You know that really good friend who will always tell you what you need to hear? Chartreuse is not your best color. You have toothpaste on your chin. It doesn’t matter if you like water, it’s good for you—drink it.

In the world of near-daily Zoom meetings, each of us has the opportunity to be that friend—that coach– to each other, boosting our collective credibility and avoiding the slip ups that may garner an eye-roll instead of agreement with our ideas.

Think of the calls you’ve been on in the past three months. How might helpful insight from a co-worker have made your calls better?

• Who looked confident and engaged?
• Who exhibited a space that reflected their personality?
• Whose home office needs a good de-cluttering (no names, please)?
• Whose camera shot was more ceiling than face, with a rotating ceiling fan that hypnotized the viewer?

The Total Package

Just as you would in a workplace conference room, you notice the visual cues that give color to people’s words. You see who has great eye contact, who looks disinterested and who is on the edge of their seat. As in most work settings, you have the opportunity to be a great coach on the combination of content, delivery and environment that is most effective for your group.

The Medium is the Message

The obvious difference in today’s remote meetings is that Zoom has given us a sneak peek into our co-workers’ space and in many cases, their lives. What you have to say is much more important than the painting on the wall behind you, yes. But if your environment is a distraction, your point may fall on deaf ears— or ears focused on the sound of the dog barking in the background or the six-year-old’s request for more juice.

First, turn your video on. Your colleagues and clients want to see you. The black rectangle emblazoned with only your name is not nearly as collegial as even a still shot of you.

Your Zoom ‘shot’ should enhance your connectivity with others—not be a distraction. That goes for both video and audio. Backgrounds that give us a glimpse into who you are are fine, but we don’t necessarily need to know your obsessions. Many have found inexpensive ways to create neutral home backdrops.

Books are a great way to frame your shot. Repurpose that old thesaurus to raise your camera to eye level.

Lighting matters. Position yourself so that light falls on your face. Windows provide great light, but are not a good background, as the backlight leaves your face in shadow.

Mute is your friend. Actually, mute is everyone’s friend. Contractors, children, spouses and pets in the background can derail everyone’s attention. And, if your bedroom is your home office, make sure the person napping just out of camera range doesn’t begin to snore when you make an important point.

Practice Zoom Etiquette

Avoid eating during a call. No one wants to see you chew directly into the camera.

Put your cell phone on silent. If there’s a call you absolutely must take, post a chat to the group that you’ll be right back. Put your photo on screen and mute your mic. Disable the sound for notifications.

If you have to step away mid call–everyone needs to sneeze on occasion–pop up your photo briefly and mute. When you’re ready to rejoin the meeting, go live again with video.

Put me in, Coach

We’re all players in the video meeting game, but your role as Zoom coach can elevate you to MVP. It doesn’t work on every call or with every group, but if you’re in a tic-tac-toe-sized or smaller call, take a minute at the end to offer constructive criticism to each other on your Zoom presence. Keep your comments positive and encouraging and be prepared to take their suggestions for you with equal grace and in the spirit with which you’re sharing.

The result: colleagues who are confident their message is being heard and meetings that are focused and productive, no matter where they’re taking place.

The extended nature of the COVID-19 crisis has given many people an abundance of time to think about the responses of countries and companies–the actions taken (and not taken), and to analyze leaders from every angle.

Women at the Helm

These past few months, women’s leadership has been both celebrated (e.g. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany) and questioned (Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who implemented some of the toughest coronavirus lockdown rules in the United States). Are females better leaders in a crisis? Does it matter?

On a Zoom discussion hosted by the Women’s Impact Fund this month, a group of smart, successful women talked about the qualities of the female leaders at center stage. Their consensus: these women are expert, measured, collaborative, and calm under pressure. These women also demonstrate empathy and caring for people.

Statistically, there appears to be no difference in population death rates between male and female leaders of countries or states [Forbes: Are Female Leaders Statistically Better at Handling the Coronavirus Crisis?]. Yet there are many examples of women managing the COVID response with greater aplomb and impact.

Nationally, you can’t ignore Ambassador-at-Large Deborah Birx, M.D. Look beyond the scarves to the calm, confident expertise she demonstrates day after day, week after week.

In North Carolina, the state Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Mandy Cohen, and Mecklenburg County Public Health Director Gibbie Harris have steadfastly looked after the interests of a state of more than 10 million people, and also its largest urban area. Neither is afraid to think broadly and decisively, even when their positions may be unpopular.

Some Women’s Impact Fund Zoom participants called for more women to be empowered and encouraged to run for public office. Yes. And there are also other leadership opportunities in the chaos we are experiencing. It is up to women to seize them –leading with expertise and influence as well as their ability to leverage empathy and collaboration to solve problems.

Women are well-suited to lead through crises, but the U.S. is behind other nations in culturally embracing and enabling women. In elected office, the U.S. ranks 76th out of 193 countries when it comes to women serving on the national level, and women make up 28.7 percent of more nearly 7,400 state legislators [VOA News: Here’s How Women Leaders Govern Differently]. In corporate America, there are just 33 female CEOs among the 500 largest U.S. companies [FORTUNE: The Number of Female CEOs in the Fortune 500 hits an All-Time Record].

