In this episode of On Record PR, Gina Rubel goes on record with Marsha Redmon to discuss how executives and lawyers can become powerful presenters. A former practicing attorney and an award-winning TV journalist, Marsha is the secret weapon elite law firms and lawyers have gone to for 23 years to have more powerful presence when they present publicly. During the pandemic, she became the go-to expert, teaching professionals worldwide how to fix their virtual presence so they could speak with confidence and engage powerfully to win clients, have an impact, and own their niche.
You teach virtual presence to lawyers in particular. With so many going back to the office now, will having a strong presence matter down the road?
Absolutely. I believe that the change to virtual and now the change to hybrid, we will never go back. That is our new mode of communication. There certainly will be those cases where we are a hundred percent in-person, but I believe that our clients, the lawyers, and everyone else involved in business do have a strong preference for virtual or hybrid. It’s not going to go away. Those of us who’ve been thinking, “I’ll just wait until we go back to normal, and I don’t have to do these skills. I don’t have to learn how to look at the camera or learn how to be good on video,” I’m sorry to say, now’s the moment you need to learn.
Gina Rubel: I couldn’t agree more. In fact, it’s not just a matter of that we’ve gotten used to virtual presentations, it’s also a changing economy. The request for less travel, the need to cut down on the carbon footprint, and all of those things related to ESG are really going to add to the importance of being able to present well virtually.
How about hybrid presenting with meetings and pitches? And when I talk about pitches, we’re talking about the law firm going before a potential client. What do we all need to be doing or not doing in hybrid presentations will make them more effective?
Tip 1: The first thing to think about is making sure that the audience, wherever they’re located, is having an equivalent experience and that they feel respected. The biggest mistake we see in hybrid communication is the folks who are together in one room forget about everyone else. It’s about keeping our seat at the table and being treated in a way that has parity so that we all feel respected, we’re all included, and every voice is heard.
When we switched to virtual and now that we’re moving to hybrid, I’ve become concerned. As women, we’ve always talked about getting our seat at the table, and in many cases, we’ve gotten our seat at the table, along with other diverse folks, and now we’re losing it unless we show up in-person. It may seem a little dramatic, but I believe this with a hundred percent of my being, that as a person who’s involved in a hybrid communication, we all have a duty to make sure that people who are not physically present in the room are being heard.
Tip 2: One way to do that is to have someone in the in-person room whose job it is to monitor the chat, the email, whatever way you’ve put forth, for folks who are distant to send in their questions. And that person’s job is to be their voice in the room, to ask for their comments and questions first, and to always keep reminding themselves and the entire audience that there are many other people involved who are not physically present in the room.
Gina Rubel: What I hear you saying, just to be clear, is this is the opportunity for the non-virtual listeners to have an advocate in the room to speak on their behalf, to make sure their needs are being addressed, their questions are being addressed.
Do you present the same way if the presenter is virtual or if the presenter is in-person?
Tip 3: In those cases where you have multiple speakers, if it’s possible, to have some who are in the room and have some who are virtual because that brings another kind of parity because we’ve got in-person speakers, we have virtual speakers. It’s a question of awareness. Be aware that there are people not in the room and do everything we can to make sure they’re heard.
As you know, I teach workshops, and my number one approach there, in addition to doing polling and things like that at the beginning where everyone has a similar experience, and they get to get their ideas out.
Tip 4: The other thing I always like to do is to tell people, “Unmute and ask questions by voice,” because then we do hear their voice, which is wonderful, and we want to make sure that everyone understands that we want them to be a full participant.
That’s the first piece — getting everybody heard and present equivalently. The second piece is just to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to connect with everyone. As you mentioned before, part of the challenge with virtual is to bond or to connect with the audience, and that comes a lot from delivery.
