Ensuring Your Virtual Meetings Are Productive
CRISIS WEBINAR SERIES 4/5
MOTIVATING, MANAGING, AND HANDLING BUSINESS IN TIMES OF CRISIS
With the switch to digital communication, we have an opportunity to make meetings better than ever. In this fast + fun webinar, learn how professional presenter and team trainer Rachel Sheerin makes virtual meetings productive, collaborative, and energizing.
Meetings have wasted a lot of time over the history of the world but they've also done a lot of good.
I mean, what about the family meeting to discuss your trip to Disney World? Negotiating the Treaty of Versailles? Worth it! Or that first meeting of someone that made your heart flutter? 100% awesome meeting moment. But when you think about the day-to-day reality of meetings at work, heart eyes are the last thing most people feel. Enter, today's webinar on creating more engaging, productive meetings online (and in person, when we get back together).
HIGHLIGHT FROM THIS WEBINAR:
Get the my favorite $0 tech tools for hosting virtual meetings
Why virtual meetings FAIL and what the key ingredients are to make them awesome
Some ideas to kick off, energize and engage team members during meetings
Real live tech fails for meetings (and how to handle them with... grace? I don't know, y'all, I tried!)
SOME OF THE QUESTIONS ASKED LIVE BY ATTENDEES:
How do we engage introverts to connect more digitally?
Do you have any suggestions for doing fun virtual activities to lessen the stress?
How do you show products and textures, details, etc to clients via virtual meetings?
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS WEBINAR
+ Open Full Webinar Transcript
Rachel Sheerin (02:20):
Well, welcome to today's webinar. I am your host, Rachel Sheerin and I am so excited to be gathering with you.I have loved doing these webinars with you all week long and if you've missed any, don't worry, I'll send you some replays later tonight via email. And long story short is getting together, is getting even more popular by demand and sometimes by force, which is why I'm so pumped here that you guys have joined me for ensuring your virtual meetings are productive. I am so pumped. And before we get started I wanted to toss out a poll because when I say the word meeting a lot of different things come to mind. So you're going to see a poll come up on your screen here in just a minute. And what I'd love is to see your participation and really understanding what kind of meeting you are really. Typically I'm planning or thinking on what kind of meeting are you interested in learning a little bit more about, just so I get a feel of it.
Rachel Sheerin (03:09):
We're going to talk meetings in general, but are you talking about one on one coaching meetings or interviews, maybe personnel reviews or are you doing small team meetings? You know, that could be anything from two 10, 12, 15, 20 people. Are you thinking about meetings? Virtually 14 training and group development? I don't know about you guys, but my mind immediately goes to when we are together and we're working from home development still needs to happen. You know, my team trainings, my coachings, we're doing a lot of that stuff because now we actually have the time to do it. Are you thinking about company wide gatherings or meetings? All hands, meetings, updates, that kind of stuff. Oh, Ari, I see you hosting your first client. Happy hour. Good luck. Or are you thinking on a larger scale? A lot of us you know, might have conferences or summits or our, our seminars.
Rachel Sheerin (04:00):
Right now I'm seeing a hundred percent training towards small team meetings, but feel free to post it in there. I see Savannah client meetings. Okay. Christie one-on-one, I see this. Mmm. The poll should be launched for you guys to be able to vote. Let's see. Hm, okay. I see you guys meeting to large with a motivational angle. Oh, Alicia, I feel you on that motivation is everything. Well, if it's good with you guys, we're going to launch into understanding a general idea around meetings and then we'll have a question and answer portion about 25 minutes in so that you can ask all your specific questions and full discloser. Chances are if you have a question, someone else does too. So a few rules, just make sure that you're, you're not chatting in the chat. I'll be able to check that once in a while. And if you have a question that you want me to answer during the question and answer, just pop it in the little box that says Q and.
Rachel Sheerin (04:54):
A. That's where I'll be answering most of the questions from. So without further ado, let me share my screen. Okay. And let's get this webinar started. You know, ensuring your virtual meetings are productive, I think are one of the things we all have a big question Mark around right now. The question Mark really relates to how, first of all to do virtual meetings and second of all, how are they productive? And I want to pause for a minute and just remind you that productive right now looks a little bit different and it's your job as leaders and peers to really define how that looks is productive. Meaning that we're replying to clients is productive, meaning we're solving problems is productive, meaning that we're setting up new systems so that we can be productive in a virtual environment. It makes sure you are setting your definition of productive and also having a little bit of empathy around the idea that right now, this week in the world, I don't think we're the most productive.
