MMS #70 - Commanding the Digital Stage: Mastering Confidence and Communication with Julie Hansen

Welcome to Social Selling 2.0 Live Show and Podcast, where each week, we explore the future of B2B sales. Social has changed the B2B and professional services landscape forever. Capturing and keeping buyer attention has never been more challenging. Our mission is to help you discover new strategies, new technologies, new go-to-market systems and stay up-to-date with what is working now in B2B sales. Your hosts are Carson Hedy, the number one social seller at Microsoft, tom Burton, a best-selling author and B2B sales specialist, and Brandon Lee, an entrepreneur with multiple seven and eight figure exits and a leading voice in LinkedIn social selling. Brandon and Tom also lead social selling 2.0 solutions, which offers turnkey consulting, coaching and training to B2B sales leaders. Now let's start the show.

Welcome to episode number 70. Brandon Carson, great to see you, and Julie welcome.

Thank you, happy to be here.

We have just found out, before we came on board, that we are surrounded Carson by celebrities.

I know, tom, I feel way out of place. We were talking about the movie and TV credits that are attached to Julie and to Brandon.

To Julie.

And to Brandon and to.

Brandon, of course, yeah, Now, hey, this is the very end of Fever pitch the Drew Barrymore Jimmy Fallon film. If you look in the crowd, I am there.

Yes, hey, that's something you get credit for that.

I cling to it till the day I die, absolutely.

And I have nothing.

We've been looking forward to this episode. For a long time I kept thinking in the back of my head when is the Julie Hansen episode?

Because I see Julie's stuff on LinkedIn regularly, and what I love about her stuff and we'll talk about this during the episode today is how unique it is. Julie has got a great differentiated perspective and so she's coming from a place of being a real expert in her field. But she applies it to sales in a very unique way, and so I always see her stuff and I keep pinging Tom and Brandon. I'm like when's the Julie episode? So here we are, we're here.

Yeah, we're going to talk about something today that we have not really talked about, which is how do you really is, julie you phrase it command the digital stage, and how do you really have confidence with your communications online? And I guess we all live here, right, we all live in our world of video and Zoom. So, julie, why don't we start off and we'll report it to you? Go ahead, sorry.

Well, I just want to acknowledge the people who are commenting and welcome them, and Jonathan Long we haven't seen Jonathan for a while and Bob and Brian thanks for coming in and anyone else. We want these to be interactive. We want these to be about you, so any questions you have, any comments you have, throw them in there. We're going to do our best to get you up there, and Julie will be a wealth of knowledge. So bring the comments and for everybody on the podcast you're listening. Thank you so much. We appreciate it and, if you wouldn't mind, you'll like what you hear. We would really appreciate the review to help us with our reach and, of course, screenshot it and share it with people you think would find value from this as well. All right, tom, I'm out of your way.

No, thank you. I was about to say the same thing, but not as well. So, julie, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this whole area, and then we'll dig into some of the key topics here.

Sure, well, as Carson mentioned, I combine sales and acting because those are my two careers and my two passions. I didn't know when I was in sales that acting was going to play such a big part in my sales career, but it really did. When I started out in sales and I'm not going to start back in the year, it would be a long show if I do but I really came from a buyer's side and so I was used to people calling me back and so when I became a salesperson I was like whoa, this is a whole different world and it really rocked my confidence. And I saw all these confident salespeople around me and I thought what can I do to build my confidence? And I remembered that I liked acting and I started taking some acting classes and it really helped me find my authentic voice and be able to just face a lot of those challenges that used to make me want to hide. And it turned into a career.

I worked in sales and acting at the same time and did some professional acting in New York for a while and I went into training and used a lot of my acting skills in that taught presentation skills, still do communication skills and when I saw the pandemic strike and everyone just being told hey, get, zoom, get on camera and go. I thought why are we not helping these people? Like? It's a whole new medium.

When I started out as a stage actor which is how most actors start out it's a whole different skill set, and so when I first auditioned for a role in a film, I was terrible. I didn't know where to look, I didn't know what to do with my hands, I forgot my lines and I didn't know that it was special training and there were different skills to bring to this medium, and so that really created the book that I wrote, look Me in the Eye, and then the training that I do around that for sales teams to help people confidently, incredibly, communicate on camera, because it's not natural, and there are skills and some techniques that help make it easier. We're not allowing people access to those.

So did I hear you say that you were making sales calls and people were not calling you back.

Yes, was I doing something wrong? I never really experienced that Carson?

have you seen that?

No, not really, Of course.

I.

No, here's what's funny. So I think Julie and I have probably been connected for about five years. And, julie, I'm going to give you the ultimate compliment here because when I am living my day today, I get to spend a lot of time with customer executives, with people in my organization, with my team. I've done a lot of high caliber video presentations. I feel like I always have you in the back of my head telling me to look them in the eye, look them in the camera, and it's been infinitely helpful. So I love that you've kind of encapsulated. If we get video right, especially in this hybrid era, I'm all for it. I know you are too like meeting people in person and there's going to be a real value in that, but you do. You've got to command the digital, the video stage, because if you can do that, you can enhance your effectiveness in those situations. So in my mind, that's the ultimate compliment to you is that I always have you reminding me like hey, look them in the eye.

