"You can be the next Virtual Training Hero" with guest Kassy Laborie

You're listening to TFR, This Feels Right.

All right, welcome to TFR, This Feels Right. I'm your host, Joel Silverstone, and with us is Cassie Laborie. And before we jump in, let's check in and see, and see Cassie, how are you feeling today?

Energized, excited, can't wait.

Oh great, love those words. And those are exactly the words that the show is going to be about because today's show, listeners, this is your mission. Your mission is about creating engagement and stop those boring presentations. And we've got the expert with us today. I'll give you a little bit more about Cassie, but today's show is about being a virtual training hero. How to stop those boring presentations and get interaction, engagement, and we're going to talk a little bit later about this, the joy in these presentations. So with us is, like I said, the expert, Cassie Libori. Now Cassie came from the world of working as a leader at Dale Carnegie, leading virtual training at Microsoft, at WebEx, has worked in Vancouver, San Francisco, now based in Western New York, but she's worked Everywhere. I work with so many different companies and for like close to 20 years is a master virtual classroom trainer. She is pretty much working every single day with different organizations around the world helping trainers to be better. How to create more engagement, how to create better interaction, how to feel more confident and get the results that they're looking for from their people. So before I go any further, Cassie, is this correct? Is this where you're at right now?

It's where I have been probably 24/7 for the last few weeks, and it sounded very nice the way that you put it. So thank you.

Thank you. And if listeners, if this is your first time listening to TFR, well then you're in the right place if you want to be able to learn how to use your communication skills on influencing others without being manipulative. And what that means is we combine speaking to the logic, and the most important part is how do we connect to the emotions so the other person says, yeah, this feels right. So let's jump in with Cassi Laborie. And again, before I forget, if you want to learn more about Cassi Laborie, you can go to cassiconsulting.com, or you could see her virtual training hero tips on LinkedIn. That's one of the things that I loved about you, Cassi, and one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the show. I love what you've done with it. And We'll talk a bit more about that, but first I want to talk a little bit more about your background. Was actually, once upon a time, you were a major in theater. How did this change your life?

I've been outed. Uh, I was one of those kids who didn't know what I wanted to do when I went to university, and I remember back in the day that I went to university, you actually got the application in the mail and needed to fill it out. And I got a flyer for speech and communication. I was just going to major in English and get it over with because I do love to read and I love literature and all of that. So I thought, I'll get a degree in that and then I'll have a degree.

Right.

And so that's what I was prepared to do. And I got that flyer, speech comm, and I filled that out and said, that sounds cool, check. And I ended up getting a degree. Technically, it's in public speaking, speech comm, but then through that, Because I had been in theater and acting all through high school.

Yeah.

I ended up finding a path through the speech comm degree to be able to still do acting and performance. And we called it performance studies, you know, an independent study kind of thing. And so, it really impacted my life so much because it led me to learning and development. And I always— I say this in jest, but I mean it, you know, seriously and with a whole lot of respect. An actor in the business world is a trainer to a certain extent. And I'm very thankful for, for what I learned through that because of being able to be in front of a group of people and lead them through an experience and how important that is. And that's very much connected to what we learned to do in theater.

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people forget about that part that, you know, training isn't just about giving facts and knowledge. It's about bringing it to life. So what I'm hearing you say is that the experience of the theater is Okay, the actor part of it is how can— not that I have to be a good actor, but how can I bring this to life? How can I make it interesting for the people that are taking this in?

And also not to say that teaching something is a performance in and of itself and that it should be, you know, I went to a play. I'm not saying that either. I'm saying there's an element though that we need to recognize, that the element of performance and what that plays in helping people feel comfortable enough That's what I love about your podcast. You know, this feels right. And how do you go about making something feel, you know, right? And, and, and I'm thankful for what I studied through theater and acting and performance to have an understanding of that. And then to be able to then further go into learning design and learning experience design and instructional design and all of that to bring it together. And I feel like it's what's made a difference in my career for me. That I have that foundational experience to begin with, to add to, and now we're gonna learn about this database.