Rachel Sheerin (05:48):
I had to delete Facebook off my phone this morning. It's just too much right now. So be empathetic, be aware, but also to as make sure that you are setting [inaudible] the expectation of productivity and really I think that most of the time when it comes to meetings, there's three kinds of people. There are leaders like this yo dog. I heard you liked meeting, so I'm going to have a meeting about meetings during our meetings. Are any of you guys, I mean feel free to drop it in the chat. Are you working for or with people who absolutely love meetings. If so, I completely get it. It's one of those things that you know, some people are to meetings. Yeah, I see it. Oh, come in in the chat. Yeah, for sure. Some people just love it, but then thankfully there are people in the world who are like this.
Rachel Sheerin (06:40):
I love meetings. Meetings are my favorite right now. Full disclosure, I love Christmas and I love LA, so any reason to use an elf meme absolutely in a webinar works, but people are pumped about it. People love the social aspect of meetings. They love the goals of meetings. They love being together, talking it out, and especially extroverts and fast paced people. Since I'm a behavioral analyst, I work with individuals and teams and clients to really explain how people are behaving, why they're behaving that way and how to maximize them. And when we talk about fast, these people, a lot of times they talk to think, they talk to think, which is why meetings can sometimes go a little long, but it's also really helpful for them to be with you guys. Do I have any other folks out there that just, you know, maybe you start talking about one thing and you end up completely talking about something else.
Rachel Sheerin (07:32):
Aye. I'm 1000% like that now. On the other side. There's also that third kind of person, the person that maybe feels a little bit like this. Okay. The meetings, have you ever had a day where literally you look at your calendar and it's just all meetings and you're like, what is getting a job done? This is nothing. It's fine. I didn't want to be productive anyway, right? We have all been there occasionally, but the grumpy meeting folks, I gotta tell you I've got a poor one out for them because a lot of times I think what they're looking for is efficiency and also preparedness in meetings. These are things we'll talk about through the webinar. You know, my style, it's going to be fun. It's going to be fast paced and it's going to be full of some truth bombs. These grumpy folks in meetings, yes, it can be an attitude adjustment they can make, but on the other side of it, these folks give us an opportunity to prepare better and to challenge ourselves to be efficient.
Rachel Sheerin (08:27):
So what does that look like? Well, I'm going to give you three things. First thing is to assume that we need tech that works right now and not tech. The super complicated that requires a bunch of downloading and confusion and also to tech. That doesn't cost a lot. I am definitely sensitive to cost just in my daily life and I know now is the time where a lot of budgets out there are going to be constructed or just completely thrown out the window. So what does that look like? You can stay connected. All you need is a mic and a camera. You truly need it. So just in case you did not know, there's a variety of commitments that you can kind of make to this, but you can just simply have your headphones from, you know, any kind of store they can come to all tangled up like I have from your iPhone, from your Android, whatever kind of phone that you have.
Rachel Sheerin (09:14):
And just plug it right into there. Almost every single conferencing or video chat systems, they are going to have an app. And by the way, if they don't have an app, be wary of it. It means that they might not be on the best edge of technology. Another thing that folks might not realize is that your laptop or your computer might already have a microphone and speakers built in. So you know, if you want to annoy all your pets well and bring them in on the meeting and not really listen to anything in your ears, totally okay. And then if you want to invest a little bit more, you can actually purchase when we're all allowed to leave our houses. Things like a getting Mike in a webinar jam. So sometimes our computers will have built in cameras. That's what I'm using right now.
Rachel Sheerin (09:57):
On future webinars, you'll see a different camera that's more kind of high end model that attaches to any computer I Yeti, Mike. No, it's not a Yeti cooler. It's simply getting Mike, I'm going to lift mine up right now so you guys can take a look at it. It's something that looks like this and it's got very good kind of surround sound to it. Unless you think I don't sound good and then let me know, I'll figure that part out. But these are the things that you really, you really need to have. A video conference and and gathered together virtually know what are the gathering tools I recommend. These are my favorite for their ease of use. There's so many resources out there right now, but I'm trying to think what's cheap and what's easy. And these are things that are cheap and easy.
