Showing curiosity, feeling like you're curious, will make the other person that's looking at you, listening to you, feel like you want to connect with them. So if you can show that, if you can show it through how you look, how you move, your voice, that your voice is so, so important. If you can you can show your intention of that curiosity that you want to connect, that you're interested in the other person who's on the other side of the camera, then then that would that should help you become a stronger communicator and getting better and getting good at things.

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My name is Matt Pierce, host of the Visual Lounge, where we talk about using images and videos in the workplace. Today, we're gonna be talking about something I think is really important. As you get on camera, as you're on screen for people, it is so easy to not build trust. It's easy to lose trust. So we're gonna be talking with a speaking coach and expert about on-camera presence and how not to lose that trust. So Peter travels to hybrid globe helping speakers, high-performing professionals, corporate teams, TEDx speakers, and founders to share more powerful stories and build accurate speaking and present skills. With that all said, please help me welcome Peter Hopwood to the Visual Lounge. Hey Peter, I'm curious, how did you get started with using like video and images in your work?

Yeah, well, essentially, as a speaker coach and helping people to stand on stages and and uh in boardrooms really connect by what they say, by how they move, by by the connections they're trying to achieve. Through the pandemic, that was obviously a time where you know all my traveling stopped. I couldn't do it in person anymore. And after a kind of a long period of just wallowing and not really stepping up, I realized that actually here, this in this screen, in this box, there are skills to be learnt to connect, right? So it's not clearly not the same as when you're in person and trying to do the same thing, connect, build that trust, build that connection. Here on a screen, it's it's it's different. There are so many other things that have you have to think about, things that skills that you can learn, behaviors you can share. And so simply through the the pandemic two years or so, that was really where I was able to kind of share my skills to help other people really create this this connection. So whether it be sales teams that were trying to have a trying to get good at this with their intro calls, building up that trust, building up that relationship at the beginning of their of their sales journey, or whether it was presenters or or people who had to share certain information through the screen and do it in a good way, it gave me the chance to do that. So so really, although I was doing it many years before as a presenter as well, through the pandemic, that was really a kind of gave me a chance to hone in on the on the real skills and as I say, behaviors, they're behaviors, behaviors to get good at this. And when you get good at this, or you start to get good at this, you actually start to leave the competitors behind. You start you start to excel, and people remember you better, they they build up more trust with you quicker, and uh yeah, it it it's good for business, and and uh everybody can uh connect with you better, but still, this is not natural. This is not a natural thing we should be doing. However, as I say, you you if you look at it as uh you know strategic things you have to do, strategic behaviors, skills, ways of moving, ways of of speaking, your intention, your eye contact, all these, all these things you can put together and work on quite quickly, you can start to, as I say, start to get good at this, feel feel confident at this, and feel confident that what you say, what you how you show up is actually going to connect better with the people that are looking at you.

How would you what what does success look like for a good on-camera presence? Like, how would you know if you're being successful at it?

