#77: How to Improve Virtual Public Speaking Skills?

week's episode. It's been a couple weeks since I last recorded a new podcast episode. Reason being I have been actually having some migraine lately. Last week, I was supposed to schedule my podcast episode. And by the way, I don't schedule these podcast episodes ahead of time, it's actually week by week as we go through. So a lot of topic that I talked about is very up to date, I

don't record them in events. So I have one week out of the so one day out of the week that I sit down and I start doing all these recording. And I publish it, you know, right after the recording, so I do very minimum editing whatsoever. I have two jobs. And for me to sit there and start editing and all the videos and podcast episodes is just not feasible. It doesn't

work on my schedule. Maybe you know, in the future if I'm really getting of super overwhelmed then perhaps I might be thinking about recorded ahead of time. But as of now I am recording you know as we go so all the episode is up to date. So last week, I was supposed to record this new episode, which I didn't. And Reason being I had this extreme rear and severe migraine. It was so bad to the point where on Tuesday, I woke up with a headache, and that headaches just wouldn't go away.

And when really alleviated it was you know, going up, and so I was nauseous. And I was really bothered by the light. I actually went out on Wednesday to take my new adopted pet my cat, Toby. So those of you who follow me on social media, you might have seen his picture. His name is Toby, he's only six months old. So he's a little tiny baby who required a lot of my attention. I am thinking that he has separation anxiety, he, he likes to attach to me

everywhere I go. So I had to take Toby to the vet last Wednesday. And when I was going out, I noticed I was really sensitive to the light. And that really bothered me and then the sound everything around me, which is making me very irritable. So on Tuesday, I started to cancel a lot of

appointments. You know, I have to reschedule a lot of my clients because there's no way I'm going to sit through in a virtual meeting in on zoom, and be still be functional with how the Trash Can I was holding literally holding trash cans in my in my arm so that I don't Yeah, it makes me feel better. I have a trashcan in front of me. So I was doing on Tuesday, and Wednesday was the same thing, you know, woke up and then I had this massive headache. vomiting actually helped to alleviate the

headache. And I noticed that I'm at the point of my age where I need to worry about maybe menopause. Aha, yeah. Something to laugh about for you today. All right. So because of that, you know, because of all the cancellations and and not able to join and the zoom meeting, I kind of figured this week I want to talk about how do you improve your virtual public speaking skills. This is a topic that had come up multiple times. I will say over

the last whole entire year. I think a lot of business owners and owners and entrepreneurs, you begin to realize that virtual is not going away. And chances are there's a lot of events they are combining because they notice that instead of reaching out to just local people, they can actually have more reach to two international so I was actually last week I was at one a Tony Robbins and what's his name Dean rasio there, they have a event called Own your future event.

And it was like a five day free event, all you have to do is sign up and join their Facebook. So they will go live in the Facebook group and you get to watch Tony Robbins speak. So I was in that in that virtual event. And this is something that that is true, you know, because a lot of people and business owner and you're going to start seeing a trend where people are combining the in person aspects of what they do to starting to doing a lot more virtually. Now. Lucky for me, I

really see this coming. So I actually built it my my business entirely remotely online doing through the virtual world. So I'm really super familiar with zoom, you know, when when people were still struggling figuring out zoom, I was like, I got this a mastering it, you know, here, here's how you play with with it. And here's what you can do with it, how you stream it. So I was in that, you know, 10% of knowing, knowing what to do in a

virtual setting. So I got lucky and I had a little more advantage in getting a head start because when I built my business, I built it entirely virtual world. So today I want to talk about how to improve your virtual public speaking skill. Because as you move on, in an expanding your business, you probably want to spend some time you know, not just doing the in person anymore, but actually have more outreach to your international a larger

audience. So and you know, that's not put 2020 in two ways. So some of the things that you might be struggling you know, things that when it comes to public speaking is perhaps you've been doing public speaking a very long time and most of the time you do it in person. So every time there's networking event, there's presentation, there's you know, you have to speak in front of your your colleagues or a large audience, you have no problem doing that in in person setting.

