Ep. 69 Virtual Training Mistakes; 9 NO-NOs

Hey there, Mark Brown. I know a lot of presenters also are trainers, and some trainers are also presenters. But what I thought would be really cool is if we sat down with the ultimate trainer, the trainer's trainer, Ed Tate. Let's talk about nine no no's, because the three of us, we run an event all day, two days, and to keep people engaged on a virtual stage is challenging. And we've made some mistakes. We've learned it the hard way. Mark, what do you think?

I am eager to share these nine no nos with one of the best in the business, Ed Tate. Let's do this.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown, Mark Brow.

Your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, Ahas, let's dive right in.

All right, welcome. Ed Tate is in the house. Back again. Hey, welcome in.

Back again before the year's up. All right, cool.

Well, Ed, we have learned so much from you on the training side. It's one thing to give a keynote presentation, but to actually keep people engaged all day and get them to leave different that they've had this experience, they have this new perspective, but not only have they just heard it, they've participated in it. So Mark and I thought it'd be great to just sit down and talk about what we've learned, because when we have an event coming up in January 6th and 7th, mastering virtual presentations. So we thought, you know, what we've talked about in episode 31, if anyone wants to check it out, we talked about some great virtual habits that we've learned, but we haven't talked about the big mistakes and training goes deeper and it's harder to keep people engaged for a whole day. And I even remembered when I came up with the idea originally with you, because you and I used to do train the trainer all day, and I said, we got to bring it over to virtual and we got to have Ed involved. And I remember the first time we did it versus how we've done it now. We've done it like seven times. Five or six or seven times. And it's different than it was because we learned a lot. So, Ed Tate, welcome.

Hey, thanks for having me back. I'm glad to be back in the saddle with the Boys, again.

All right, so nine no nos. Mark, how are you today?

Tell you what, man, I am doing well because I'm in the company of my brothers. And we have an opportunity today to really help our fellow speakers become not only good, not only great, but unforgettable. Let's do it, man.

Yeah, we got nine critical, no nos, and let's just dive right in. So number one, right off being boring, like that's a no brainer. But nobody thinks they're actually boring. Unfortunately, ego gets in the way. We think we're more engaging, we're more fascinating. We use our personality, but we know that it's dulled by virtual. Ed, what are your thoughts on being boring? Because I know people talk about zoom fatigue and.

Well, number one, it is criminal to be boring. And it is criminal. I mean, it's just a crime, be it live or virtual, you know, And I think what's happening here is a lot of people who did things live and they were boring. What they're doing is they're just turning their computer and it's magnified. You know, boredom is magnified when it's on the screen. And here's something else to keep in mind. People are used to seeing on a device. They're used to seeing entertainment. So we are competing with the entertainment industry. We're competing against video games. When we show up on these screens and we have to be at least engaged, you know, we have to be engaging. So the first mistake is being born. It is absolutely criminal.

Mark, I tell you one thing you said. I began to write this down because it really is important to get this. When you say we compete against entertainment, you're right. The human brain, thanks to how we've been trained for the last so many years, we see a screen, we think video game, we think movie, we think sporting event, we think entertainment and other pieces to reinforce what you made is we may not know how boring we are. And when we get in front of a screen, we just do the same thing we always did. We don't have a live audience in front of us. We can be more boring and less engaging unless we have someone honestly from the heart show us and tell us and remind us that we need to up our game. So honestly, we have to reexamine ourselves. And I would invite you, if you've done a virtual presentation and hopefully you recorded it, go back and watch it from the perspective of the audience members. Hopefully you'll see a good picture. But chances are there'll be times you'll see your energy Will dip. What you think was okay was less than. And we're going back and reviewing your video will help you to see areas where you need to improve, where you're doing well, identify spots where you need to change your presentation because you may be Bo ring.

And if you start nodding off in your own presentation, they are too. All right, I'm just gonna say it. Just be bold because we care. Because we love you. Look, if you can't watch your whole presentation, why should someone pay you? Why should someone pay you? And imagine watching it all day with maybe a couple of breaks. Oh, so watch your own thing.

I want to point out we've done mastering virtual presentations five, six, seven times. It's two days. And we've managed to captivate the audience's attention for all two days. We even had one person from Japan, Naoki. Naoki from Japan. Now, we actually broadcast this during the USA time zones. This man got up at midnight, stayed up all night long. All night long. Imagine starting at midnight and staying up until five or six o' clock in the morning. He did this for two consecutive days. I don't mean to brag, but, you.

Know.

If it was boring, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have happened. We would have just seen his screen, we wouldn't have seen his face for two days. We just would have seen his name up there and just assume that he's behind the name tag.

Yeah. And the thing is, again, we're thankful. Not only was he there with us, he was able to participate. He had comments, he was involved. He wasn't just a presence, he was actively engaged during the whole time. So that we've learned from making our own mistakes. When we pass this on to you, we're not saying we are the best. We have mastered this. We've only mastered it because we made the mistakes that we're sharing with you, hopefully, to shorten your learning curve and you will learn from us before you make those mistakes.

Yeah, we've been doing hybrid events for years, for years and years where we had train the trainer, but we also had some virtual seats as well. So now when we moved over to completely 100% virtual, that's one of the bonuses. We were already bringing a lot of experience with us. So number one, be.

Don'T.

Yeah, don't be boring. Yeah, See, I almost bored myself.

By the way, I just want to point out something. There's no spell check on the whiteboard, so every now, occasionally I may spell a word different from what you're accustomed to. However, I do have spell check in the form of Mr. Mark Brown. Oh, yeah, he will correct me our virtual spell check.

So, being boring, mistake number one. And the bigger problem is letting your ego be in the way and thinking you're interesting. Get some feedback, watch your recording. All right, let's go to number two. Mark, I think I got to add some sound effects to this just to make it a little more fun and engaging. So. You know what?

While you do that, let me give you. I'm gonna tee you a really softball here. You said our ego gets in the way and we might not realize we're being boring. Well, mistake number two could also be the result of our ego getting in the way. And that's my tee up for you, Darren. What is mistake number two?

Mistake number two, presenting solo.

Hey, I got this, Darren. I'm good. I'm a pro. I can do it by myself.

