Mastering Executive Presence and Influence on Video

Mastering Executive Presence

Krissy Manzano: Hello and welcome to the Talent GTM Podcast. I’m your host today, Chrissy Manzano. And this is where we discuss a range of topics related to hiring team, building leadership across go to market organizations today. And I have none other than my guest. Ryan Williams, um, I’ve known Ryan for a long time.

Krissy Manzano: He is a startup sales leader, turned executive coach, and he’s been personally part of the journey to a hundred million plus at three really fast moving SaaS companies. First being started off as an operator like most, and then became an advisor and, and finally a coach. And so he also has a, a filmmaker, uh, debuting, a feature documentary outside the Valley in 2021, which highlighted startups from around the world.

Krissy Manzano: Including 150,000 travel miles and interviewed over a hundred startup founders from Lisbon to Auckland, uh, which is honestly just pretty impressive and just so interesting. It was really [00:01:00] fun background. And, you know, as an executive coach, he is trusted, um, by, you know, great leaders, right from Top gun fighter pilots and US Navy Seals to startup founders backed by top investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Excel Y Combinator, and Google.

Krissy Manzano: And he is advised, coached, or you know, spoken to groups of leaders at Airbnb, LinkedIn, zoom, and Adobe. He is the CEO of Ant Eater Media, and Ryan works with founders and leaders to build trust with prospects, investors, and their respective industries through short form video, which is the final frontier of executive presence and leads us into.

Krissy Manzano: Our title of this episode and topic, which is Mastering Executive Presence and Influence on Video. So without further ado, welcome Ryan. 

Ryan Williams: Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is like obviously my favorite topic and you’re one of my favorite people to talk to, so 

Krissy Manzano: do that. 

Ryan Williams: Let’s do it. 

Krissy Manzano: I know this would be great, and I think it’s just such a good time to talk about this for a lot of reasons.

Krissy Manzano: One, because you know, I know there’s this big back to office push, but at the end of the day, like. It’s never gonna be the same that it was. We are gonna be in a remote world more than we were before COVID, right? 

Krissy Manzano: Mm-hmm. 

Krissy Manzano: Um, that is just like part of the new normal. And, you know, I’ve seen a lot of folks.

Krissy Manzano: Really kind of, you know, struggle with how to engage teams remotely. And then also leaders really understand how to have executive presence or how to talk to executives, right? Um, in a way that makes sense and that’s effective. Right? So, you know, video now being a core part of leadership. Most executives aren’t trained to use it effectively.

Krissy Manzano: I guess in, in your view, what does executive presence actually mean in a virtual setting, and why does that matter more than ever? 

Ryan Williams: Well, I’d say, you know, starting with like the executive part of executive presence, like being an [00:03:00] executive is about execution. And so we evaluate someone’s execution based on the role that we see them in.

Ryan Williams: If we turn on the TV on Sunday, we’re evaluating the coach, the quarterback, the owner. We’re looking at the executives of a team. Yeah, we may be excited about position players ’cause we’re in fantasy football, but really we’re thinking about like, okay, how well does that leader do their job when we come to work on Monday?

Ryan Williams: We do the same thing for our bosses and our leaders in our group or our company or our industry. Or we go to LinkedIn and there are people we look up to. We think, okay, how well is this person executing? Um, or the, the lessons they share. Like if we’re talking about LinkedIn thought leadership, it’s, you know, is this something that I trust that I believe?

Ryan Williams: And then that’s usually what the human brain is doing. We are looking at do I trust and believe you on every interaction we have, whether it’s video or at the grocery store. Right? Right. So [00:04:00] given that we think about executive means execution and presence is about do we trust somebody, right? Because it’s how do we, how do they make us feel?

Ryan Williams: Executive presence over video is when I see you on video. Do I trust you? Right. Well, what does trust mean? Trust means, um, does the person I talk to, are they talking to me only for themselves? Like, uh, used car dealer who wants to make that sale and doesn’t really care if the car will last a week or not?

Ryan Williams: Or is it somebody who is taking care of my kid and I’m interviewing somebody at a daycare and I’m trying to evaluate whether or not my. Like most precious thing in my life should, should be, you know, in, uh, in their daycare center all day. Um, there’s a lot of extremes. Yeah. But it just comes down to, as humans, we are constantly engaging with Do I trust you?