Well, yes, and then, and you embrace that and it's. It's one of those things that it's not the first time people hear that when I say it. But we don't do it for a variety of reasons, and partly is breaking up lifetime of you know, habit that we've developed and Not realizing how important it is and how the other person feels when we don't do it, and so we sort of dismiss it as like, oh, they know I'm trying and no, they don't know.

I Ask our audience, and then you know, brandon. Let's dive into some questions.

No, no, you're good, great, great comment from Bob. I mean, yeah, I'm living example of that. What if you got a piece of radio? I'd love to ask the audience when Do you find yourself your self Prioritizing using video? When do you find yourself, maybe, not using video? Because I think there's a lot of times we'll show up to a meeting and we just go with the flow. We go with whatever other people are doing. It's funny I was actually in a chat a work chat earlier this week about, you know, talking about on our team meetings. When I'm running a team meeting, I always come out on video, whether everybody else is or not, and I find a lot of times when people come on to speak or present, they will go to video. But I think a lot of people have their default and I've even challenged some folks, especially ones that that almost default not to using video on with customer executives. Who wants somebody to spend money with you? You need to show them your face and your eyeballs right, right, that's the reason we're on video.

Right it's, it's not enough just to show up, but it is something to see you right, and especially in the age of you know all this AI floating around just to improve that authenticity. But really, if you're not using you know the camera, what make it a phone call like? If you really don't think it matters, if you think you have nothing to add by your humanness and by your personality and your energy and presence, and then use the phone, right then you don't need to be on video. But to to to Not turn it on because others don't have it on is Just for your own comfort and and we need to admit that, right, it's nothing, nothing less.

I show my face on every call I can and I don't have a face like Brandon Lee. So that's a that's a leap for me.

Person. Why do you think I have a beard? You know, first grew the beard out. I did it as a joke and then when I said, oh, I'm gonna shave, my whole family said no, no, don't, don't. I didn't realize I look so bad without a beard. Oh, my god, julie, you know, I think it's, it's probably this that insecure our own personal insecurities. But Wait, how, for people that don't want to turn on their camera, like, how do you, how do you coach them or motivate them? And and what are a couple of, like, the key things I do we worry about too much, about our lighting, our background, or I know, Obviously we talked about looking people in the eyes, but what else? What are some of those just basic things to help people get more comfortable with being on camera?

I Find that people are bothered by things that make no difference to their audience. The first thing I was to help people is turn yourself image off. That's a. The last person you want to make eye contact with when you're on camera is yourself, because nobody looks at themselves and go yeah, I look awesome. No, we go. What is going on with my and and my face? I need to smile that we paced on some smile. There's nothing to do. It's just been with what's just been said. So it's understanding what matters to your audience the your audience isn't.

It's not a beauty contest, whether you're in person or whether you're virtual, it's. Does this person appear credible, competent, confident? Are they? Do they look like they're interested in me? They're not very concerned about your hair, how your hair turned out or you know Right. So it's getting people off that focus Is.

That creates a lot of vulnerability and no one is judging you as harshly as you judge yourself. And the other thing about it is a. When you don't have the good skills, when you're not sure if you're doing it right or you're Lighting sufficient, or you're making eye contact when you should, or you're moving, you know using your hands funny. That are creating more distraction than adding context. Then you're gonna be in, you're not gonna be confident, and and the camera picks that up Because we are literally in someone's face when you're in person, you rarely look at someone's face this intensely for that long, and so those Insecurities, those incongruencies will start to leak out, and so you do have to develop that inner confidence. So it's partly awareness and understanding More about your audience. How do I make my audiences stop thinking about yourself and how do I make my audience's experience, as you know, wonderful as possible?

So I have a kind of a follow-up question to that, julie. So what I hear you saying is the people are not scrutinizing how you look. So what is it that they are looking for? And they are scrutinizing, organizing when they have them on camera, like what is it that really matters versus what how we actually look?

great question what? What we notice when we first meet someone. If you think about when you we make a first impression and there's studies on first impressions you know how fast we make a first impression, by the way. Does anybody know?

Seconds, 20 minutes 20 minutes, a long impression. Wow, really bring my egg game in 20, 20 minutes I can.

Why do you?

like me, tom, because I didn't give you like, I gave you a lot of time and yeah, yeah, right, I was so right.

Well, Tom's very generous by the way.

Most studies say somewhere between seven and ten seconds. People decide if you're trustworthy, if you're, if you're confident, if you're likable, if you're worth listening to. So the the Answer. That question is really a question how do we convey those qualities Right up front, like? How do we quickly convey credibility, confidence, interest, attentiveness, like ability and those, unfortunately, are also the hardest qualities to Communicate on camera. If we try to do it just the same way we did in person, which is, which is one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making is just assuming Well, I can just you know, I'm just sliding over here from being in person into this new medium. I'm just gonna do the same thing and expect it to work, which is, you know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It's not gonna have the same impact for a variety of reasons, whether it's the how the camera distorts things or reads things, or how our behavior changes when we're in front of a camera, or doesn't change when it should change.

I think that is very, very insightful. I mean, what I heard you say and correct me if I'm wrong is that just going on camera and being the way that we are in real life doesn't translate. So we need to rethink the way that we are on camera.

