Marisa Huston  0:02  
Welcome to Episode 86 on the Live Blissed Out podcast. Did you know that it takes two seconds to make a first impression, and it is accurate 76% of the time? Hello, action taker. Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have inspirational and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help you get the scoop on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping you achieve bliss through awareness and action. So let's get to it. Joining us is Amy Reczek, founder of Sales & Presence. Amy is a Denver based corporate sales trainer and professional image consultant. She founded Sales and Presence after 17 years as a high level senior sales executive and corporate sales. During this time, she earned countless awards, and was ranked within the top 10 National Sales executives within the mortgage industry every year. Through her experience, Amy gained a wealth of practical knowledge, insight and effective sales strategies. Now she shares her knowledge with individuals, teams and companies to help them transform their communication, improve their sales and level up their careers. To learn more visit www.salesandpresence.com. The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only. And any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. Amy, it's great to have you here today.

Amy Reczek  1:44  
It's great to be here. Thank you.

Marisa Huston  1:45  
We're gonna have a fun conversation about something that I think is going to definitely resonate with a lot of our listeners. So tell us what we're going to be talking about and why it matters to them.

Amy Reczek  1:57  
Yeah! So today's situation with virtual environment and meeting after meeting virtually, how we make an impact matters. If we're Zoomed out, which we all are, how do we not be zoomed out these days? Engagements really important. So how do we level up that engagement and really drive our behavior that creates that revenue that we're looking for in business? And then really talking around the technology around that and why it matters to have the right setup and the right technology and the knowledge behind it to make you stand out.

Marisa Huston  2:29  
You are so spot on. You know, just last week, I got three people reach out to me. And every single one of them said, can we just talk on the phone because I can't do another Zoom? 

Amy Reczek  2:41  
Yes.

Marisa Huston  2:41  
And I thought that was so funny. Because pre-pandemic, Amy, I was begging people to Zoom with me and they thought there's no way I'm going to Zoom. It's too impersonal. And now we're going back to old school, people want to talk on the phone because they're so tired of video.

Amy Reczek  2:59  
Yes, you hit the nail on the head there. You know, a year ago, we all got on board with a virtual environment because we had to. Everyone's lives changed overnight. And we had to do that. And we had to be engaging in a way with people where we couldn't anymore face to face. And so we all just did that. We logged on and we kind of were winging everything that we were doing. A year later now, if we're still winging it, we don't know our technology and we don't know how to work our technology, it actually is hindering our business. We need to be looking at that as we look at things like preparing for a meeting. We would outline a meeting just like we would in person, we need to be doing that with our technology now to make sure that that's working for us and not hindering us.

Marisa Huston  3:44  
And that is a key word, working. Everybody now has figured out that they need to get online. Because really, it's the only way we can engage anymore. So now the noise is louder. Everybody's on and what happens is there's this misconception that if I'm on there, no matter what I say or do as long as I show my face, I'm going to attract people. And that's not necessarily the case. People want value. They want to get something out of that visual that they see online. And if you're just talking about how are you, that's just not going to cut it anymore. It did in the past, because there wasn't a lot of noise and you were different because people weren't really using technology. But now everybody's on it.

Amy Reczek  4:25  
Yes. And everyone was in the same tribe and in the same boat in March, April, May of last year to where it was okay to be in a t-shirt and have all these things going on and maybe cooking dinner while you're in this meeting and those types of things. But now it's advanced to where we've moved quickly out of that and we need to bring the business aspect and the professionalism back into that. You know, there's a great quote by Walt Whitman that says we convince by our presence, and we completely do. Up to 92% of how we communicate is nonverbal. And this transfers over into virtual as well. So making sure that we are engaged and we have our setup, right and we are mindful of the way we look and the way we're presenting is vital to our business.

Marisa Huston  5:12  
I can't tell you how many times I see people on Zoom, their backgrounds are really weird or you can even see them like they're on the side, or maybe their heads are getting cut off. They're eating while they're having a meeting. And I think what makes Zoom so different, Amy, and you can tell me if I'm off here, is that when we are live in a presentation, we're generally all looking at the presenter. But with Zoom, even if the presenters there, we're looking at each other. 

Amy Reczek  5:40  
Yes.

Marisa Huston  5:41  
And it's constant. So every move you make stands out. And many times people even forget to mute themselves and then when they move or make a noise they appear. 

