Better Virtual Benefits Presentations: My Chat with Meghan Dotter of Portico PR
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Meghan Dotter, Founder & CEO of Portico PR, a public relations firm in Washington DC. Meghan is a presentations specialist who helps her clients effectively and engagingly get their message across. Here are a few highlights from our talk.
The #1 Problem with Virtual Presentations? OVERWHELM!
Despite most virtual presenters’ best intentions, “we want to fit in far more information than our audience can take in one setting,” says Meghan, and that’s overwhelming to the audience. It’s exhausting to even be an audience member these days - it takes more brain power to absorb information virtually than in person, and Zoom fatigue is a reality!
Virtual presentations are also disconcerting for the speaker - it’s a lot harder (if not impossible) to read body language and nonverbal cues via the Internet. And trying to focus on everyone you’re speaking to onscreen is challenging, to say the least.
Here are a few tips Meghan shared to help deal with the overwhelm on both sides of the camera:
When making your presentation, don’t try to focus on each person in your audience - look just at the camera
It may be beneficial to just present the basics in a virtual presentation - save the more detailed information for one-on-ones or follow up presentations
Don’t just read from a script - doing so just takes away any energy or connection with the audience, and you end up with a dry presentation
Overwhelm associated with benefits meetings has been a problem forever. Our employee audience is often saturated and half asleep when the 401k presentation is coming on the heels of health insurance, voluntary life and disability, and the education reimbursement program… It’s even worse when companies are trying to pair other mandatory training together with benefits. There’s a reason that benefits meetings have a negative reputation! It’s beneficial to schedule separate meetings for different benefits. This reduces confusion about which company they should contact for what, cuts down on the overwhelm, and helps with retaining information.
Information will often fall on deaf ears if there’s no practical application of it. Our favorite technique when conveying retirement plan information is to speak in examples -- “what this means to you is....” Employees appreciate real world examples about how their benefits apply, and framing them in a relevant scenario will lead to better understanding of what they should be thinking about when considering their options.
There Are Advantages to Virtual Presentations
While online presentations have their drawbacks, they have some benefits, as well. Flexibility is a key advantage, as are the cool features that come with most webinar tools, such as the ability to conduct polls and private chats. These tools can also help to overcome the hurdle of audience participation - they can make it much easier to connect with and get information from the audience (particularly when privacy is an issue).
Great questions to ask: Who needs to hear this again? Should I elaborate on that or move on? Raise your hand if… These all help employees get back involved with the presentation instead of passively watching the computer screen. This is also a great time to get feedback from your group on their perceived value of the benefits. Take a poll that asks employees to rate a benefit on the scale of 1 to 5 for importance to them, as an example.
A side note from Meghan: Be sure to practice using those nifty features first, and maybe introduce them incrementally into your presentations so that you can fully understand how to use them (and avoid embarrassing yourself!).
How to Tell if Your Presentation Was Effective
According to Meghan there are two ways to make sure your presentation was effective or not:
Did you get good questions and feedback during the presentation? - This can be difficult to determine in a virtual setting, but this is where some of those webinar features such as polls can come in handy.
Did anything change as a result of the presentation? - For example, did you get sign-ups for a new benefit? Are you getting a ton of follow up questions?
Empathizing with your audience is paramount to conducting effective presentations. However, it’s all too easy to get - and stay - inside our own heads when doing any kind of virtual work, since we don’t have that positive feedback we all desire. Put yourself in an audience member’s place and convey the information that they need at that time, and you’ll become a better, more effective virtual presenter.
Tips for Better Virtual Speaking
Meghan gave two great tips that will help anyone - not just HR leaders - become an effective online presenter:
Spend time thinking about your audience - It can be difficult to put yourself in the place of your audience, but it’s necessary in order to help you craft a presentation that they will listen to and take action on. This is where surveys, questionnaires, and yes, even some good old-fashioned phone calls to find out what your audience needs and wants are in order.
Rehearse aloud and record yourself - The camera is your friend; recording yourself giving your presentation can help you discover where your energy is ebbing, as well as whether you’ve got enough time to convey all the information you need to. Three times out loud is the charm, according to Meghan.
Incorporating these two tips into your speaking strategy will give you the confidence and energy to connect with your audience in an online environment, and if you can speak effectively in a virtual environment, you’ll be able to crush it the next time you speak in person!