Patti Sanchez, Duarte’s Chief Strategy Officer, writes books, creates frameworks, and helps clients connect with audiences through persuasive presentations and story-based communications. She is the co-author of the award-winning book, Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies, and Symbols, and the author of Presenting Virtually: Communicate and Connect with Online Audiences. Patti leads an expert team of communication consultants and creative writers who help clients move their audiences in one powerful moment or in a movement over time.
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Patti Sanchez, Duarte’s Chief Strategy Officer, writes books, creates frameworks, and helps clients connect with audiences through persuasive presentations and story-based communications. She is the co-author of the award-winning book, Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies, and Symbols, and the author of Presenting Virtually: Communicate and Connect with Online Audiences. Patti leads an expert team of communication consultants and creative writers who help clients move their audiences in one powerful moment or in a movement over time.
A Quote From This Episode
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
My Approach to Hosting
Connect with Scott Allen
Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.
Scott Allen
Okay, everybody, good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning. Today, I have Patti Sanchez, and this is going to be a fun conversation. She has just published a book with Duarte. And this is going to be really, really cool. I mean, it is a beautiful book. It is just, well it's everything that aligns with what I would think of when I think of Duarte, Patti, but we'll get into that, but I'm going to tell listeners about you. So, everyone, Patti is a communication expert. She has more than 30 years of experience leading transformative marketing initiatives for brands and causes. She is co-author of an award-winning book on change communication called illuminate ignite change through speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols. Her writing has been featured everywhere, Fast Company, Forbes, HBR.org Sloan Management Review. As Chief Strategy Officer for Duarte Inc. Sanchez, develops product strategies for the training business and teaches executives and teams, how to create authentic connections with audiences and to lead change through persuasive communication. She lives in the Bay Area. She has a canary named Harry Nielsen Canary. Is that a Harry Carey...is there a Chicago connection here?
Patti Sanchez
There's a bit of that. Yes, Harry Nielsen was as a singer/songwriter who I quite enjoy, but also Yes, spend about five years outside Chicago, Chicago as a kid. So yes, I do have a fondness for the Cubs.
Scott Allrn
Oh, that's awesome. Patti, thanks so much for being here.
Patti Sanchez 2:42
I'm thrilled. I can't wait to dig into presenting virtually.
Scott Allen
Yes. So before we do that, is there anything that's not in your bio that listeners should know about you?
Patti Sanchez
Well, I just touched on it. I live in Silicon Valley, but my roots are in the Midwest, spent a good number of years in the Chicagoland area and family from Ohio and Wisconsin. And so I hope that tells you I'm a decent human being. And I follow the rules. And I enjoy cheese and beer. So, Patti, that's so funny because you said Wisconsin a little weird because I'm from Minnesota. Right? And that's where I grew up.
Scott Allen 3:22
When we left Minneapolis, I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis. And yes, it was we were in Milwaukee, or Madison, or Chicagoland, or, you know, Des Moines, or there really wasn't too much around within five hours.
Patti Sanchez 3:35
Yeah, they're all great places. Yeah, they taught me how to be humble and work hard. And so I'm proud of those roots.
Scott Allen 3:44
Well, I, when I think of any of those areas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, it is it's a great place to be from, that's for sure. I am, again, this beautiful, beautiful publication Presenting Virtually: Communicate and Connect with Online Audiences. We were talking before we started, and this is going nowhere. It'll be with us in some form or fashion moving forward. And I just see this as such a wonderful opportunity to, in some ways, kind of master another medium, right? I mean, we have maybe a TED style talk, or we have a from-the-podium talk or a webinar. And this is just another medium for us to master. Wouldn't you agree?
Unknown Speaker 4:24
Absolutely. I think it is the way that we're working now. It wasn't new to me and to many organizations. You know, people have been presenting online for some time since the internet really came to be. Yet, it's a lot more pervasive than it ever was. And I think it's a really important medium because it reaches so many people. It's worth investing the time and effort to do it well.
Scott Allen 4:48
It is, you know, and it's opened up so many wonderful opportunities. So I'm a professor at the college of business. I have a world-class scholar coming to speak to my class Thursday evening. from Harvard, she's incredible Barbara Kellerman, she'll be with us, and I can secure her for a price. And I can really, the dates are all over the place, there's so much availability because I can just say, a Thursday sometime in the fall. And it doesn't have to be this three-day excursion for her. And she opens up the computer, helps her students understand her perspective on a topic of leadership, shuts it down an hour later, and I mean, it's just really afforded so many wonderful opportunities, this new medium now, is it correct for everything? No. Will it replace being together? No. But I think selectively understanding when this tool and this medium is appropriate, it opens up a lot of opportunities. It really does. Right?