Yes, and you know the old rule. It, you know showing up is 80% or it's. It's not true anymore. That was true in the beginning. We're all so excited to have a way to to get together and connect and see each other. But you know, everybody got kind of stuck there, right. It's like it said oh, that's good enough, it's not good enough. I mean, there are people that are really excelling in this and learning how to not just show up but to make other people feel seen and heard while they're talking to them in a virtual meeting, which is a huge leap to actually make them feel, you know, the emotion, the energy of the conversation. And those are where we can go if we actually look at this as a new medium and and Adapt to it the way that it works.

Yeah, julie, I want to piggyback on that because, I agree, I think you know, a lot of times there's the anytime that somebody has a compulsion not to go on video.

It's probably because you do have to turn on different engines of yourself to Maintain focus and you can't multitask, because customers will see that, they will know that they don't have your undivided attention and so there's that added pressure. If you're not on video, you can maybe get away with something, but, believe me, the second somebody asks you a question, if you're multitasking, they'll catch you anyway. I often, you know, I even call out, sometimes, like, especially, I'll do a lot of interviews, right, a interview candidates, I'll even tell people. Or if I'm meeting someone for the first time, you know, customer executive, I might even call out. You know, hey, I'm taking notes, so I don't want to give you the impression that I'm not paying attention. So you know, there's almost an etiquette as well to the video element. Wow, it's been four years Since the start of the pandemic. I'd love to hear your thoughts, julie, on what have been your biggest learnings over that time span around how to really stick the landing when it comes to leveraging video.

Well, I think one of my biggest learnings has been that a lot of people are Okay with the status quo and they assume they're coming across like they intend to, and so it took me a while to finally develop an assessment that really helps people see like this is. This is how your first impression is, this is how other people see you, this is how credible you come across, this is how engaging you are, and it's an eye-opener and and I find that in pilt, people realize that they think they live in this fantasy world that I just I assume everything's okay. I always ask people do you believe and I'll throw this out to you guys Do you believe that you are perceived as the same engaging, authentic, interesting, confident person on video as you are in person?

That's a great question what do?

you think?

Yeah, I mean it's interesting, I think that.

I hope so right, you know you think about it and there's a comfort in that medium of being in person and live. And I found it that over the last few years, especially transitioning to doing as much virtual as we do, it doesn't become as familiar a muscle to be in person. And what I mean by that is like I've spent the better part of the last four years really trying to master this medium and improve on tactics and etiquette. But when you go back to an in-person setting as much as I've always loved that it is it's a completely different muscle. You're doing different things, right, you're engaging, you know you might be sharing a meal, and so there's just there's whole other elements to it. This is very much its own unique medium.

Absolutely. And if you think about it and it's interesting, you say that because I think that there's truth to that when you don't use it enough, you start to lose it. And even though you feel like, oh gosh, I've done, how many virtual meetings do you think you've had over the past four years? A couple thousand, 10,000. And so you start to feel like, well, I know how to show up, I know how to do this. But if you think about it, that pales in comparison to the number of in-person meetings, interactions, connections that you've had, where you have gotten tons of feedback over a lifetime, whether it's solicited or unsolicited. You've had classes, you've had just exchanges with people where you go oh, that didn't land very well, I better not do that again. And we have just very little, if any of it, virtually. So we're just kind of going along hoping everything's coming across okay, but not really having any idea. And that is a dangerous place to not understand how your audience perceives you on their screen. And if you don't know that, then what are you going to fix?

Well, I don't want to get a comment on that. And then, yeah, tom, I'd love to go to you. I think the challenge is when you're in video, because sometimes those interactions aren't as impactful as an in-person relationship and an in-person transaction. I find let's use a football analogy you can get the ball down the field very considerably in a lot of face-to-face, in-person interactions and sometimes virtually, you don't advance the ball quite as much. So I think in video it almost feels like you. To really be impactful, you've got to up the ante, you've got to really make sure you're almost over-engaged in those settings, as opposed to in-person, where it's a little bit more comfortable.

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, if you're looking to differentiate, you have to go beyond the words that you say. And I think most people and in sales, I grew up this way in sales too think it's all about what you say and very little about the exchange and the connection, and I think we're seeing more of that. But if it was just about the words, we could all send each other great emails, right. Obviously, there's a human quality that drives that forward, and if you are just relying on the words, you're not setting yourself apart from the competitors. In fact, if you have a competitor that's doing more than relying on the words, you're at a real disadvantage. And so understanding, how do we make them actually feel something? How do we motivate people in this rather artificial environment and make them feel something as opposed to just know something?

And I've never met any of the three of you in person, but I do feel like, because we've been on video together, that I can be myself with you, which I think says something, because if we had never seen each other be a video, that wouldn't be the case.

I'm going back to your question, julie. You asked about do you feel more comfortable in person or are different on video than in person, and I've been thinking about that as we've been going through here. Personally, I feel way more comfortable in person, but I'm realizing why is I'm not watching myself in person, I'm watching you, but here on video I'm watching myself. So not only am I sort of scrutinizing myself, but I'm also talking to you, which I think is a skill that you have to develop to your point, right. You have to get used to it and build that out. Absolutely yeah. So maybe it's a question or maybe it's just.