Yeah.

You know, and when people say compliance training is so boring, like, I don't— I can make it not boring. I know how to do it. I love that.

How can I make it not boring? You know, I think we've all been participants in webinars and training sessions, whether they be virtually or live, and we, in the back of our mind going, I'm sure there's a way to make this I'm sure there's a way to bring this to life. And if you're the trainer, to have that perspective and go, okay, you know, yes, they have to learn this. And, and I like this, you talked, we talked about this earlier, how can I bring the joy into this?

Yes, the joy. And so it's beyond fun, like you and I were talking about differentiating between fun and joy, because there is this idea, you even said it, if I make it fun, will it then be perceived as light? Or, you know, not meaningful. And so I've been using joy lately. How can we find joy in this and make meaning from this? You know, like a lot of times people say, well, my topic's boring. Yeah, but, you know, people have entire careers in that. And they have, they have some form of joy or satisfaction or fulfillment within that. And so where is that? And how can we tap into that as we're helping them learn in that moment?

Yeah, yeah. And this is where I think it leads us to this virtual training hero. You know, I go on LinkedIn and I see these, these great posts. You've done a great job of communicating your voice, like you've made it personable. There's a voice that's coming across. And then you've got these great illustrations of the virtual training hero. And now you're leading these sessions on it. And the reaction, I think, has been People are going, oh my God, Cassie understands my world and the challenges I'm dealing with and is making me, giving me the confidence to be the hero of my presentations. So maybe just walk us through this idea of being a virtual training hero, because basically I don't think I've seen that anywhere else where someone says, I'm going to be a virtual training hero.

I'm happy for that on one level. But it came about very Naturally for me, I was reading an article about Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, you know, how you write stories and how you can put together a narrative. And as I was just reading it, which was actually not connected to my work at the time that I was reading the article, as I was reading it, it occurred to me that my work in that process of becoming a virtual trainer, I am on a hero's journey.

Mm-hmm.

Because that, that, that That narrative says we're just normal people who are faced with or presented with a challenge. We must change and we, we must struggle through that change and overcome it. And when we have success, that is how we can be perceived, perceive ourselves as, you know, a hero of sorts, you know, and everyone knows how you feel when you've figured the thing out. You know, especially in learning and development, when we figure out how to do it, it's exciting. It's probably what— why we do what we do to a certain extent. We wanna help others figure out what we figured out or guide them through that.

Yeah.

And so, the hero's journey was just a story I decided I wanted to tell. And it actually happened before the time that we're currently living in where I put together the story of the Virtual Trainer. And it comes from my own experience having traveled that path. And then it also comes from my daily experiences of teaching. And so once I put the path together, then the tips came out of that because the artwork, I had hired a student at a local university here in Rochester to make the images for me. And I love them. And I wanted to use them again. And I said, I'm going to just pop up an image and say, look, this is the virtual training hero and one thing that a hero would do. Because I had just discovered it that day. I had just discovered this is where I can turn that on, you know, as I too continue to learn technology as it changes every day. And I thought that that was just a hero thing that would help people. And so then it just became a thing that I started doing. Oh, look what I learned. This happened. And then I started thinking about other things that I've learned in the past and adding that to things that I was learning on a daily basis. And then it just became fun and this creative outlet for me that continues to happen and I plan to continue to grow.

Yeah, because virtual training is not going anywhere. I mean, it's probably, you know, even when things return to normal, I think people are becoming more comfortable, more used to it. Organizations can see that, okay, we could probably save some money here. So this is going to— this is going to be probably here. So this is why this is really good for people to start using this as an opportunity to practice, to getting more comfortable with this. What I also like about this Virtual Training Hero is that, you know, my experience is that when I've— people in learning departments sometimes can feel anonymous. Or they can feel the pressures of the organization. And so to kind of have this sort of other persona that you could put on— and you talked about the hero's journey. It could be you put on your Rocky persona, or you put on your Luke Skywalker, or what was the one in Kit— what's her name?