Unknown Speaker 5:44
Absolutely. Yeah, I think the biggest benefits of presenting online are the reach that you'll get, you can reach so many more people, you know, more quickly, more cheaply in a lot of ways. And the convenience for presenters. But the other benefit that really blew my mind as I started researching how other companies are doing this is inclusion. And it never really occurred to me how this kind of this medium democratizes access to information in a similar way to television did. And I think that's profound and important and, again, worthy of attention.
Scott Allen 6:20
I had never thought of that. I hadn't thought of that at all. Talk a little bit more about when you had that insight because I think you're exactly right. Peter Diamandis, I don't know if you've come across Peter and his work at Singularity University in the Bay Area. But he talks, you know once something's digitized, it's demonetized and as democratized, right, that this, this medium, really does open it up for anyone anywhere in the world to gain access, right? So I love that thinking.
Unknown Speaker 6:49
Well, it really became apparent in the work that Duarte does with the big global brands that we support and their events; we help their, you know, leaders stand on stage and deliver to - typically in-person audiences. And of course, they had to pivot to virtual and what they all realized, Salesforce, Microsoft, Apple, these other really large companies is that they quadrupled, quintupled, or more their audience size for their events when they went online. But the realization is that they were reaching people in corners of the globe that have never been able to come to their events in the past, who couldn't afford the ticket, couldn't afford the travel, and just couldn't give the time. And that really was exposing a whole new audience to their ideas. And you know, that's powerful for both sides of the equation, the speaker in the audience.
Scott Allen 7:41
Oh, yeah. And that's a great way to say it for both sides of the equation for sure. Because it just opens it up. It opens it up in a really, really beautiful way. Well, and speaking of opening up, okay, so I, I've had the book for about a day and a half now. So I have not read it cover to cover. I've gone to certain sections that had titles that really intrigued meal. Can I jump around a little bit, and just maybe we can play with some different ideas? Because I think I love how you're framing up some different conversations throughout. Okay? Figure nine, you don't remember what figure nine was!
Patti Sanchez 8:15
I am failing the test already!
Scott Allen 8:20
I was going really super-geek on you there. Three layers of information in a virtual presentation. I love this because I still see, oh my gosh, Patti, senior-level leaders in very successful organizations showing up, and you know, either there a shadow, a dark figure can't see them. But let's talk about these three layers. I think that's a really neat way of thinking about this topic,
Patti Sanchez 8:47
That refers to the three layers of information that the audience sees through the camera lens when you're using virtual communication technology. Typically, you're you have your camera on as a presenter, so the audience will see you, but they also see your environment, and they see your slides or graphics, whatever you're choosing to share, which was an interesting insight at Duarte, as we worked with a lot of executives in their virtual communication was exactly what you said, which is they would give a lot of thought to their slides, they would obsess over them, but they wouldn't think at all about the environment that they were sitting in as they shared their slides in this you know, town hall meeting or something like that. They certainly didn't give the same attention to that environment as they would to the stage at their, you know, biggest customer event. And so this idea of the three layers to our take calls the tricast method because you're broadcasting three things at once. Well, you as the speaker, your graphics in the backdrop behind you, and I would argue that all three of them are equally important and deserve as much attention as you're planning and preparing your presentation.
Scott Allen 9:54
That intentionality behind - me, my slides my back found in are all three layers, communicating what I want them to
Patti Sanchez 10:05
Exactly be intentional.
Scott Allen 10:09
And I think that's what's interesting, and what's fascinating about that Patti is then it's almost as though there are three opportunities to potentially miss it right? Or if you're missing, let's say you're missing the slides and the background or the technology component of all of this, right, maybe you don't have a great microphone, or maybe your lighting is off. You get to this point where one of the chapters of the book, which I love, Manage Their Distractibility. And I love the phrasing of that.
Patti Sanchez 10:41
So if something is working against you in one of those layers, it becomes another source of distraction for your audience. I mean, they have other things on their desktop that are competing for their attention. Email and other applications are just the work they're trying to do because they feel so behind; they're multitasking during your presentation. So you have that working against you. And then also, if you've got some noise in your environment, or some clutter in your backdrop, then that's just another reason for your audience to pay attention to something other than what you're actually saying, which should be your main goal is to get on your words, and walk away remembering something significant from your talk.