Ryan Williams: Do I trust you? Yeah. And now that we’re in a world where video is getting easier and easier to do, more and more people are doing it, but it also means. [00:05:00] It’s very noisy. Yeah. And so we have to stand out and we have to represent ourselves well, and that’s why we’re talking today about this because I think that most leaders are scared of video or they are frustrated that this is the new norm or this is the reality.

Ryan Williams: Back to work is great because they spent a long time going to Toastmasters and making rooms feel comfortable or how holding steak dinners as a sales leader. But now when I have to show up on video. I have to figure out how do I show somebody that they can trust me as an executive, as an executor, as somebody who’s doing the thing I’m saying I’m doing, and, um, can they trust me, uh, to create an environment where they feel safe?

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams: Working with me, selling to me, selling from me, uh, whatever that is. 

Krissy Manzano: I wanna dive into something you said, which was, you know, a lot of executives are afraid of video and I, I wonder why you think that? ’cause when I [00:06:00] think of a lot of executives. Sometimes I feel like they don’t have empathy and they don’t have really good EQ to really care about how other people see them, essentially.

Krissy Manzano: So I would almost think that they wouldn’t be afraid. But I’m, I would love to like dig into that more and kind of understand what makes you think that executives are afraid of video. Yeah. Where I could see almost their direct reports or individual contributors being more afraid of video. 

Ryan Williams: Yeah. Well, a lot of the people that listen to this show and are in are.

Ryan Williams: Combined orbits are people who come from the go-to market world, right? And so I’m, I’m gonna return your question with a little mini question. Okay. Do you remember your first commit call as a rep where you had to say, yes, this is closing. It’s closing on Tuesday, it’s worth $520,000, or whatever it was?

Krissy Manzano: Absolutely. 

Ryan Williams: Was that scary for you? ’cause it was scary for 

Krissy Manzano: me. Yeah. A hundred percent. 

Ryan Williams: Okay, so you went on record. You’ve put a number out there, it’s kind of like the baseball player who points over the fence like, I’m gonna hit the home run. Or you know, as a young rep, this is a lot [00:07:00] of times that first commit call is when we’re coming off our quota ramp and we’re now telling our team, you can count on me to do this, whether it’s our team, our manager, whatever the structure is.

Ryan Williams: Um, and at a small startup company, you may have made that commit call in front of the entire company and been mention in the board notes. 

Krissy Manzano: Yep. 

Ryan Williams: Okay. That’s high stakes. 

Krissy Manzano: Yep. 

Ryan Williams: An executive recording a video means that they’re also going on record. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, 

Ryan Williams: they’re going on record in a way that is less natural because most of, most of the executives I work with are, are kind of in my generation and, and, and later.

Ryan Williams: So, uh, I’m mid forties, so most the people I work with are probably 35 to 65, let’s say as a window. 

Krissy Manzano: Right. Um, 

Ryan Williams: if you’re 35 to 65, you’ve spent more time writing than being on video. 

Krissy Manzano: Fair point. 

Ryan Williams: If you’re 25, I don’t wanna make any, you know, kind of blanket statements in a group that I’m not a part of. But you probably have done more video than writing, right.

Ryan Williams: Um, in terms of, uh, posting a video or showing friends over video, like you’ve had FaceTime as part of your relationships since adolescent started give or, you know, give or give or take. Right. Whereas that wasn’t natural to me. But it was fun once we got used to it. Right now we’re used to it, so it’s like, yeah, I FaceTime my friends.

Ryan Williams: I, I shoot a quick video at the store to show my wife what the choices are when she has given me something on the task list that doesn’t have as much detail as I’d like, Hey honey, here’s a video of, of all these things on the shelf. Tell me which one I buy. Yeah. Um, the more I do that, the easier it is. To commit to myself in video because in that example I gave, if I didn’t feel like I was in a, you know, a, a trusting, safe relationship, I might be worried that I’d get home by the wrong thing.

Ryan Williams: And somebody’d say, look, I you in the video, you saw the right thing. What the hell? Yeah. Right, right. Because that’s what it’s like when we get called out. You know, that thankfully that’s not what happens to, it’s wonderful. But, um, but at work, I’ve worked for a boss that does things like that. Put something in a commit call and then hear about it later.[00:09:00] 

Ryan Williams: You committed to this. Where is it? You told me this was gonna close and then, you know, it became harder as a manager. You told me this was gonna close on your team. So, um, I think that’s the core of being scared is that safety element of am I in a safe place where somebody’s not going to go and put this video on my face, right?