Resilience During Crisis

When considering leadership during crisis, I think of the calm, reasoned approach of my friend and former colleague Valerie Franco. For several years, Valerie and I led a cross-functional team that prepared for, practiced, and managed a number of crises for a Fortune®50 company.

First, we gathered the right people in the room; a mix of talented women and men who worked together and were not afraid to dig deep into the situation and make a tough call when needed. The variety of perspectives was key to seeing the crisis from different angles and land the response strategy. Diverse views matter in business and certainly in a crisis.

Valerie attributes successes in part to resilience—the ability not only to weather a storm and bounce back, but to come back stronger having learned from the difficulty.

If we study accounts from Vietnam War P.O.W. James Stockdale, we recognize the resilience paradox of realistic optimism. People in crisis situations have a better chance of survival if they remain both optimistic that one day it will end, and realistic about when and how. It’s the idea “yes I’m in a difficult spot, but I will prevail.”

When we are in a difficult struggle, whether being without a job, in an economic downturn, or coping with illness, we have the highest resilience when we are able to hold optimism in one hand and realistic expectations in the other. Regardless of gender, this axiom holds true.

It’s Time to Shine

The opportunity to celebrate and appreciate female leaders is a silver lining in this endless rain cloud of COVID. It is not about women doing better than men. Men are our peers, mentors, advocates and partners. The point is to shine a light on the amazing contributions of women in leadership roles, and on the front lines of medicine, research, business and communities; and to encourage women to confidently step into those roles, knowing that they are equipped for success.

You have spent a career building a corporate culture of trust. Your firm ranks highly in every top list of corporate rankings and accolades. Your employee satisfaction scores need some improvement, but overall, you have built a team and culture you are proud of. But are you ready to meet and communicate to a changed workforce when it returns to work?

We are not talking about your social distancing and mask policies here. We are talking about a workforce that is also part of the increasingly vocal American public taking part in fierce on-line debates about COVID-19 and our country’s response to it. Whether through social media or the silent protest of not wearing a mask to the grocery store, your employee base reflects America. Will they return as the generally team-spirited group that left your workplace in early spring, or will they return with the fervor of unionized labor in its heyday?

Let’s be blunt. The employee/employer contract has changed dramatically over the last few decades. We can’t ignore that COVID-19 has likely impacted the contract as well. In a highly charged, risk-filled environment, employees accustomed to “having their say” in the political and social media arenas may very well demand a more decisive role in how you bring them back to work.

What questions should you be asking now? A starter list could include:

• Have we taken steps to engage and understand our employees’ changed attitude post the onset of COVID-19?
• Have we mapped the tactical questions regarding how people return to work? How much is speculation? How fast? What is an enforceable policy and what is merely a guideline?
• Do we return at all or do we develop an ongoing culture of remote work? If we choose to remain apart, how do we keep a one-team culture?
• Have we considered equity issues among employees who must stay home to care for themselves or others and those who could return to a more traditional work environment?
• How do we handle disputes over the wearing of masks? Against our policy? Between co-workers? Have we even formed a policy? Have we thought about whether the question ‘to wear or not to wear?’ is a right or a responsibility to others? Either way, how does that philosophy reflect the company’s brand?
• How will we continue to monitor employee readiness and attitudes towards our safety measures?
• How do we continue to keep employees engaged in their own safety and welfare?

News reports already detail altercations between customers or with employees and security personnel in retail. Your personal social media pages are likely filled with the “open now” factions and the “follow all guidelines” proponents. Dissension, deep opinions, and a willingness to confront issues publicly have grown in our culture. The high stakes health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis have only exacerbated emotion in response. If you think your workforce is immune to seeing a more vocal employee inside your company, you may want to think again.

Do not be seduced by your current culture and your confidence in it. Do not let your CEO be lulled into a false sense of security either, as leadership will turn to you and wonder why you had not been discussing this issue. Begin dialogues today about how to engage a changed workforce. Yes, people still need to work, and the labor market will be tight. None of those things will prohibit a changed workforce from expressing its opinions more freely, unmasked, and unfiltered. Are you prepared for a new type of employee engagement?

We acted quickly and independently to send many of our team members home. Thankfully gallant and brave parts of our workforce remained in place to deliver essential services in healthcare, distribution, groceries, emergency services, and other industries. We thanked them and must continue to do so.

For many however we published the notices to begin to work from home and we dutifully shared tips on the best way to be productive and efficient in a new work from home environment. If we were doing what we should, we sent clear empathetic messages to all our stakeholders that our collective health was the most important thing.

The reality is people largely left willingly. Despite the multitudes of conflicting information at all levels of government, people are smart, and they understood the risks. Now we must ask, are we prepared for them to return? Will they have trust and confidence in our companies and cultures to accept the risk of a return to work?