That's a fantastic question you just asked there, because it's really difficult to know whether you're you're doing well or or you're not doing well, right? But but maybe use this as a gauge, right? So basically, essentially, when you're when you're on camera, when you're doing your zoom calls, your your virtual exchanges, record record one or two of them, right? Have a look back at what you look like, right? So it's all about critiquing yourself and being aware of what this box is like to the people that are looking at at it, right? So the perception. So look at the way you're looking at the camera, look at the way perhaps are your are your do you have gestures, are they moving? Does it seem like this is dynamic when you look back at yourself? Do you look at yourself and see yourself looking curious or feeling the intention you want to feel when you're connecting with that person? So, but doing it will actually really and quite quickly help you to to probably do two things. Number one, you'll realize you're not as bad as you think, okay. And number two, you'll start to see things that actually, you know, I I could have done that better, or maybe what you know, why was I moving so much? Or maybe I wasn't moving it in enough, maybe I didn't have enough gestures, or maybe my background was it just seems like there's something, something not right, or something that is not helping the communication, not helping to build up trust, or not even maybe not even helping the conversation. So when there's curiosity, that's that's a really important word I want to throw in there. So in this box, gesturing is good, it's really good because it shows the other person that we're alive, that we're that we're moving, keeping animated, but not a distraction, but keeping animated is something that again helps the other person feel like okay, this this this is this is going somewhere, this is actually a connection, it keeps our brains moving and stimulated as well. So, all these things, just by looking at yourself, you you'll be able to tell whether you you feel like you're you're getting somewhere or not. Our audiences, whether they're online or or whether they're virtual or even live, they don't have to, and they don't always do it, they don't have to give us the signals that we interpret as signals of of listening or signals of being engaged, right? So sometimes, quite actually quite often, certainly here in this environment, I think we have to kind of just believe in ourselves that we're actually doing this in the right way. We're doing all the things we should be doing, we're trying to show curiosity, as I say, we're using gestures to to let them see that we're that we have a better intonation with our voice naturally. So the more we we're using our gestures, and you can see here, I'm just simply I'm not using gestures like large gestures all the time, but you can see what my hands are doing, and you can see I'm using them as as buttons, I'm using them as using the rhythm as well, but you can see you have an indication of what they're doing, so just the gestures can really help. But going back to the original, original topic here, again, I think we sometimes have to just believe in what we're doing, know we're trying to do, trying to engage, and even if we don't get the engagement back, because we can't you I mean, to to expect it is is probably wrong because not everybody will show they're engaged, not everybody will show they they they like what what they hear, then not everybody will show that they're they're actually listening to you, although they may well be listening to you. I know as a fact, you know, when I'm when I'm really listening to someone, or I'm really thinking, or I'm making a decision about something, often listening to pictures, let's say, I'm I'm actually I've got my I've got a frown on my face, my my arms are kind of like like this, I'm sort of leaning back slightly. But in fact, these may look as if they're kind of close gestures, but in fact, for many, when we think, we we cross our arms or our front, we have a frown, right? Yep, or we we we go back slightly, right? So so if we were to take all these individual signals that we see and that we hear or don't hear, I'm sure it would start to kind of play with us, play with our minds, and we would start to doubt, right? So so what I say to you know, everybody that I work with in terms of people who stand on the stage certainly, and again on screen as well.

Well, I I love it, and you've already given us so many great things. Uh I want to get to our third question, then we'll dive into more about trust because I think it's you know, you've given us a couple things like gestures, there's some things that you can do to be successful to improve. What would you say is like one more tip, just a quick tip that you think would improve someone their presence on video? Obviously, I think there's energy. I think one thing I've noticed you doing during this, even is you lean in a little bit, like you're like kind of back and then you're like lean in and talk. Got any kind of one thing you think anyone can do to improve kind of quickly?

Yeah, I mean we we I sort of dibbled and dabbled on quite a few things there. So the moving, so I essentially I move I move, I stand up. I stand up because it helps me to feel more stable. I can I feel like so, like when I'm presenting, or even if this was just an intro call, a sales intro call, just standing up is almost like saying, you know, I'm I'm here to to show myself, I'm here to to show you respect in a way, although that sitting down and standing up in terms of respect isn't really a lot. However, in my mind, when I'm standing up, I feel like I'm kind of giving you more respect because I, you know, I'm I'm here to to to meet you, right? Um, so so standing up can give me this this you can see I can actually go, I can lean in, I can do it with my gestures as well. I can go, I can say something that's that I want you to hear more. I can lean in when I'm listening, I might lean back slightly, I can do all these things. If I was sitting down, it's more difficult to do that. And again, the sound that's coming through, my voice is only as good as the air that goes inside and comes out. And if you're sitting down, especially if you're sitting down all day, by the end of the day, you know what it feels like. Everyone does uh at an office by their desk, you know, the your your stomach is all kind of crumpled up, uh, and the airs the air isn't as good as it could be. So standing is a good one. So if I was to give you one other big tip, um, so the eye contact, I think I've already mentioned that as well. Again, just by practicing looking at the at the lens. Now, this is a big one for so many people, right? So many people have uh an issue with this, still have an issue with it, because when I look clearly, when I look at the lens, um, and there's other people on the call, I can't see what they're doing. I can have an idea, I've I've got an idea of what's happening, but I can't actually see their eyes and and and get the connection that maybe I want. However, priority, I always say it, the priority is what? Is it me looking at you, or is it you building up the trust in me? I want you, let's say this was a sales call, I want you to build up the trust in me. I want you to feel like I'm curious about you, curious about how we can work together, curious about the work we can do together as a collaboration, right? So the more I kind of look at you, the more I give you my eyes, the more I kind of show you, look through this screen and imagine you here, the more you have the feeling like I'm I'm I'm respecting you. It's a an element of respect when I look at you more, especially when you're talking to me. So if somebody else is looking talking to me through their camera, but maybe not looking at the camera as I'm looking at the camera, they'll still see me looking at them as if I'm really listening to them. So doing it as much as you can, again, it's a really sort of strange thing to get used to, but you've you've got used to it. Um, I've got used to it. Presenters, we we do it all the time by looking at the camera and imagining this camera that is where that is where that person is that you're talking to you. So I'm looking at the camera now. To my left is I can see with the you know peripheral vision, I can see you nodding. It's practice, getting used to it. But the more you do it, and again, looking back at it when you've recorded yourself, you'll see that actually this is actually a really good thing. So if you start with that, get used to that. Um it will it will start to it will start to boost up your confidence and and as I say, you'll start to get better on this on this virtual journey.

