Focusing on content development, storytelling, structure, performance, and engagement techniques, Av and Nick will put one or two lucky attendees on the coaching hot seat to help them prepare and crush their next pitch, presentation, or meeting.
Objectives:
Learn the best tips and tricks when it comes to presenting and engaging audiences
How to look and sound your best in online or hybrid meetings
Uncover new ways to help you stand out from the crowd
Unique methods that will keep your presentation at the top of your audience’s minds
Reactiv SUITE is an interactive presentation tool that was designed exclusively to help you make your meetings memorable and transform your next virtual meeting.
With Reactiv SUITE, you can elevate your virtual business meetings to new levels:
Be Dynamic – Easily bring in any type of additional content and media files on the fly as the conversation between you and your audience progresses.
Be Interactive – Present, take notes, mark things up and be visual so you can help your audience focus and build consensus.
Be Memorable – Be front and center with your content by bringing your camera up alongside your content, and not allowing the deck to take over.
With this tool, you’ll be able to perfectly emulate the in-person meeting experience in any online or virtual meeting. Regardless of which video conferencing software you choose, Reactiv SUITE helps improve your virtual business meeting platform experience. You’ll find that your clients are much more engaged than they were in the past when you were just reading out text or data and that you’ll need to spend less time on calls as you’ll be getting a lot more done, faster.