Ryan Williams: If I, my prediction is wrong, if, um, my board update is, is bad when Zoom came out and when IPO. They were, I think, the only company doing Zoom, uh, like investor calls. I think that was what they were. I remember, so I, I, I met the CFO, who’s who was really cool and I remember seeing her post that Zoom was one of the only places doing these like video shareholder calls because obviously they want people to see the platform, but they have a huge leg up in that because their user base also crosses their investor base.

Ryan Williams: People get to see those execs. They see Kelly, right? They see the CEO, they see the CTO and they go, okay, I understand. I get you now. Um, right. That’s about communicating trust. 

Krissy Manzano: Yep. 

Ryan Williams: And so if you are worried that someone might not trust you and then you can’t execute your job, then you probably have that same worry about video.

Ryan Williams: Okay. So tell me I’m wrong. I mean, are you not scared of video? Well, 

Krissy Manzano: okay. I think what, so this is what I think, based on what you said makes sense to me. Is it the recording of the video that comes into play? Because I, I think of like, if I’m in a boardroom as an example mm-hmm. Presenting to a board in person versus.

Krissy Manzano: You know, over Zoom is different, but what I’m saying would be the same thing. If anything, it’d probably be a little bit easier just to like read the room being in person. That would be the harder part, but. When you’re talking about doing one-on-ones and recording and knowing the recording element to me, I think is what’s key.

Krissy Manzano: Or like the annotation of summarizing, because that’s where, you know, it almost feels like, oh man, if I, if I slip up and say the wrong thing, potentially that could come back to haunt me. Right. Um, that, that was, that’s kind of my takeaway, but curious. Yeah. If that’s also your, your thoughts as well. Well, 

Ryan Williams: that’s like.

Ryan Williams: I had a, a wonderful ICR leader when I was a VP of sales who, um, I walked in on a team meeting where he was teaching his folks about psychological safety. This idea that if you create an environment where you feel safe, where no one is going to say, gotcha, you did this wrong. Yeah, 

Krissy Manzano: yeah. 

Ryan Williams: Then you can operate at a different level.

Ryan Williams: And what he wanted was a 

Krissy Manzano: hundred percent his 

Ryan Williams: most junior salespeople to not worry about screwing up. He wanted this, this safety and failure for people to go and like. Make cold calls ’cause you knew that was going away. Uh, ask for the deal, put things on the forecast, be okay with, I was wrong. I thought I’d have 10 appointments and I have five.

Ryan Williams: What do I do now? Yeah, he wanted that conversation because safety is something that can help those groups grow and learn very quickly if we don’t have that as leaders. And we could talk a little bit about some hacks to, to get there if you’re not there. Yeah. But if we don’t have that as leaders, then we record videos.

Ryan Williams: We are worried that someone’s gonna take it outta context. Yeah. We are worried that someone’s gonna,  uh, take this and run with it. Um, there are a few ways that you can balance that out, but um, but that is kind of the core fear. So yeah. It may not be, everybody’s scared of zoom. Um, I don’t think that that’s true, right?

Ryan Williams: I do think that a recorded video, um, ask somebody to post their last Zoom meeting onto LinkedIn and you’re gonna see real quickly whether or not they’re scared of video. Um, yeah, that’s because LinkedIn is not the safest place to share content for sure. 

Krissy Manzano: Definitely. No, that makes sense. I, I agree with that.

Krissy Manzano: I, I guess when it comes to body language, right, that, and kinda going to the next question, tone can be really powerful tools or major liabilities, right? And so on video. What are some small but high impact adjustments leaders can make to instantly kind of elevate their presence? You know, let’s talk about it from when they’re talking to their teams, but also when they’re talking about it, um, with, you know, other folks.

Ryan Williams: Yeah, well if, let’s say you’re going to a Zoom meeting and you know it’s gonna be recorded and shared to people that maybe aren’t in your time zone, if you come to that meeting, and what most of us do is we, uh, we set up our, you know, we we’re like, Hey, I’ve gotta do a team meeting, so I’m gonna go buy a nice camera.

