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"As a leader, every interaction is an opportunity to connect and inspire."

– Andy Freed, CEO, Virtual, Inc.

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When you step in front of an audience—whether it’s your company, your team, or a conference—every moment matters. In this episode, Virtual, Inc. CEO Andy Freed shares lessons from Virtual’s recent company all-hands meeting and breaks down the Think, Feel, Do framework for impactful communication.

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Listen in and discover:

• Why every presentation is a performance—and how to own the moment.
• How story telling connects your employees with each other and your mission.
• How to move people from inspiration to action.

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Like what you hear? Follow 5 Minutes with Andy for more leadership insights!

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Andy Freed

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Hello, and welcome to Five Minutes with Andy. My name is Andy Freed. I'm the CEO of Virtual, Incorporated. For the last 25 years, we've been helping membership organizations that are forming, growing and changing as they seek to make their mark on the world.

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You know, I do this podcast because I believe there's things I can share from those 25 years and lessons that I've learned and things that are so important that we can share just five minutes.

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And I love this podcast, but I'll tell you what I like even more is I love having the opportunity to talk to our entire team, and once a year, we get the entire Virtual team together to talk about our goals for the future and where we're going as an organization. And we just did that last week. I had the chance to stand in front of folks and talk about where we’re trying to go.

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As we do that, it's so important as leaders that we understand what a critical moment that is for us as leaders. I'm not just standing there clicking slides and giving a PowerPoint presentation. I'm standing there in some ways as a leader, in other ways as a performer, but in every way, thinking about how am I trying to reach that audience and what am I trying to do?

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As I do that, I should have a few things in mind, not just what slides am I showing, not just what am I telling people, but what I should be thinking about? What do I want them to think? What do I want them to feel? And what do I want them to do? Now, the thinking part that can be easy, that is really on the level.

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What's the information that I'm trying to convey?

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And I can outline that. But what I want them to feel that's so important to think about and so important to make sure that you have an understanding of, do I want them to feel inspired? Do I want them to feel challenged? How do I also want to connect with them?

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You know, in the stories that I told last week and it's important to note that I told some stories because people don't connect to just bullet points. Nobody puts their kids to bed by telling them a bedtime PowerPoint presentation with a series of bullet points. You tell them a story because we're wired to hear stories. As people we're wired to remember stories.

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So last week I told a couple of stories of heroes of my life. I talked about my dad and the work that he's done over his career, and how that matters to me, and how that shaped who I am as a leader every day, and how that shapes what I hope our company will be in 2025. These are stories that are personal to me.

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They resonate with me and they help me as I'm trying to convey a feeling to folks of where I'm hoping that they'll go. The last piece, of course, is what I want them to do. People come to this, and especially if I'm getting them inspired, they want to know, what do I do with that energy? What are you looking for from me?

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You need to make sure that's something that's explicit. You need to make sure that's something that's repeated. You need to make sure that that's something that's reinforced. Otherwise, all you're doing is giving people that energy, but they don't know what to do with it. And they might not do with it what you expect and what you're hoping. So as a leader, it's your job to really make sure that you're channeling that and getting that to the right place.

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And I believe that's something every leader can do. But the key on all of this at the end is preparation. And preparation means that when you're standing up there, it's understanding - one, how important the moment is. Because I don't get that many moments over the course of the year to sit down and talk to our entire company and making sure that you're preparing for it by really stepping back and saying, not just, what am I going to say?

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Not just what are my slides going to look like? But what do I want the audience to think, what do I want them to feel? What do I want them to do? So, I hope in these five minutes you've learned a little something about that.

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So now let me tell you what I want you to do. If you've enjoyed this, I'd love for you to like this podcast. Subscribe and join us again. Thanks so much. I'm Andy Freed. This has been Five Minutes with Andy. See you soon.

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