Tip 5: Using our voice as you and I are here today, having a vocal variety, having energy behind the voice, and really speaking like humans. That’s one way to connect, along with the tools, polling, questions, Q and A, physically raising our hands, doing those things that we would do in-person. I always like to start workshops with, “Show of hands, how many of you are here for this? How many of you care about that?” Because it engages people in a low-risk way, and it also gives the speaker and the audience information about what everyone else is thinking.
Gina Rubel: This is so helpful, and I want the audience, our listening audience, to understand that even as someone who is a professional speaker, I speak all the time, I am out there doing training sessions at law firms or doing public presentations, I always stand to do better and to learn more. I say that both as a former litigator, as well as someone who speaks regularly because this podcast is for everyone. Anyone can listen to this and learn something that is going to help them to get their message across better and more inclusively.
What’s interesting, Marsha, last week I presented at a law firm. I was live, the majority of the audience was live, but we did have people coming in via teleconference and we did have a moderator. But as the speaker, I got so engaged and so excited that I forgot that we had people listening in and participating, and if it wasn’t for that moderator, their advocate, as you will, I might have alienated them, and that’s a really good lesson that you mentioned.
How do we keep people not in the room top of mind, that awareness?
Tip 6: One thing that can be helpful if it’s possible is to get some of the faces on a screen. Oftentimes it’s large presentations such as you were doing, but even meetings in our offices at law firms and other places. Get the remote people up on a monitor, whether it’s a laptop on the table or the big monitor on the wall, so that we can see some faces, which reminds us that we’re talking to more than the people in the room with us. It’s so easy to forget they’re there.
Gina Rubel: The other challenge I find is that because many of the people that we are speaking to are on a billable hour or just have so many major things to deal with that they tend to half listen. Laptop maybe in front of them and they’re not live tweeting anymore, they’re sitting there checking their email.
What are some tips to engage those folks who aren’t paying attention and need to?
Tip 6: Asking them questions is great. Anytime we hear someone ask what sounds like a question, we think we’re being asked individually, and that gets our attention. It can be overused, but trying to get that engagement, make it easy. Hold up a hand, click yes, do a quick poll. That can help a bit sometimes including other voices.
I do workshops, and usually it’s just me. I like to include and do demos. We were talking before we started, Gina, about the virtual presence. So, how do I look on camera on Zoom? Those kinds of ideas. When I’m doing workshops that include that element, I’ll have the law firm choose a partner or whoever they think will play along and tee them up toward the beginning of the workshop, and I do a virtual checkup. I go through and say, “Fix this, fix this. This, that, that and the other are good,” because that kind of demo, that kind of interaction grabs people’s attention. So that can be helpful.
Tip 7: Another way to get and keep attention is to choose a topic that impacts your audience. When you’re in a situation where you can choose the topic or you can frame the topic, if you can start by telling your audience, “This is how this issue impacts you,” then you’ve got their attention. Right? We always listen to what affects our lives. And this is one of the key things I’m sure you and I both are teaching lawyers and other professionals. The way to get and keep attention, the way to be the lawyer people want to hire, is talk like a person and make sure your audience understands why this issue matters, and then try not to drag them through all the weeds. Just give them the couple of details that they need.
Starting with the impact, and as quickly as possible, making sure your audience understands you have practical information, practical tips. “Here’s the issue, here’s how it affects you. I’ve got two things you can do in the next 10 minutes that will improve your facility with this skill, which will have this impact on your practice.”
Gina Rubel: I love what you said, and for lawyers, it is remembering that they’re speaking to the jury as you will, whether it be a business-to-business audience or business-to-consumer audience.
For legal marketers, eight years ago, I presented at a Legal Marketing Association annual conference with Heather Morse, Roy Sexton, and Megan McKeon, and we were talking about using the language of lawyers. The same holds true for the legal marketing audience when they’re presenting because they need you just as much as the lawyers do, because they need to deliver important messages to the attorneys to elicit the responses they’re looking for. It’s that switch that vice versa between speaking lawyer talk versus speaking client talk.