I've got to justify my actions a bit. I know I get in meetings, especially if I'm so I understand, like you're having a one-on-one or something like that, the importance of that really being present. But I'll get in meetings. Sometimes there'll be 10 people on there and I'm not really the center of what's going on, and so I want to multitask, I want to get other things done while that's going on, and it's obvious if you're multitasking so you turn off your video. Do you feel like that is also sort of a if you thought there's a mistake that you should make when you're in a meeting with a larger number of people.

Look, if you're on video and you think you're invisible at any given time, you're living in a fantasy, right, so it. And I feel like, if you know, think about it as a presenter, even if you know, go back to your in-person presentation days, like Carson, and you'd have some members of your team there, and if you looked around and they were like taking notes and maybe you've seen this, they're on their phone and your customers see that too would you think that's good behavior? No, you would have a talking to them and say, hey, you need to at least look like you're interested. If I'm talking right, people are forming an opinion and just because it's easier for us to tune out and we have stuff to do and we wouldn't do that in person Well, some people obviously have done that in person, but you know it's we try to justify it to ourselves because it's uncomfortable, it's extra work and and yes and yes, but ultimately, whose comfort is more important, yours or the audience?

This episode just has me thinking in so many different directions because it's as we pointed out at the beginning. I mean it's very different than a lot of the episodes that we do Like, for instance one, tom, I appreciate your candor in stating that. You know, sometimes you find yourself looking at yourself and I'll tell you, like I've done some presentations to executives, that if I had done them in person I probably would have been very, very intimidated. But because I was honestly able to look at myself and tune out everybody that I was presenting to and it was almost like I was looking in the mirror, it helped me. So it's knowing that medium sometimes and how you can leverage it to your advantage is super helpful. But I'd also like to flip that. And, julie, one of the things that challenges me sometimes, especially as a leader, is when I'm presenting to a bunch of empty spaces people that aren't on video. You're just casting your vision out to nobody. How do you entice people to use video more, especially internally?

Right? Well, you know, sometimes you don't have a choice, Like if you're the salesperson and the client doesn't have their video on. You know you can try and make it inviting, but you don't have control over that. Certainly you might have some authority to do it if it's your team, but really I think we don't really give enough credit to how difficult it is to talk to a camera when you can't see anyone else, and that is as close to acting as most people will get without any of the training or skills that build confidence in that area. So when I work with people, a lot of times it is like working with okay, how do we talk to people who aren't, that we can't see? And this goes for video outreach as well.

That's what a lot of those videos are just so wooden because salespeople don't have any. They don't have the skills to connect with someone they can't see, and it's understandable. Why would you? Right, this is entirely new and what I always try to remind people of is, you know, it's skills.

But it's also an understanding that just because I can't see you doesn't mean that you're not having a reaction, that you're not having sort of a dialogue with me. It's still a dialogue. It's just oftentimes your part is silent and what salespeople think, or most people think, when they've got an audience they can't see and there's no input, you know it breaks that communication loop that we're familiar with, where we say something, we get a response, we interpret that, we got nothing to interpret, we got nothing to work with, so we just keep going, we just keep talking, Instead of understanding that if I say something funny, even though I don't see you laughing, I might think you know you're probably smiling and it gives me the right cadence and conversational tone to keep going and not feel like I'm talking in a vacuum, and also to pause and not race through everything and not give people an opportunity to jump in, which is half the problem on video.

I don't know anything. That what that's like. Today, julie, I have a practical question. When my co-hosts are so excited and asking a bunch of questions and I'm just sitting there, should I smile or do I stand serious, like how do I? And I joke and it's totally fine, I'm okay. But I do have that question, like, and I was thinking about it when Carson was asking good questions, tom was asking good questions and seriously I joke around, I'm totally fine. How do you, like I wonder, I was sitting there going okay, so I'm not as involved in the show, that's okay. What do I do? Do I smile? Do I nod? How do I stay attentive? I mean, I know I'm not gonna do this, but how do I stay attentive and good nonverbals when I'm just I'm, you know, part of it, but I'm not as involved. And there's a couple of good comments in there I'd like to get to as well.

Okay, that's a great question, and this brings up the whole point of active listening, which is one of the things that is missing most in our virtual communications for a variety of reasons, and a lot of that is just the nature of you know the two-way communication. So if I say little things, like those little listening noises that you used to be able to pick up in person the other person's talking, they can't hear that right. And also this common problem, this presence that we bring on video, which is low energy. The first thing that goes with low energy is your facial expression, and you're seated in your comfy chair and you have what I call resting business face. It doesn't give off an ounce of emotion. I don't know if you're happy, you're sad, the dog died, I don't know.

And it's problematic not just in listening, when you're listening, but also when you're presenting, because if you don't think about your face, which we never used to have to in person, sometimes we just get really into this resting face that we're in and we forget to let our face know when something is good or bad.

I always say watch your video, turn off the sound, and I should be able to tell from your face if it's good news or bad news. At the most basic level, there's a lot of things in between there that can happen, but honestly, this is our 20%. This is the 15, 20% that people can see of us. If you're not using your face to help communicate and I don't mean miming for the camera, but finding those authentic expressions and emotion you're making it harder than it needs to be. But, brandon, to your point, it has to be authentic and what happens is just like you said, like how should I look? Well, if you're really listening, do you have to think about that? No, if you're listening and you find something interesting, what do you do when you're interested? But sometimes we have to warm up those expressive muscles so we have more access to them, because we forget to use them on video.