Yeah, you can do maybe 20 minutes by yourself, maybe 30 minutes. And look, we know you could do the whole program by yourself, but to try and do a training by yourself, I just think it's almost impossible to do it well and to keep them engaged. Remember all of those distractions. Normally if you're in a training room working with people all day, you don't have. People are hungry at different points in time. People have to go to the bathroom different points in time, text coming in, all of these things that are those distractions right behind their lens waiting for you to be boring. And boom, their attention is going to go to that.

Ed.

Well, you know, one of the reasons I've read this book is called who not how by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. And one of the reasons that people like to do things on their own is in school. We're taught to do our own work. We're taught not to team up because teamwork is cheating, you know, and any. Any educational system around the world. That's the mindset. Okay, there's this almost like this do it yourself type of mentality. But you know what? If you see success anywhere, you're actually watching teamwork and collaboration taking place. If you've seen any type of major success, there's major collaboration. So don't do it yourself. Overcome this mindset. Let go this mindset of just doing it on your own and just doing it solo.

I think one of the mistakes there, Ed, to magnify this, is that we are like, it's my material. I wrote it, I designed it, I can deliver it. And nobody can do what I can do in the way that I can do it because it's mine. Right? So I feel I have got to do this on my own. Darren, you look so thoughtful and pensive.

Darren, back to point number one.

No, I'm just reflecting back and thinking even when I was doing 60 minute presentations, I remember how much pressure, like Mark, when you and I were doing the webinars for those huge audiences, it took so much pressure off me when I told them that, hey, look, Mark is going to keep an eye on the chat because I can't run the slides, run everything else and all the equipment and the sound back here. Keep it running, keep it moving and be focused and worried about what's going on in the chat. You can only look at one thing at a time or you're moving from one to the other. So even if it's not a co presenter, have a co host, someone who's their whole specific job is to maybe keep an eye in the chat or something else. Why? Because it's about engagement and you can't just, you just can't do it alone. And we guys, we created this thing called Pace Elements that we teach people and we're going to get to that shortly. But one of the things that to keep in mind is even as you're listening to this podcast, when you hear my voice and then it goes to Ed's voice and then it goes to Mark's voice, that's changing how it's affecting the listening and in the brain. And if you're watching a virtual presentation, you see Ed and his background and then it goes over to me and my background and then Mark and his background and then back to Ed. We're continually changing, which is why having a co host at least, or a co presenter, whatever works for you, but have a team that's helping you. This is not something like on a stage, you can use your charisma, but charisma only goes so far because the, the connection is dulled on virtual.

Help me here, Darren and Ed, real quickly because I know we didn't plan to drill, drill down deep on this, but you talked about different aspects of having a good training and maybe Ed, you can talk about this first. And Darren, you mentioned running slides and also looking at chat virtually to keep the audience engaged. There are several aspects you got to keep your hands on, including interaction. If you're going to turn their mics on. Could you give us a couple of three of the things that we need to look for as presenters in training that need to be monitored in a virtual environment, just like you said One is chat, the other is slides. Are there two or three more? Ed and Darren, we think we need to be aware of as trainers virtually.

Well, in terms of, again, this is getting into pace elements again, again, new equipment. So Darren, he's got this. Darren, you should like do a video on your, your mission control setup. I feel like I'm at NASA, man. It's just. It's just unbelievable. But you've got all these other things that you're coordinating and you have to keep track of in order to keep people engaged. So it's equipment is another thing that you need to keep track of, Darren?

Yeah, it's the equipment, it's the camera, it's the lighting. Now, granted, lighting probably won't change, but if you are like me and once in a while I keep the. Unfortunately, let's see if we can do this. Now, this isn't going to help our podcast listeners, but maybe our YouTube ones where if I'm not mindful of the light change during the day, I have these grill lines that come through my shades that go right over my background. So I had to come up with a way to combat that. Or sometimes if I have auto focus on, if I'm leaning in or leaning out, sometimes it will change the coloring. Well, you gotta be aware when you're doing this. Now, the nice thing is people who are listening will let you know. Your participants will like to point out and correct you. Well, hey, we've gotta accept that and realize, hey, if they're bringing it up, that means 10 other people saw it, felt it, heard it. So there's many things as well. But it's really, I think another secret one is the energy. Your energy, your co presenter's energy, how it's coming across. Are they with you? Are they confused? So I still think it's audience reaction, even though that might be determined by the questions or the comments in the chat. It's kind of like taking that temperature. Normally in a room, we can see people drifting off or asking if we say it gives some confusing instructions and they're asking each other. We can see when that's happening. Well, we've got to again, convert it to virtual. What does that look like? Chat questions before forget.

As you were talking to me, it occurred to me that part of the responsibility of hosting a program like that, you may have a time when somebody gets in late and you set your security. If anybody's going to come in, they've got to be admitted to the waiting room. So you're trying to teach all of A sudden pops up. Mark Brown is in the waiting room. You want to admit them. You're watching the chat you're trying to teach. You will drive yourself crazy because somebody may come in late. You don't know why they're coming in late and they had to contribute. They've paid for your services. You can't, okay, monitor chat, do Q and A, answer the question verbally. Let them in. You will drive yourself. Bazonkers trying to manage all of that. Just that part alone tells me I would need help if I were hosting a seminar. Especially when there's interaction in the meeting format using a platform like Zoom Ed.

So I mean, like in addition to presenting, you mean I have to be a bouncer as well? I've got to check people with the velvet rope.

Gotta bring the guns.

I just want to go back to something that Darren talked about earlier. And what we're talking about here is presenting solo and why you shouldn't do this. Number one, there's a science. Every time there is some type of change, we as human beings, we pay attention to the change. And what happens is, psychologically, it re engages people's attention span. So every time you have a change, like Darren talked about earlier, when it switches from my voice to Darren's voice or to Mark's voice, that's a change. When we change our slides, that's a change, et cetera. So it re engages people. And the other thing is, I just ran a report, much to my surprise and shock, I have done 64 presentations this year.

Oh, wow.

Two live, two live. And 64 virtual presentations this year. And there is no way. As a matter of fact, I did not do one by myself. One of the things that we talked about in mastering virtual presentations is that we have a list of what we call demandments. And one of the demandments is that you must have a host, a co host, the people who manage all these other things, so you can do that thing that you do well and that is present your content, train individuals and focus on the audience. Guys.

Yeah.