Or Katniss?

Katniss. Katniss, yeah. You put on that persona here as I go into this as a place to find confidence and courage To share your message and to bring the joy. Is that right?

I think, yeah, I think there's a thing, you know, honestly, when I first created her name, her name was Virtual Viv. It wasn't meant to be me. And then ultimately, she does end up looking like me. And so maybe today she's more me, but I didn't exactly want her to be me because you're right, you know, sometimes in learning and development, we're in this position where we're trying to tell everyone what to do. And that isn't always a comfortable place and certainly not the way that people like to learn. to have a character or a persona that's saying, hey, look what I learned today. And if you try this, you too could do this and have this type of success. 'Cause that's also part of what I try to post. Like, when I post about a tip, I try to say why it happened, what it is that I did, and what the result was, and what the result may be for you. And then the fourth part of that is I always say, what things are you doing? How did you do it differently, or how might you use it? that I can try to engage in conversation with people as well.

It's this mindset of, of not that I'm rescuing you, but here— I love this— here's something that I can share that's going to be of service to you, that's going to make your life easier. And it kind of makes me think about the fact that, you know, you, you spent a fair amount of time as a leader at Dale Carnegie. And of course, Dale Carnegie wrote, um, over 90 years ago, wrote something, you know, How to Win Friends and Influence People, you know, which is a big theme of this show, is, is kind of is that, how to get to that win-win. So, you know, what did you take from that, that sort of mindset of, you know, winning friends and influencing people that you're taking into helping people now be better at their jobs?

I mean, the basics of Carnegie is so cool. The basics. It's like, I think a big part of me is just naturally the way that Carnegie teaches people to be. But then when I learned that and focused in on that, I realized we can be a little bit more strategic in the approach. And I think the most basic way that I always understand what Carnegie has to say and how much it impacts And why it impacts me is I think about local businesses that I frequent. Like, let's just say a restaurant. Like, I have a favorite restaurant, and we will often go on Friday night to the same place. And I know I should try new places, but I go back to the one that I love, Max's, because they know my order, they know my name, you know, and when we come in, they welcome us by name, they take our coats, they take us to our regular table. And there's something about they have known us and get to know us and have made an effort to do that, and then we keep coming back. And, you know, Carnegie has a whole lot of that. Like, learn more about the person, talk less about yourself, you know, involve people. And the more that you learn about them and get to know about them, the more they want to know you. You don't have to talk about you and your life. It'll come out and it'll— they'll want— I go back there because they know me. And then what happens is I tell the story all the time about them. They never needed to tell me their story because they paid more attention to me and what my needs are and what my interests are. And so I keep going back. And so that's a big thing that has stayed with me from my time at Carnegie and paying attention to that being a specific strategy, if you will, you know, way to interact with people.

Well, you can call it a strategy. You just call it a choice.

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's not exactly a strategy, but like to pay attention to, oh, that is a thing that is just so much nicer. Like, are you a person who talks about yourself all the time and relates everything to you? Or are you a person who asks further questions? Do you have questions about the thing that the other person is sharing? Do you know things about where they've traveled, about their family, if it would be appropriate, about the work that they do? How much did you find out about them?

Listen, the number one thing anybody wants to feel is to feel recognized, heard, valued, validated, seen.

Seen, I know.

And one of your biggest missions right now is about Spreading kindness. And, and that, that is what spreading kindness is. It's not necessarily what you're doing. It's, it's the actions, the choices that you're making about how you decide to interact with people. And if you want to influence someone and you want to, you know, get them to, to maybe, in a learning point, is to maybe learn something or maybe shift a behavior or shift an action, it's important that they feel heard and they feel seen.

Mm-hmm. This plays out in my work all the time because I'm teaching trainers how to be virtual trainers. That's what I do every day. And it's a sensitive thing.

Yeah.