But when it comes to virtual setting, it's quite different, isn't it because when you turn on the camera, there is no audience in behind behind the camera. So you're really talking to yourself most of the time. And even when you're doing your podcast recording, if you're if you're like me, you're you're doing a solo podcast, chances are you feel like I'm just talking to myself all the time. So there's that moment of, you know, that negative self talk

start kicking in. And this is something I work with a lot of entrepreneurs about their imposter syndrome to themselves, where they start getting into their head. And that's what's stopping them from doing a lot of amazing things. Like for example, doing more live videos, and start doing more podcasts or start talking about and doing more webinar. All these things are because of that, you know, imposter syndrome in our business. So it does show up. And this is something that I work with my woman,

entrepreneur, a lot. A lot of these women entrepreneur also struggle with, with perfectionism. And I'm a recovering perfectionist. And so I totally get, you know, you want to have things that's perfect before you push it out. You want to have the editing done on your video and cutting out all the imperfection before you actually send it out to public, which is why I really enjoy just record my podcast,

not worry about it. And actually I have people reaching out to me and say, Hey, you know, do you want your podcast edited? Well, that this takes some time. So I basically have to rely on someone else's timeline in order to to move things forward. So the way that I work it is you know what imperfection is okay. And the fact that you're listening to my podcast, it tells me that my imperfection is something that's acceptable. That's that's actually being

embraced. And that's probably the reason why you love me. So having a little imperfection is perfectly okay. So, perhaps you've been doing public speaking for a long time. But so now you're transferring that ability on to a virtual setting where maybe you're being booked on a virtual event. So I have one coming up on this Friday, where I'll be speaking to a group of women at the 5050

leadership. And it's one of those women's entrepreneurial workshop where we teach women about how to go setting and give them a little motivational speech on how to start a business or to motivate them to continue to in their business. So you probably get invited to these virtual events. So how do you bring that energy to to the virtual world, and by now, I think we all experienced that zoom fatigue. Earlier this morning, I had to zoom meetings.

So but it's Sunday, you know, who wants to be on the zoom on a Sunday, right? Even on the weekday, you probably want to minimize as many zoom as possible. Because by staring at the screen you actually, it's uh, it drains you a lot more than if you were to just do it in person. Because you're you have to really be a lawyer, you have to be functional, you have to present yourself in such a way that you

look professional. And if you're a woman, you know, sometimes we actually like to dress up and put on makeup, before we actually turn on, turn on that camera. And that takes work and work is exhausting. So I would not be surprised if you are experiencing zoom batik, which is why a lot of the time when I invite you to my work to my workshop, or to my event, you're not there, probably because of the zoom fatigue. So totally understandable. It's perfectly

normal. What other things you might be struggling when it comes to public speaking or virtual public speaking. Like I said earlier, there may be a lot of disruption when you're speaking virtually. So there's a lot of squares that you're staring at, if you have, I think the largest audience that I was on, was over 100 people on the zoom. And so in order for the speakers, to really engage your audience, you kind of have to, you know, call on some of the

audience. So the way that you can do it is you would have to do some clicking right. And not to mention in your chat is going off the hook. There's a lot of people in talking to each other or interacting each other and making comments. So not only do you have to pay attention to what's going on in the chat, you have to pay attention to what's going on on the screen in the little box. And then you have to remember what what is what is your speech, what is your speech

about. So if you are someone who is, you know, relying on reading off your notes, or having a written script, that becomes very challenging. And this is what I see a lot of time during my five day spotlight challenge, where I encourage business owner to actually talk about their brand story through a live video. And the first time they did it, you know the first time I usually give people a baseline so I don't tell them how to write it how to do it, they

basically just go on live. And when I ask people to do that it should demonstrate and shows me how you're typically doing your your virtual life. And from that bass line assessment, then I know exactly where how to pinpoint what you need to improve on so that in your future video, you can actually work on those elements and overcoming them. So that's what I help people do during the five day spotlight challenge is you I encourage you to go on live. And

you talk about your story. And one thing that I noticed that everyone does is the moment that you ask them to go on live and introduce yourself, talk about your business and tell us what you do. And what do you have to offer? And how can we find you, the moment that you ask them that they go home, they start writing it down, they start writing a script. And when when you see them go live, there's typically a script in front of them, and they're trying to read