And I think what Ed's saying about demandments, he actually has a form and an agreement that goes out to the event planner. So they've got a list to go by because all of us are world champion Toastmasters. So we're also doing some events for Toastmasters or meeting planners who may not have that experience that professionals do. But even professionals going online and doing it virtually, they may forget one thing that could be critical to us. And again, what we're talking about by going solo Is by going solo. It's hard to manage the flow. So don't flow.

I got to write that one down. Going so low. It's hard to manage the flow. He's. He does wax poetic. Don't flow.

Solo to manage the flow. By the way, that. That, that's a keeper. So, you know, if you'll notice that we all wrote that one down and.

I felt it, I felt it coming on. It was divine inspiration. And I'm going to bring us right because we're touching on this, but let's give it a category. Number three. No, no. Is not using pace elements. Not using pace elements.

And Darren, just to be ultra clear, for those who are brand new to our podcast, please define pace elements.

Yeah, remember, there are no nos, Ed, so you might put a no pace element or like the.

What's the name?

Oh, there you go. Fair enough. Yeah, we got the nozzos up here, the no zone. So we're in the no zone. So pace elements was actually something introduced to me by my other coach, David McElhaney, and he said, darren, you need to keep changing the pace elements. In my competition speech, I'm like, what's a pace element? He says, well, when you ask a question that engages the audience's brain in one way. When you tell a story, that engages the audience's brain another way. When you show a slide that engages the audience's brain yet another way. And the key is to continually keep switching the pace elements from one to another to another. In our two day event, we go over 20 of them, but we want to at least bring up. So you're aware of that. And we did talk about in episode 31 as well. But one of the no nos is not being aware of the importance of changing up the pace element and being in control of that flow, which again, is connected to number two.

Ed.

Well, you know, like I said before, any type of changes. So, like, again, I got some new technology, got a new toy.

Boom. Okay.

Boom. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Boom.

So every time I make a change, you're thinking like, okay, what's he going to do next? What's he going to do next? It's as light as a slight subtle change. Again, for me and Darren to Mark, etc. When we show you a PowerPoint slide, when we show you a video with. These are different types of pages elements, and these are the keys to not being number one, to being boring. You're constantly keeping people just like video games or entertainment. Mark.

Yeah. What's emerging here is kind of scary is. Everything we're talking about is pointing back to item number one about being boring. Just for a moment, imagine you sign up for a two day training program and I get up online. I am the host, I am the trainer, and I'm going to share with you from this little screen in front of me for the next two days right here, everything you need to know about not being boring in a presentation for two days. Oh, we'll break for lunch, we'll break for a bio break. But you see this me on screen for two days. And that's it. Don't think you can make it work by I've got good material, I got.

A good voice, I got a great smile.

That will not be enough. Your audience needs that variation. Their brains want to kick in and see different things. That's very, very important. Ed.

One of the things that we do in mastering virtual presentations, as we make sure that that doesn't happen, we're going to show you dozens of ways that you could keep things going on. So for example, we have a couple of activities and exercises. By the way, here's the deal. We're going to warn you ahead, you're not just gonna sit on your ass, okay? And just passively sit back. You're gonna be part of the show. When you sign up for mastering virtual Presentations, you are a part of the show. You're part of the experience, if you will. It's not just us. We believe that the answers are in the room. And sometimes the answers, they don't necessarily come from the three of us. They come from you, Darren.

Yeah. So we're also facilitators. We've gotta be that producer, if you will. Going. Okay, Ed, Mark, boom. To keep it moving. If any one of us was doing a 60 minute presentation and Ed did 55 minutes, I did a minute. Mark did a minute. Like what? Now that doesn't mean that Ed might not do a section, but if Mark and I interject our thoughts as it relates to exactly what Ed was talking about, it refreshes. Craig Valentine talks about the bounce method. Throwing that bounce in there, that bounce fabric softener just freshens up the whole load.

I was wondering where you were going with that. Was like, okay, hadn't heard this metaphor before.

You know what, you mentioned that, Darren. I remember watching a webinar, an hour long webinar by two presenters from a pretty large company here in North America. And they were both introduced as the speakers by the host of the webinar. And I began to watch as the first Presenter put slides up. His face was in a little box in the corner with his slides. And he spoke for 30 minutes. And the other person was just kind of there at 30 minutes. He said, over to you now, John. And then John did the same thing. Showed all these slides there in the corner. And Bill's the first guy sitting there. And there was no interplay. I thought, man, this is a major corporate group and I gotta teach these guys. Don't do that. It was difficult to stay on. But because I care about these people, I stayed on and I watched and I said, listen, you cannot do it that way. You need to interact with each other because that's boring. There's no pace elements there.

Ed, you reminded me of one of my clients. They're a high tech firm, so they had four people on the zoom call and they had this one person who was particularly technical. Not only did he have like a lot of jargon, but okay, it's for that specific audience. That's no. Okay. But when it was just when he was done. Okay, he's still on camera and he's. You're still on camera now. It was the pain salad, but you know that, that leads to like a. That was a distraction. We'll talk about distractions a little bit later on. But Mark, you just reminded me of that when I'm thinking like. So I called up my client is just like, couple of suggestions.

All right, so let's move on to number four. If you want to add it to the board there, number four is poor instructions. Now, one of my favorite ideas that I picked up from Ed and then I turned it into a Something even better, I learned it from Ed. I give him credit. But when you're. When you're doing a keynote presentation or short, let's say 60 minute presentation, stories, especially live stories, are the heartbeat of that. You have great stories, they'll stay with you, it'll be a good presentation. But if you don't have great stories, even if you got good content with. With fresh perspective, it's harder for us as the audience. Now moving over to training. For training, the key is instructions. And I honestly did not get that until I learned it from Ed. I gotta give credit where credit is due. But instructions are to training as. Stories are to keynotes. Instructions are to training as, stories are to keynotes as.

And I've got to give Darren credit because there's a difference between doing something live and doing it virtually. And there's one exercise, one activity I do that is super popular. It's super creative. And you'll experience that when you attend virtual presentations. But I couldn't figure out how to do it virtually. And that's one of the reasons of collaboration. If you collaborate with some of your other presenters, they will come up with solutions. And Darren came up with a brilliant solution as to how we can execute this very popular exercise and this very popular activity and doing it virtually. So that's another benefit in terms of that. The other thing, instructions. Now, here's something else that's different from live as opposed to virtual. When you present virtually, the instructions have to be shorter. They have to be shorter. You have to give them in bite sizes. You can't give people a long list of instructions. You can't give them the entire cake recipe and say, okay, there you go. Got it. Especially if you send them into a breakout room. We're going to talk about breakout rooms and virtual rooms a little bit later on, but your directions have to be shorter.