For a lot of reasons. And this is hard to do. This is disrupting lives for people and they don't feel like they're good at it. The way that they've always been doing things is no longer working. And so they don't need me to come in and say that didn't work. They already know that didn't work.

Yeah.

They need me to come in with kindness and understanding that it's really hard and challenging at first. And then I make an effort to note what they did well, always first. And then I'm— it's like, it's kind of classic coaching, right? Note what they did well and then say, what do you think you need to work on or want to work on? How can I help you? And they're always way harder on themselves than I could ever be. They don't, they don't need me to be hard on them. They need me to help them figure out how to feel good about themselves. Because even if a person's no good at it, if I come in and say, wow, you sounded great, your tone is amazing, that alone will change the very next way that they do it. And they'll be that much stronger at clicking on the thing or, you know, leading us through the moment than they were before. It's amazing.

We're always much harder on ourselves. You know, Cassie, I lend you my cell phone. You drop it and you go, I'm so sorry. I'm going, oh, that's okay, it happens. I drop it and I go, what is my major problem?

I have failed in life. I'm the biggest loser that ever existed.

I keep doing this.

I know. It's funny. It's like if I had dropped your phone, you'd be like, no, it's okay.

Yeah, it happens.

We don't do that. We don't extend that kindness to ourselves. Why are we— why? So we don't need anyone else to be additionally mean. We certainly don't.

No. So we're gonna take a break in just a couple minutes with our Improv Your Communication Style, and then after that we're gonna ask you, Cassie, for maybe, you know, 2 or 3 tips that people can start putting into action to be a virtual training hero after the break. But before we get there, you know, because you have been doing this for so, so many years, what's maybe a couple things that still surprise you that people are still maybe struggling with?

Mm-hmm.

Or sort of leading a virtual training session?

The basics continue to surprise me, but I always try to say I won't be surprised by that. But the basics of doing more than just connecting on the audio, that, you know, integrating the chat as a conversation is basic, but it's something that people need to learn. And Using the emoticons like the raise hand and the green check and seeing that as a valid way to communicate still kind of surprises me because it's so— it's very easy to use them, but it does take a big shift. And I guess you could say it still kind of surprises me that that's kind of still happening. But I'm also happy that, you know, we have an opportunity to still learn that and be able to go there. Yeah.

Because, you know, one of the things is, you know, we're not all leading sessions. You know, some of the listeners right now are thinking, well, I'm just a participant. Yeah. So, you know, as you just said, like the emoticons, is this a way for me if I'm a participant in a session maybe to feel more engaged, more part of it? Or I could see that the person leading it is kind of losing the audience.

Yeah, I think you can try. I do think there's a big responsibility on the leader to see more than You know, in our day and age today, there's a lot on the audio and the webcam, and they tend to not see the other things that are here. But you can try. I mean, I will tell you, just even yesterday, my latest hero tip was around the Windows emoji picker, which I did not know was a thing until yesterday. But if you press Windows semicolon on a computer while you're in the chat, it gives you more options. And one of the people that was attending my session yesterday was on the mobile version. So I thought they were doing it just on their phone.

Right.

But it turns out that they were doing this Windows semicolon thing for some reason.

Or—

I know what happened. I'm sorry. The person was doing it from the phone and we were all kind of like, we wish we could send emojis like they could. And the next thing you know, somebody who had been quiet up until then said, oh, just do Windows semicolon. And I hadn't really noticed. We had a lot of people there, but I hadn't really noticed. And all of a sudden she stood out and she taught everybody how to do that. And then our whole session became about sending these different emojis in the chat and expressing ourselves that way. And I have to say that that was 2 attendees that stood up and guided that whole interaction. And so by using the tools in the way that you know how as an attendee, you might be able to capture the attention of your presenter or trainer depending on their level of experience too, because sometimes people put blinders on and they don't see it. So you may be trying to stand out, but they don't know how to See that you're doing that to begin with. But you could at least try.

And I think as a participant, I think it's also knowing that you should have the confidence to put your voice into that chat box. As a participant, you have to take some responsibility and not just be a passenger.