So the resting business face resonated with me, except I heard it as a different expression I think it was a D word in the middle and my kids actually told me that when I'm thinking they used to think that I was angry at stuff. And a lot of times in meetings or someone's listening, I'm very attentively listening and I'm processing and I got to realize and it wasn't until I was more on Zoom that I realized, oh yeah, you don't look good right there, you should probably stop, and that's true and that's part of that awareness.

We have to know how maybe some of our expressions are. They come across differently than we intend. It's like we are judging ourselves by our intentions and our audience is judging us by our actions and how it makes them feel. So there's often a disconnect there.

I do wanna ask a quick question kind of on that vein, Like I do like the fact that they've added the emoticons where you can love or like, or you can clap in the midst of a video meeting or call. What are your thoughts on avatars?

Look, there's a lot of AI going around. I don't know that we need to add more to it.

I feel like we're gonna get to this point where people I mean, is it better to use an avatar than video's person, than nothing at all? I mean, definitely not than video. But I just I don't know some of these things. They confuse me. I don't know where we're going with all this. Like I love the fact that we can show a clap without clapping and that I can show that I'm thumbs up like hey, I agree with this without having to jump in and speak, but I don't know, I'm scratching my head around, like the use of avatars and things of that stature.

I think you know my goal on camera is to make it feel like we're sitting across from each other having a cup of coffee. So trying to recreate as much of that in-person experience and it's not a normal in-person experience to sit across from a cartoon figure, you know, and maybe that's not the impression you want to convey we have to think about who our audience is and what does that say to them that say I couldn't bother to show up in person or I'm not that serious, I'm not taking this as seriously as I might.

Yeah, I envision a world someday where AI will give us the ability to like, mirror ourselves. But, like you know, tom, you could add hair right to the video. Tom, you're muted.

That's part of my presence is to be muted. That's what people say is I'm much better off when I'm muted, I've been told. So hey, let's hit a couple of these questions, because there's some really good stuff coming in here, and I'm gonna hit Anthony's here first. It's a little bit of a long one. He says I'm curious, 99% of my time is my camera's on walk the walk for the role I'm in. Depending upon the closest and the relationship, though, especially new ones, as we're talking about picking up on cues of their comfort and if I sense there might be some weirdness, usually I'll ask if it'd be better to turn it off or what they prefer. I think what he's asking here is, if somebody else is uncomfortable, right. If you're in a meeting and the other person is uncomfortable, is it good etiquette to kind of go hey, would you be less, you know, be more comfortable if we just did verbal here? I think that's the question.

Yeah, that's an interesting question I would say how do you know they're uncomfortable and why would you think it's because you're on video? I think we have not learned enough about reading virtual body language to be great judges of that, so I would just be hesitant to assign that meaning to some behavior that might mean there's something else going on there, comfortable about that has nothing to do with you. And that's often true of when we look at it in an audience and you know or get a glimpse of our audience and they look like you know, they look bored, and instantly we go, oh my God, they hate me and this is terrible, and they start to speed up and just do all the things to make it even worse, when in fact that's a very common on-screen behavior for audiences, because it's relatively new that this is a dynamic two-way conversation and we're used to sitting in front of any kind of screen, you know, just ready for popcorn and a show. So it's often dangerous to misinterpret that behavior, I think.

Okay, yeah, and I wanna before. Brandon, I know you wanna jump in with a question here, but it was actually Brian's question, that then. So I wanna make sure, brian, because that's, I think, a really good question.

I just see that. Yeah, that was the one I wanted.

Yeah, because I think you see that all the time. Right People like you know. Do you feel like you're better off? We just did this without it, or whatever. So I think that's a great point.

Brandon, go ahead and jump in with your but I think that question too, though, is Julie what do you recommend if you get on a Zoom or a Teams and they don't turn their camera on? What should we do?

I give him an easy, just hang up. No, I just say, hey, if you're open to it, I'd love to see you in face to face and just say hello, like it's just for a minute or something, and a lot of times people turn it on, they'll just leave it on and then just let it go, but otherwise I just go forward as if we're having a conversation, because we are. I just can't see you, and that's my problem, not yours, and you get every advantage of being able to see me, and that connection that's gonna start to build is gonna happen for you. It's gonna be harder for me, I don't deny that, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is that you feel connected.

Yeah, there's a lot of really good stuff being dropped here, and I think one thing that this really resonated for me is that it depends on the situation. It also sometimes will depend on the level of relationship that I'm trying to build. If, by default, it's like a monthly cadence that this customer has with my team and I'm just popping in, I may not hop onto video, because I also don't wanna distract. I don't wanna be the only one that's on video. I want my team to be able to do their thing, but if I'm meeting a senior leader for the first time, I'll lead with video.

On the same token, sometimes there will be situations where Julie, you made a really astute observation earlier where sometimes we may be distracted by the body language that we're picking up from somebody that we're talking to, which is all the more reason why sometimes I try to look at that light. I'll see their face, I know they're there, but instead of getting caught up on looking at their face while I'm talking, I may just look at the light so that I don't get distracted by anything and I can still speak freely, and then, when they're speaking, I'll look directly to them.

Okay, yeah, I think that's easy to get distracted by those signals, and I would say that when someone is talking, if you think about when you're in person, how do you feel like someone's listening to you when you're talking? This behavior? Does that make you feel heard? Never, probably not, and so we do that a lot on camera, and I know this is one of the most counterintuitive skills and it takes practice and some technique to do it.