Ryan Williams: So they go, we put the nice camera up, but we’re still looking at our laptop and we’re trying to go over. The notes and you can see my body language changed a little bit to like reading and you know, if I’m reading notes off the screen, I might even have my reading glasses on, right? So if I’m doing this now, the person who I’m talking to, I’m not making eye contact with like, do you trust the guy at the hotel who’s checking you in, who’s not looking up and making eye contact?

Ryan Williams: That calls heads, heads, downtime, and hospitality. Like not as much as you trust the person who stops makes eye contact with you and like wants to be here with you and is looking. It’s a little unnatural to look at the little green dot on my webcam. Right, 

Krissy Manzano: but it’s, 

Ryan Williams: but it’s what eye contact feels like for you, 

Krissy Manzano: right?

Krissy Manzano: Right. 

Ryan Williams: So now that the game is, is changed, so if I’m doing a presentation, like in a deck format, what I often do will print it out. I know paper, right? Who, who uses that? I’ll print it out. So I’ll speak off of my like paper notes. So I can hold them here. I don’t know if you can see that on camera, but like I can hold them basically right here and I can look at somebody and now I can try to make that feel as one-to-one as possible.

Ryan Williams: The second thing I wanna do is instead of worried about like all the tech, I just wanna worry about just enough tech to know that. My eye line, meaning the level of my eye to the camera’s eye, which is what the user’s gonna perceive whether I’m looking you in the eye and audio. I wanna make sure that I make it easy for you to watch and hear.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. It’s easier 

Ryan Williams: for you to watch if I’m making eye contact. Or simulating eye contact, and it’s easier for you to hear if I invest in a decent microphone. In this case, we’re both using podcast mics, but um, you can do this with a headset too. It’s just being conscious of, okay, where’s my mic? You know, and I’m gonna, if I’m wearing that like kind of Apple Air Poddy headset or whatever, or I’m gonna make sure that it’s that, uh, I get a clean recording, I’ll go record a sample, I’ll listen to it.

Ryan Williams: I’ll say, is that easy to listen to? Or do I need to change it? Um, you know, I’ve been to countless Zoom calls where execs will dial in from a busy place and explain, oh, I’m, I’m a busy person. You’ll all understand, but you just made that message even harder to hear. I’ve been guilty of that myself. I had to do a presentation one time at an airport, and I found the quietest place.

Ryan Williams: It was still, it was a horrible presentation, you know, and they, and it was a bummer, but I think most people understood, and I just tried to lean into, I know it’s really loud, so I’d like you to participate more. And you know, I had them go through the material and kind of read back what they were learning.

Ryan Williams: Um. That’s an old trick from when I used to be a sixth grade social studies teacher, so I’d have them read back a little bit and then I did a lot of going over resources for people to go do self-study. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. ’cause I 

Ryan Williams: know they’re not gonna ask me questions and try to stay on a Zoom call. That’s painful to listen to.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. It’s actually a really good point. You talk about calling in. Obviously we all have those moments where we have to call in because we’re traveling or just, you know, we don’t wanna make. Push that meeting out just for, you know, maybe our schedules. But it’s a great point because when someone calls into a Zoom call, that is a video call, right?

Krissy Manzano: It really does change the format of the whole thing. That person is, 90% of the time, the one that’s considered probably the most disengaged. You can’t read them or anything. But then also too, you know, I’m just thinking like when you have team calls as an example, you have all of these. Mm-hmm. Depending on how Zoom is set up or whatever your platform you’re using.

Krissy Manzano: It’s hard to see. You can’t, you don’t see everyone on there. Like it maxes out, you know, of how many people you can see. Yeah. Um, if you’re even showing the whole grid, and then you have to push down, and so when you’re in person, you’re like making eye contact. Yeah. With like, you know who you’re making eye contact with and kind of checking and doing that, and so making sure that, you know you’re available on the call.

Krissy Manzano: It seems small, but it’s so important in building that connection and Yeah. Person’s just reading off your screen the whole time. And people seeing you do that, but there’s no connection, which is hard to do over video. Right. So, 

Ryan Williams: well, there’s a couple things that I think if we really dig into, like  in-person relationships, we recognize as very trust building.