That reminds me, because I was just sharing with you, I was in another session just earlier today. And we did— I did a whole presentation that was somewhat formal. And then we did a networking event where they went into breakouts. When we came back, everyone was really excited and energized. And one man just decided to speak up, and he's just an attendee, you know, and he's, you know, wonderful person. He spoke up and he got all of us to— every single one of us came on camera and he took 2 screenshots, one of us smiling and then one like making a silly face. And he got the whole group to do that. And he was just, you know, an attendee to a webinar with like 75 people in there. And he stood out and now we're connected on LinkedIn and he— I'm telling stories about him, you know. So that happens when you—

it feels right.

Yeah, it felt right.

Yeah, it felt right. Yeah. Yeah, it brings people together and, you know, it lifts the energy in the room. People remember experiences. And so when we think virtually there's no experience, you can make it experiential.

I'm a huge believer in that. I do that every time. I try my hardest, at least.

Well, that's what we'll do. We're going to take the break and then afterwards we'll talk about 2 or 3 tips on how we can make virtual sessions experiential, maybe a bit more interactive. But before we do that, and I'll switch our view here. Here we go. We are going to do what I like to call Improv Improve Your Communication Style. Are you ready for this, Cassie?

I'm ready.

Okay, great. I'll tell you what we're gonna do. We are gonna do a little exercise and this is Cassie, you're the first person I'm going to do this with. Normally we do yes, and, or first word, last word, or we do failure, ta-da. But today I'm doing with you last word, first word. This is a tough one. Last word, first word. So we're going to give a title to the story. We're going to try to stay as close as possible to the, to the story, so not go off track of the story. I'm going to say the first sentence. When I end, the word that I end with— so let's say the word might be pizza— you would then have to start your next sentence with that last word being pizza. And then if your last word is then New York, then my first word would be New York in my sentence. Does that make sense?

It does.

Okay, great. I'm going to give us a title to the story. And since our theme today is about being the hero Our story will be today is, I am nervous about doing this presentation. I'm nervous about doing this presentation. That's the title for the story. All right, I'm going to say the first sentence. Get ready to hear for the last word because that'll be your first word.

Here we go.

Oh boy, the, the boss is going to be on the Zoom call today and I don't feel prepared.

Prepared. Gosh, the last time I think I was prepared for anything was— I can't even recall. Boy, take me back to high school.

High school. You know, you think I would have learned something from then to, you know, to put some time and energy and not just, you know, cram and wing it. I really, I really have to learn about myself.

Myself. That reminds me of how I wish I could write a poem, but yet I'm not good at that at all. And so it's a good thing I didn't major in English. And all of this is exactly what happens to me when I'm nervous about to give a presentation. I start creating So much confusion.

Confusion. Okay, I better, I better take a couple of breaths before I do this presentation. And scene!

Vroom! Boom! You did it!

Congratulations!

Thank you. Did it make any sense? It did.

You, you, you— I could see the wheels turning. You're like, okay, I'm going a little off track with the poem. Let me bring it back to the story. Good for you. Good for you. How did you feel?

I felt nervous about the presentation. But you know what? When I was in that myself moment, because I didn't know where to go with that, I really like the analogy of, you know, you can be in conversations with people and how do you get it back on track? Like, how do you just stop? Because how many webinars, how many meetings just go on and on about whatever? And I was like, what he said the title was confusion. I'm nervous, nervous about presenting. Let me bring it back. Let me bring it back. You know? And so this active effort. To stay focused. I like how that exercise brings that up.

That's a great example because that's, that's really about, you know, again, why am I, why am I doing this webinar? Why am I doing this training? Right. The title was nervous about presenting. So when I go off topic, remember my, my purpose. My, you know, why, why is everybody here? Why should everybody care? And they want to know.

Yeah. I mean, there certainly was an element of how am I going to end this so I give them a good word? You know, there was an element of that. Which actually, what a beautiful thing, right? If you think about it, because I'm thinking actively as I'm trying to communicate on how I can set it up so that you can as well. And I know that's what you intend with that kind of activity. Yeah.