Mark. Yeah, And I appreciate the short piece because if they have 8, 9, 10 things to remember virtually, it's bad enough doing it live, but to remember this, I'm going to break up room. What did Ed say again? What did do you. And they can't go back and ask you. So you want to keep it simple because when you have eight, nine breakout rooms and they all end up questioning what you said, it just defeats the whole idea. So keeping it simple up front, especially with breakout rooms, ensures time they spend there will be time well spent and well invested. But remember this, though, virtual or live, you still need to give very clear instructions. Darren?

Yeah, I would just piggyback those two thoughts together. Shorter and clearer. Shorter and clearer. And then I would also even create a slide with the exact same instructions on the slide. So for your visual learners, or if it's a exercise done while they're being quiet, like they can. What did he say? They can refer back to that. If they're taking the time to do an exercise and they're not exactly clear what to do, you've just wasted that time. You've frustrated them and you've bored them. It's just we can't emphasize this enough. Instructions get clear. Here's the problem. Going back to number one, ego is getting in the way yet again. You think you're clear, but you're not. It's got to be crystal clear. And if you're not sure, try the exercise on some of your friends and see if they get it. See if they know exactly what to do.

All right, one last thought. I Told you before, my wife and kids often look at me and roll their eyes when I say, talk to me like I'm five years old. Make sure I fully understand. You won't be insulting your audience or your attendees. With clarity. Darren has been preaching this for the longest while. One word, three times. Clarity, clarity, clarity. It gives them a much better experience.

Oh, I need to think of one other thing. When you send participants to a breakout room, sometimes this will be their first time. So now they're getting used to. First of all, you're presenting virtually, and then now we're going to put them into another environment within the virtual. So that's a new environment. And then maybe the sound may be off, et cetera. So this new environment reduces their ability to concentrate on the directions that you gave them before. So again, that's why it's critical that a. The directions are short. And, you know, one thing that Darren does very well is he actually sends reminders into the breakout rooms as to what the assignment is.

Let's go to number five, which is not rehearsing.

Okay, so lack of rehearsing. I'm going to need my spell checker because this is one of those words I repeatedly misspell.

At least you're consistent.

I'm the one who volunteered this one because in all honesty, I just did a presentation recently. I've got this one program I must have done. This is not exaggeration. 500 times. I've done this presentation 500 times, and there are certain parts of it that I need to rehearse. Like sometimes what you should do in any type of program, rehearse your directions, make sure that your directions are clear, rehearse your stories, make sure those are clear, your transitions, et cetera. So in this particular case, I practice my stories, I practice my directions, not so much my transitions. So it was choppy, it was awkward, etc. And frankly, I was embarrassed. So one of the reasons I brought up number five is because I've got a fresh experience, a fresh practice all the elements, be it a training or be it a speech or presentation or however you show up virtually. Practice all the elements, fellas.

And I'd even say, you just got some new equipment. Rehearse with your new equipment. Press every button.

I'm doing that now. This is. I'm kind of getting on a rehearsal. I've got, like a brand new camera here. And just before we went on, I discovered that my. The sound was out of sync. So we tested some things like, oh, okay. So we figured out what you know what that was about, and I've got to solve that later on, but thank you, Darren, for pointing it out.

Yeah. Rehearsal, Rehearsal, rehearsal. You also, Ed, I know when you send out your demand events, one of them is to. Sometimes you're going to be invited to do your presentation on a brand new platform that you've never used before. All of us have been invited to be on Streamyard. What's Streamyard? Teams WebEx, whatever that is. Well, that's a whole new. You might know your slides might work, but I know, Ed, you had some challenges with one of them, that your. Your transitions didn't work or your builds and your slides didn't work on another platform.

Yes, yes. WebEx wipes out all of your builds as well as other platforms, et cetera. So I use builds all the time. I use builds within PowerPoint. Now, a build is like, you have one slide and it brings up point number one. Then it brings up to point number two and builds up point number three. Well, on WebEx, guess what? Instead of having one slide, you need to have three slides in order to execute that. So I found that out. Ask me how I know I found out that way. By the way, it's just not WebEx. What's the other one you just mentioned? Is it Streamyard?

Yeah. Okay.

It's almost impossible to use slides on Streamyard. Okay.

They do have Share screen. They do have Share Screen in Streamyard. I know.

I take you back to rehearsal. It's funny, lots of rehearsal.

I just. I did a live stream as a guest on a program on streamyard today, and I realized I could change my virtual background as long as I want, but I happen to use a link with a Firefox browser. It was five minutes to showtime and I realized when I said, okay, virtual background, we're sorry, but our particular program won't support virtual in Firefox. Try Chrome next time. It's now two minutes to showtime. Oh, my virtual background. I should have tested that earlier. Happened to me this morning.

But you live, you learn.

You live and you learn. It's important to rehearse and make sure it's going to work. I did a program. I did a program called the Hop in experiment with several NSA members earlier this year. They found a new platform called Hop In Hopin. Supposedly good to have as many as 100,000 people on it at any given time. We had a green room and a main room and different breakout for our sessions. I found out it was extremely difficult to get PowerPoint to work in the hopping Platform. I was testing and trying and rehearsing several times before I went live that day because I. I didn't want to find myself in a place where, oh, I forgot to change my PowerPoint settings to do it this way so it could work. That can really kill you. And one more thing I did, thanks to Ed, Tate is doing a presentation. I say, let's have a rehearsal with your host, with your Zoom Master. And I say, let's have it at the same time as the actual live event. So when I presented in Abu Dhabi at 5am Last week, I had to do a rehearsal at 5am I wanted to replicate the lighting in my workspace, the time of the day. I want to replicate all of that. Because, Darren, you said earlier there are times the light comes through your window at a certain time. You get a blind thing on your face. You want to rehearse at that particular time so you can see what are the possible distractions or challenges that I will face. And also, how well will our host, our Zoom Master, our producer execute on the day, even for a Toastmasters program? I do that, Darren.