Ryan Williams: Um, one of those things that I noticed recently, I was at a doctor’s appointment with my kid and the, and the doctors, you know, said, Hey, I, I need to, uh, in order to evaluate what was going on, I need to touch you. Is it okay if I put my, my hand here on your back? My kid’s 13, just trying to navigate the world and figure out who she trusts it.

Ryan Williams: I could see the difference of somebody asking permission because there are a lot of 13 year olds who don’t feel like anybody asks them permission at all. We tell them what to do a lot. Yeah. Right. And she lives in my house, which means I’m gonna tell her what to do, uh, quite a bit. So, um, that one little thing is a simple hack when we’re in person to show that we trust and we care about somebody else’s opinion.

Ryan Williams: Is it okay if I touch you? Um, is it okay if. Blank, you know, in this meeting, is it okay if I take notes? Uh, some have you’ve ever been in a meeting with somebody who says, is it okay if I write some of this down? 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Um, 

Ryan Williams: that feels different. Um, when I work with an executive coaching client, I often set ground rules before we start.

Ryan Williams: I say, Hey, is this off limits or do you wanna talk about X or Y? And when that happens, you’ve given somebody the chance to say to, to. Be in charge and have agency of their boundaries. Okay, so that’s a good example of trust in person. How do you take those things and bring ’em into video? Chrissy, I, um, I’m with you on what you’re saying and sharing in your screen, but my screen is right over here, so, so you saw my attention, but you know that I’m looking here now.

Krissy Manzano: Yep. 

Ryan Williams: Now you’re not having the natural reaction of the side of my face telling you that you’re not important. Whatever’s over here is more important. Yeah. Um, if. If I’m giving you the notes for my, like, sales call update and I’m like, Hey, um, yeah, this week, this and this, and this happened and it’s clearly, I’m looking at my phone.

Ryan Williams: Um, it could sound disengaging. Yeah. I say, you know what? I just got an update from my field rep. Do you mind if I read this real quick? That’s a rhetorical question. You’re probably not gonna say yes. I might don’t read that. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Um, 

Ryan Williams: but it, because I’ve] engaged you in that process, oftentimes I can then not do the awkward body language thing of turning away or turning my back to you or the internet version of that, which is looking at the other monitor or not looking at the webcam.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Would you say, just in everything that you’ve said so far, and like hacks that maybe the challenge that executives have separate from being. Nervous about the recording element, which does make sense. Mm-hmm. Excuse me. Relate to that. But also, um, the fact that it’s so easy to disengage and make excuses for disengaging when you’re talking to your team.

Krissy Manzano: Maybe, you know, that might not be the case. Always, depending on how comfortable they are, it’s all about comfortability, right? The more comfortable you are around people, the inverse of, of being scared, right? Yeah. The more you can, it’s so much easier to disengage or like look over and yeah, see what’s happening versus when you’re in person.

Krissy Manzano: If you have your, if you have your monitor app or whatever, it’s, it’s a lot more obvious that you’re doing something versus you can get, feel like you can get away [00:20:00] with it a little bit more when you’re on video. That’s kind of my takeaway. Curious your thoughts. 

Ryan Williams: Yeah, you definitely can get away with that more on video.

Ryan Williams: Um, but you also, there are different tools to evaluate engagement. We hear a lot of the return to work conversation is like, we don’t trust people with these mouse movers that are looking like they’re online, when they’re not online. Um, I think that’s the wrong conversation to have, like, for sure. Think instead we should be talking about, um, impact especially, you know, we come from sales worlds where, you know, uh, certain, you know, certain field rep can do their job and three hours a week and uh, and do more revenue for the organization than somebody who’s grinding a hundred calls a day.

Ryan Williams: Um, and you know, depending on the org. Well, then there should be, you know, privilege as, and opportunity is based on that, uh, in my opinion. Right? So the same is also true when you go into thinking about, all right, well, um, what are we gonna do on the Zoom call? Does everybody need to dial in or does everybody need to to show up on video?

Ryan Williams: Um, if I have somebody who’s, who’s consistently dialing in, then I’ll then I’ll set the [00:21:00] tone and say, Hey, this is a meeting that we want everybody present for and we wanna see everybody’s eyeballs for Yeah. And so I’ll, I’ll front load that, um, when. When that sort of thing starts to happen, if there’s not a good reason for it, like if I say that’s mandatory, but it happens either first week where I dial in, I’m gonna lose everybody’s trust, 

Krissy Manzano: right?