And then sometimes you just go, okay, you know, what can I do? This is the last word I ended on. But you are, you're trying to keep the collaboration going with this, which is how can I not, you know, throw you under the bus? Very difficult word maybe to, uh, uh, to start with.

Yeah, yeah, it's powerful. I love it.

Well, again, bringing our beginning back, you brought your theater experience back. So, so Cassie, let's, you know, so this is an example. We just did some interactive, we just did some engagement. Um, you know, what are maybe, you know, a couple of takeaways about how, uh, To be the virtual training hero, maybe 2 or 3 ideas on what people can do to create more interactive or more engagement.

Okay. Yep. I love this. The technology's first. I think people are pretty stressed about how it works, how to use it. And I understand you got to get over it. And so you got to learn the tech. And the best way to learn your platform, no matter what you're using, is to open up a session and log in a second computer as an attendee. And then you can see how you're torturing your attendees. Importantly, you can see what it looks like for them and you don't have to wonder what is— what does it look like for them. And that will help you learn the tech. And then you got to click through everything as you're learning it. And the more confident that you are with the technology, the better presenter you'll be. And the analogy to this is if you were teaching or delivering training in a conference room, imagine if you didn't know what a table was used for or what a podium was or what a chair was. If you didn't know what those things were, you would lack credibility as a speaker. And it would also affect your own messaging. And so think about the Zoom, the WebEx, the Adobe, the Teams as the physical space and the room that you need to learn to manage and master. And so get over it, get in there, get in there, get a— call a friend, get a second computer in and click on every single thing so you can make sense of it for yourself first. That's the first thing.

That's great. And you know, Cassie, what's good about that is, you know, As you say, you know, learn what a table, what a chair is, and we just go, I know what a table, what a chair is. But when you— but do you really? Like, you know, if you actually— a bit of mindfulness here. If you actually look at that, you know, don't assume you know the technology. You know, look at it, play with it again, make sure you really do understand how to use that.

And don't like ignore it. Like a lot of people tell me, I turn off the chat because it's distracting me. And I'm like, that would be the same as asking all the people To not move or, or look at you or be part of anything that you're doing. You are missing out on so much opportunity for communication and reading your audience by simply saying chat is distracting me.

Oh, I, you know, chat, you know, drives me up the wall when someone says let's, let's, let's focus on the presenter and let's not do the chat because chat is what's going to keep people engaged and not, and not go on to Facebook or whatever.

And what's— what keeps me engaged as a presenter, what you say in that chat gives me what you are reacting to and helps me to form what I now next say.

Yeah.

And I get to now personalize how I speak to you. I get to say, Joel, that is such a good point. Everybody look at what Joel just said in the chat. Who can relate? Oh, the entire audience just related to you, Joel. Thank you. So let's talk about how we deal with the challenges That he mentioned. That kind of thing. I just made that whole thing up. But you mentioning some kind of problem that you were having, let me personalize the presentation, which that alone will engage you in listening further. And there'll be an element of, ooh, she noticed mine, right?

It's like your analogy earlier about going to your favorite restaurant and you're asking questions.

The feels.

It feels right. And people want to feel heard. They want to feel understood. And you prepared this session before you met the participants. So now that the participants are in, it's real and it's happening. So if you're allowing them to say what they're thinking and feeling, then you can now really adapt in real time to what is important to them, what they actually need.

Yeah, because I always feel like I don't get to do this work if I don't have participants. I don't get to have my job if your attendees— if I don't have attendees here who want to learn from me. And so I have this idea and this experience that I like to present, and it comes from my personal experience, but that does not mean that that's your experience. And so how do I bring it together? Well, I have to let you be part of it. And I have to use the chat, the polling, the breakout, the feedback, the audio, the webcam, all of them, the annotation tools, everything I can to allow you to be part of it, to tell me how you're responding, how you're reacting, what you're taking away from it. So I can then tailor my messaging to meet you where you are. And we can create something new together, perhaps. So the tech is first, though, to be able to do all that, I have to learn the tech. So I'm not nervous. About that. And, and so that's my very first tip. And it's probably, you know, the biggest one and where everybody's going to start. Because don't think that you can just click the link and then go in there and be on camera and do your normal slides because then people aren't listening to you.