it off. Now, if you don't have a large following, or this is your first time doing live, chances are you're not going to have a lot of people in the audience that you would have to respond to them engage them, right. But our our goal is to actually build up that visibility and our audience so that you can have more than just zero person

showing up on your event. And hopefully is that number becomes, you know, 110 or 10 or 101,000, whatever that number of the audience that is going to see you here you and actually book you and hire you. That is our goal. So initially, you may not have that large, large audience. So you don't have to worry about what's going on in the chat. Now imagine you reading other scripts, and you're also wanting to engage the people in the chat box.

That's multitasking. And when what what do we know about multitasking, you never want to multitask, right? Because we're not meant to multitask. When you multitask, you're dividing your energy away. So you're not really being present, you're not focused and chances are you're not very productive. You're not very effective. So what you want to do is you want to stay focus, and this is why we practice public speaking so that you don't have to follow a script.

Every time you do a live every time you do public speaking or every time you do a podcast recording. Okay, so, um, again, it's hard to engage every energy in the in the zoom setting, right. So as I mentioned earlier, the largest event that I went to was over 100 people And when you have 100 people, you're showing up number one, you're already nervous about

public speaking. And number two, it's you want to make sure that you greet everybody you know, your audience, you want to, you know, maybe bring up some humor in your audience and, and so that's a lot of energy that you have to bring in and bring on to

a zoom call. And if you are someone who already don't feel like you know, zoom is your thing, or virtual or video, you have any type of underlying negativity towards the virtual zoom, or virtual video conference, then that energy will show up in that room in that moment. So those are some of the some of the struggles that I've been seeing hearing from especially my clients, and those who participate in the five day spotlight challenge.

And this is the part where, you know, I'm helping them to get over how do we how do we resolve this right? So ultimately, you you may be hearing this and you may be struggling with this, you know, especially the energy part, how do you bring the energy into the zoom and adjust to the room, you find them to bring you into the zoom? So what is what are some of the solution that you can you can work on or that you can that can help you to improve your virtual public

speaking skills. So number one is, this is always my golden rule is practice, make it better. Practice doesn't make it perfect. Practice make it better. So each time you do the public speaking in a in a virtual setting, the more that you speak, the more that you know how to speak. So the first time maybe, you know, you told me, my ID, you know, I when I first did virtual videos, when I first published my first video talking about my story, I totally sucked. That video is actually

on my YouTube station. So if you go to youtube.com slash Michelle Quaid 2018, you'll find under my story section, there's a video that I recorded as a slideshow and me on a very tiny little square on the top, because I do feel comfortable being on camera and speaking about my story at the same time. So I put totally put the whole entire story onto a slide. So a picture slide so that I can just show it and flash it and kind of distract the viewer that hey, don't pay attention to the way that I'm

speaking. Now today, I can just jump on a call and I can tell you my story, no problem, right. But I that wasn't that wasn't where I was, I was, I was at the baseline, I didn't know how to speak period. So practice, make it better. And the more that you speak, the better you become. So make sure you grab every opportunity, whether it's PE whether it's free, or someone does invite you to, to talk or even yourself, you know, if you have a Facebook group, or if you're doing it

live, use that as a practice. Do it as often as you can possibly do. And the more that you do it, the better you get. And, you know, initially you might have that internal message at home, you know, how have, do you think that this is even possible? Or, you know, listen to yourself? Are you making any sense? So you do a lot of that negative self talk. But what do we know about negative self talk? It's just all in our head, right? A lot of what you talk about, it's not

true. And it's really the fear that is stopping you from doing exactly what you're passionate about. So what you're passionate about, again, is to remind you yourself, that you did this for a reason. And you did this because you want to be seen you want to be heard and you want to get higher and get booked. So go back to understanding your why so that your fear does not have the ability to aid you. And that you're that imposter syndrome is

not overpowering you. Alright, so what other solution can I offer you? Well, you can definitely be selective in terms of what type of zoom that you're going home or you're joining. So this is particularly true for if you're experiencing job fatigue, you don't have to go to every single networking event. And the reality is, you know, if you're just going to sit there quietly and not participate and not seeing anything during the networking event, you might as