Really great advice for anyone who's listening, get good at looking into your lens. So I want to learn from you the things I can do to build trust and not inadvertently break some of the trust when we're in these relationships, whether it's a virtual experience like this or even if it's like a pre-recorded where someone's gonna watch it, because I imagine they're they're similar. Obviously, there's differences, but I imagine if you're watching a video of me and I'm doing something that's maybe gonna break some of that trust, I wanna know so I can get better at it. For you, why is trust in this environment so if you could sum it up quick two sentence? What why is trust so important? I think we all kind of know it and feel it, but I'd love to hear it from you.

Okay, in person, we we can show so many other signals that that build up that trust, that help us help us help the other person when they're perceiving us, when they're judging us. They have so many other things, they have lots of things to go by, right? And in a natural human connection environment, we've been as as kids, we grow up to be teenagers, to be adults, we've been trying to connect and and meet people, we shake their hands, we say a few words, we then talk about other things, we we smile, all these things, all these things we've been doing for years, right? So we kind of we kind of as humans, we're kind of good at it. But here we don't we don't have those, we don't have those at all. All we really have, all we really have is a box, a flat box, right? And so we have to we have to kind of imitate as many things as we can from the in-person world to hear. If I'm if I start to lose your attention through through what you see, or through what I say, or through how I say something, with the tone, with the sounds that you hear, you on the other side can just with your finger click and leave me. Yeah, right. We can't do that in the real world, right? It's really difficult to do it. Well, you could you could just say you could just like walk away, just I'm out of here, right? But or in an audience listening to a conference, most people don't just get up and walk. Some people do, but most people I haven't, maybe you have, but most people don't get up and just walk out, right? But here, whether it's something on YouTube, whether it's recorded, whatever it is, we you know, our audience are really powerful, are far more powerful here than than anywhere else because with their finger, bang, they can just click and then we're gone. We're we're gone forever. Maybe not forever, but we we've we're gone at that moment. So so really we have to keep people to get people's attention and keep their attention. That's probably probably even more difficult, right, here than than anywhere else. We have to you have to grab it and maintain that attention throughout, right? So so so, in terms of trust, these these are the things we really need to think about. You know, we we have to again, I have to gain your attention. You don't owe me a thing. Listening to me now, you listening to me now, okay. It's your podcast. I you invite me on, and uh naturally you you want me here. However, listeners, people that are watching this or watching a clip of this, they owe me nothing, they own you nothing, Matthew, they owe nobody anything, and they don't owe us anything to stick around. So they don't have to stay with us, they don't have to listen to us, they don't have to subscribe, they they have the they have their choice. So it's so we have to give them something in terms of value, something in terms of why they're gonna stick around, right? So we have to build up that value, and we have to accept that people can just leave us just with a click of a finger. So we have to we have to really build up that trust right from the beginning and really again show curiosity, show that we want to give value, show that we're ready to give something as a mindset has always helped me, and and that's something you know when I'm speaking to working with coaching speakers, coaching people who are pitching, time is the biggest commodity of all, right? So you really have to respect that. They're giving you their time, they don't have to, no one does, but they have, hopefully, they have, hopefully, they're still with us right now, right? Right. And we have to give them back the value.

