401(k) Specialist Issue 1 - 2021 - 44

401(k) KOACHES KORNER
Lights, Camera, Action! The Dos and Don'ts
of Virtual Presentations
By Randy Fuss
I CONSIDER MYSELF an accomplished
speaker in front of audiences big and small,
but that was before I experienced stage
fright last year.
As 2020 was kicking off, the calendar
was chock full of national and regional
retirement plan industry conferences, most
of which I would be presenting at on stage
in a breakout or general session. But as the
pandemic took hold, all these events were
cancelled and, in their place, came a wave
of virtual meetings where the stage now
became a room in my house. No problem,
as I considered myself an experienced webinar
speaker as well, except for one small
detail - I had never turned on the webcam
before.
Like most of my public speaking peers,
webinars for years have been conducted
primarily with a conference call and
a PowerPoint deck. A new expectation
emerged last year for speaking professionals
that these virtual meetings now needed
to include a camera. Certainly, financial
advisors are doing more Zoom or WebEx
meetings with plan sponsors, and a best
practice is that they should add the webcam
in order to increase engagement and
connectedness.
So, I stepped out of my comfort zone and
started presenting with the webcam on, but
quickly realized a unique set of challenges
speaking to a small dot on my computer
versus a live audience. What does it take to
be good (or bad) in front of a camera? What
other elements make for an effective virtual
meeting?
After extensive research on the topic
and some trial and error, I have developed
some best practices that advisors can use
to raise their performance in virtual interactions
with plan sponsors. It starts with
viewing your workspace as a studio and, if
42
ISSUE 1 2021 | 401kSpecialist.com
Halo lighting
systems are an
effective way to
adjust lighting and
light color in front
of you.
necessary, making a small investment into
some specific AV equipment. Like a director
filming, I refer to these best practices as:
Lights, Camera, Sound, Action!
Starting with lighting, attendees have all
experienced the extremes. The bright window
in the background making the shadowy
presenter appear to be in the witness
protection program. The presenter with
a brightly lit face and a dark background
looking more like kid in a dark closet with
a flashlight on their face. The solution
requires balance and adjustments.
Certainly, more lights and all windows
need to be in front of you, but you still need
some lighting behind as well. Dimmers are
key, as are shades. Being able to adjust
lighting allows you to experiment until
you find the proper balance. Halo lighting
systems are an effective way to adjust
lighting and light color in front of you. They
have been flying off the shelves ever since
the pandemic took hold and everyone was
forced into a home office.
Webcams can pose some challenges as
well. We have all been on a recent webinar
where the presenter's appearance is a
grainy resolution that looks like a TV show
from the 1960s. Or how about the constant
freezing of the live action? There may be
some Wi-Fi bandwidth issues, but more
times than not the culprit is your computer's
webcam, which was never intended for
movie production, let alone a high-quality
advisor virtual presentation.
To make matters worse, most presenters
are looking down at their webcam, which
really highlights the extra chin or two. The
answer almost universally is an external
webcam. Like halo lights, they will set you
back a small amount, not a small fortune.
Not only will the video quality be dramatically
better, but it can be positioned at eye
level, which is where it needs to be. Now
you can look directly into the birdie and
present like a pro!
The visuals are not the only challenge;
there can be sound issues as well. The
presenter whose voice is garbled. The voice
that suddenly goes silent mid-sentence but
then returns five seconds later. What gives?
Many times, the culprit is the microphone,
which, like your computer's webcam, was
never designed to produce top notch quality.
An external microphone or even a sound
" puck " can be plugged into a USB port that
should take care of the problem.
Another school of thought for audio is
the importance of " uncoupling " sound
from the webinar, and involves dialing
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401(k) Specialist Issue 1 - 2021

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