Rachel Sheerin (10:41):
So what does that look like? Right now you all are on a zoom call. This is a zoom webinar and so zoom dot. You asked one of the very cool things about zoom right now is it came out in the news. The founder and CEO of zoom actually donated this platform to every K through 12 school so they can use it while people are at home and homeschooling and all that fun stuff. I thought that was a really, really generous offer and so I really love using zoom. And the other one that's quite easy as webinar jam.com and then if you're big into Microsoft products, this guy a Skype is just classic and especially too, I will say Skype is something that is familiar with an older workforce, so if you do have a high population of people, 45 not saying they're old, they're just older than millennials.
Rachel Sheerin (11:29):
I mean if you have those baby boomer generations, Skype is a known and trusted brand to them, which will make them more likely to use it because let's face it, it's too complicated. Or if people don't trust it, they're not going to use it. Now, additionally, I want to shout out the visual tools about virtual meetings. Now I could have created by webinars and it just has information on the slides. Are we familiar with what those slides look like when it's just like 18 points, 14 points on [inaudible], tons of reading. When people say, call it psychologically, when people are reading something on a screen, you know what they can't do? They can't listen to you. [inaudible] By the way, leaders need to be listened to. Teams need to be listened to. So do yourself a favor and really start to think through and get used to developing slides that look like mine.
Rachel Sheerin (12:17):
And by the way, if you want my templates, feel free to email me when you get that email later on tonight from me, email me back. I'm happy to send you the slides that you can easily pop images in and out of. But think about the visual tools you can use. How can you make the presentations your creating even prettier? And by the way, it starts with templates. Templates are an easy way to start. So some of my favorites are canva.com completely free. They do have a paid version that's incredible as well. You can do bunches of branding slides, carnival.com so you'll see this. This layout that I'm using is actually from slides, carnival.com. I just customized it for myself. I like that little happy banner at the bottom. And the fonts that they use, they have hundreds of templates for free. There's also something called prezi.com Prezi is really cool because it does all of this three D animation and animation within slides.
Rachel Sheerin (13:10):
It's a very, very neat, I would recommend that for ed advanced presentations or if you are listening to this and are doing high end sales, I'm in enterprise sales presentations virtually right now. It's an incredible, incredible software. It does need strong wifi. Additionally, if you want to get great stock photos like the ones that you see throughout my webinars, you simply go to pixabay.com there's tons of royalty free images sites out there, but Pixabay to me has some of the nicest images. If you have any other visual tools that you love to see in presentations, drop them in the chat, drop them in the chat. You never know. There's Pixabay. There's a bunch of different images sites. Also too, if you're a photographer and the stock images, feel free to drop yours in the chat as well. Now, as we're gathering together those virtual capabilities, here are the available options to you, and by the way, there's going to be a poll coming out.
Rachel Sheerin (14:07):
My team's going to drop that in the chat. And if you click on this poll, you'll be prompted to see something. So, so take a minute and, and fill out the poll. I'll give you a minute here, but your virtual capabilities, they're almost, unless when you're doing virtual meetings, you have the choice to see each other or not see each other. You have the choice to screen-share. You also have the choice to whiteboard or draw on screens as well. So if you're more of a visual learner and collaborator, you also have the ability to pull as well as chat. Chat always helps, especially if somebody's on you and the dogs are barking and the kids are saying something. So about the polling check your chat right now. I'm going to pop out of this the team Rachel is gonna give you a link to answer guard on.
Rachel Sheerin (14:55):
So there it is. It should say, tell us how we're feeling. Oh, Danielle, I see Pexels here. This is perfect. Oh yeah. Ryan suggest Google Hangouts too. You can record your movies and it'll stop meetings and save it into Google drive. I love that. Ryan, I might, I'm going to have to frickin switch. Oh, Robert Google Hangouts. Perfect. So guys, when it comes to looking at he answer garden, if you're clicking on this, let me show you how this looks. So answered garden is a live polling idea. So we're asking the question, how are you feeling right now? And I am going to feel energetic. That's how I feel right now. So as I submit, what happens is his look, this is what you guys are all saying here. The bigger the words, the more people are actually saying it. And what's awesome is, is this particular this particular tool keep coming in.