well not show up right. So if you are going to show up, pick one and choose one that is you know, you feel most comfortable in that you feel more engaging, the one that you can actually show up fully being present without experiencing that fatigue. So are you someone who's like trying to be more effective and efficient so you go to like, I know people keep sending me like these chamber calm Various networking event, there was like some stuff that's starting at seven o'clock in the

morning. It's a virtual breakfast. Well, you know, it's not a group that you really, truly enjoy. And if you're going to just show up and be turning your camera up and your, your, your microphone and your, you're not really engaging anyone, then don't show up, right, you can be selected, you can say no, and reserve your energy to the one that is most important to you that you want to be fully present. So that's how you deal with zoom fatigue, you don't have to say yes to everything,

set up your boundary. Alright, so that is solution to the zoom fatigue. With that, you can also focus on what is important. So kind of tie into setting up your boundary, it's also important to, to really, truly understand what is important to you. So if you haven't a very important event that you've been invited to speak, or a podcast, or an interview that you've been scheduled to go to participate, then understand what is more

important to you. If this is interview is really important than ever, please, you know, do what what you would normally do, if it was in person, you show up early, you meet the event planner, you talk to the hosts, you talk to and get acquaintance with all the whoever is hosting this event, you get customed to them, you

get to know them, right? So what you want to do is you want to make sure even in a virtual podcast, or where virtual interview, you want to reach out to that person and say, Hey, you know, can I come on like maybe five or 10 minutes early just to just to get my equipment, let's try and just do some testing rounds, you know, to make sure that the equipment is working. And during that time, that's a great way to connect to the hose or to the event planner, to get

to know them. And so that you feel, you know, you actually prepare. So that's how you that's how you prepare yourself, if you notice that there's a lot of distraction, you know, you kind of have to plan ahead in terms of what are those distractions. So as you're going to an event or virtual event, reach out to the event host ahead of time, or the planner or the coordinator ahead of time, and have a run through a rundown of what is on the agenda when what is the timeline look like?

Exactly how much time do you have to speak and all these important items that you should be consider before you actually go to the event. So plan ahead, that would avoid a lot of unnecessary distraction for you. And lastly, you know, how do you bring the energy on to the zoom? Basically, my rule of thumb is the best the moment that your camera is turned on, smile. Smile, you are on camera. That's right. Um, so smile is a great way to alleviate a lot of that

tension. Right? So if you imagine there's a phrase that says, Do those to do do that do this? How do you how do you say that? So basically, you want to do exactly how you want to feel if you were sitting in the audience, right? So if you pretend that you're not the one who's speaking, and you're actually the one who's sitting in the audience, imagine what that would feels. If someone joining the zoom and has a great smile on their face. Right? Immediately you get influenced

by that. Of course not every day is you know, sunshine and rainbows. But you know, the very least greet everybody say hello to everyone. Call out their name, you know, say hello to them, ask them about their day. Ask them about things that that's important to them. Being curious about, you know, maybe there's some animal that just walked by ask them about their kids, things like that will actually ease and help you to really get to know your

audience. And as a speaker, it is really important to actually get to know your audience so that you know exactly who is sitting there and listen to you and how do you connect with your audience. It's just the same way as you would in an in person setting. So go on to the camera and put a smile on no matter how tired you are or how irritated you are two minutes prior to the

zoom call. Okay? So always remember that rule of thumb the moment that you turn on your camera, put a smile on you are you are on camera, so you want to make sure that capture your best best version. as possible, and get some rest, this is really important Get some rest the night before your event, or anytime before you actually jump on to a live call, or a live videos or recording your podcast, just get some rest and make sure that you've been read, well rested before you speak.