But to make someone really feel heard on camera, making eye contact is one of the most powerful things you can do, and we think that we're gonna learn something from people's body language and first of all, like I said, you can see some of their body language. If you have their, if you're one-on-one and you have them full screen, with your peripheral vision, you can catch a lot of things. You can catch major changes in expression, body language, but the odds of catching someone's body language in a little square of a bunch of people at the right time to learn anything from that is pretty low, and so that listening behavior is really important. I just wanted to point out.

And I also wanna say briefly, and then Brandon on to you but what's fascinating to me? So there are also times where you can really use video to your advantage. I was in a very tough deal negotiation a few years ago and I was the only one on camera and I was getting the business from some people in procurement that were not too thrilled with me and they were not on video, but I maintained video, maintained composure, maintained eye contact at the camera the entire time and was able to keep my cool, and I think that there is a strength in being able to leverage the video medium as it is in situations like that. I mean, definitely it wasn't to intimidate or anything. I'm here, I'm being my genuine, authentic self. I understand your feedback, I understand where you're coming from. This is my vantage point, this is where we are, this is where I feel like we're going, this is why I need what I'm asking for, and so I felt like that made a difference in that negotiation.

I'm sure it did. Eye contact virtually or in person conveys confidence, credibility, listening, interest. It's such a powerful tool and one of the beauties of the camera that we don't necessarily have when we're in person is that just by looking at it I can have a group of 100 people on here and everybody feels like I'm talking just to them, and if you know how to leverage that, that is a huge advantage. And most people are busy going trying to cover all the little squares and make sure they're talking to anybody, which makes no one feel like you're talking to them, right? So it's something that you can't really do in person either. You're kind of always talking to one part of the room and try to balance that out. But there are good things about the camera too.

Well, I think that ties into Bob's comment here about not liking the Brady Bunch screen, right Is that when in person you're usually directing your comments to somebody specific, but in Zoom sometimes you're not, it's more and again. I think that comes back to a skill that you have to start to develop along the way.

Right and it's a skill, it's an acting. You learn that when you are talking to a camera, you never talk to a group of people. When you're on camera, because it is a personal medium, everyone is having their own personal experience with you. So, even if I think of talking to a group, I tend to be more formal, a little more presentational, very a little vaguer with my eye contact and my intention, whereas if I think I'm just talking to you, I'm very specific, I know who I'm talking to, I have you in mind and we're having a conversation and it's very tailored in person.

Brandon, I think that's why you really stuck out in that lunchroom scene and back to the future, because you were just like really good eye contact and we couldn't miss you.

So anyways, nice, nice. Julie, I have two questions for you. One is like in acting, you gotta go 30 to 50% more expressive for the camera to catch it. Is it the same when we're on Zoom? And then the second part. Then all you talk is what are your thoughts on these type of cameras? I thought they were good in theory, but I'll explain my experience with it. But what are your thoughts on that for people?

Sure. So energy. Energy is a huge problem and that's the reason people are not very expressive on cameras. That energy depletes that. But you're right, you have to bring more energy Not the same kind of stage energy, because that's always a little elevated. But what happens on camera most people don't realize is it takes away a big chunk of that energy, like you said, about half your energy. And so you have to bring more. And most people are just showing up at their regular level of energy. So your regular level of energy, take away half of that.

That's a really low energy place and if you don't do something to boost that energy, then it's gonna be a very dull experience for everybody. And I heard the worst advice recently and I've heard this before from in-person presentation skills. But you should match the audience's energy. It's like, oh my gosh, if you do that in a virtual meeting, it's gonna be just duller than dirt. Right, you have to bring enough energy for you and the other side of the screen, because you're not gonna get it from the other people. You're not going to be able to rely on that to bring your energy out. And your other question was about that is that the center cam?

Yeah, the one I got is called eye to eye. Yeah, okay, okay.

You know, those are fine if they help you with the camera placement, but you've gotta put it somewhere on your screen and that's not typically the problem with people. If you make it a more favorable place, great You're. Still, it's gonna block hard to somebody's face. It's going to not cover everybody else in the other square. The real trick is, how do I look at one spot for an entire hour or however long I'm on a presentation or as much of that as possible, and make it feel personal and connect with you? So those can help. Especially if you've got a giant screen and you've got your camera on the top of it, that's gonna be a really bad angle. So those can help with that.

Brandon, do you not like it, or what was your? What was your?

No, you know, it brings in a lot of light and it focuses it very centrally, so it like washes out my face and it's really focused.

So it just it's not a great, it's not great on the other side, Right right, Some of those like the plexi camera. It's just you get to drop your camera down in front and position it, but you've still got that camera there right in front of somebody else's face. So if you're hoping it will make it easier to make eye contact with them, you're still not gonna be able to see them as well.

Yeah, I think the thing that you said that really resonates most with me and I forget, is bringing that extra energy to the table. And I think Bob was saying just eyebrows up, and one of his comments was saying eyebrows up. And that is a really good start, just eyebrows up. But yeah, sometimes it's, you know, we get in that thoughtful contemplative, we're listening, we forget that we're also then portraying really, really low energy. Mm-hmm absolutely.

