Top Contributors to Zoom Fatigue

Or as the surveyor collator behind this mid-22 infographic of one 'digital building' startup put it; what 'remote workers say the top contributors to digital fatigue include'.

Above is their resulting sideways barchart shaming the main five offenders.

What may intrigue you about this collection, is the extent to which they may continue to blight your own meetings. Or even more pertinently, be potholes over which prospects feel your tyres puncture.

The good news is that all these are behaviours which you can diminish, to the point of banish, for your prospect.

Relieving the pressure, disappointment and frustration they may have otherwise suffered.

And all whilst remembering that if you are actively seeking to alleviate these, the chances are your competition is not. And their blissful ignorance is your distinction star award. Which can put you well ahead in gaining the signature.

Let's take each one's remedy in turn.

35pc Constant Eye Contact

We are not tv news talking heads. We are not reading autocue. We are not static 2-D portrait salesbots.

There's a raft of tactics that can lift the load off fellow participants from feeling that their gaze must only ever stay fixated on screen-centre. From hand gestures which signify status/ideas/positions, through allowing an actual piece of paper to be scrawled on, to adopting the Rembrandt pose.

38pc Seeing Yourself On Video All The Time

Dare I make the joke? This won't apply to us, as all salespeople are narcissists...

I do think though, that the more comfortable you are in the how and the why of the way you project yourself, the less any element of distraction will detract from performance.

Tilting this balance towards getting your actions agreed includes getting to grips with making your screen space work for you, having your engagement methods teed up, and even - if this issue looms large for you - removing or at least reducing in size your broadcast cell as you can now mostly do across the plethora of platforms.

49pc Meetings Serve No Purpose

Ouch. Imagine if a prospect concluded that of one of yours?

Yes. I know from my exposures these past now thirty-plus months that sellers still call a video meeting with prospects for reasons as vague as a 'catch-up'.

Yet it is overwhelmingly the case that any meeting with a specific outcome referenced as Meeting Title is way more likely to succeed.

Add to that the lamentably neglected art of the agenda and you've a double-whammy to land in your favour.

And don't forget to verify before you click 'end call' that the outcome has been achieved.

52pc Staring At A Screen For Long Periods

This seems so closely tied to the pair at numbers 4 and 5 that they maybe ought not be three separate entries.

Still, the pincers of release feel best as avoid timing your meetings so that they melt inside a string of others your participants attend that day. And mix up how you go through each item or mini-topic so that screen staring is subtly broken up.

56pc Meetings Running Too Long

Meeting enemy number one. Reminds me a bit of the when a hotel got swamped with complaints that its lift was too slow. Their winning remedy was to put a mirror in it. In similar vein, one proven trick is to always finish video you helm ahead of prescheduled ending.

I am slightly surprised at this. I'd have thought purposeless meetings - specifically in the form of ones not completing a defined action - would've sneaked it as chief culprit.

I'm struggling to think of any standard video sales meeting I've had lately over the Teams-standard hour. Yet my very first one - back in '98 - was a software demo between different countries that lasted two hours.

I'm compelled to mention my theme throughout here. Namely that the advent of live videolink capability should inspire an audit of your typical process. So that you pick the transactions, conversations and situations best suited to working better over video than other means. Home in on these and refine them with all the techniques I talk about and you will significantly elevate yourself above any competition. No mirror required.