Amy Reczek  5:50  
Yes. They're the focal point. Yes!  I think there is a statistic that just came out that you know, we are all Zoomed out and there's ways now to work around that. One of those things to not be so Zoomed out is the fact that we are looking at all these faces now. And we're not used to doing that on a psychology level that drains us immensely. Also, we're not used to looking at ourselves constantly. That kind of old adage of where you know, walk by a mirror you look at yourself. So when you're seeing yourself on camera, you're constantly looking at yourself. It's a human thing that we do, but it is also draining to us. A way to kind of combat that Zoom fatigue is to make sure that you hide your video for yourself so other people can still see you. The way you do that is you just right click on that video of you. And then hide self view is the thing that you're going to click on. And it takes you out of view. So you're not focused on yourself, but other people can still see you and engage in you. So you're not cutting people off visually but you're making space for your mind a little bit.

Marisa Huston  6:54  
You know, I didn't even know that existed in there. 

Amy Reczek  6:57  
Yeah.

Marisa Huston  6:57  
I'm gonna use that now. 

Amy Reczek  6:58  
The other tip, I'll tell you because you brought up mute. One of the technology things that we really need to do now is most of us are using Zoom, but whatever platform you're using, go in at least every other month and see what's going on with that technology because they're moving fast as well and upgrading things as things go on. So you want to make sure that you are doing the upgrades that they're doing and making sure that you're aware of all the technology that's going on. And one of the things that Zoom just did, they came out with an upgraded system for mute. Because I don't know about all of you, but I still have trouble finding my mute/unmute button. 

Marisa Huston  7:31  
Yes.

Amy Reczek  7:33  
And I don't know why because I know where it is. But all of a sudden, if someone asked me a question, I freeze, and I have this anxiety about unmuting myself. So one of the tips for that is that you just hold your spacebar down now and it will unmute you to speak. And then when you lift it back up, it auto mutes you, again. It makes your life easier on these Zooms, that's what this is all about with that Zoom fatigue, but it also is leveling you up in a professional way. If you think about all the people on Zooms that you see every day, and the issues that you're seeing with them on Zoom, if you can move some of those out of the way for yourself, you're gonna be in that 2% range of people who want to talk to you and want to do business with you because you bring that professionalism to the table.

Marisa Huston  8:13  
I have two questions that I know get brought up a lot when it comes to Zoom. One is, how important is a background? And the second is, let's say somebody is doing a presentation and you know that presentation is going to last 20 minutes or so, is it okay to turn off your video so that you don't have to necessarily have this fake smile put on for 20 minutes while you're listening to the presentation?

Amy Reczek  8:39  
Yeah, so I'll expand on background a little bit. The three main components that you want to make sure you have really set are your background, your lighting, and your microphone. Your camera on your laptop or your computer is pretty decent for what are we do day to day, you can level that up as well if you want if you're doing a lot of presentations or speaking engagements. So your background needs to be really neutral. So if it's distracting, it's going to distract away from you. And that's something we don't ever want to do. We want that focal point to be you.  So it needs to be neutral, non busy things that are going to be drawn to the eye or people questioning about things. So keeping it pretty neutral, keeping it a little bit personal if you want. So like for me, for example, I have a little statue of presence because I do a lot of nonverbal training. And then I have my book up. But then I have some artwork that's very neutral and abstract. And that's it. Your lighting, you want to make sure that it's forward on your face and not coming from behind you. If it comes from behind you it's gonna make you look really dark and kind of just this big blob. One of the tips on that is you can go to Amazon and Google within Amazon halo light and it's just a little light that clips to your laptop. It also can clip to your phone if you want. $16 that solves your problem for lighting. And then your microphone, you want to level up on your microphone because your microphone on your laptop actually makes you sound like you're in a tunnel, very echoey. So doing some sort of different microphone setup is really good as well. You can do your iPods. One of the things with iPods, though, sometimes if you have those ones that come with your phone that have the cords to them, that can look a little bit unprofessional. So we want to take those cords out as well.

Marisa Huston  10:18  
I can't tell you how many times I'm in a meeting, and I can barely see the person because they look like they're in a cave. It's so dark in there, they just don't make any adjustments to help you see them better and you almost feel like you're talking to a blank page because you can't even see their face.