So I officially have to admit this is the most uncomfortable episode we've ever had for me anyway, just in seeing all the things that I need to improve on related to this. Julie, if you were to give, as we kind of wind down here, for somebody to what would be three things that you would recommend for somebody to do, to really start kind of drilling and working on this, on how do you improve this? So, like anything, right, you don't get better practice and you don't work to get good at it. What should we be practicing and what should we be doing and how do we tell that we are improving? Like, what are some things that help us understand what we're improving?

Right, right, well, so a couple things you can do is, you know, the goal of making more eye contact is like oh yeah, I need to look at the camera more. I need to look at the camera more. Well, we need to break that down. When does it really matter? So if you start by just looking at the camera during those times where it really makes a difference, which is, for example, when I'm making a key point, I wanna say this is gonna save you, you know, 25 hours a week, as opposed to this is gonna save you 25 hours a week, right, it's gonna have more impact If I say it when. If I look at the camera when you are talking, it's gonna make you feel heard and understood. If I look at the camera when I ask a question, you're going to get a better answer. You're going to be more likely to get an answer because if I look down here when I ask a question so what's your goal to improve in video this year and everybody's like is she talking to me, right? Or, as opposed to, if I ask it to the camera and I just hold it there, so being very specific, and then you start to build on that. So those are some good places to start specifically with eye contact. The rest it's important to know just how you're coming across currently just building that awareness. Watch yourself on video.

But to Tom's point earlier about people being comfortable and critiquing themselves so harshly it's very hard to be objective and do that. So I use a very specific self-evaluation form that keeps you focused on. We don't care about your hair, we don't care about the funny thing you do with your eyebrows. Did I look at the camera this amount of time? Did I ask a question to the camera? Were my gestures mostly in frame and did they add context or were they fast and distracting? So those are the things I would start. And, lastly, always warm up. To get to that good energy place, you gotta warm up, you gotta bring it whatever that is for you and includes warming up your face and doing some expressive exercises.

And as you talk about this, I don't know about you, but I'll sometimes go through a day where I'll literally have back-to-back zoom meetings, like literally no time between them. But I think and I've been trying to set them up now where I do like 45 or 50 minute meetings, so I have 10 minutes between one to the other. But what you're saying is it's not just hey, so you can go to the bathroom and take a break. It actually allows you to kind of okay, take a step back, recharge and know what you're going into for the first one, so they all just don't blend together.

Right right.

I mean, I think for me that's something that all of this kind of fits into.

Tom, you should be talking to yourself in the mirror when you gotta go to the bathroom, so you can get yourself amped up.

I do that. Yeah, I do that. I walk you on the hall talking to myself, that's a trick.

See my information.

One of my big takeaways here today is look as sales people, sales professionals, sales leaders we need all the tools that we can possibly get our hands on to positively impact and influence the relationships that we're trying to create. There's a lot of great ways to use video. Like, and, julie, I'd be interested in, like, your thoughts on the transition of video over time. I mean, obviously, video was available before the pandemic. It became very prominent and then there became a lot of additional tools that we could leverage that there were part of video. You know we talked briefly about avatars and all these other changes. I'd be interested in the changes that you have seen, that you have been really fond of, like, other ways that we can really maximize the video experience, and I'll give you an example Like, one of the things that I really love to see is in trying to keep with that eye contact and high energy and obviously not wanting to come across like I am reading a script.

I mean I can position my key notes right there on my screen so that I am, in essence, touching on or reflecting on those notes while I'm looking right at you, which you know, knowing your medium. It goes back to you being an artist, being an acting, you're always kind of understanding and knowing your medium and we're all kind of, in essence, sometimes putting on a show. We're putting on a performance. You know we're acting in the role of great sales professional and our presentation is the performance and so you know, I would love to get your thoughts on, like, what has been really helpful that's come along. It's helped you to optimize your video experience and when you're coaching others, maybe you bring their attention to that.

Well, I think your point about notes is a big area because that encompasses like presentations and demos, and so I work with a lot of teams who say, well, I'm never gonna be able to make eye contact because I'm demoing or I'm showing slides, and the fact is that that shouldn't keep you from making enough eye contact. Yes, it's gonna be less, but there are times where you wanna talk directly to the camera, you wanna. There's a technique that you learn as an actor how to work with a script and still and do a live reading with the rest of the cast when you're not quite off book, right. So you get a line and then, instead of like reading it to the screen like this is really gonna save you $10,000. I get it and then I bring it over here and I say so, this is what's really gonna save you $10,000 a month as you go through this program, and so those kind of techniques are really helpful, and there's just a lot of them that are more skills-based.

I think we are quick to grab any tool that we think is going to do it for us, and especially in terms of outreach. And you know well, I gotta get the right cadence and I gotta get this. You know what's the best subject line and those are all great. But I'll tell you what if you don't grab my attention in the first you know seven seconds of that video, I'm not watching it and neither is you know your prospect. So it's understanding. You know how do I engage people very quickly, without tools, right with that human connection and the piece that that plays.

Yeah, I mean, look, your video experience that you deliver to a customer as an example is not going to be the end-all be-all, just like on all the episodes that we talk about. Your LinkedIn connection request or your comment isn't gonna be the end-all be-all, but it's a tool that's there at your disposal that can help you create a genuine authentic relationship with someone, and if you don't leverage it the right way, then you're missing out.

