How to Win at Zoom

Be Brave

New frontiers favour the brave, though you might argue we only remember the ones who survive. While many were disappointed when 100,000 prospectors rushed to the Klondike, others made their fortune and not just from gold. There is opportunity out there but you need new ways of prospecting. How are you innovating to make the rain?

The road is hard now and the gradient will be steeper in 2021, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. If your route is not littered with the flotsam of your failures it is likely you are not being brave enough.

We have tried new ways of doing things in every facet of our business since March, some have worked and some not. Remember you learn as much from bad moves as good ones.

Big tip: Collect the data and measure your rainmaking, knowledge is power.

Be Brief

There is something other worldly about where we are. I was recently on a call organised from Davos, with participants from all corners of the world, about a keynote to be delivered from my own home. The plan had been for us all to go to Barcelona.

Cut the crap, stop the fluff, be on point. You need to articulate yourself with clarity, focus and power as there is no table with coffee and nice pastries to distract others from your inability to see the ennui of the masses and stop all the chatter.

Whether it’s the 30 second intervention, three minutes holding the floor or the half hour workshop the way to leave them wanting more is to stop before they start looking for the cat.

Big tip: Make tone, pitch, pace and pause your best friends.

Be Brilliant

If brilliant is a high bar at least don’t let us see past your double chin up your nose or look like you are in a witness protection programme by sitting in front of a window. We are six months into this and will be six more, so don’t be an amateur.

Tech glitches are forgiven, poor connections happen and not everyone can look like Fiona Bruce at 8am on a wet December Tuesday but there were rules of comportment before and they still exist. Not looking like you are just out of bed, even if you are in your bedroom, is a start.

Big tip: Frame yourself like you think you are terrific and fix your hair.