Rachel Sheerin (15:46):
How are you feeling right now? Write it and we'll see the cloud get bigger. But as you're starting to ask questions, this can be what are we doing the best right now? You can anonymously, Oh your, your team, you can creatively collaborate with your team. This can be a slew of anything you want. And by the way, this is a very cool time. We are in a unique situation right now because we're going through crisis and panic and unknown. And you know what happens with that? Great vulnerability. People want to be seen. People want to be heard. How about, I'm going to say I'm open. Let's see what else we got here on the cloud as it grows. Oh, I love this. Awesome. High energy. Stressed, rushed, yes, absolutely. Overwhelmed. Encouraged. That makes me happy. Hungry. I like whoever put Hungary, we could be friends.
Rachel Sheerin (16:34):
I feel you on that. A little defeated. Yeah, edgy, unsure. Here's the thing, I want you to stop for a minute and I want you to think about what this would mean if this was your team right now. If you sent this out to your company right now in an email and you S you know, answer garden is what we use here, just go to answer our garden.com. Set this up and and, and create some questions that are gonna open up some opportunity. And if you're wondering what to say to your team, if you're wondering how to say it to your team, these word clouds, they'll tell you exactly, exactly what's on people's minds, even if they don't feel comfortable saying, saying it out loud. I'm gonna, I'm gonna add one more thing. I'm going to act on connected. That's how I'm feeling right now. Let's see the spinal WordCloud.
Rachel Sheerin (17:20):
See how it populates. Oh, it looks great. I like how somebody said sanitized. That's great. Like it crazy cat lady. I see that energetic, powerful. You know what? I'm cautiously optimistic. I love that. That's the energy that I'm going to be running, running to. Oh, and I see a question come in here. Oh, I don't see the poll help. Oh, thanks for letting me know. Let me try and launch this poll again. I see it here. Hopefully you guys are able to see it. I see some folks are voting. We've got some raised hands. If that's an Q and a. Let's take a look. I don't see the full, Oh no. Sorry guys. See, this is where technology can, maybe this is a learning moment guys. It is not all pace of note. Debbie's not seeing the pole shoot. Well feel free to put it in the chat.
Rachel Sheerin (18:08):
Let me see what you guys, what you guys are working on. Let's see. Ann says, I heard one time that Google Hangouts doesn't work for Mac users. Is that true? I'm not sure. I, I would like to think Google would want to isolate. Oh, Robert says I'm on a Mac. Oh, okay. Oh, Ryan's exclusive Apple user. Cool. So Ann don't believe the hype. Okay. That's fake news. Anyway. Polling could be such a cool different, a unique way to engage with your folks. Now once you've picked the TAC, you've got to pick a format that fits. What does this look like? Well, sometimes it is going to take a little bit of trial and error and that's okay. I will tell you, I just got off a board call. So I'm really proudly the director of education for an international association of wedding bros called with us on my call with my other directors of educations all over the world.
Rachel Sheerin (19:04):
We have the format of you have about five minutes. You tell us what did you accomplish, the goal from the previous call, what your next goal for the next month is going to be, and any questions or things you want the group to workshop with. That is a format that works for me. I really, really enjoy it for, for my particular calls and for that a need. But what is the format that fit look like? Well, let me share. Let me share this with you. I'm hope you're able to listen to this. This was hilarious. We just got shared with that. Thanks to Nisa for sharing it with us yesterday. Oh, it doesn't look like it wants to work. But if you go to YouTube after this video and you call and you bring up a video conference call in real life, this is a, this is absolutely hilarious.
Rachel Sheerin (19:48):
Now of course, this is proving the model that technology doesn't always work, but you know what? We have to own it and we have to keep moving on. So when it looks like this, it's a bunch of pinging and dinging and people are coming in all over the place in this video. It's absolutely hilarious and it's my goal to try and help you guys avoid that. So what does this look like? Virtual meeting fails. What doesn't work well, I just like to laugh at this picture. Look at this picture. Somebody has taken three frozen obstacles and put them into a Mason jar. I don't know if it's a catering event. I don't know if it's like three degrees outside. Who the heck would position popsicles like this? I'm not sure. It was pretty for the picture, but it's not great for execution. So what are the fails of virtual meetings?