Krissy Manzano: If we’re not doing, what’re, if I say this is 

Ryan Williams: an eyeball required meeting, and uh, I dial in and and throw the video on and I’m in a really bad place to hear, then uh, I think the right way to handle that is to say, Hey, this is a good example of how sometimes when I’m on the road. My, you know, my business partner’s gonna do this meeting instead.

Ryan Williams: You know, if I’m a VP of sales, maybe it’s a VP of CS, who’s gonna run the meeting because I’m traveling. I know it’s loud where I am, but we’re all gonna be on video. So that we all see each other and we all hear our updates. Uh, it could also be that we say, all right, we’re gonna hot seat it and do your forecast call and just turn your video on when you report back.

Ryan Williams: If you’re not, if you’re not [00:22:00] speaking, if you don’t have the mic, please go ahead, turn off your video. Um, you know, we don’t wanna waste your mental bandwidth by having you stare down, stare down, zoom, or feel like you can’t do other things. Um, that’d be really empowering for certain teams and certain reps.

Ryan Williams: So, um, I think if I want. The one message I want people to leave this conversation with is, just because it’s video doesn’t mean that it’s not human. Yeah. And if we just go to, does this feel human, then um. We get pretty far because humans are really good at trust. Like we, it wasn’t that long ago we came outta the caves and we decided whether or not we were safe from the, you know, woolly mammoths or saber-tooth tigers or whatever was going on in the cave that, that your ancestors lived in.

Ryan Williams: And so because of that, you know, um. We are really good at trust and we’re also really good at evaluating, but we’re also really good at seeing the BS of somebody who can’t be trusted. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams: You know, and hearing that’s why, you know, there are certain types of salespeople that most of us don’t wanna deal with.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams: Why? Because we’re worried about their self-orientation there. We’re worried that they’re somebody who’s only in it for themselves. Um, and when we see that and when, when that middle model is confirmed. It changes the way we interact with them. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, no, ab absolutely it, it’s, you know. Almost looking at it simple things, but that make all the difference, right?

Krissy Manzano: Having maybe rules is too harsh, but kind of like rules of engagement for video, right? Yeah. This is how we’re gonna operate our meetings. I’m gonna hold myself to this standard. I want you all to hold yourself to this standard, um, just like you would in a typical meeting, right? But again, really kind set the stage for video so that you know folks can connect, that you can connect with them and make sure that they.

Krissy Manzano: Really are paying attention to you and know that you’re paying attention to them, right? Mm-hmm. Which maybe my view of like of executives and engaging is, you know, less about them being scared, although I agree with you on those things, and more of them maybe not taking videos [00:24:00] seriously of how to connect with their teams as much.

Krissy Manzano: Um, yeah, 

Ryan Williams: you gotta see it as an opportunity, right? Like, 

Krissy Manzano: yeah. Many 

Ryan Williams: of us are thinking like, okay, the. In-person meeting is an opportunity. Maybe it’s a sales opportunity or maybe it’s a team building opportunity. Well, the same is true when you have something that’s a video meeting versus a call. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, 

Ryan Williams: and calls.

Ryan Williams: Also use that to your advantage. Our catch up calls, we go for a walk in the neighborhood and we talk to our, you know, relative or whatever. If that’s, if, if that’s something that’s like naturally part of your culture, then maybe that’s something that should also be part of your team culture. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams: Hey, this is a catch up call.

Ryan Williams: I want to hear how your week has been. So I know that you go for walks in the afternoon, like, let’s go do that. As opposed to make you feel like you’ve gotta hide part of your life. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Um, 

Ryan Williams: you know, somebody who might, I love that, you know, be more comfortable, uh, doing a email update. Let’s let ’em do that.

Ryan Williams: I still wanna talk to you once a week because that’s the way I communicate. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams: But I’m gonna read your email first. And so we, you know, maybe we show up there and we, we have a conversation about what [00:25:00] feels right to them. Your example of, in a regular meeting, we’ve set ground rules. I gotta kind of push on that a little bit.

Ryan Williams: I think that, that, excuse me. Expectations are only set by people who are comfortable setting expectations. Yeah. So a coach in their 50th season is going to walk out to that training camp and say, this is what we’re doing this week. 

Krissy Manzano: Right. You 

Ryan Williams: know, in that, in that program. ’cause they know it so well. Yeah.

