Zoom Zoom! 12 Ways to Make Your Virtual Meetings Better

I received an email from a VC, and it gave me an idea.

He was hosting a Zoom call for his entrepreneurs to discuss their plans during this time of economic uncertainty. That was seven weeks ago on Tuesday at 2 pm.

I started thinking about all the entrepreneurs I know who are not part of a VC’s portfolio. These men and women are out there on their own. They are making big decisions, not knowing if they have all the information they need to make the best decisions.

I thought, “If I were they, I would be wondering what other entrepreneurs are deciding. Just as important, what do they see that I don’t see?”

By 4 pm, I sent an email invitation to my tribe of readers. I asked them to participate in a Zoom Chat for Entrepreneurs the very next day at 8 am. Seventy-two people showed up for the call. I’d hit a nerve.

Next Wednesday, I will host the eighth Paparelli Zoom Chat for Entrepreneurs. With each call, I learn what it takes for an engaging Zoom conference call.

Here is what I learned.

1. No one should talk for more than 90 seconds straight. After a minute of talking, I can see the people in the gallery start to look for something else to do. If I allow the person, including me, to talk more than two minutes, the participants start dropping from the call.

2. Stay on topic. And it must be a tight topic. The topic of discussion must be well-defined and important to the audience. If it is vague, you’ll just have friends join the call. This is a meeting, and you are there to accomplish its purpose.

3. The facilitator sets the pace of the meeting. As the facilitator, it is up to me to keep the meeting moving. Keep it popping. Keep it interesting by engaging the participants. Nobody gets to sleep. Keep everyone on their toes.

4. A good facilitator listens to the person speaking and summarizes frequently so as to make what the person is saying valuable for the broader audience.

5. The facilitator must know the audience. This helps the facilitator set the right pace, using the right language. The audience will stick around if you know how they think and what they are interested in.

6. Great ideas come from the audience and not the facilitator. The facilitator is not the expert on the call. The best information is going to come from the experts who joined the call. They have stories that help the audience at large. This said, not everyone has something interesting to say. In this case, be polite but cut them off and move on. Your audience is counting on you to do this. Show them you value their time and attention.

7. The Zoom chat channel is not a great source for interacting with the facilitator. The facilitator must be focused on the guests being interviewed and their answers. But the chat channel is a great way for the participants to share with each other during the call.

8. Polls are a distraction to the conversation. Polls move the audience off-topic. The audience can only focus on one thing at a time. The audience must choose between the poll and the speaker. I choose the speaker.

9. People are reticent to share their experiences. They often default to teaching. The facilitator’s job is to get to the story, the experience, the why. The story is interesting to the audience, not the lessons learned from an untold story.

10. The meeting time should be no more than one hour. If the subject can be covered in 30 or 45 minutes, then make that the timeframe. Shorter is better.

11. Never worry about filling the time. Every time I hosted one of my 45-minute meetings, I looked up, and time was almost over. Once you get people engaged on a tight, interesting topic, they want to jump in and contribute—time flies.

12. End the meeting on time. Even if someone is in the middle of talking, cut them off, and end the meeting. The closer to the end time of the meeting, the more participants are thinking about what they need to do next. They stop paying attention. And if the meeting is losing momentum, end it. No one ever complained about a meeting that ended early.

These tips will make for a better meeting. They will make you a better facilitator. Try just one of them on your next call. Your audience will be delighted. Trust me on this.

Good Zooming!