Rachel Sheerin (20:31):
An unknown agenda. People when they don't know what they're talking about or the expected results of the meeting what they can prepare for unclear expectations or instructions. What are the instructions people need? Where are you meeting when you needed one? Does it start again? The agenda, what does that look like? How about later rivals? Have you set the tone already for, Hey, you know, somebody emails you and says, Hey listen, I'm going to be running late. Did you already coach them to make sure that they were on mute? Did you coach them to say Oh, you know, I'm just sliding quietly. Or do you say, announce yourself and please let us know, right? Whatever your preference is, you've got to set those expectations. Muting. This is an important one guys. If you're not already doing this for your virtual meetings, set the expectation that everyone is on mute and that they will unmute as they need to talk.
Rachel Sheerin (21:24):
Or if you're using something like Zim, thankfully you just push that button that says mute everyone upon arrival. It works wonders. How about the lack of focus? Have you ever been on a virtual meeting? Like you can all can see me right now and I can't see you, so I'm just hoping that you're having a great time and laughing along and learning the along. Well, what if you were teaching me or we were having a meeting and you see me and I'm like, what do you think I'm doing? I'm looking at my film. That's never a good look, right? Lack of focus is oftentimes going to be one of those things where I think as leaders, especially we're concerned about how much focus people are giving us. We're going to talk about that. How about no leader in the meeting? Have you ever gotten on a call and you're like, Hey, this is Rachel. How's it going? People are like, Hey, what's up? Rachel Sheerin (22:17): And you wonder what are we all doing on this meeting? Yeah. Who is the assigned leader? And by the way, that doesn't have to be positionally. That's all virtual meetings have the opportunity to actually work as a coach to grow your team into the leaders and managers you want them to be. And by the way, the third and final one, a lack of next steps, next steps after a meeting. I mean this is how people kind of get in the meeting after meeting after meeting cycle is we're not sending next steps. Okay. That also look like timelines, right, and deadlines, so you know, these are just a variety of the things that can really set you up for failure and frustration and welcome to my pup Brix. He's here to bring you some happiness today, but how do you make a meeting that rock? Well, great news.
Rachel Sheerin (23:01):
I've created a resource for you. You're going to see that on the replay email that you get later to my end, but just to give you an idea, an agenda that includes updates that includes next steps, a question and answer time as well as a connectedness time and clear expectations. I'm going to give you my sample agenda for that. That is a key component, what your agenda looks like because here's the thing. There's two kinds of folks. I think there's the people who read the agenda and then there's the people who arrive at the very last minute and we're like, Hey, what's up? What are we talking about? Okay, all right, I'm catching up. Make the agenda. Even for fast paced folks. It's one of those things that is really, really helpful because it forces you to think out your ideas and plan just a little bit.
Rachel Sheerin (23:45):
You have an opportunity here, everyone watching to have a virtual meeting that is really, really successful and things that people actually gain things from. Have you ever had that? You've walked in somewhere or done something and your expectation level is really low and then someone's really exceeded in your life? Not bad. That's what our goal is for virtual meetings. We don't want people to grow. We want people to show up and grow. So the third aspect of a great virtual meeting as we're wrapping up here and then I'll stay as long as you guys want for questions, but it's really talking about thriving in meetings. We're not just meeting to get together. We're not just meeting to you know catch up or give updates. We could give updates and so many different ways. Email task lists, Slack, Trello, base camp, Isana if you're not familiar with those, those are essentially project management tracking softwares that are free.
Rachel Sheerin (24:42):
So if you have questions, email me, but really we want people to thrive in meetings and I think this looks like a few different ways. Past the actual agenda setting, unique meeting timeframes. These are, by the way, some of my favorite in-person strategies as well as a trainer and facilitator for teams. I need and want people to open up. I need and want people to realize the one that they can have when they're together, they're United and they're learning, so setting unique meeting timeframes. Why don't we meet in 30 minute increments? Why do we mean the 60 minute increments? If you mean a 30 minute increments, then you cannot back to back your meetings because you will already be late for your next meeting. Why do we do this? Here's a hack set 25 minute meetings and 55 minute meetings and you know what's awesome?
Rachel Sheerin (25:29):
You're always ending early and it's psychologically just a little bit more pressure when you put those fives as the last number. It's such a funny thing. The brain is a big, stupid, wonderful muscle. What about video or comedy watching together? You see something funny? Share it. I started this presentation with memes. Who does that? I do because I like to laugh. I think that if people not even, I think, I know that if people are smiling and laughing, they're open and if they're open, they're going to be more willing to change. They're going to be more willing to work. You know what they're, they're going to be more willing to accept and come along with and open their, their, their minds to different ideas. Questions that I love to ask. What are you most looking forward to in the week ahead? What are you most looking forward to in the week ahead?