Scott Allen 11:18
Well, the first subcategory of Manage their Sistractibility is Hook Them Early On. So what do you think about that?
Patti Sanchez 11:26
Well, there are a lot of different ways you can hook your audience; certainly, the start of that opening gambit speech, writers love to talk about that and, you know, begins with a quote, not, "I'm so excited to talk with you today about my topic." And so being a little unconventional in the way that you open your presentation, it can help to hook them, also interacting with them early on, and this is something that we practice in the training courses that we do at Duarte; there needs to be some kind of interaction with the audience within the first 10 minutes, if not sooner, to draw them into the conversation to you know, start to build that behavior of engaging in conversation with you. But it's not just about the interaction. It's also about the content that you share. And you can learn a lot from television when you're thinking about how to craft engaging and interesting content for virtual presentations because they know they can lose their audience in minutes, if not seconds, to another channel. So pay attention to what they're doing to grab your attention.
Scott Allen 12:25
One thing, Patti, as we transitioned into this new space of being online, I was very, very accustomed to being with a group setting a tone, using my sense of humor as a way to hook the audience, and just setting a certain tone for the presentation. Well, for the first, I don't know; it must have been three or four months; I really struggled with how to do that in this online space. And then, literally, I think I was on a jog on the treadmill one day, and I was about to speak to a law firm. And talk about, I mean, for me, at least physicians and attorneys are oftentimes two of the most difficult audiences. Right? So how do you set a tone with a group of attorneys that are there for, you know, legal, legal education time, and they're kind of literally doing time speaking of managing the distractions? So it was interesting because it just popped into my head, I said, Okay, I'm going to ask them a question just to start off and set a tone. And so I asked the question, I said something to the effect of okay, "this, this is going to tell me everything I need to know about all of you what was the first concert you attended - and just put it that in the chat if you would," and Patti like 40 bands just pop up. And it's NSYNC. And the woman who ran the office was Jimi Hendrix. And so I just went through and, you know, just kind of highlighted some of those, you know, Backstreet Boys, and whatever it was, and it created this tone, and people started unmuting. And they were commenting on each other. And using humor and connecting and hooking them early. I love your way of thinking that television has clues. Because Peter Hopwood calls it, I believe, an "attention reset," like, how are we what are we doing to kind of keep people engaged with us in this medium? Because if your turn to the side, looking down and reading long slides, it's, it's over...
Patti Sanchez 14:18
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you touched on a couple of strategies you can use to keep that audience engaged in re-engaged. And one of the roots of it is, is in psychology, and I'm sure you know that the way that our brains respond to novelty to new things in our environment is it causes us to look up and take notice. So when you vary things within your presentation, whether the actual content on your slides, the look of the slides, or your tone of voice, it draws your audience back in because we're just trained to be on the alert for something that's changing. And that's a kind of a hack that you can use to use our brains in your favor to do and focus back to you.
Scott Allen 15:02
A little bit later, you start talking about it, and the words you choose in the book are just so wonderful; orchestrate Purposeful Interactions. I might have written in my own writing, you know, make it interactive, but you drill down on this, and I couldn't agree more. We're not just putting you in a breakout for the sake of a breakout or doing a poll for the sake of a poll, but it's purposeful; what are these interactions? And are they purposeful in adding to what we're trying to accomplish...
Patti Sanchez 15:29
Absolutely. Duarte's philosophy is that communication is always rooted in empathy. And that means understanding your audience and what they're dealing with, and also what your intention is for how you want to move them during the presentation. Where are they starting in their thinking and feeling? Where do you want them to end up when you're done? And I think of interactions as another tool you can use to cause that kind of movement. In the book, I talk about three types of interactions. It's a very simple rubric, but essentially simple, moderate, and complex interactions. And each of those has a different, I'd say, level of cognitive load on you, as the presenter and on the audience. Polls, I think, are useful for taking a quick pulse of your participants. And in that way, it's a light load, it's a quick way to warm people up, but they also don't give your audience or you very much insight. And I start to glaze over when a presenter is using too many polls because it's low effort; it also feels a little lazy. So I want to mix those up a little bit to keep it more interesting for the audience, but also to draw out deeper insights and discussion with them. So that's what the moderate interactions are for, that's things like asking people a question they can put the answer to in the chat, like the example you shared of, you know, what was the first concert you went to, that's fun, people can quickly share. And it also is a more comfortable way for some people to interact, especially if they're introverted or they need time to think they can form their words in tight form and put them into the chat. And then the complex interactions are those ones where we're really asking them to engage more deeply in discussion with you go off, mute, turn the camera on, go into a breakout room. And those can be really stimulating, but they can also be draining. So I try not to send people into breakouts right away. They need to be warmed up. You got to break the ice, and prime that pump before. I ask them to do that much work.