Amy Reczek  10:34  
What we need to start thinking about within a virtual environment and meetings is that we need to put ourselves in an actual live meeting. So we need to come to that meeting, no different than we would in a live meeting. And that will help all of these things for you to recognize immediately. Oh my gosh, they can't see me, I need to do something about this, or my background is very distracting, and it's taking away from me in the value add that I have. Those are some of the things that we really need to start being highly aware of. And then your question on between presentations and shutting your video off, that is definitely okay. What you want to do is make sure that you have a picture in your setup for Zoom or whatever type of virtual environment you're in. So when you do shut off your camera, your picture comes up, because that's still a psychological thing for us to view people also. The thing is with that is that we don't want to shut that off, and then literally walk away. These are very isolating times with virtual. So when you have a presenter, the presenter is trying to bring that engagement, you want to be part of that person that helps with that engagement for that presenter or that speaker. So keeping in mind that if you do shut off that video, some of the ways you can engage is through chat, or those reaction buttons that are in Zoom. You want to use those intermittently to let that person know that you're there and you're engaged.

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Marisa Huston  12:20  
That's a very good point. I'm in meetings where several people turn off their video and it's a black screen. The name is the only thing that shows up and you're absolutely right, psychologically, you feel like they're not there.

Amy Reczek  12:33  
Or you feel like you're just presenting to your wall. It's very isolating. I know that that sounds like it's helping the presenter which it is, but it's helping you in the long run with that engagement part of things. And you're going to get noticed because of that.

Marisa Huston  12:45  
Amy, now that we got Zoom laid out there, we have the basics of Zoom, what do you say about the noise that is taking place on social media today where everybody is just getting on at all hours? And I can tell you, I feel a little overwhelmed because every time I get on there, somebody's doing a live, there's somebody doing a quick video, and there's just so much information, you don't even know what to look at anymore. What are some tips there in terms of what we should be focusing on when we do set up some sort of live event in one of these social media platforms?

Amy Reczek  13:18  
Yeah. So I think for just engaging in content first, one of the things to keep in mind is your mindset. Where are you? Are you going down a rabbit hole of just constantly being on, constantly scrolling through things, constantly jumping on people's lives? Is that really helping you advance or giving you tools that are really helping you? Or is it draining you. And then when you actually get on virtual meetings, business meetings, you're completely wiped, because that's all you've been doing. That's something we need to be highly aware of just to protect our mindset and our health. And then that goes into when you are presenting or when you do have things coming up? Is it impactful and is it valuable to people? Is it something that people want to hear about or are you getting on for yourself? If you're just getting on for yourself because you feel like you need to be out there, you're probably not really working it to your advantage or what it's meant to be for. So pulling that back and making sure that that content is really of value and you're bringing something to the table for your listeners and not something for you.

Marisa Huston  14:21  
You're changing your mindset. It's not about you, it's about them.

Amy Reczek  14:25  
100%. I mean, that is a business concept through and through. We can talk about that with managers with their teams, we can talk about that with sales people with our clients. It is always about them.  The things that you're bringing to the table is a value to them. It is not something that's lifting you up, but it's something that you can bring the value to them and then in turn, that's when you get all these people that are following you or people that think you are the one that they want to turn to which is amazing, but it starts with them. It starts with really bringing that value add to them.

Marisa Huston  14:55  
I imagine it like if you were invited to a party and there's a lot of people in there all having a good time. And then you spend the majority of the time talking about yourself. What you want to do is build relationships. Ask people about what they want and talk about things that matter to them. So it's no different online. But I think that we tend to forget that.

Amy Reczek  15:15  
We do tend to forget that. We also feel safer online. We feel a little bit more protected and not as vulnerable. When you have these networking events or things going on online, it's easier for people to jump on there, where some of those people would never go to a live group setting. Because we feel like we're a little bit protected. So again, that goes back to that mindset of thinking that you were in a live setting meeting. Making sure that you're doing the steps to present yourself in the best light and the best way, and knowing that some of the things that you're doing on virtual if you're doing those, and you would never do that, in an in person meeting, don't do those on virtual, Making sure that those are equal.

Marisa Huston  15:53  
Yeah. And it's like not talking at them but having a conversation with them. Isn't the whole point to build community and strengthen relationships, increase trust, and provide value? Those are all things that we hopefully are shooting for when we're doing these activities. You're just talking at them, nobody wants to be preached to.