Rachel Sheerin (26:16):
I mean, you guys can drop it in the chat. What are you most looking forward to over the weekend? I, Oh, I don't even know. Sleeping in. That's gonna feel good. Maybe he taking the dog for a walk. Ooh. Watching some new things on Netflix. Oh. And frozen two just came out on Disney plus. Okay. I've got a list. I'm looking forward to a lot now. This one. This one's a great coaching question just in general, not only on meetings but really in private meetings you have with folks. How do you feel on a scale of one to 10 how do you feel on a scale of one to 10 this is so powerful. This is a lot from the cognitive behavioral family because here's the thing, on a scale of one to 10 it changes every single day and that's okay. We're human.
Rachel Sheerin (27:01):
The follow up question to that is how do you feel about work on a scale of one to 10 because at the end of the day I might feel like a 10 like a 10 about work, like I love this. I love serving people, I love training people. I love being with you and I just, this is my dream. This is just so much fun for me and I feel like I'm helping, but personally, I mean if I'm on a scale of one to 10 today I'm about a six. I'm worried about my friends and family in the hotel industry that's getting laid off or fired. I'm, I'm concerned that I don't understand a lot of the news that's coming out. But I'm still so grateful for my health and my husband and my dog and my house and you know, things I rarely get below a five, even if the world is on fire.
Rachel Sheerin (27:43):
So that's me. [inaudible] These numbers help. And by the way, checking on your spouses, checking on your siblings with this kind of stuff. And by the way, if you were disappointed with what they're saying, you know, check your expectation at the door. But if they're in the five range, there's six range, the lower ask, is there anything I can do to help you get to a 10 and listen, you can make the choice on whether or not there is something that you can do. Give them the opportunity to do it. Finally, kick off every meeting with an icebreaker question. Right now, people need to rely on memories, feel the happy and feel connected. So even if you have a long standing team that you're gathering or a legacy company or a company that maybe doesn't even know each other since you're, a lot of you are putting together bigger meetings and company-wide meetings.
Rachel Sheerin (28:31):
Listen, everyone has something. What was your first car dry. I mean drop it in the chat. I can't wait to see this later. I my first car was in 1981, Volkswagen Scirocco and it was red and it cost $800 and I sold it for $800 and it was a great little car. If anyone remembers the Syrrakos they were awesome. But seriously, every single day. What's your fare favorite karaoke song? What's the last book that you've read? What's a food that you don't love but everyone else does? My husband, King Sharon, if you see how many Instagram, I love posting him on there. He doesn't like cheese. Like he really does not like cheese. And the second he says that everyone is like, what's wrong with this guy? I don't know, but he doesn't like cheese. Seriously think about those things. Just those things that really unify us.
Rachel Sheerin (29:20):
And that can really connect us. You know, these are the things that we need to be helping our teams feel connected with and also to having that little bit of surprise and delight as we have these virtual meetings. If we talk on the personal stuff a little bit, we don't have to feel so alone. So with that, I'm going to open the floor up to questions. If you've got to jump off, I completely, but go ahead and put your questions in the Q and a box. It should be somewhere around your screen. I'm not exactly sure where. Well, let me pop off real quick here and see what you guys are saying. Oh, I love reading a mercury Lynx rushed out. Let's see. Oh man, I don't even know what a mercury Lynx is or a rush tout. Hilarious on 93 Ford Explorer. I love reading these car comments.
Rachel Sheerin (30:09):
Do you guys, what questions do you have around meetings that I haven't addressed? Either engagement or launching? Is there something about the agendas, maybe expectations? Oh, Willie wants to know, does zoom charge? Great question. So Willy, there's a free version of zoom, which totally works. It's 40 minutes I think is the limit on it. And then you can just literally pop back into the same room and I think there's maybe a limit on a hundred participants. If you want to do something like this. Webcasting me and my team have invested in a larger platform for zoom so that you guys can chat and we can have more people. So I think we're up to like 500 people. It's why all but different levels. I would definitely start with the free one and see what you need. Their sales team, by the way, via chat.
Rachel Sheerin (30:57):
Very, very good. Let's see, Bonnie wonders, do you have any suggestions for doing fun virtual activities to lessen the stress? Yes. Oh my gosh. I didn't know I wanted to answer this, but I so wanted to answer this Bonnie. Okay. A few ideas. Dance party number one. Number two. What about like your own lip sync battle or something like that where they played the song on the phone and they lip sync around it? I mean, I don't know what kind of team you're leading, but if I were on your team, obviously I would pick, share if I could turn back time and I would rock it. Mmm. I think that those could be really fun activities. I also think you could really start to use that poll feature that we had in suggested you could even say like, like let's talk about maybe you send it to different people and you say, Oh, you know, what are the words that you would use to describe Sarah?
Rachel Sheerin (31:47):
And you send it to everyone. But Sarah and you share those cloud words. You know, you work on the things that you would say about others. I would say that whenever you're talking about fun virtual activities, the lesson, the stress right now, not just right now, but always make sure that it's focused on the person and the professional, both are so completely possible. And I think a lot of times right now there's high stress, so we're so work focused. Make sure you're bringing that in. It could also be something where you know, in terms of virtual activities to lessen the stress, it could even be something that's like group yoga class. I mean I'm not that healthy, but if y'all are that healthy, that would be awesome too. So thanks for asking. Christie asked the what about how to work with physical samples that you normally showcase in person and how to show them on screen.
Rachel Sheerin (32:38):
This is so good. And Christy, I'm going to use the example, I don't know what you do, but can I use the example of being a linen person? Can you let me know in the chat what, what you're trying to sell? Mmm, I in my mind, the first thing that came to me is velvet. You know how velvet feels, velvet looks. What I think this gives an opportunity for is number one, getting good lighting. Chrissy, if you don't have one of those ring lights already there about, they can range anywhere from 30 to $50. I would heavily recommend you get actual like standup lights for showcasing your items. So that lighting is really, really helpful. Additionally, what I would say is that you're going to have to work on your metaphors. So, Oh, Christie, I see that you sell stationary, so thank you for responding.
Rachel Sheerin (33:27):
When, when you are working on your metaphors a little bit, you're going to want to do comparison and it's really going to sharpen your sales skills a little bit. What's really going to be cool is to watch you see what you can grasp on to, you know if you, for example, have a stationary suite and you say, you know what, this is the Kim Kardashians stationary suite. I mean, if Kim was a client, she would definitely pick this and people might like that or not like that. You might say that it's this stationary set was Hillary Clinton. Well that's a very different feeling. If this stationary set was honey booboo, well that's a different set, right? Start to get creative on the visual metaphors and stories that you're using and maybe lean on that a little bit more and get yourself some good lights. If you have questions about that, Christie, you can email me.
Rachel Sheerin (34:11):
Let's see. We've got 'em. Alicia says, do you have any questions for virtual activities? For introverts? Yes, Alicia, for introverts, if you can keep the camera off and I would say give them the opportunity to use the chat and or prep them with the activities in the future ahead of time. In that agenda, in that calendar meeting say, listen, I want you to prepare responses for these three things because a lot of times introverts are going to be those people that read the agenda and then extroverts are going to be the ones that don't. So as much planning as you could give, that would be great. I would also say I'd go back to a little bit on that suggestion I gave for Bonnie. Any activity that helps people brag about other people, that's a win-win. Introverts will come out of their shell and they will try their very hardest when they're talking about someone else, so try and make it less focused on that and more focused on other people.
Rachel Sheerin (35:06):
I actually do a great training exercise in some of my team training and it's where we write out our job descriptions and then we pair up normally opposites. It can be like sales and ops or internal and external, front of house, heart of house, that kind of stuff. And what we do is we pair up those folks who maybe don't know each other as well or maybe come to OD sometimes and we have them share their job descriptions and then they brag about each other to the group. And to see that it's one of my favorite exercises I do cause what you do is I lean on Bernay Brown here. People are hard to hate, close up. People are hard to hate close up. So the more he can give them that, get to know you time, there's some magic that happens there. I hope that helps.
Rachel Sheerin (35:50):
Let's see, we've got Christie, Oh we already answered Chrissy's. Kelly says 19 has taken over all of our leadership meetings. Yeah. How do we make them productive or positive again, without discussing topics to set us up for success with events once this craziness is over? Kelly, this is an incredible question and can I ask, can I ask, and I'm just going to say generally, if you haven't already had a crisis meeting that allows everyone who wants to to talk about this, you should do it. You should literally have a meeting, not about clients, not about vendors, not about peers, not about supply, not about anything. Literally make it a town hall meeting where people's voices can be heard. Because oftentimes what we're doing is we're circling back around because we all have fully processed it and it's your job as a leader or as part of the team to really give people the space to process it.