Ryan Williams: And setting expectations very natural. And that probably sounds like the kind of, you know, old and weathered, uh, this is the way I’ve always done it. So you’re gonna fall in line and do it my way. Yeah. Okay. That’s one type of leadership. It’s not certain, it’s not necessarily bad. Yeah, sure. Um, it’s just one type of leadership.

Ryan Williams: A new manager is going to show up and oftentimes run their sales meeting the way that every other sales meeting they’ve been a part of runs. So, um, I, I mentioned I was a sixth grade social studies teacher. I, I trained for five years to be a teacher and then I decided that I wanted to find other ways to work with [00:26:00] kids.

Ryan Williams: And then that evolved to, uh, sales and that involved to leadership and, and the rest is history. But, um, I had a professor in school who said, you know, raise your hand if you’re here to change the way the school system is. And everybody’s hand went up. ’cause you know, we’re all young, wannabe teachers. Yeah.

Ryan Williams: And we’re all excited about making a difference in the world. And he goes, well, I got some bad news for you. You teach the way you were taught. So every teacher who had a bad experience is now likely to repeat that behavior. If you don’t believe me, become a parent. ’cause you’ll hear your mother’s voice.

Ryan Williams: Yeah, right. In the way you talk to your kid. I certainly do, and I love my mom, but there are things that she said that I repeat and I go, why am I saying that? Well, yeah, you teach the way you’re taught, you parent the way you’re parented most of the time, and you lead the way you were led. So if you came up at a, at a, at a really high transaction, a high velocity sales environment, like a Yelp or like a, you know, uh, s and b uh, KT experience, then you probably are going to have those tendencies to lead [00:27:00] like you’re in a velocity sales work.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams: As opposed to an enterprise sales work where you feel reps are going out and they’re calling in instead of being in the office. Right. Those are things you’re used to. So let’s check our own biases when we go and set up that team meeting. Yes. 

Krissy Manzano: Great 

Ryan Williams: and call ’em out and say, Hey, I’m used to a Velocity sales team, so I like to see all my SDRs in the office.

Ryan Williams: I know that’s not always practical for the accounts you support, so we’re just gonna say, that’s on Mondays, or this is why Zoom is mandatory, or this is my first remote team. I’m gonna use my skills that I had from the real world to our virtual world, and when they don’t work for you, I want you to have the permiss to call it out.

Krissy Manzano: Right. 

Ryan Williams: Think about how empowering that is for the people on the team. Yeah, totally. Or the, or even your clients, right? Yeah. Like if you say to a client, I normally do this demo in person. This is the first time I’ve done it this way. We’re gonna try it out. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams: You know, I worked with a, uh, I worked with a founder who had a early, um, SaaS application for the iPad, uh, selling to factories, and he found that going on a tour of the factory [00:28:00] was the best way to sell.

Ryan Williams: Obviously he couldn’t tour all the factories as the company started to scale and he started to have global expansion, but mailing somebody an iPad was worth it because that’s half of what the plane ticket was. Yeah. So he’d, he’d FedEx somebody an iPad and he’d say, great, we’re on. And then he’d teach ’em how to use FaceTime.

Ryan Williams: It was very early in the FaceTime days and. Then he’d ask for a FaceTime tour, the of the office. Right. And he would feel like he could see it, and then he’d give personalized examples for the demo and he was taking notes all the time. Um, that only works if you front load and tell somebody what to expect.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. You 

Ryan Williams: call somebody on FaceTime who’s not expecting it, you notice that they’re not expecting it. It’s really awkward. Yeah, well then they don’t trust you as much because you’ve just interrupted them. So, um, I want people to, to be more human and go back to thinking about like, why as a human do I do this?

Ryan Williams: It’s probably related to like some of the basic human needs and elements of like our life, which includes do we trust other people we’re around? Do we think we’re in a safe place to eat or sleep? Right? Just like we’re, we’re in the caves again. And then, um, take that one step further and say, okay, what does that mean for the person that I’m engaging with?

Ryan Williams: If it’s over LinkedIn one to many, well I need to talk to you about something that you came to LinkedIn for. If it’s over TikTok, well I’m gonna do this as a dance because most people are dialing into TikTok to watch dance videos ’cause that’s the way the platform started. So, um, so it all kind of depends.