And here are five areas that you might want to pay attention. And so I am a member from the Toastmasters International, Toastmasters International it's a it's a nonprofit organization. And their focus is on leadership communication, and speech public speaking. So those are the three areas that they mainly focus on. And so during as a member, you depending on which club you go to, there may be meeting once every week, once every month, or

every other week. So depending on which club you join, you know, internationally, you may have a lot of different opportunity to speak in front of an audience, where with your fellow Toastmasters, so you kind of do it as a practice playground, I practice playground, because you do have to follow it, they encourage you

to go through a pathway. And during those projects, you know, you start learning how to speak how to write your speech, and people give you evaluation like what did they like about your speech? What, what can be improved on? And how can you be better in the future. So it's a great way and it's really cheap, you know, the membership is

really cheap. So I would encourage you, if you're looking into virtual public speaking, definitely check out organizations like this, you know, I'm sure they're their speech club or public speaking, organization in your area. So be sure to take advantage of that. Because that they're there for a reason. Not only do you get to meet a lot of different people, you get to connect with a lot of speakers. You also just, you know, it's a it's a place where you can practice your public

speaking. All right, so I'm gonna do it in the in the five area is, it's very much in the Toastmasters way. So what are those five areas that you need to, you should be paying attention to when you do public speaking, and this apply to both in person as well as the virtual setting? So clarity? Is your Are you using the language that's easy to understand? That is something that's relatable to

your audience? You know, I have people talk about, I don't know, techie stuff in wellness event, so it's like, you know, it doesn't doesn't really quite relate to the topic or to the theme. So clarity, is your is your language? And is the language that you speak relatable, is it something that's easy to understand. So that's a very important factor

to consider. vocal variety, when we talk in there, we get upset, we get excited, we get curious, we get really angry, you know, so, depending on your feeling and emotion that you bring into your speech, you want to demonstrate that. So, especially when you do storytelling, storytelling is something that can be very emotional, right? Something that can be funny, if you are in doing a kind of like a comedy speech, then it would be important to to incorporate that emotion into your speech.

So vocal variety means the tone of your speech, the your volume, is it too loud? Is it too soft, and you know, I have people speaking very softly to us, and I can barely hear them.

talk from now on. So not anything bad, you know, and he could probably use some public speaking skills. But you didn't hear that from me. So vocal variety, something to pay attention to, especially if you're doing public speaking. And when you're doing live video, live videos sometimes can be difficult or challenging, because you can't really tell if people can hear you so you hear people ask a lot. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Which is another reason why I said you

know, be prepared. test out your audios, test out your video before you actually jump out to a live have someone try it out right or

work. So I had to, in order to monitor that I have my iPhone, my cell phone around so that I can actually log on to Facebook and check myself to make sure my audio is okay, before I move on and talk about something that's very important. So always have be prepared and just check your equipment to make sure that your sound is okay, it's good to go. Now, eye contact eye contact is tricky, especially in the virtual world. Where do you meet? Because you don't have any

audience? And where can you land your eyes on? Right. So one of the tricks that I show, especially to the to the clients who's in the five day spotlight challenge is that what you want to do is you're going to notice where your camera is, and you're going to put a color dot over next to the next to the camera.

So every time you turn, no matter which way you turn, you always come back to that color dot next to the camera, where the camera is, you can do that on your laptop, you can do that on your computer, you can do that on your external camera, if you have one, she'll always kind of remind yourself where the camera is. So no matter how you turn, where you turn, you always come back to that same that. And that is where you're going to be seen as you're making. Wow, she's really looking into me, I

get that comment a lot. Oh my gosh, you even though it's virtual, I feel like you're speaking to me. And and it's true, because you want to make that good eye contact, especially when you're speaking so that the person who's actually on the receiving end is feeling empower and feeling respected and feeling that they are raising. So eye contact is

very important. And that's how you, that's a little tip for you to color, put a location a color, color sticker next to the camera so that every time you turn, that is where your eye will go. And that's how you make great eye contact and virtual

setting. gestures, you know, even though we have this little box, it doesn't mean that you can't cannot have any gesture, you can still use your upper body, you can still get up and you know, even you can stand up, you know, in a room setting and just position your camera in a way that it captures your whole body, you can still do all that, right? So your gesture can be incorporated into your speech. And I tend to speak with by hand

a lot. So a lot of times when you see me on zoom, I will be using my hand gesture a lot. Audience awareness, it has to do with you know, arguing, engaging your audience it? Are they do they look interested? Are they listening to you or they're just kind of lay back would have their camera off? And they're doing something else? Do you have their attention? Right? And and when they see you? Do you feel comfortable? Do you feel confident when you're speaking?