Yeah. We got a reminder today too, in talking to Ed when we were prepping for this. It's not only the new equipment, but anytime you add a new piece of equipment, it affects the other pieces of equipment. You're not in a vacuum, even though it's is one more thing plugged in. Well, it might affect Zoom in a certain way, it might affect your settings in another way. So, number one, it's rehearsal with the new piece of equipment and how it interacts with the old pieces of equipment that you're comfortable with. Because it might have changed. I had mine where whenever I went into a breakout room, I came out and it popped me over to a different audio setting. And it's like, what? So you're always going to have something new, which is why rehearsal. So equipment with new equipment with. With old equipment, rehearsal with the people who are going to be running that event. If you've never spoken with them, never worked with them before, and even if you have, it's probably a good idea to have that rehearsal as well. With your slides. With your slides on that platform. There's so many, we learned guys that you can't play audio in Asia or video clips weren't working in Asia. For me, that was a challenge. Well, well, look, you're a professional. If you want to be unforgettable, you've got to be able to adapt and overcome with these changes. But at least if you have a Rehearsal ahead of time, you'll have a heads up of what might not work. Now in the moment, it's still going to be something else. There's always going to be something. So you've got to take an improv class because it's hard.

You mentioned a challenge today with a new camera, and many of these new cameras have their own audio settings. Tell us about that with your camera and the audio.

Well, on my end, everything sounded great. And then what I did not realize is that when I again, I have something called the huddle Cam. And the Huddle Cam, in this case, it has its own audio. So for whatever reason, Zoom said, hey, it soon that I wanted to use that audio as opposed to my regular microphone right here. And so Mark looked at me, so it's like, hey, you're crackling. I'm thinking, what? Talking about it sounds perfect here. You know, it sounds great. But you're the second person to mention to me that when I use the sound from my huddle cam, it crackles. So the lesson for me is I'm not going to use the sound from this ever. I'm going to. I'm going to use this microphone right here. And again, subtle thing. Didn't know. Again, new equipment, New equipment. And Darren has this aphorism, and it is so true. Push every button and test every circumstance if you can.

Yeah. And the last rehearsal to be aware of is anytime after there's a platform update, because every. Throw everything out the window and try again, because you just don't know. They updated one of the advanced settings in Zoom that affected my soundboard, and I was unaware I had to go in and change it, even though I brought in a Rob, our friend Rob, who's the audio specialist. I brought him in, he sat down, we got it working and the advanced setting the way it needed to be. And when Zoom did an update, it changed that. So there was a new setting that I had to click on versus one versus the other. So rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal. We know this. The biggest thing that we need to remember is there's someone in your training who needs you and needs what you have to say every time. Don't take it for granted that they're going to get it unless your energetic intention for them and their outcome. We just got to remember it's cool what we do as a speaker, as a trainer, but also there's a reason they're there and they need us. Ed.

Okay.

All right, so let's go with number six. Drumroll, please.

Distractions. Being unaware of distractions should be criminal. I think we should start fining people. You want to raise taxes? All right, marijuana is one thing, making that legal, but let's tax people unaware of their own distractions. Oh, my gosh.

So you've got to fight for focus. You have got to fight for focus.

I'm sorry, what was added?

You got to fight for focus because, okay, so like when live people come to a meeting room, they come to a hotel, they come to a conference room, and there's only one thing to focus on, it's the presenter. Planet Earth is at home. And I've got a one year old, I've got a little one. Every now and then sometimes my wife comes in and, oh, here's dinner. You know, Darren and I, last time we did, you know, a presentation, we had the guys with the blowers, the leaf blower guys, at the same time. You live at one part of time, I live in one part of time. It's just like, hey, I think the leaf blower guys got together, says, okay, you guys ready? Let's do this. At the same time, we had the leaf blower guys and you got garbage trucks outside. You have to fight for focus.

Mark, you know, Ed, real quickly, as you mentioned that I got to give Darren credit because he's been upgrading his. His workspace for a long time. And I know you and I both know physically what he's dealing with. Being in a loft where his workspace is and he's got the padding like Oral X around because invariably we were doing a program and there was some guy doing. They're digging up the road outside. The garbage truck goes by and Darren says, I can't help when this happens. The good news is, Darren, with your changes, I haven't heard of it. I haven't heard the garbage truck or the guys doing the jackhammers outside. I haven't heard those. You hear them, but we don't. Because you made adjustments to eliminate that particular distraction. And if you find where you are, you can have distractions. You have to find ways to eliminate those distractions. Not only the audible ones. You've seen those videos where the guy's doing an interview with a BBC about something very important and his baby walks in their walker. Little girl walks in and the mom runs in, grabs a them both, and he is live on the BBC discussing an important topic. And he was so embarrassed by that. But had he simply locked the door, it would have made it a lot easier for him. So do what you have to do to eliminate those distractions. So, Darren, kudos to you for doing that with your oral ex, man.

Well, here's one thing. Here's something else I admire about Darren. I can't believe I'm actually saying this.

Hold on, let me turn up your microphone.

I always say invest for your interest, and you can't cheap your way to the top. Darren, what he does, he invests in the very best equipment. And so one of the reasons we can't hear the garbage truck is because he's invested in this microphone. And this microphone is directional, and the microphone is directional. So again, the sound is crisp and it's clear and it comes through and you don't hear the other distractions. So that's just one area in which Darren invests for his interest. And he doesn't cheap his way to the top, but he does that consistently throughout Stagetown University. Darren.

Yeah, there's so many distractions around us. Even a light, you know, a light in the back that we can see that's hitting the lens, that can be distraction. Sound can be a distraction. Even if you have a great mic and then you don't plug it in or you don't change the setting towards that mic, it's just the audio is not as good, and then eventually you're gonna turn people off because it's harder to hear you. Oh, yeah.

So normally I wear glasses. I took them off because for whatever reason, I had the perfect angle of one of my lights hitting it just before we throw the air. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Or like, you know, so it's a good thing that, like, I don't have to see beyond, like, you know, a yard. You know, I'm good.