Amy Reczek  16:13  
Nobody does, right. And, you know, there's a statistic out there that the highest accomplish sellers out there, in any sort of business setting, 85% of them use people skills instead of product. So if we think about that, 85% of successful business people are relationship building, they are not pushing product. That's something we need to change your mindset on. We all have a product that we sell, and we need to be knowledgeable about that and know where that comes into play. But we also always, always, always need to be building those relationships, learning about our clients, learning about what they're doing, what's new to them, what's going on in their life, how we can help them and really raise them up. When I was in corporate selling, one of the things that I really, really honed in on was that I always used to think and say to my clients that I work for you, but my company pays me. So that mindset of I work for my client, I don't work for my company, the company pays me. But if I didn't have the client, I wouldn't have the company. So that shift in mindset of really, that's such a partnership, in bringing that value add. You have something that could help them. So figure out how the best way to influence them and helping them through that journey.

Marisa Huston  17:26  
Oh, my gosh, that is so important. You're absolutely right. And I think it's because we are so used to just buying things, you know? We buy things online and we forget that, especially in the small business world, it works very differently. There's so many choices now for every service that's out there, that in order to really stand out not only do you need to come across as trustworthy and likeable, and all those things, and know your product and how to help them, but people need to feel like they can engage with you and want to be a part of that. Because if they don't, they're going to pick someone else.

Amy Reczek  17:59  
Yes. And one of the things that you can be doing to help with that, and really solidifying those relationships and learning about yourself, and what value you bring to them is quarterly, maybe once a year, twice a year, have a meeting with your current clients and ask them why they still do business with you, not your product, not your company. Ask them why they directly still do business with you as a person. That will give you really good insight to why they stick around, what value add you actually bring to the table for them.

Marisa Huston  18:29  
People are doing things that may not be working to their advantage, because they're not aware. They're not even realizing that these things are impacting them. What are some activities then that we can get our listeners to start applying when they start thinking about how to enhance their methods of getting out there and using technology that will help them do better in the future?

Amy Reczek  18:53  
Yes. So we've talked a little bit about 92% of how we engage in how we communicate is nonverbal. Some of the misconceptions with virtual is that you're on the camera, so you're good, but you are really projecting a lot of communication without saying a word, even virtually. So a couple of things that you can do. We're constantly building trust with our clients, with our co-workers, all of those things. There are some fun, non verbal things that we do to signal trust. So there's three different ones, within our first impression, but then ongoing as well. The first one is your posture. We're sitting all day now in front of these cameras, making sure that your posture is up and back. This is a power pose that we do in this creates engagement with curiosity and confidence. We always want to have that curiosity mindset with our client and then we also want to be confident and that power pose if you will, sitting up straight. What I tell people is always do your Superman/Superwoman pose where you put your hands on your hips, because that will sit you up straight and then that's your pose for the hour of your virtual meeting. You can put your hands down in your lap, but keep that torso up and long. The second one is our hands. are actually our trust factors. So we look at people's hands subconsciously all the time to see if we think that they're going to be a friend or foe. And when we do that, we subconsciously do that within a split second to say I want to work with that person, I think I might trust them, I think I might like them and want to do business with them. So when you log in, the first thing you're going to do always is wave. So when you log in, and your camera comes on wave, smile and wave. You're gonna feel awkward, because I still feel awkward every time I do it. But it really helps with that engagement. Wave when you're leaving as well. Those little emoji buttons that we use too, those reaction buttons help with that also. And then the third one are your eyes, making sure that you have that eye contact through that camera lens. That gaze goes down, and you're looking at all these people, which is okay in some settings. But if you're on a one to one meeting, you want to make sure your eyes are focused there. And if we're struggling with that put a little sticky note by your camera and say, look here or eyes have it here to remind yourself that that's where you need to look.

Marisa Huston  21:00  
That's a big one, Amy. And my trick for that, especially if it's a one on one, because it is awkward. You're talking to somebody face to face, and they're looking to a different direction and vice versa, right? So what I do is I put the little gallery thing right underneath the camera. 

Amy Reczek  21:15  
Yes! 

Marisa Huston  21:16  
So then when I'm looking at them, I can't not look at the camera, because it's right there. And then it causes me to really connect with them. And I think that makes a huge difference.

Amy Reczek  21:25  
It really does. And I know those things sound a bit trivial, and somewhat, maybe aloof, right? So if we start putting those into practice, though, you will notice that that engagement goes up. Really focusing on our body and connecting that with our mindset and what's driving us within this meeting, or this business will really help us connect virtually.