What's the role of like in your work and your what you've seen, the role of like the visual aids that come up? You know, so if someone's given a presentation, I've watched tons of TED type presentations, and it's obviously the on-stage movement that those interactions are really important, and they focus on in an 18-minute video, they probably focus most of it on the person telling the story. But we also see these visuals. So, how does that play into building trust with the audience, if if at all?

So, okay, so we're watching, let's say we're watching a TEDx talk. Um, the number one thing, the number one thing, certainly for me, in in all of this that is gonna grab our attention, that's gonna really keep us hopefully engaged, hopefully sticking with emotionally sticking with what the speaker is saying, is actually, and you'll probably you're you'll you may disagree with me, but is actually the voice. Okay, the sound. So sound is so important. So you can have somebody that's walking on stage, looks a mess, um, you know, looks a total mess, right? Although you when you do a TEDx tour, who would who would look a mess? Most most people don't look a mess. However, somebody that's look not looking that that you know respectable. Um, I don't know, if he comes on or she comes on, and you've already made this judgment in your in your mind about who they are. It's often often when we see like reality shows like I don't know, or or music shows like The Voice or The X Factor, we see someone come on, they they don't they don't look like a singer, they don't um uh move like a singer, they don't sound when they speak like a singer, but when they suddenly sing, some of them, not all of them actually, some of them completely surprise us with with this beautiful, amazing, crazy voice, right? Yeah, it's the same with with speaking on on on stage. People will come out, and obviously, you've got to look as respectable as you can and create all these points of of trying to persuade your audience or or that judgment that they're giving you, trying to get closer to where you want to be, but your voice is number one. So that's the number one thing. Now, in terms of visual aids, in terms of slides, these are all there simply just to help make things maybe even more clearer, especially when it's maybe a complex theme or topic, using slides which make things simple can really help, right? Also, it also sometimes takes away the you know, we want we want as a speaker, we want most we want people to be listening to us, focused on us, but let's say it's a quite it's a longer speech or a longer talk, just just a switch to the slide can just again just break up that the movement and also give us give our brains something a little bit more stimulating to focus on, and then you come back. And again, when I'm nodding, so if I want, for example, if I want you to agree with me on something, or I know it's something that you probably would agree with, right? I can use, I can I could say something like listen, you'll agree with me that that right now the situation in terms of inflation pretty much across the globe is tough, and it's tough for me, and it's it's I'm sure it's tough for you as well, right? You'd agree with me there, right? So, even just like by saying something that I think you're going to agree with me on, nodding and doing this movement can really help. And presenters, weather presenters often do that, whoops, often do that movement as well. So, so next time you're you're watching the present a presenter, um, weather presenter, try to see the you know the movement they do, and in fact, I'll tell you this now. There is actually one presenter in the UK, she's on BBC, she's energetic, she's got a really smooth voice, lovely tone, she's an attractive woman as well, which also helps. But right at the end, right at the end, when she's finished, what she does, and she does this every single time, she gives a little wink, just a small little wink. And she, I'm not saying that's good or bad, but she gets away with it because it's all part of this feel-good, two-minute, snappy engagement that that hopefully people will remember. And they remember, I certainly remember that wink.

Yeah, so it's it's about being purposeful, right? What you're thinking about every gesture as an extension of what you're saying to help, uh, you know, I think with the nodding in particular, it reminds me of uh what's called mirror neurons, right? Like we have these neurons that will fire. If I see you doing smiling, for instance, smiling's a big one. If I'm smiling, I'm happy. You are much more likely to feel that need and want to smile because our neurons start to fire, like, oh, we're we're smiling today. So I I think there's a lot to that, but being very purposeful in those things to help engage your audience so that they're coming along with you and they're trusting you. And of course, trust is a delicate thing. I want to flip the script a little bit and let's talk about things that you've seen that break that trust. Like, and and obviously we've talked, you could take all the things that you just said, and we've, you know, well, don't use hand gestures, don't don't look at the camera. But are there other things you see that just you're like, oh my gosh, that that really can make it hard for an audience to connect with a presenter or break that trust right away that they're doing something that's like, oh, that could have been a good presentation.