And it's. We talked about this on the stagetime call last night. Mark is just. Kevin wears glasses to be able to read the comments, but it becomes just like you guys just did. If you're listening to the audio, they had their glasses on. And the reflection of the light actually creates a barrier between your eyeballs and the lens so we can't see them. The connection is done. The listener is listening and watching and picking up on your micro expressions. So you have to have joy, you have to be good, you have to be expressive. But even if you're not, or you're trying to pretend you're not frustrated, why, that is a great answer, ma'. Am. We can tell. We can pick up on your eyes because your eyes are usually going to tell the truth. So there's. There's just be aware of distractions. There's so. And ask your friends hey, show. Take a quick video and say, what's distracting? I mean, is there a poster that we only see part of? Our friend Mike Davis, you know, he had a whiteboard. He had things written on it from another class, and then it became a distraction for this class. Or he had a Muhammad Ali quote, but you could only see part of it. So now people are trying to figure out. Or Ed's books are far enough away, we can't read the spines. A lot of people have the spines where it's closer and a little more visible. And now people are trying to read what is. Oh, I read that book. That's a great book. Well, if they have that thought, they're not listening to what you're saying. So you're unknowingly creating a challenge for your own training because you didn't take the time to just be aware of what's distracting in your background. Audio, lighting, visual. Mark. There you go. Ooh, love works. I've read that one.

Exactly. Honestly, that used to be my background for the longest while, and my daughter's head get cut off. And people actually began to comment, that's a good book. Yeah. Joel Manby. He's a guy who was a keynote for tofas back in 2014. I said, awesome. Yeah. And who's that with a head cut off? And I didn't realize that. I thought it looked studious. I mean, my library, but it was just a bad deal. So I said, you know what? I'm not going to do that. And I made a change to my virtual background. We may laugh at that now, but you think about it as Darren says, and if you're a Zoom user, simple idea. Log on to Zoom all by your lonesome, by yourself. Record 10 seconds or 15 seconds. Say, hi, I'm Mark. Good to meet you. I'm doing a quick zoom test, and then, boom, you end it. It'll record. It'll send it to your computer in about five seconds. You watch the video, and you begin to see what the audience sees. You'll see the item hanging on the doorknob behind you that shouldn't be there, but I won't go any further than that. You'll see where the light hits your head isn't really a halo, just a glare. You'll see where you'll see all the things that might distract someone. But because you and I are accustomed to them, we don't see them as distractions. And as Darren and Ed both said, talk to a trusted friend who will be honest with you and let you know, what they see. And I was using that background for a long time and I realized it wasn't serving me well. I thought it looked cool. I had books, I looked studious. No, it was simply a distraction.

Now tell me if you guys can hear this. Okay, I'm gonna make a small sound, but tell me if you can hear. You don't hear it?

Hold on. No, I don't.

Let me try this.

I hear a little clicking.

Okay. So yeah, and notice this is a great point. This is perfect. Mark didn't hear it. Ed did hear it. What's the difference between Mark and Ed? Ed's got headphones on. There are some people who, because there's a lot going on behind them in their environment, they wear headphones. So they're going to be more sensitive. That was just me clicking my mouse. But to some people, if it's audible enough, if you have a good microphone or it's close enough or if you're sitting, you know, you're sitting here and you just normally have the habit of clicking your pen. You're gonna make a distracting noise. So you've gotta be aware of if somebody brings it up, you just, I mean, just tapping your desk or something or you're typing on your keyboard and we can hear that. It's. It seems like, oh, well, that's just a little thing. Well, those. It only takes a little to distract anyone from my experience.

I had my Ava Yeti microphone and I have a stand for it. It's just a stand without a microphone in it. And I put it in the stand and the stand on a padded surface on my desk. And one day Darren said, mark, you know I can hear my. When you are writing and typing. I said, what? I said, okay. I had the suspension model on the boom begin using that. That one small change reduced the sound that Aaron was hearing because now it's suspended and there's no sound to hear from me knocking back and forth. But it was a simple change and I had no clue it was a distraction. So let someone else hear and listen to what they have to say to help you be more professional and eliminate those distractions.

You don't want to be distraction blind. You also don't want to be background blind as well.

And so that's why you'll see in a lot of the higher priced microphones too. They're suspended in these little rubber bands just for that reason because the vibration doesn't travel through. When Mark had the stand on his desk, even though it was on rubber, the vibration still goes through that. And we hear it. All right, number six, distractions. Be aware of distractions. Number seven. This is one of my favorites. Cliche. Anything. When you're showing images that we've seen before, when you're playing something we've heard before, when you're just. When you use a phrase that's been overdone before, that's just. That's giving us a reason to check out. It's giving us a reason that you don't look professional. It's giving us a reason to be forgettable. We're pros. We're experts. We've got to have our own images or invest in some images that not everyone has. Everyone can probably agree with this that when zoom first happened and we went into the craziness back in March of 2020, that everyone had the Golden Gate Bridge or the flowing beach because they were available in zoom. Zoom gave you, like, six options. Okay. Eventually, they're gonna be overused. We've gotta create our own. Like, Mark has a really nice one. Ed, I know you use one of a great purple one at times as well, but it's intentional, and it's yours. It's not cliche, cliche anything. When diversity was the big thing, you know, the African American hand and the white hand shaking. Like, we saw that, you know, so many times. Create your own. You're professional. This is. Ugh, this drives me crazy, Mark.

You mean I can't tell the starfish story in a virtual presentation?

You can.

You can, but we take you back to point number one.

Just for those who are not NSA National Speakers association members, the idea of the starfish story, it's been used so many times by so many speakers, it became the running joke at NSA for the longest time. And one of our podcast guests, Tim Guard, did a video with, I think it was Roy Fierstein or somebody, where he did this whole video as the starfish and why stories should not be told anymore. And Tim's a crazy, funny guy. I forget what number of podcast episode he is, but he was one of our guests, and they made a thing of the starfish story. So as NSA members, if we get caught telling that story again, we might get slapped with a wet noodle. It's been used so many times. Stop being cliche. Stop being boring. And I love that Darren and Ed both promote the idea of having custom visuals. Use your own photographs, Use your own. Have your own quotations, use your own. It makes you stand out. It's unique, and you are that much more memorable because you're delivering your material with your own unique images and videos.

Ed, one of our coaches and a person that we idolize and recognize a great deal, Ms. Patricia Frippa, first female president of the National Speakers association and then speaking hall of Fame fame. She says sameness as the enemy of a presenter. Well, again, what do we say about virtual? Mistakes are magnified on virtual. And if you have a cliche or you have something that we've heard before or we've seen before, guess what? You're. You're now in a medium where people will click off or they'll click out. They'll click off or they'll click out. So you. You can't. You can't be cliche.