We're not only missing out, you're wasting a lot of time, and that's what I, you know, I see happening is just by putting things out, because, like you talked earlier about people, like I just gotta put out more LinkedIn, I gotta, you know, post more. You know, people are quick to get rid of things that don't meet their needs or meet a certain bar of their expectations, and so that is no longer appropriate. So, yes, we need to gain some efficiencies in this area, and part of the inefficiency with video is when you're uncomfortable and when you don't know what you're doing and you don't know what to do better or how to do it, and that's gonna make it less efficient for you. And so being better at this means, you know, means more efficiency, more productivity and more videos that get watched and acted upon.

So, julie, before we wrap up, what exercises do the three of us need to do before we go live next week?

Oh my gosh.

okay, so here's two we're saying warm up our face and warm up our calories.

Yeah, we're left in the show, brandon, for all of that, I don't think.

I have the perfect exercise for everybody.

Okay, so this is called the over the top exercise and what it is is.

You take any type of content. It could be a presentation, it can be a story, it can be you know something you read to your kids and you just deliver it like you know your best al Pacino, or you know thinking your most over the top actor, and like this is gonna be blah, blah, blah and you just you move and you express and you emphasize different words and you just have fun with it. And when I do this exercise with people it's so interesting because a lot of times what they give me when I say go over the top, is just a really nicely elevated presentation, because people don't have a good sense of what their best energy is. But we need to go over the top so we know kind of what that bar is and then if you do it again and you don't try to push it, you're gonna be nicely elevated, your expressive muscles are gonna be ready to go and you're just gonna be way more dynamic and have that screen presence to carry into the next conversation.

Tom lives over it Right, Like what the heck. I don't know if Tom can get any higher.

I don't know. This is gonna be some serious work I'm gonna have to do.

I know I think you should have fun with it. Just go over the top.

I think right now we are going to wrap this thing up. This has been an amazing episode and, Julie, you have been awesome. Is that better.

Tom, that was incredible that was so awesome.

You have to bring that energy every single episode.

Yes, I thought I was bringing the energy, oh man, you brought it just this.

Next time, wait a minute.

Who is this guy Carson, seriously.

That's awesome. Did that feel super over the top Tom?

I need to go have a drink. That's what I feel like when I think of over the top.

I think of that old Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling movie.

Yeah, we could do impersonations and everything. Yeah, we just had a round, I'm ready, I am ready.

Really, tom, there's your energy. The bottom line is, if you're in a virtual conversation, a presentation, a demo, whatever, and if you're not having fun with it, then no one else is either. So, bringing that energy that brings out your, we want to see your personality. That's part of that screen presence that connects people with you.

Yeah, and it's what you asked earlier about being in person. It would be much easier for me to be that way, for me In person. There I feel like I'm overdoing it, but it probably is balanced if you were in person versus on. You have to. You said you have to overemphasize the people.

I want to hear what you think about it, Tom, when you go back and watch the video and watch yourself on it.

Is it?

That was really good. Seriously, I'm like, who is this guy?

After these episodes, tom studies at night. He sends us notes like Brandon, I need you to do this, carson, I need you to do that.

So when he was running tonight.

He's like sending us notes at 3 am. I want to know how you feel about rewatching yourself going over the top.

Tom, all right, that's fair enough, that's fair, that's fair.

I would watch that all week Okay.

All right, well, we've learned something, julie. How can people find out Now, I'm like, I'm a machine. Now, julie, how can we find out more about you, like? Where do they learn more about all of this?

And how do we learn more? Keep them in frame. There you go.

I got to be careful what happened with the fingers?

you never know.

Don't get too close to the camera. Right. You can find me at juliehansonlive or on LinkedIn and do video outreach, training, virtual meeting presentations and virtual executive presence.

Awesome. Well, I'm going to check that out, Carson Brandon. Any final thoughts before we wrap up here? This has been very enlightening.

Amazing.

I'm just glad Carson got the movie referencing before we were done.

Yeah, you know we try to get one in every show and this is no different. But it's hard after 70 episodes, you know, to keep them fresh. So glad that somebody said over the top so we could invoke an old 80s Stallone movie. You know I was here with you. You're the only reference to Over the Top the Stallone movie on a podcast this week.

As you should be. Yeah, yeah, right. I was thinking you were going to pull in a little bit of like the Truman Show, where he did movies on camera. Everyone else did.

I actually did think of that, and then I couldn't remember if we had referenced that at some point, so I didn't. I held back.

All right. Well, thanks to everybody for all the comments. The comments were great. Some really great feedback today Again. Thanks again, julie, and next week, I believe, we have Patrick Tenney and we're going to talk about negotiation, so Love.

Pat Tenney the other the other equation.

All right, thanks again All right, thanks everybody Our studio was a pleasure.

And thanks for joining today and until next time, happy modern selling Thanks everyone.

Hey, tom Burton here and I wanted to personally thank you for listening or watching today's episode of Social Selling 2.0. If you enjoyed or found value in today's show, please share with your friends and colleagues. Also, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast outlet. And please also subscribe to our YouTube channel and join our free online community at socialselling20.com. There you'll get free access to the latest social selling resources, training sessions, webinars and can collaborate with other social selling professionals. Thank you again for listening and I look forward to seeing you in our next episode.