Matt Ryder and James cover the basics of looking and sounding professional on Zoom sales calls: lighting, background, microphone quality, and headphones. Small setup changes can make the difference between amateur and polished.
The work environment. And another fact is it's professionalism, right? It looks very professional. I review a lot of calls, coach a lot of people, and there's so many things that they do, particularly when they're selling on zoom, that leads to such an unprofessional look, which triggers sales resistance.
Dogs in the background. Shit.
Yeah. Just ridiculous, right? But like one is like terrible lighting. You know, turn a light on or don't stand in front or sit right behind where there's a big light behind. And every time you move your head, you see the light come in. I was reviewing a call today with Marco and then I reviewed Marco's call and this guy like kept moving his head. And every time he did, it's like blinding my eye and distracting.
Super distracting.
Cannot pay attention. Or people where you've got like right next to a mirror. I've got a little bit of that now. Not gonna do anything to Change that. It's 1%. But if that was a, you know, far brighter light and half my face is like hammered with light. The other half is dark. You know, it looks like Twilight Zone. That's unprofessional. And then get a good quality headset and a good quality microphone.
Yeah, your audio is so important. So important.
I zone out when I.
For example, like, this microphone is probably like 150 bucks. James's microphone was like a hundred bucks. This is like a $300 arm. But James is just a cheap one from Amazon. It was like 22 bucks. I've got one of these waiting for him. Office. But the reason why I need this arm is because I got this microphone. This microphone is a very good microphone. It's very heavy. But that microphone, like you can get good quality like microphones. These were like a USB condenser mic or something like that. These headphones, these are pretty expensive. These were like 5, 600 bucks. But like, you don't need these. You can just get like any studio headphone. Studio headphones are really cheap actually. So funny thing about headphones is these, these headphones fix audio. Like good quality headphones fix audio. So like, it will fix the signal. But studio headphones don't do that. That's why studio headphones are really cheap. Just the ones that you plug straight in because they don't fix any audio. So if you want to hear your actual audio, do that. But anyway, I think there's a couple of things that actually closers can do to set themselves apart and look more professional. One of the things that really helped me was Having the Hustle sign in the background, it became somewhat iconic. Iconic. That's a super douchey way. But it's memorable, right, to always have something in the background. Like, so if you do go next level, like, you can get things that kind of blur your background a little bit. That definitely makes it look professional. I'm not using my camera setup today because it's already packed away. And I. So I've just got like, my webcam. This Webcam was like 100 bucks. I think it was like 80 bucks. It's a 1080p webcam. You can buy 4K webcams. They're so easy. Then you can go on YouTube. You can just get a ring light for 20 bucks. The ring light will just light your face nicely. I don't need to here because I got a window right there. Yeah. Like, there are so many things that you can do. Just like, I think selling through Zoom, this is what I really. I'm talking about, because selling through zoom is so much more effective. But even when I wasn't selling on Zoom, I still used a mic because I would use Close IO or even if I was using Go High level, if I was using whatever HubSpot, I would still use that. And I want to be able to dial through my computer. And there's a couple reasons for that. One, because I want to be able to separate myself from work. So having everything on my phone. This is my personal phone. Like, there's only a few guys that have this number. Ben's got it, James has got it, Marco's got it. It's pretty much it. I've got Facebook and stuff like that. But, like, no one's really got that number, so people aren't going to bother me. One of the worst things that you can get as a salesperson is like, everything's being run off your phone. So you've got your emails, your text, your number. Everything is there. You go out on a Saturday night, you're with your family, see two deals fall through on a Saturday night, ruins your night, and there's nothing you can do about it. And that used to happen to me all the time. And that's when I got alternate phones and different phone numbers. And that's kind of when I migrated everything over to Close IO. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to do everything on the computer. Everything prospect driven, I'll do on the computer. It's more productive workflow anyway. And then it separates me from. Because I can't fix anything at 5 o' clock on a Friday. I just can't fix it. I don't even want to know about it. I'd rather figure out. Rather log in on Monday and go, ah, you know, like, it is what it is.
I had a call, this guy called DMs me. You listen to this call. That's a whole nother story, right? That calls me on. On Facebook Messenger. I was like, mate, I can't understand a word you're saying. Like, get some good audio. Be in an area where you have reception. If that's what you're going.
Zoom, you weirdo. Just send a zoom link through.
I took the next. I asked the dude to jump on zoom. I go, your audio is trash. Let's do. He put a zoom in the invitation, updated it and still didn't want to do that. He goes, I can call you through here. I might just jump on the zoom because it has good quality. I'll be able to hear what you're saying. We can look at each other. But you're the sales guy trying to sell me and you've got this shitty audio. You're calling through Facebook messenger, which is you trash at the best of times. Because it's not a phone. It's not something designed at the highest.
Not a good quality audio.
I'm just like, what are you doing? You're making yourself look like an idiot. I spend a good on an hour call. If I'm spending 10, 15 minutes of that saying, sorry, can you repeat that? I didn't. I missed that. Can you say that again? You've wasted 15 minutes and you've put me in a state where it's pissing me off and I'm far less likely to respond to you. And like, man, like, just audio quality for a call to have a clean, crisp conversation makes the flow so much better.
Coffees for closers only.