Everything's magnified. And for example, even just using an example about mistakes. So, Ed, you need to take photos of every time your baby spills something, take a picture and then use that as a mistake.

Dude, I was running out of storage. That just happened, like, you know, an hour ago. My. My leather couch, it now has water. For those of you playing the home game, leather couch and water don't go together.

So for all of us, when everything happens like that, take a picture. How could you use it? And then you start the Ed Tate's baby's college fund. She's earning her keep. All of us, you get so many pictures in your phone that are uniquely yours. Don't be using cliche anything. We're just. You can't be unforgettable and use cliche anything. All right, let's keep it moving here. Number eight. This is definitely the Ed Tate one for sure. Or one of them. Not using breakout rooms. Not using breakout rooms for training, especially all day training. And anything over 90 minutes. When I learned about breakout rooms from Ed Tate, it was like I did the Scooby Doo. You know, I just gotta turn it on. But it's critical. And this also ties into number four, which is instructions. If you put people in another room and you're not there to monitor them, then they have spend half the time trying to figure out, what are we supposed to do? What did he say to do? And you just. That's why instructions are so important, Ed.

It's also tied to pace elements. And also this concept of including the audience into the show or including the audience into the experience. So as opposed to you just being a talking head all the time. Well, now guess what? The other participants, they get a chance to talk about the content, et cetera. And. And by the way, when you allow the participants to talk among themselves, they're actually, you're reinforcing the content, you're reinforcing their learning, and you're also reinforcing their experience as well.

Mark, what's cool is, and I know Darren didn't want to even talk about this, wasn't on his radar. But we've had the hybrid events where we had some live and some virtual. And one of the gentlemen who was virtual gave a testimonial. He says, listen, I felt I was better trained. We got to go to breakout rooms. We got to interact with people. I felt better trained. He felt so engaged being in a small breakout room virtually with three or four people having conversation, having discussion, exchanging ideas, and best practices. He could not stop singing the praises of the breakout room because it was handled well and it was a wonderful tool for him to increase the experience, to engage and to learn very intimately with a small group of people. We use those small groups. Table 1, Table 2, Table 3. In live events. But having the breakout rooms can really be intimate. And you said earlier, Ed, Darren sends instructions to the breakout rooms by message. So there's always a continual engagement and involvement. And the experience done well can really enhance the learning that your attendees will have if you. You use them well. You cannot have people interact in that way in one room for the whole time, for two or two and a half days. It just does not work.

Darren, you really got to tap into your own experience with this. If you run an exercise and you put six people in a breakout room and it just doesn't work well, maybe it was just the number of people. So you've got to get feedback every time. Virtual. If you can adapt and make it work, you can. But you need that experience and that feedback. That's why we teach, crave feedback. What's working, what isn't. Okay, don't beat yourself up. Just adjust it and make it better. Because some exercises we put two people together. Sometimes we put three, sometimes 10 people. It depends on the exercise. And you've got to learn and experience your own training again. You're now the producer. You're running all the different elements, and breakout is critical, I believe. And instructions are so important. Even Ed, I learned from you that we've got to find a way to choose a leader quickly. So if there's going to be a leader in the group, for each exercise, we change it up. Is it the person with the, you know, the first name is the longest, has the most hair, whatever way, you always make that interesting and creative each time. But the key is They've got to identify the person otherwise they. They're using half the time. Well, I don't know. You did it last time. Oh, no, no. It's like the Chip and Dale thing. You know, people like. No, no, you, no you. They're nicing each other into who should be doing it. And anyway, we've got to find, figure that out quickly. So when we do ours, we know people who've been through our other events. So the first time when we do a breakout, I'll deputize somebody that I know who knows what they're doing in the breakout room and they're confident enough to be that first time leader.

Ed, I think you guys have covered this point pretty well. Mark, anything else?

Well, I think it's a great segue again to our ninth. No, no, Darren. Our ninth. No, no. Is not controlling the entire experience. Not controlling the entire experience. And as a presenter, as a workshop facilitator, as a trainer, you have to make sure the entire experience is in control. Look, we have the expertise to teach the material, but it's not just delivering material. It is giving the attendees an experience. Darren.

Yeah. There's so much. And we also are training them how to engage. So one of the things is setting up the context right up front. Mark will be watching the chat. I will be running the slides. If you got a private message to me, I ain't gonna read it. It because I'm focused on serving the audience. So setting that context right up front I think is one of those critical ways to control the experience when we do our events. Now we just did Ford, Jennifer Lear and I did a mastermind and we sent ahead of time. It was supposed to be a live event, so we sent the water bottles. Ed has one of them ahead of time to our people with a leather binder. And we were supposed to have dinner together. Well done, Ed. We were supposed to have dinner together. So we came up with a way where we gave everybody doordash certificates so they could order their own food because we're trying to again, how do we bring it over there? And I tell you, it seems like a silly little thing, but two or three of the people, and there's only seven in this because it's really focused. Mastermind. Two or three of them said, said, wow. I got more excited about the event because they physically got something in the mail. So make no mistake that even the experience happens beforehand. Do you give them homework to prepare for that alone, that adds, that ups the value, that ups the experience, and it ups the excitement. So up yours.

In a positive way.

No no's allowed. But, you know, as you mentioned, that and the entire experience, we all our programs, we did a get coach program. We tell the VIPs to prepare ahead of time. They submit documents so we can. We can see them ahead of time. So the experience is not just on the day. They are excited, they're keyed up, they're prepared to meet that. And on the day we have our programs, it's not always about, here we go, we're going to teach you A, B, C, D, X, Y, Z. If you're English or from out in Canada, what happens is it's an experience. And we are so thankful. When we do our virtual program, we have the master trainer, Ed Tate. I won't reveal his secrets, but I'll tell you what, he truly makes it an experience when he said, we have fun. We truly do have fun. It isn't all academic. It truly is an experience. It isn't by chance. We, as trainers, we control that, we plan that and we execute it to give the attendees not just the material, but the experience. Do you want to add to that, Ed?