Marisa Huston  21:46  
In terms of first impressions, you know, the old adage, you only get one chance to make a first impression. You've never seen that person before they've never seen you. And now in seconds, you have to make them out, like what am i dealing with here? What are some things we can think about to do the best there in terms of the visual? Because we are not aware that people are negatively being impacted by some of the things that we're doing.

Amy Reczek  22:11  
So all of this virtual also translates to in person. Practice this now so then when you go into in person, it's an automatic thing that you've been practicing. So a couple of the things with that is it only takes two seconds less than two seconds really to make a first impression. And the crazy thing about that is that 76% of the time, that's accurate. 76% of time, we do not change our mind about that person. So it's really to our advantage to use that and be really present with that when we are engaging with people virtually or in person. It's all those things have to do with your body language and what you're projecting with that. Some of the things that I tell people to do with this is, one have a virtual checklist. Have a checklist that you run through every single day, making sure everything is good and set and you are ready for your meeting. So it's not like you're running into your office after you've just had lunch and you just click the on button to your camera. You're prepping like you would an in person meeting. The second one is that the login and testing is key. So if you do have, you know, Zoom, the all these different types of virtual settings that we have now, log in and take the time to see what you look like on camera without having an actual meeting with someone. So you're the only one on the meeting. But then that allows you to get all those settings down and make sure that you're comfortable before a meeting.

Marisa Huston  23:29  
It's happened to me where I've had to set it to a certain microphone, and then I get on and then I realized that they can't hear me because I had to reset it back to the other microphone. And so now, I do exactly that. I go in and test everything before I get on. 

Amy Reczek  23:43  
Yes, I do that before every single meeting. 

Marisa Huston  23:46  
Sometimes it's just the little things the prepping that you do, which we would normally do under other circumstances. But for whatever reason we changed our behavior when it comes to online, because we think it's different. But it really still is relationships.

Amy Reczek  24:00  
It is. And it's that knowledge to doing gap. We have been so trained with relationships and business to do things in person. And now we have a little bit of the knowledge of okay, how should we be doing this? How should we be presenting ourselves? How should we be engaging and doing checkpoints within these virtual meetings to get that engagement up? We know most of that now. But it's that knowledge to doing gap where we find ourselves just defaulting into this comfort zone, which does not expand us in our business. So really starting to put those little doing things into practice.

Marisa Huston  24:31  
We default back to what we're comfortable doing.

Amy Reczek  24:34  
Oh, we do. And the reason why it's comfortable right now is because we were all in it together a year ago. That social setting type of concept where everybody wants to be a part of something even though it was not part of something anybody wanted to be. So we were all in it and we felt like we were in that with people. But now we need to advance that and make sure that we're doing the best practices for ourselves.

Marisa Huston  24:56  
We need to step up our game Amy.

Amy Reczek  24:59  
Yes we do!

Marisa Huston  25:00  
It's awesome. I would like to learn more about what you're up to, how people can get ahold of you and get a better understanding of what you offer. 

Amy Reczek  25:08  
Yes, we can connect through my website. It's just www.salesandpresence.com. And there, they can book a free consult with me. Would love to talk about any of these things, any of the business challenges they might be having virtually or in person. I work with a lot of companies and individuals with that. And then if you connect with me, too, I'll send over that checklist for you to really up your game with your virtual meetings. 

Marisa Huston  25:32  
This has been wonderful, because I think it's going to help our listeners really put their best foot forward. You have to really elevate yourself now because we're not doing the luncheons anymore and the one on ones like we used to. So we've got to use our tools to the best of our ability.

Amy Reczek  25:48  
100% this is just another tool in that toolbox. And it's never going away now. We will be back in person full time. But the concept of virtual meetings will now not go away. That's another tool that we need to put in our tool belt and make sure that we have knowledge around it.

Marisa Huston  26:02  
It's definitely here to stay. And thank you so much, Amy for sharing your knowledge with us.

Amy Reczek  26:08  
Thank you for the time. So glad to be here.

Marisa Huston  26:11  
That's a wrap for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks for listening and thanks to Amy Reczek for joining us on the show. If you have a question or comment for a future episode, all you have to do is go to www.speakpipe.com/lbovm, or click the link in the show notes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show, please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward.