Showing Up Online: Audio, Lighting, and Engagement Tips with Bernie DeSantis

Welcome back to Branded: your comprehensive guide to creative branding. In today's episode, we are thrilled to have Bernie DeSantis join us. Bernie is the owner of Insignia Training Partners and is known for his distinctive mustache. With over 20 years of experience in the field of leadership development training, he offers valuable insights into optimizing your presence in virtual spaces and mastering virtual event strategies. We dive deep into the importance of equipment usage, perception in virtual environments, and the professional nuances of background and lighting. Bernie shares his expertise on making virtual events not only engaging but also effective for business development. We also touch on his personal journey, including his role at Quicken Loans and the experiential learning techniques he employs to create significant behavioral changes. This episode is packed with actionable tips on how to present yourself best in virtual settings, ensuring your brand is perceived as professional and credible. Key Takeaways:

1. Optimize Your Audio Equipment: Bernie emphasizes the importance of understanding and testing your audio setup. Much like an athlete reviews recordings to improve performance, tweaking angles and distances can make a significant difference in sound quality.
2. Perception in Virtual Environments: How you present yourself online critically impacts how you're received. Professionalism in both appearance and sound negates assumptions about your work quality, stressing that even in audio-focused platforms, visual preparation matters.
3. Background and Lighting Tips: To maintain a professional look, use non-distracting backgrounds that match the context of your presentation. Optimize lighting according to your skin undertones, and consider consulting makeup experts for the best setup.
4. Virtual Event Strategy: Consistency and strategic platform use like LinkedIn for invites and follow-ups are essential. Your events should offer value and insights into your personality and expertise to foster ongoing engagement rather than immediate sales.
5. Effective Follow-Up: Convert event attendees into clients by making multiple touchpoints—often 12 to 15 are required. Utilize tools like CRMs and ChatGPT to streamline and personalize follow-up messages, ensuring your communication is both consistent and compelling.

We hope you find these insights valuable as you navigate the challenges and opportunities of virtual branding. Don’t forget to subscribe to "Branded" for more weekly episodes that help you build and maintain a winning brand. [embed]https://youtu.be/4fRKYRRHzew[/embed] About Bernie DeSantis III Bernie DeSantis III is the owner of Insignia Training Partners, a full-service learning and development company specializing in outsourced or “Fractional” training services for businesses. Put another way, Insignia is a Training Broker. Bernie brings over 2 decades of experience in training leadership, facilitation, design, and production of virtual events, webinars, workshops, and masterclasses, in unique niche and well-travelled markets. With a passion for fostering genuine relationships and communication, Bernie places a high value on the human element in business. He understands that success is not merely about money and numbers but about building meaningful relationships and consistently delivering exceptional service. If you see Bernie on the streets, you will know him by his EPIC mustache. Seriously, he is probably twisting and training his stache like a cartoon villain right now. Bernie brings a unique blend of real-world experiences and high energy facilitation to training. Engagement and connection are the elements most often missed in training programs, and Bernie’s team brings that in Spades. Insignia collaborates with businesses of all sizes, regardless of industry, to streamline and enhance their corporate training initiatives. Whether it's training new hires to sell widgets, software implementations, soft skills virtual workshops and webinars, strategy, coaching, or designing bespoke leadership development programs, we deliver efficient and cost-effective solutions, Bernie's commitment to excellence is unwavering. Bernie's leadership is guided by a set of core beliefs that include the importance of punctuality, integrity, continuous improvement, and the value of simplicity. His philosophies emphasize the significance of relationships and learning from every experience. In addition to his role as a business leader, Bernie is the President of Growth Mode Engaged, a National B2B Success Champion networking group. Bernie is father to a stepson and daughter. Bernie is also an ordained “Dude,” and legally authorized to perform wedding ceremonies and what have you in most states. https://insigniatraining.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/badiii/ https://www.youtube.com/@InsigniaTrainingPartners