Well, there's 2 tips in here. One is, one is the tech, really get to know. And the second one is the chat is— chat is your friend. Don't think of it as the enemy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the tools are your friend. And then the second thing, if I can get to it, because I'm so excited. Let's be honest. When I have taught in person, I didn't build that room. I didn't lay the groundwork or the foundation for that building. I didn't do the electricity. I don't do it. I show up and I teach. And there's a bunch of people around me that did all the rest. So, why in the world would I have to deliver my webinar or my virtual training by myself? Get a producer. And this is my second— my second book is coming out in January of 2021. And it's on The production tasks and the role of the producer. And, you know, we're blaming trainers and presenters for being very bad at this. But at the same time, we're making them like build the room, manage the room, take care of the room, and know all the content and connect all the meaning with all the participants. It's too much.

I'm exhausted.

You're totally exhausted even me saying it. So get a partner. Get some people to help you manage. You know, even today when I delivered a session, we had like 75 people in there and I wanted to do breakouts. I could have made all of you wait while I set them all up. But it's not exactly engaging for you to do that. And now I know how to do it because I'm really technical and I know it. But most people don't. And so it's just a— it's more than a best practice. You know, I think it's a must.

Right.

I had the producer set up the room so I could say, guys, let's focus on the networking that we're going to do. And I set them up on the meaning and the purpose. And then I could say to my producer, let's put them in their groups now. Thank you for helping me.

Yeah, you know, this is like getting away. This is like going to a wedding and it's your and one. So the producer is, you're not going alone to that wedding. It's an and one always.

That's right. That's right. Yeah, so the producer and like considering the producer as a luxury is a mistake. It is not a luxury. And there's different ways you can have producers. We could do a whole nother podcast on that, but it can be done. Get some help. And then I have one more for you if you're ready. Tell me when. Yeah, go.

Yeah.

Okay. And then this, this is my mantra. This is Cassie's mantra right here. You know, once I've learned the tech and I'm rocking it, you know, I've got some help. I could still fall into lecture mode, the world according to me. I mean, we all can. So I have a mantra. Whenever I put my training together, my presentations together, I always go back over them more than once. And my mantra is, what did I just say that I could have let you say? What did I do that I could have let you do?

Love it.

And sometimes it's like, darn it, you know, sometimes I go back and I look at what I just delivered and I thought, oh, I could have let them talk through that instead of me explaining that whole thing, you know, where can I do that? And so it's a process, it's a learning journey for me too. But really, I try to live by that and I try to do that because, you know, Yeah, you love it, you love it. You had your immediate reaction to it.

So because that's a tip for life in general, it's going back to your restaurant analogy, is like, I could talk about myself till the cows come home, but you know, where's an opportunity here to take a pause and let the other person speak? And as you're saying, is instead of me telling you, where's this— is this a place that That could be a question. Is this maybe to ask— maybe ask someone in the room, do they have an example of that before giving an example?