Ryan Williams: I know I’m being very general there, but it all kinda depends on reading the situation. And the best executives we worked for read the situation really well. Knew when it was time for a rob, Rob knew when it was time to get down to business, knew when it was time to hold somebody’s hand and, and, and sit there and be with them if they lost a deal or lost a loved one.

Ryan Williams: Right? Like those are the best leaders, right? So don’t let that leadership example go to waste ’cause we’ve all seen it. Let’s start doing that whether we’re on video or not. 

Krissy Manzano: No, reading the room, regardless of being remote or not, is so important in order to have the presence that you want to be impactful.

Krissy Manzano: So I totally agree. Last [00:30:00] question before, yeah, we sign off. If a leader can only make one change today to dramatically improve their executive presence on video, what should it be? 

Ryan Williams: I’m gonna have a hard time choosing just one, but, right. Um, I, I think I’d like to give you something general that also applies to video as opposed to something that’s video specific.

Ryan Williams: And I think that is, um, if you’re in sales, we talk about being customer centered sales a lot because we want the customer have a great experience and leadership. We have to think about who the listener is, who’s receiving our message. So if it’s over video, it’s who’s watching this? And if it’s, who’s watching this now I need to think about my video tools.

Ryan Williams: How do I show up by thinking about the eye line? So, um. I want you to think about what their experience is and do the best you can to see the world through the lens of the person who you’d like to hear your message, whether that’s clients, colleagues, or prospects. Um, I want you to look at that lens because, um, when you use that lens, you learn a lot.

Ryan Williams: That may be going back and watching your recordings. Here’s some practical tips. Go back and watch a recording of a video that you did or a team meeting. Go back and uh, look at three other thought leaders on LinkedIn who are doing video. Compare your video to them and take the feedback. Ask the person, you know?

Ryan Williams: Yeah. Ask your ideal customer profile. Hey, what do you think of these videos? Are they helpful or not? Compare them to Chrissy’s. Uh, you know, when you look at my video over survey video, like, what are you getting? What do you like? How can I be better? If you genuinely want that answer to how can I be better, you will become better.

Ryan Williams: That’s true over video. It’s also true in the room on a deal or working with a colleague, and it’s also true as you show up for your life and your family and, and whatever else is, is important to you. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, I love it. I think it’s, it’s really like leadership is servant leadership and having empathy. And being connected and caring and, you know, be also working on improving yourself right.

Krissy Manzano: And figuring out what works. So all, all great advice. I know we could talk about this forever. 

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. Um, 

Krissy Manzano: before we sign off, how can people find you? Um, where should they go if they wanna learn more about working with you or just connecting in general? 

Ryan Williams: Great. I’d love to connect. I, I, I like to connect with folks over LinkedIn.

Ryan Williams: Just drop me a note and tell me that you heard this and, um, I’d love to connect there and maybe DM there. Um, you can find me. It’s just j Ryan Williams, uh, should show up. You can also go check out Antier Media, which is the name of my company, antier Media. Um, and you can learn about me and my team and what we do and see some examples of work we do.

Ryan Williams: Um, if that’s interesting to you, we have a few guides on how to do video. If you’re thinking I’m way, you know, not ready for an agency to help me promote video, well great DM me and I’ll send you some guides on, on five or 10 examples of other videos that are out there that you can, you know, mimic as you learn what works for you.

Ryan Williams: Um, actually I’ve got a whole collection of 50 YouTube shorts that I think all could translate to B2B sales, um, or B2B influencers. Uh, so, um, DM me and I’ll send those to [00:33:00] you. Okay. That would be really easy to, to share. 

Krissy Manzano: Awesome. Well, you’ve been a long time. Friend, but also, you know, colleague in some way.

Krissy Manzano: So loved having you on here and sharing your huge supporter blueprint. 

Ryan Williams: So put me down for long time supporter, first time caller. 

Krissy Manzano: Oh, you’re sweet. Thanks. Um, first time caller. No, I mean, it’s, I, we get so much great wisdom, um, and value, so I’m glad we could share it with our listeners. But, um, that’s all the time that we have today on the Talent G TM Podcast.

Krissy Manzano: If today’s conversation piques your interest. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, apple Podcast or our website, blueprint expansion.com, and never miss an episode. Until next time, we’ll see you later. Bye.