Marsha Redmon: Absolutely. I know Heather, and I have talked about it in the past. You had quite the hip parade there that you were with, for sure. Like you, I’ve spoken to LMA audiences for years, and they get it, for sure. But it’s crucial to always be customizing and focusing on the language your audience needs to hear and surfacing; here’s the issue specific to you and making sure that we’re helping them always to remember, in the case of the lawyers, that translation of their knowledge for the specific audience in front of them.
One of the hardest tricks for lawyers is when they have what I call a mixed audience; when they have other lawyers, they have accountants, salespeople, government officials, and all of those people sitting there at an industry conference. They need to translate their knowledge and get everybody in the audience interested in what would at first seem to be a legal topic. It’s hard, of course, but you and I know the trick is to start with here’s why it matters, here’s how it affects you and the people that you communicate with.
Tip 8: Secondly, I always recommend starting with an example. Get everybody grounded. Here’s how this issue comes up in business so that we all get on the same page, and then we walk through hopefully practical information without too much depth that’s useful for everyone there, but it’s tricky.
The first piece always is remembering that you need to think about who is my audience today anyway? How can I get their attention? How much detail do they want? We’re both in the communication business, and that remains one of the most challenging things for professionals to get right day in and day out.
Gina Rubel: I listen to a lot of podcasts including On Record PR, and yesterday I was listening to The GaryVee Audio Experience. He’s very gritty. He’s a millennial. He’s super successful. And one of the things he said was that he … And now he’s speaking to big public audiences. Right? He’s looking at the Twitter feed of the last place he spoke and where he’s speaking next to see what they’re talking about related to what he says or why he says it. He’s googling the questions that he’s gotten in the past to get a sense of what this audience needs because it’s such a mixed audience.
What research do you advise lawyers to do? Let’s say they’re going to an industry conference. What are some things that they can be doing to better prepare themselves to know the audience?
Tip 9: The first thing is to talk to the organizers if that’s possible, or maybe have some other professional staff talk to the organizers. Have somebody go on the website and see who attends this conference, who it is marketed to, and who shows up. Read any information they can find and go to the conference sooner than half an hour before your slot. Meet people at dinner, talk to people at breakfast, and say, “Hey, I’m talking about X topic. What interests you about that? How is your business affected by that topic?”
If you can do that amount of research, you’ll have information, and you’ll know that it’s right because you’ve done at least some of it yourself as the speaker, but also, you’ll make some friends.
Tip 10: One of the best pieces of information to help you be a more comfortable speaker in-person, which works somewhat virtually, is to make some friends in the audience beforehand. I even recommend that you plant what I call active listeners. Talk to people beforehand, engage with them on the topic, and ask their opinion. Most likely they’ll attend your session or your speech, and they’ll be a very engaged listener because they have skin in the game. They feel like, “Hey, I told her about that issue, and now she’s talking about it.” Or even, “Hey, she’s using that example I gave her with permission around what this looks like in my particular industry or kind of business.”
That’s a great way to connect. Gather the information from whomever you think might have it, but at the very least, ask the question hopefully before you make the slides so that you can have true customization.
Gina Rubel: I love those tips. I make sure that if it has a hashtag, I follow it.
Tip 11: In addition, there’s always an opportunity to not repeat what others have already said at an industry conference by actually attending the programs, at least those that are in your track, before you present.
Oftentimes I see presenters come in last minute, they jump on stage, they haven’t built a rapport with the audience, they present something, you’ll hear them say three or four things that were already said in the same track, and it just feels disingenuous and disjointed.
Tip 12: Practice the act of listening, and tie it in, so there’s a sense of continuity.
Marsha Redmon: Yes. And for me it’s a sign of respect. Respect and being fully engaged in your practice as a speaker. Going to the keynote, as you say, referring to things that others have said, understanding. I’m thinking of LMA and understanding the LMA when you’re speaking at LMA. How many times have there been keynote speakers who someone just dropped words into a search and replace kind of thing and didn’t quite seem to get the audience? Of course, you and I are highly attuned to the notion of audience. It may not have been as noticeable to some. For me, it is about being effective, being a professional, but it is an issue of respect as well.
Gina Rubel: I have to say on the other side of that, some of the best speakers I have ever heard were at LMA national conferences and just so well done, so customized. I’m thinking of James Kane. His presentation was so customized that he had somebody in the back putting in data into the presentation so that it was taking stuff that the audience said, and it was just incredible.
Tip 13: Practice what you preach and when you talk … You mentioned respect. It’s a sign of respect. There’s nothing that frustrates me more than a speaker who complains about a room that’s not full, and they haven’t attended a single event before it, because everyone is there. It’s a matter of respecting one another, right? And learning from each other. I share that because no matter if there’s one person or 500 people in the room if one person walks away with change, you’ve succeeded.
Marsha Redmon: And that’s the goal. When we think about being a comfortable speaker or not being nervous, a number one go-to always has been to do as much audience research as I can and customize my workshops, my speeches, and as much as possible because that makes me more comfortable going in because I know I’ve done everything I can to bring maximum value to the specific people that I believe will be in front of me. That makes me not nervous because I know I’m there to be helpful and I’ve done everything I can to be that person.
That advice often works with lawyers and other professionals who tend to be perfectionists because many times people become uncomfortable speaking, or they certainly worry about it in advance because they feel like they have to be perfect. One of the most important things I teach is that it’s not about perfect delivery; it’s about connection.
We don’t have to worry about perfect delivery. I said one “um.” Does not matter. Our goal is to connect. Our goal is to be helpful, to give useful, practical information. For many folks who feel nervous or uncomfortable about speaking, those two ideas, knowing your audience and connecting, understanding perfection is not the goal, really can make a difference when it comes to nervousness and worry about getting up in front of people whether it’s virtual or in-person.
Gina Rubel: That’s a great point. I am thinking about the dreaded PowerPoint and how we’re both educated in the law. We’ve both attended many, many CLEs over the years or other formal presentations, and you look at a PowerPoint with page after page and bullet after bullet.
Talk to us about the PowerPoint. Use it? Don’t use it? How to use it?
In the case where you have the option, so with CLEs usually, you have to have PowerPoint because the rules say you have to, and so in that case, you have to make the best of it.
Tip 14: In those situations where PowerPoint is not required, we should take a good long look at the purpose of the communication, what it is that we’re teaching, and what change we hope to create for the audience and decide from there.
I’ve seen successful presentations with no slides at all. For most of us, unless we’re seasoned speakers, the slides can be a real barrier. I liken it to a large brick wall, a tall brick wall standing between the speaker and the audience, and neither of us can reach the other side because everybody’s staring at the slides. Many nervous speakers tend to hold onto both sides of the lectern and just stare down at their laptop, in which case they’re not even looking at the audience at all.
That’s one of the biggest barriers to using slides. And then, of course, many of us read the slides to the audience, which is deadly.
Tip 15: The goal in those cases where we must use slides for assorted reasons would be to try to get fewer words and more concepts. Use the slides to remind you to tee up examples, and case studies. That kind of information tends to connect better with the audience, and you teach better when you’re using case studies, examples, demos of a skill, or whatever makes sense given the topic. You might still use slides in that case, but you’d be much more engaging, and you certainly wouldn’t be reading off of the slides.
Next June, you and I are going to have an experience speaking about ourselves at an event for women, which has me nervous because I’d never talk about myself, and there I bet most of us or all of us will not have slides because in that case we’re talking about ourselves and lessons that we’ve learned, and I think that is a great scenario that might be most effective without slides, or if we do have slides, maybe the slides are images.
Gina Rubel: It’s the Empowered Women Conference 2023 (#EmpoweredWomen2023) in Philadelphia on June 1, hosted by Freeman Means Business. I am the conference chair since it’s in Philadelphia, and I was a speaker at the conference in 2019. It’s a fabulous conference. It’s not just for women, but it is all women speakers.
There are a couple of things you said in there that I want to unpack. The first thing you said is, “I’m nervous.” And I love that about you, and I love that you not only have integrity and honesty, but that our listeners need to understand that nervousness is okay.
How do you overcome nervousness in speaking?
I have a checklist of how to manage your nervousness, or as I like to say, how to be more comfortable when you’re speaking, and that includes before, during, and after.
Tip 16: One of my tips is a little controversial, it’s a little touchy-feely, but the notion is to feel what you’re feeling. Your body has certain reactions. Your armpits get sweaty, your stomach feels a little churn-y, maybe your hands get sweaty, and you can acknowledge that to yourself, but know that your brain attaches meaning to those physical symptoms. You could choose to say, “Wow, my hands are sweaty, my armpits are sweaty, that means I’m excited. I’m excited to be here.” You can reframe the feeling, and that one can work really well if you’re good at that.
You’re doing that for yourself because, for a lot of us, when our body starts to show symptoms of nervousness, our mind says, “Uh-oh, this is going to go really badly,” because our hands are shaky and our armpits are wet so, “I’m nervous, all bets are off. This is going to be bad.” The mind assigns meaning, so choose to assign a meaning that’s helpful to you. “I’m excited.” Right?
To me, nervousness is energy. I’m going to harness that and use that to connect in advance, I’m going to use that energy to work hard to make sure I know my audience and I’ve done everything I can to give useful, beneficial information to the people in front of me. And that’s really my number one tip around nervousness, is understand that you are standing in front of an audience because you have useful information for that audience, and your goal is to be helpful and to hopefully give the information in a way that’s practical and easy to understand. You are not standing in front of the audience because you know everything. Lawyers need to listen to that one.
All of us can fall into that trap and feel like, “I shouldn’t be here. Someone else knows more.” And we use that thought to make ourselves more nervous or allow ourselves to become more nervous. I say harness the energy. Don’t make it a negative. Do the hard work. Right? Know your audience. Practice. Practice aloud. I always have to define practice for lawyers and other professionals. If you’re practicing in your head, it doesn’t count. We’ve all had a lot of things in our head that sounded great, and when they got out in the world, not so much.
Tip 17: Practice aloud. If you’re standing to present, practice standing. And the final thing I’d say about nervousness is do not write out a script. Do not memorize your presentation because if you miss one word, you may lose the whole thing. I like bullets. Slides can be a nice prompt, but again, we’re not reading the slides, we’re putting information on the slides to prompt us to remember what we wanted to say for that particular slide, but never write anything out word for word.
Gina Rubel: One of the things that Zoom has done is it’s really made practicing so much easier because you can speak to yourself, and you can look at the camera like I’m doing right now. I’m not actually looking down at you but I’m looking at the camera, and I would practice speaking to the audience, making eye contact, moving your body around, and that’s a really good way to gauge how you’re going to come across to your audience as well as pick some of the things that might bug you about yourself if someone else was doing that.
I was always taught to publicly acknowledge your nervousness. Do you agree?
Tip 18: Don’t publicly acknowledge your nervousness in a professional setting. For example, If your audience is made up of lawyers or people like lawyers, I would not do that. Especially if, Wall Street lawyers, for example, they’ll eat you alive and they’ll throw it back in your face. Whether you’re a lawyer at that firm or some other firm, I would say we don’t need to acknowledge that because when you say, “I’m nervous,” the audience immediately thinks, “Oh, man, it’s so uncomfortable to watch someone speak who’s nervous. I’m just going to go ahead and switch on over to Netflix in this virtual workshop that I’m watching.”
The folks in the room that are sitting there, they may decide to just check out, pull out their phone, or go back to whatever they were daydreaming about, and I don’t think we need to do that. I would rather not acknowledge it in the moment while I’m speaking.