So all these needs to be incorporated and consider and ultimately you are there too to make an impact? Right? So the message that you are sharing? What is the walkaway message that you would like people to hear. So that is very important, especially if you're doing a teaching on your website or on your live videos or on your

Facebook, social media. And if you're teaching a message or sharing a insight, it's very important to summarize it for people ahead of time that you know, in this video, this is what I'm going to teach you. And at the end, you also want to make sure that you emphasize it again. What is it that you want people to know. So for example, today we're talking about how to improve your virtual public

speaking skills. Right? We talked about the struggles that people may having, when it comes to public speaking, maybe it's the zoom fatigue, maybe it's distraction, maybe it's we don't know how to bring the energy into the zoom? And what are some of the solution that you heard about? solution may include the more practice that you get you do, the better you become. And you know, when when it comes to energy, always think about how you want to be treated. And when you turn on the camera, how

would you like to feel right? So put a smile on and turn on the camera. And that's it. That's a great way of bringing and showing up with a full load of energy and people are going to feel that and we talked about the five areas that you can pay attention to. It's more than five actually. So the clarity, you know is your language, easy to speak and understandable is relatable, the vocal variety, you know, don't whisper into the camera. We can hear you. Alright, vocal variety.

And I can't tag I show I share my trick with you. So just put it a color that with two cameras. So every time you move away, you still remember where that camera is, I it's becoming a habit for me. So I know exactly where my camera is. And sometimes it's so true that even when I'm using my laptop, I don't have my external camera, my eyes still goes to the external camera because my mind thinking, that's where I need to look, look in order to make that eye contact. So it becomes

automatic for me. So sometimes I would go to the external camera instead of looking at the laptop camera. So just something to be aware. And once you start building a habit, it's gets really easy. Again, you know,

practice may get better. comfort level, you know, How comfortable are you with speaking, if you're not comfortable, get more practice by joining speech club or organization that focus on public speaking, the more comfortable and confident you look and the way that you are presenting yourself, you'll find that your audience would love you, they love you so much, they will, there's no doubt they're going to invite you back. So definitely keep those in mind. And I hope this is very helpful.

Because I think moving forward, we're not going to move away from the virtual setting. If anything, I think a lot of people are actually going to take advantage of it and actually make it better. And make it as part of their offer, you know, from from from now on.

So if you're thinking about if you're a business owner, and you're thinking about reaching out to more people and you want to get seen get her and get hired, really definitely think about, you know, really mastering your your skills in public speaking and especially in a zoom setting. I know resume salary can be a challenge a big challenge to a lot of people, because a lot of us don't like to be on the camera, right? We like to stay private and we don't want to, you know, be on

the camera. We don't like to brag ourselves, which is something that we can talk about in our future episode where, you know, we really need to start learning how to humble brag ourselves. And I had comments about you know, we don't want to brag about ourselves, though you do want to brag yourself because you're actually reinforcing the fact that you accomplish something and that positive reward will actually lead to a positive behavior. So just keep that in the back of your mind.

humblebrag sometimes, hey, alright, so I hope this episode is helpful. And I will love you love to have you in my competence lounge for the soulful entrepreneur. So you can find me on Facebook. I will have the link in the episode notes so that you can come and join me. I do have live weekly live masterclass, which happens on Sunday. So I would love to have you to join me. And as always, you know, give me a review that would really help me and also give me a rating on iTunes and

Spotify. I will see you next week. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. In order for this conversation to continue, I would like to invite you to join my private Facebook group, the competence lounge by Michelle. This is where we can continue this conversation to live life with authenticity, bravery, and connection while supporting each other in moving forward in life.

If you found value in this show, I would appreciate if you can give me a rating on iTunes or Spotify, or simply share this show with a friend who can light up the fire from hearing it. This podcast is made possible by listeners like you. If you'd like to learn more about my coaching service or invite me to speak Please visit my website at elevate life coaching.org with send me an email. I'll see you on the next show.