I'm going to talk about it from a technical standpoint. So there's some certain things behind the scenes that enhance the experience. So, for example, if you're going to have a large group. Well, one of the things I will do is there's an option where you can. They don't have the ability to unmute themselves. I won't list this country. It has one of the largest populations in the entire world. Okay. And I spoke three times to this country and I don't know what it was about the participants there. They really, really like being engaged, but they love to unmute themselves. So one of the features from this point in time on, as one of my demands, is participants don't have the ability to unmute themselves. The other thing is how many meeting rooms can you have? So this is something that you need to set up ahead of time. There's something called annotation. I grew up in the. Well, if you watch SportsCenter or ESPN, et cetera, you have all these industry insiders and they have these pins where they can actually draw on the screen. Well, annotation is the ability. It's meant for the host to draw on the screen, but if you don't turn that sucker off for the participants, guess what'll happen? They will draw on the screen. Ask me how I know. Darren.

Yeah. One of the things we also do is we wanted to Find a way to keep it engaging along the way, but also have interaction without disrupting the flow. So Zoom has those little icons or emojis with the thumbs up and the things that you should do.

All the reaction buttons.

The reaction button buttons, yes. So what we did is we created our own and then we had. Hey, that's a good idea. So for those of you listening the podcast, I'm holding up a little light bulb guy on a stick that they cut out, and then a thumbs up, which is a big blue thumbs up with a happy face on it, on a stick. And then the favorite, the classic unmute, please. And that's a green balloon. So I had these designed by a designer with our brand colors, and we sent it out as a cutout. And people like it. It's engaging. But what we also have to do is we have to train them to use them right up front. So if we're. If we send it out ahead of time and then we don't even mention them or use them, then we just wasted our time. We actually took away from our own credibility. But Mark has his handy as well.

I do. Right here. And whenever you need it, I got him right here.

So what's cool is when you use it effectively and you train people how you're going to accept and get engagement right away. They're participating and everyone can see. So there's meetings and then there's webinars. Meetings. We see people. Webinars, you only see the panelists. So we can see people. Yeah, yeah. Is that a good idea? Is that a new idea? Is that a light bulb so we get the right reaction that we, as the presenter, need at the same time. They're engaging us at the same time. We haven't stopped the flow, we've continued the flow, which is one of our other no nos.

So the one thing that we talked about here is this is a different platform. And you can't just take what you did, what you used to do live, and just replicate that with no forethought whatever. Because if you do, you will commit to one of these nine no nos. And people will. They'll say, no, no to you.

The event planner will say, no, no, next time. No, no, we'll find somebody else. It's a different world. The rules have changed. But if you know the new rules, you actually have a chance to upgrade. Ed, you remember we talked to Jennifer, Joseph, Lear and Mark, when we interviewed her on the podcast, that she said the playing field in the professional speaking world just got level, leveled, and if you do learn the new rules, you actually have that opportunity to leapfrog my words, not hers. But jump ahead. Where you might not have been able to compete with a $20,000 keynote speaker before. Well, now the playing field is leveled. Can you serve them? Do you keep them engaged? And we heard in the mastermind, and I won't mention who, but a really well known keynote speaker who kills it on stage, just gave a presentation and basically was dissed and the event planners didn't like. And this is somebody who's getting way over $20,000 a keynote, but didn't change the presentation, didn't adapt it for this new world with the new rules. So Rockstar elsewhere on virtual, some changes gotta happen or their career is going to be in trouble. But I say this because it's our opportunity and if we care about our audience and truly have that intention, get rid of the no nos. And if you make a no no once in a while, that's okay. Fix it, learn, move on. Mark, do we get any keepers?

Wow, keepers. Yes. Number one. It's a big one. We are competing virtually against all kinds of media, tv, movies and video games. So we have to adapt very quickly. If you can't watch yourself, why should anyone pay you? Do not be boring. Adarnism going so low, it's hard to manage the flow. Love that keeper. Instructions are to training as stories are to keynotes. And from Ed Tate, don't forget, you have to fight for focus, eliminate all distractions.

Amen. Preach it, brother.

And mastering virtual presentations. We're going to be conducting this in January and you get a chance to not only learn what the new rules are, but you'll also get a chance to experience the new rules. And if you're a vip, you'll actually get a chance to practice and participate in a safe environment. Guys.

And if you're listening to this, you want to check out any of our events, just go to stagetimeworkshops.com stagetimeworkshops.com and if you're a podcast listener, you get 25% off of any of our events. Just use the code PODPOD25 and you get 25% off either a VIP seat or an attendee seat. And we love what we do. Ed Tate, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Your final bits of advice or bit of advice for anyone who wants to.

Train virtually 2020 has been a long decade, wouldn't you agree? Guys, earlier when you said March, I'm thinking like March. Man, that seems like so long ago. At the end of the year, I look at how am I different or how am I better now than I was as opposed to the beginning of the year? And I have so many things to be thankful for. You know, I've got a healthy wife, I've got a healthy, healthy daughter, etc. But I was generally surprised that I actually did 64 presentations, of which only two were live. So that meant that 62 were in this platform. I pivoted, I didn't panic. And if you want to be successful. And by the way, here's something else. And we're hearing this from various experts. You know, Jennifer Lear is one of them. That people wishing for the old ways to come back. You know what? The old ways may not come back or we may not even see a semblance of that for another two years. So you got two choices. Number one, you can sit back and have the world pass you by, or you can adjust. You can adjust. So that's my advice for you is join us in mastering virtual presentations January 6th and 7th. Is that correct, Joan?

Gentlemen?

Yes.

Okay. So that you can learn what the new rules are so that you can transition. You can help the people who follow you and be a better leader. Come in 2021.

All right. And join us next week for another exciting episode. I would love to give you a teaser, but I'm not even sure what we're going to talk about next week. But nine no no's. Don't be boring. They all point back to that one. Don't try to present. So below, bring in at least a co host. Number three. No, no. Not being aware of using pace elements and changing them constantly. Don't give poor instructions. Instructions are critical. Rehearsal, it's boring. Yes, we don't love doing it, but it's critical to the end result. You got one shot at this once you're live. Number six, distractions. Be aware of what they are. Ask friends to be brutally honest because everyone's seeing whatever the distractions are. It's whether you fix them or not. Number seven, cliche. Don't use cliche anything. Number eight, not using breakouts or using them poorly. Just having a breakout isn't enough. And number nine, not controlling the entire experience. I think that's a good idea. I agree with me and us. And please, please unmute yourself. Mark Brown, take us home.

My friends, virtual is not going away, but you do these well and avoid the no no's. You will go. Go from good to great to unforgettable. See you next week.

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