I think putting forward, maybe we transform it, “I’m energized today. I’m excited to speak to you about this issue because it’s really important and let me tell you why.” I would just fake it ‘till you make it, hopefully, backed up by practice and research. I wouldn’t acknowledge it.
There was one time when I had a really tough time doing something that was hybrid because, long story short, big law firm, New York City, they said 60 to a hundred associates would be there in-person and just a few people would be joining by Zoom. We all show up there together. There are two associates, and all of them are on Zoom.
It was bizarre, and I felt very uncomfortable, and I just kept talking and it was over. And I asked the professional development department that had hired me, because they were there, “What did you think? How did it go? What are you hearing?” And they said, “Oh, it’s great. Everybody loved it.” And that was the moment when I told one of them, “I felt terribly nervous,” but I waited until those other things had happened first.
Gina Rubel: I appreciate that perspective, and I do agree with it. It was something I was taught outside of speaking to lawyers, but when you’re speaking to lawyers, they will eat you alive if you show nervousness, and I agree with that wholeheartedly, whether it’s an in-house counsel or someone practicing in a law firm.
What are some of the things that you would recommend people do or do not do as it relates to language that is either empowering or disempowering?
We use words and phrases that take away our power or really give it up. We give it up on our own. And one thing I’ve noticed lately is “sort of” and “kind of.” I’m hearing it a lot.
I recently worked with about 20 senior lawyers, senior associates, who were up for partner at a firm, and I coached them for the oral interviews, and I noticed about every one of them when delivering the most important couple of sentences of their career in practice use kind of or sort of to soften it.
Tip 19: We could all decide we’re going to take a week or a month and it’s going to be “kind of, sort of” awareness month, and we’re going to listen to ourselves and get our close friends and colleagues to be listening for us to help us understand, when we’re saying the most important statements, are we softening them with kind of or sort of or some other word that removes the power and authority that we’re trying to project.
Tip 20: One thing I’ve suggested people do in some instances is to record just their side of communications. If you’re on Zoom or on the phone, you can record just your side of it and then go back and listen to it. This is a tech tip, and I don’t make money off of this, but I recommend that you consider getting the app Otter, O-T-T-E-R, .ai, and put it on your phone. Otter records audio, then it immediately transcribes it, and then you can search that audio, you can do a word search, and so you could actually type in kind of or sort of, and then do a word search on that transcript that it does for you, and you can find out if you’re doing it or not.
It’s also helpful for all kinds of content creation. You can walk around and just talk into your phone, and then it will type it out for you, and then you can cut and chop it up, use it for blog posts, really anything.
Gina Rubel: There are two others that I use; Temi.com and Rev.com, and they all do the same thing as Otter.ai.
Tip 21: The other things that I look for in my own speaking, and I suggest others do as well, and I noticed in myself using the phrase, “You know” and “So.” I try to self-monitor those things quite a bit. I still fall into those habits. Much less than the word “like,” which is used much more by the younger generation, but I check out when somebody’s speaking, and they say, “Me and so-and-so,” and the younger generation and the teaching generation is using that language. I check out immediately because I hear poor language.
What do you think about the formality of language and using it, again, we’re talking about in professional legal spaces?
I’m right there with you. I’m a member of the grammar police for sure, the oral grammar police, not the written, although I can’t tolerate typos. I believe it’s important to be as professional as we possibly can in every scenario, and so I would love to know if I’m making those mistakes, and I do share with people in a very private and gentle way when I think it would be well received if I see those kinds of mistakes that really seem to undercut someone’s professionalism, credibility, authority. I think it’s our duty as fellow humans.
For you and me, Gina, because we’re in this business, I hope that it’s well received. In coaching scenarios and workshops, I will do that. I’ll find a way to do it. Sometimes I’ll share it with the professional staff at a law firm and discuss, would it be received? What’s the best way to do this? Incorporate it into the things that I do. I’m mostly involved in oral speech because the communication skills I deal with are oral, but it does of course bleed over into the written as well.