Rachel Sheerin (36:46):
So, so let's do it. And, and this is the important, and give them the space and then say, do we feel good? Can we move on? Like, like can we make the choice? In my Monday's webinar I said, we have a beautiful opportunity here. We don't have to. We get to. And so, you know, you do, you do, you don't have to move on, but we get to move on. Do you want to move on? Let's, let's pause for a moment and just really feel, feel how heavy the situation isn't scary the situation and then move on with it. Because if, if town hall halls are available to you, I would say let's make it, and by the way, [inaudible] individual conversations. I think that's where we may be or having a lot of the stresses leaders right now. There's all these side conversations. Huh.
Rachel Sheerin (37:31):
Bundle it in, funnel it in and be receptive. Be understanding, validate people when people say, Oh, this might be silly, or Oh, this might be stupid. Stop them right then and there. Oh no, it's not. No, it's not. Your feelings are valid. Let them have the space and they'll look at you different as a leader. Debbie asks, do you have recommendations on hiring a virtual company for a multi-day conference? Yeah, I do. I'm Debbie. I could, depending on where you live in the world, in my mind, you might live in Denver. I'm not sure if you do live in Denver. I highly recommend Holly and Heidi with meetings now and meetings net, but all over the world. If you want to email me as a speaker, I will let you know. I'm contracting with probably about five or six companies right now that are in the virtual webinars space and conference space.
Rachel Sheerin (38:19):
So we're talking, you know, full production studios, we're talking super high end tech, I'm doing some keynote speaking that's going to be virtually as well as doing emceeing and interactive workshops. So that it's smaller groups and live participants with associations. So depending on what you're looking for, Debbie, absolutely. And I can even make that into a blog post as well. Oh, Ryan Rose asks, what's your favorite Renee Brown book? I would say [inaudible]. Oh, I don't know. I mean daring to lead it dare to lead is a game changer. I would say the wilderness book really struck me. I'm not a parent, but I certainly love a lot and it just hit me on a deep level. Ryan, we might have to start a book club. It sounds like if you're into, I want to go stare to lead. Yes. Oh my gosh. Ryan actually suggest this great thing.
Rachel Sheerin (39:08):
Ryan, I don't know if you were on the webinar yesterday, but we talked about this. My director set up a Spotify playlist for us to add songs together and to listen to while we're working remotely. That is awesome. I will give a shout out to, I mean this is one of those really cool ideas. You get to see people's personality. My husband actually works for the leading music company in the world for a digital music and media solutions. It's called mood media down here in Fort mill, South Carolina, right over the border. And one of the things that's funny is I always know what days are playing country overhead because he comes home, he's like, Oh my head, he's not a country fan. Whereas me, I love country. So you get to kind of feel the vibe. I think Motown, by the way right now, Motown is a vibe.
Rachel Sheerin (39:56):
So if you, if you haven't been listening to that, that's my go to music right now. It's happy. It's a simpler time. We can groove to it. Yeah, because if there's any more questions, please [inaudible] me. No, I just, I so appreciate all of you guys. Oh, I see. I be looking at height by Jeff and mood media. Yeah, IB is one of their team leaders over there. Oh, it's so good to see you guys. Well that's a bear saying I, this isn't a mood media commercial, but here I am. So anyways, listen, another webinar is coming to a close. If you have questions, email me@highapprachelsharon.com and tomorrow is the last of my free crisis webinars series. It is talking about money. Bring your salespeople, bring your sales managers, bring your clients that need to get kinda checked into the boards. Listen, we're going to be talking refunds, cancellations, having intense, intense money conversations right now.
Rachel Sheerin (40:47):
Follow me on Instagram. I'm at [inaudible], Rachel dot Sheeran. You can see pictures of my dog. You can see whenever I get upcoming travel locations, that's where I would normally post it and listen if there's anything I can do for you, say the word. We are now officially friends and I will be hitting you up for a margarita when we can leave our house. So thanks for everything you guys all, I love seeing the chat. You guys are the fricking best. I'll see you soon. Wash your hands. Stay great. You don't have to. You get to. I'll see you later. Bye guys.
Questions / Comments / Margaritas? Let me know below!