Scott Allen 17:26
Well, there are some really unique and interesting advantages. On Thursday night, when I have this one. I have Barbara Kellerman speak; what I'll do at the end is I'll say okay if you would just reflect by putting one word in the chat so we can give Barbara some feedback as to how she did tonight. And it's beautiful to see you're here you'll see "inspired, wonderful, excellent, incredible, wonderful." And this, she leaves feeling great about what she just did. And if we were to do that life, you know, what was your first concert go around the room?
Patti Sanchez 17:56
That's a million years.
Scott Allen 17:59
That's 25-30 minutes, right? Same thing with that ending activity. So there are so many really neat advantages. I like how you're suggesting that we can't we have to kind of be aware of those levels of interaction but then also not jump to some of these too quickly.
Patti Sanchez 18:14
It's empathetic. Yep. Have you ever been in a session where you're, like you said, face-to-face where the speaker wants to work so hard to engage the audience just you can tell they really want it badly? And they pose this really lofty question in the group and dead silence. Everybody don't do that. It's laddring...laddering works them up to it.
Scott Allen 18:37
Exactly. And there's nothing more awkward than when When, however, the speaker often not well responds to that. Well, "you're a quiet group this morning", or "I can wait."
Patti Sanchez 18:52
Yeah, yeah, cringe-worthy.
Scott Allen 18:56
Here's a topic that you have in here that I don't think many people would have. But you actually have some visuals too, I think with Nancy, about what the topic is, Move With Intention. In this space. I think we think of ourselves as being locked into this box. And we can't move. But there are options. Would you talk a little bit about Moving with Intention?
Unknown Speaker 19:23
For sure. I'll say why I think it's important first because as I was researching and writing this book, what really stood out to me is as the central challenge of virtual communication is the way it diminishes our presence. Presence is essential to building relationships for people to feel like they're connected with each other. And yet, when we're trying to communicate through a screen and a camera and a laptop, and you know, all of this technology, it can make it feel like essentially there were walls between us. So I think it'd be who's the speaker that presenter or to work a little harder to project their presence into the room of their online audience. And we can do that in a few ways. The first is what you mentioned earlier, by making eye contact with the camera, but also by using our facial expressions and our gestures. Also, purposefully and intentionally. So the idea that you can amplify your presence and make your audience feel more like you're there with them is helped by you using your face and your body to underscore the things that you're saying. And this is something that we teach in our Captivate Workshop for onstage presentations, your speaker needs to take up space, and you can block the stage with movements that support what you're saying the same is true with virtual communication. Yes, the square is a little smaller, but anything that is seen within the camera's field of view is a device that you can use to reinforce your message. So just hold your hands up a little higher, and use your hands to, for instance, amplify you're feeling like, you know, hands on the heart to show how much affection you feel or to signify something like some numbers that you're communicating, you know, one through ten, or to essentially draw a line in the air to help your audience see something that you're describing. Maybe it's conceptual, I call that delineating the book. But essentially, it's another device you can use to communicate information. Your hands.
Scott Allen 21:28
Yes, yes. Well, "device" that's such an important word; I mean, a device a tool; you've used the word hack; I think these are all options that each one of us has. And are we aware of these different tools or options to engage? And are we intentional, then, about how we're using whether it's a poll, whether it's a breakout, whether it's our voice, whether it's moving forward a little bit, or being more intentional about a gesture, if I put my hand to my chin, as I'm listening, all of those are...and again, I think I'd never thought of this before you said it, television really does give us a nice, a nice example. For me, the radio does as well because sometimes, when I'm presenting, I feel a little bit like a DJ. Right? Good morning, and welcome to my session. Here is some Led Zeppelin for ya!
Patti Sanchez 22:21
Ohtatt, I'm listening!