How can lawyers present with confidence and connect with their audiences virtually?
Tip 22: The most important thing as we’re talking virtual, which also is relevant to hybrid, you’ve got to actually make eye contact. As you and I are doing right now, you’ve got to look at the actual camera. You can’t be looking down at the video box of the person you’re talking to. You can’t be looking over on a different screen at your slides or your notes. You have to look at the actual camera.
The reason it matters is, with virtual and hybrid, when you’re on camera, you want to take advantage of what I call the talking head phenomena. And what that means is, on camera, we are in a box, hopefully we’re framed properly, we have some head room, we’re in the middle of the screen, we’re seen from about the chest or the waist up, there’s enough light on our face that people can read our expression, and there’s nothing too busy or distracting in our background.
If we meet that criterion, then people who see us will presume confidence and authority because of the visual that we’re communicating, because for generations we have all seen talking heads on video who did in fact have authority, confidence, stature. If we can present in that same way virtually, we get that benefit.
As opposed to those of us who show up in the dark with a bad camera, the camera’s shooting up our nose, you can see the ceiling. That doesn’t present a professional image. And the big news here is we’re judging each other as though we were in-person, even though we’re actually on video.
Do yourself a favor, present, come across on camera in that talking head fashion with professionalism, and you get all the benefit of simply the way you’re able to look on camera. So that’s the first one, the eye contact and the talking head thing.
Tip 23: The second one is warmth in your voice, energy. Almost all of the energy we communicate over a video is with our voice. Think about what you do when you’re good on the phone. That’s what you need to do to connect virtually and in hybrid scenarios. You have to have a conversational tone, a warm voice, not too fast. As you mentioned earlier, Gina, you have to use the pause to let your point land, to let people understand that the point you are making matters. Right? Use the pause, and that will allow you to connect with your audience, to keep their attention, and to project the authority and the confidence that you want to project.
Gina Rubel: I put my show notes or what I want to reference when I’m presenting over my picture, so I cannot see myself right now, because my ego gets in the way. Is my hair okay? Does this look okay? Does that look okay? And since this is a recording, we’re focused on audio, I choose not to look at myself. I do it in the beginning of the presentation and that’s it. So that’s a way for me not to be distracted.
Tip 24: Another thing I recommend is to stand when presenting. I don’t like to sit when I’m presenting. I’m much more animated, I speak better because my diaphragm is lengthened and I’m able to project my voice better, and my husband says I’m a pacer. When I’m on the phone, I pace around the room. I don’t pace what I’m presenting, but for me to stand is better.
If you have a way that you’re most comfortable or you know the project best, it’s okay to stand while you’re presenting virtually, as long as you’re not doing what I call the baby shake, and I’m demonstrating shaking back and forth from hip to hip or walking all around the room because you need to have a consistent voice.
About Marsha Redmon
Marsha Redmon is the secret weapon elite law firms and lawyers have gone to for 23 years to have a more powerful presence when they speak. During the pandemic, she became the go-to expert teaching professionals worldwide how to fix their virtual presence so they could speak with confidence and engage powerfully – to win clients, have impact and own their niche.
Marsha is a former practicing attorney and award-winning TV journalist. The through-line in her varied career is “there must be a better, faster way to do this.” With practical, hands-on processes, she is the checklist and template queen.
Marsha practiced law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and was an award-winning consumer and investigative reporter on television in major markets.
Married with twin daughters who just started college – Marsha lives in the Washington, DC suburbs. She was born and raised in Key West, Florida – and loves Cuban food and island vacations. Hobbies: reading, travel. Her favorite word is ebullient (ee-BULE-ee-ent) …and… she is! ee-BULE-ee-ent
Learn More & Connect
Marsha Redmon
Website & Workshops: https://marsha.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marsharedmon/
Twitter: @marsharedmon
Instagram: marshaaredmon