Low-hanging fruit, naturally, our logistics, our setup. If it's okay, I've got a ring light here, I've got one, I've got a light here, um, you've got yours professionally as well. But we don't, everybody else, you don't need to buy a ring light, you just have to make sure you've got light in front of you. Light which lets people see your face, yes, light which lets people see your expressions. If they can't, or if it's difficult to do that, it becomes a big distraction. It becomes far bigger than it comes, it becomes a very big distraction indeed. Another big distraction is the sound. If the sound is your computer um audio and that seems to be okay, if it's um if it's a specialized mic that you've bought, or you know, great equipment like you've got as well, this is all fantastic. However, if it's if the the the audio, if there's crackling, or if you can't hear it enough, or there's something, this there's a disturbance, that becomes a real distraction, right? It's it's the same as like Wi-Fi, you know, when there's a when that we you know, we with Wi-Fi, if we have to wait a while, even if it's for 30 seconds, 10 seconds, even, we get agitated, right? Because in this world we live in right now, everything has to be like straight away. So if we can't see you clearly, or if there's a distraction, if we can't hear you clearly, or there's a distraction, these are the things that are gonna really start you. You're you're you're starting on the wrong foot. Just think about what people see all in this box, because again, we have full control over this, and that's a good thing. So I can spend, I can actually spend and you can as well, you know, hours and hours and thinking about what you want people to see, and that's a good thing. Other places you can't control that when you go for a meeting or presentation, you're you depend on the environment, on the room, on the conference hall, on this on the stage. But if we can, if we can, and here we can control it, like I say, you can control all of this. So if you can create something that actually gets closer to to what you want people to feel, and what you want people to to to to get from this exchange, and that could be very different, it could be very different depending on that on that exchange you have, right? So if you thinking about it and just just having a little bit of time, I've said hours and hours, but you don't need obviously hours and hours, just uh five minutes of thinking, okay, what do I and you can play around with it, you can play all day. I can go you you can pop into different rooms all day to try to get a spot which seems to work, a spot which seems to work and feels natural, right?

Yeah, I and I love that, and it's always it has always been worth my time to to make sure whatever's behind me looks good and is set. So, but we want to thank you for joining us. So before we wrap up, where can people connect with you? If they want to learn more, they want to connect with you and maybe getting some speak uh speaking consulting or whatever it is that they'd like to do, how can they connect with you?

Yeah, the best best way um go over to LinkedIn, find me there, Peter Hopwood, um, speaker coach, TEDx, you'll find me, it'll come up probably quite quickly uh on on the screen. Connect me with me there. If uh if you're connecting and you've listened to this podcast, you know, have write a little note that you've you've been listening to the podcast. Uh you can see everything that I've been doing. Um, that will give you a good flavor of maybe just maybe how I can help you or your teams with the with their communication as well. So jump over to LinkedIn and you can find me there.

Fantastic. Now we like to wrap up with our final take, Peter. This is our our quick summary of of kind of the big idea of something we talked about today. So, Peter, what is your final take?

My final take really is is simply all all around all based around one word, and that is curiosity. Showing curiosity, feeling like you're curious, will make the other person that's looking at you, listening to you, feel like you want to connect with them. So if you can show that, if you can show it through how you look, how you move, your voice, so your voice is so so important. If you can you can show your intention of that curiosity that you want to connect, that you're interested in the other person who's on the other side of the camera, then then that would that should help you become a stronger communicator in getting better and getting good at uh this.

Fantastic. Peter, thank you so much for joining me today in the Visual Lounge.

Well, thank you so much. I hope we can do this once again sometime in the future.

You bet. Well, everybody, we want to thank you for tuning in today's show. I hope you got some really strong ideas about what you can do to get better in your presence, to build that trust and to not break that trust as you're on camera. Because, you know, we talk about this all the time on the visual broadcast that it's it's not about, you know, doing everything all awesome at once. It's about building those skills over and over and starting with the first video, starting with by trying to look at the camera a little bit more, doing the things that Peter taught us to do today will help you get better. So as we like to end every show, we hope you take a little bit of time to level up to the next time.