Scott Allen 22:23
Because you're kind of, you know, you're manufacturing your energy. But to your point, you have to amplify that a little bit to help that shine through to the audience. Right?
Patti Sanchez 22:31
For sure. And I'm glad that you mentioned radio because I also talked about it in the book. And I think it was the original virtual communication and a lot of ways, reaching big audiences through technology. You know, now that seems pretty old school, but radio talent, early on, figured out how to hold an audience's attention while they're in the middle of doing something else cooking dinner, they're driving somewhere. And so they figured out how to use dynamic sound to hook that audience and hold them. So you should do the same.
Scott Allen 23:04
Yes, Patti, as we wind down our conversation for today. Is there anything else from the book, one or two things that stood out for you that we haven't covered? That you just want listeners to have on their radar?
Patti Sanchez 23:18
Yeah, something we haven't talked about yet is, slides. We haven't discussed them very much. And I think they're just as important as a reinforcement as a visual aid as they ever were before. But they need to be designed differently for the online viewer. So something that Doherty has preached forever. This idea of simplifying your slides down to one idea - one idea per slide is especially true online. Because if people are looking at your presentation, so you're sharing your slides, but they're looking at it on an iPad, or their mobile phone, then they're it's going to be even harder to read, which means even less content than you normally would share bigger typeface than you normally would use. And that will make it more accessible to your audience. And I think that another theme that is also really important is accessibility. Yes, going back to what we were talking about earlier, the fact that this medium lets you reach many more people also means that you need to be empathetic toward many more people and many kinds of people with different abilities. And the good news is technology is making that easier with closed captioning and screen readers that make it easier for people to consume your content, regardless of their level of ability. So keep that in mind too.
Scott Allen 24:35
But if you're putting something into motion, where it's tiny text with 17 bullet points on a slide that no one will be able to consume because they're looking at it through a mobile phone, or they're on the move, or I couldn't agree... I think Nancy had a quote in one of the books because I have them, but as if people can't check in with what's going on on your slide in three to five seconds, you're competing with it. There's too much. And you're now that slide isn't complimenting you. You're competing with it. It was something to that effect.
Patti Sanchez 25:07
Yeah, yeah, we call that the "glance test" three seconds or less. Okay. It says as quickly as you can read a billboard; you know, if you're zooming down the highway, and you can't figure out what that billboard is saying, then it's not effective at communicating at a glance. And the same is true of slides. So it's, in a lot of ways. I think the principles that make for effective face-to-face presentations also apply to virtual presentations. But that's just table stakes. Yes, slides, rehearsed presenter. Those are fundamental interesting content, like having an idea people care about; those are...
Scott Allen 25:43
baselines.
Patti Sanchez 25:46
But there's more than this medium can do. And there's more that you can do with it. If you are thoughtful, empathetic, and strategic in the way, you plan those presentations.
Scott Allen 25:55
Literally, before we were, we jumped on to this recording today, I was speaking with a contact, and I'm speaking to an organization that is devoted to women in manufacturing. And my contact said, yeah, there are 150 People who are going to be with us from literally all over the country. And that's an opportunity. And if I can turn on Zoom, open up Zoom, and really do a nice job of captivating them to your point and delivering content that is meaningful...and there's opportunity there in many ways, like there has never been before. Anything else before we wind down?
Patti Sanchez 26:31
I think you nailed it. I think that the opportunity is the right way to think about this medium. Yes, it can be challenging. Yes, it can be taxing. And I have to acknowledge that as a presenter, all these things that I say you should practice can be draining. It takes more reserve, you have to prepare more, and you have to project yourself, your full being, through a tiny dot. That's not easy. It's like teleportation or something. It's worth it though because audiences will feel your presence more and they'll be more moved by your communication. But know that that takes effort. So you also have to take care of yourself.
Scott Allen 27:09
Yes. That's so well said. Patti, okay. The book is called Presenting Virtually: Communicate and Connect with Online Audiences. We will put the link in the show notes so that you have access to that, go out and purchase this beautiful book that is just very, very well done. And, again, I love the language that you're using throughout because it's just so crisp as to what we're actually trying to do. So, Patti, thank you so much for being with us today and stopping by and sharing your wisdom.
Patti Sanchez 27:48
Thank you. I think it's it's such an important conversation to have couldn't be a better time, and I couldn't have had a better time, honestly. Thank you, Scott.
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