Always. And like the way this plays out, here's a classic one that everyone can implement right now. Pull up your bulleted list of your thing that you're teaching. Here's the 5 things. Like, here's an example. I do this all the time. I've got 5 leading practices for looking great on webcam. So I come to the slide. It's got 5 little bullets on it. And a nice image. And I go, you know what, we all want to look great on webcam. So I set it up. We all want to look great. Who wants to not look great? So what do we do? And so I've done some research, and these are the 5 that resonate with me. Take a moment to read these 5. And when you're done reading, click on the green check from your feedback panel. And then I mute myself. I let them read. It's quiet in my training in that moment. They read it, they read it. I wait for about 75% of those green checks to appear on the participant panel. Another feature that's totally amazing. And then when I see that most people have read it, I've left space on my PowerPoint slide for there to be room for people to draw their name or type their name next to it. And I go, all right, what does everyone think of these 5? They resonated with me, but what do you think? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you have stories? Who's got examples? What do you want to talk about? Let's make sense of these for you. Type your name next to any that you'd like to discuss, and perhaps you've got a question on any one of them. And the next thing you know, I'm like, I got to catch my time because now we're on this 5-point bulleted list for 20 minutes, right? But it's highly interactive. People are sharing stories. Sometimes people don't understand it. And you can see where it goes from there and how powerful it is. We're using audio, we're using webcam, we're using share screen, we're using feedback, and we're using annotation tools. All the tools. But the main thing is them sharing and then making sense of it because I could just lecture it. I could say these are the 5 tips. And here's why. What questions do you have? Crickets. Great. Let's move on. That's the typical training. And so now we've just broken that.

Right.

So let them decide. Let them read it. You don't have to read it to them. They always read faster than you can.

Yes.

And then let them decide what they want to talk about and how.

You know, it is. It is. Again, people want to feel heard. They want to feel engaged. And this is so important if you're leading, but also just if you want to influence anyone to feel part of a conversation, to feel engaged. Is don't just give answers, don't just give solutions. Ask them what do they think. Even with just that simple question, what do you think?

And then respond to it too. Like when they do respond, make sure not to go, great, thanks for your idea, Joel. You know, you have to be like, okay, and listen to them. That's a whole nother, again, a whole nother podcast on listening, right?

We've opened a lot of things here, but these are 3 gates here. 3 great tips. Sorry. Because it is, you know, get to know the technology. As you said, don't just assume you know how the table works. Really get to know how the technology works. Play around with it. Feel comfortable. Chat box is your friend. Use that and how to adapt in the moment to what people need. The other one, of course, was the producer is your friend. It's not a luxury. It's a must because it's going to make a much better and smoother experience. You're going to be a lot less stressed as a trainer. As a presenter because, you know, someone is helping you, assisting you with that. And then the final one is when there's an opportunity to ask, don't tell.

Right. Yeah. What did I just say or do that I could have let you say or do? When can I give it back to you and make it your experience? And I'm guiding you through it. I'm sharing what I have learned, you know, having gone before. But you're going to create your own world in your own way. And that has— I think that needs and deserves to be honored and recognized.

Absolutely. Cassie, this has been fantastic. Before we end this, you know, I mentioned your website at the beginning, but one more time, Cassie, where can we find out more about you?

Yeah, yeah, my website's a great place. Just Cassie Consulting, as you mentioned, and also LinkedIn. And you can find me just Cassie Libori. On LinkedIn too. And I would say that those are the primary places that you can catch me because usually I'm live online like this. And so my phone isn't ever answered. But online, I'm quite available.

We're not going to call you, but we can— but yeah, I mean, you know, we can see you're presenting at a lot of different conferences online. And obviously, if we get connected on LinkedIn, I'll be able to be up to date as to where to find your next webinar or your next presentation. And most importantly, on LinkedIn, you know, what drew me to you was those Virtual Training Hero tips on a daily basis. I, I love them and I learn something every day when I, when I look at them. So those are great.

That's great. Well, thank you. I'm so glad that you're enjoying them and I'm gonna continue to create them so we can have a lot of fun with them.

Power up!

I know, right? Power up.

Cassie, thank you so much. This has been great. I'm Joel Silverstone. This has been This Feels Right and we will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. And if this felt right and you would like to see this interview, then come on over to our YouTube page at youtube.com/thisfeelsrightpodcast. Or join the conversation with our Facebook group at facebook.com/thisfeelsrightpodcast. Or if you just want more influencing tips and communication skills, then please connect with me on LinkedIn, Joel Silverstone. Or come on over to Silverstone Communications at www.joelsilverstone.com. I look forward to connecting with you.