In short, our greatest challenge as leaders and communicators wasn’t helping people exit the buildings in the beginning of this crisis, it will be building enough confidence for them that it is safe to return. It’s not too early for crisis response teams to be building this plan.

What should we all be considering? Here are some starter thoughts for your planning:

• People will need to return to work but they will want to know it is safe and that companies put the personal safety of every stakeholder first.
• Many large companies were retrenching on distributed workforce concepts prior to the crisis-some may find they liked working from home-what is your approach going forward?
• News reports currently suggest mass screening and testing will need to be widely available before people can return. In the US our testing response has not met demand so far. Will it going forward? Will it differ by geography therefore impacting rates of return for different facilities and locations?
• Workplaces even if “virus-free” may require sanitizing procedures to instill confidence for employees-are supplies readily available now? Will they be in time for your return to work notifications?
• Will external systems that support your employee base be ready such as childcare, eldercare, transportation, and other essential services? These will certainly vary by geography.
• Policies and practices that exist for attendance may need to be reviewed-how will you enforce compliance with a potentially hesitant workforce?
• In the US, governments at the state level are demonstrating autonomy in decision making and there is no clear Federal appetite for orders over guidance-return to work notifications will be just as dependent upon state and local officials as the shelter-in-place orders were.

These are just a few of the questions we need to begin to wrestle with as leaders in corporate crisis response. There are many, many more. We must begin to ask and plan now in order to anticipate our ability to begin to return people to work, to restart economic sectors that have been damaged by the crisis.

What questions are you asking in your crisis response war room? How will you be prepared to communicate them? This will likely be a lumpy process requiring the sound judgement and agility of every critical decision maker at your crisis table.

I’ll dispense with all the adjectives we are using to describe the COVID-19 crisis. You might too. In fact, there are many course corrections communicators should be taking right now to ensure you are maximizing the effectiveness of messaging to all stakeholders. Some of these corrections are tone, some of them are things you should stop, and some of them we should stop forever. Messaging and messaging process must both be examined in this crisis.

Review and Rework Your Editorial Calendar

Every channel you are communicating through should already have an existing editorial calendar. Halt your presses. On LinkedIn alone I have observed content publishers merrily pushing through their business as usual content calendars. Stop! No one is listening to your message about a new product launch, your culture initiative, or some ranking your company received. We’ll get back to those, but for now, you need to be generating new content designed to build confidence, empathy, and support your stakeholders.

Toss Out Old Phrases

Nothing makes me shake my head faster than reading another spokesperson say, “in an abundance of caution we are ….” Let’s use the Coronavirus to put this phrase under a tombstone and never rely upon it again. This crisis demands more. There isn’t enough caution that you can be taking. When lives are at stake, be direct. Be urgent and clear. Declare what you are doing, don’t seem like you are doing something because you are giving us the gift of your thoughtful wisdom. Let’s also bury “corporate speak” and ensure we are using the language of our stakeholders. If your executive’s quote of concern looks like any executive’s quote of concern, it’s time to rethink.

Unify the Communicators

Many communications functions are siloed both within formal communication functions and other functions such as investor relations or marketing. This crisis and every crisis demands unification of effort. Your leadership should be naming a single communications czar reporting to your crisis response team. This isn’t just a big company problem. Even small companies have “many” communicators. A crisis is a time for command and control management. Name a communications commander.

A Tone of Hope and Comfort

A number of national advertisers have begun to do exactly what needs to be done in all communications. These smart communicators are expressing empathy and support from their capabilities, not hawking product. In time, we must return to messages that drive revenue to help drive our economy and the health of our individual enterprises.

Track Your Lessons Now

All the years we spent creating crisis playbooks, seemingly faltered after just the 1st week. Like 9-11, we are living through another period where a failure of imagination has left us unprepared. Our profession demands that we rise in every crisis. It’s not too early to begin to track your lessons learned. We’ll each make some mistakes, but it is our responsibility for future communicators to help improve our ability to respond. We’ll have some real wins, too, that more effectively ensure our stakeholders are confident and secure to the best of our ability.

You’re in the middle of a battle. We all are. Unlike one we have ever encountered. Take a few minutes to ensure you aren’t facing a new enemy with old tools.

Strait Insights 10 Year Anniversary

True: I once ran corporate communications for a global financial services giant that was at one time the fifth most profitable company in the world. We became the best at integrating companies and the communications they required. We handled multiple crisis responses on a global scale. Our communications team was constantly building great talent and did so while reducing the overall cost of our operating platform in a growing company. We were complex business problem solvers, not just press release writers. Bright lights, big city, high stakes, you get the idea.

Also true: I now run my own successful boutique PR and communications firm.

True: I never set out to run my own firm. I left a 28 year large corporate career at the beginning of the financial crisis, the summer Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers blew up. The seas looked very dark in the world. No one was hiring and often recruiters in the communications space had no idea how to handle my non-traditional background.

Also true: In the past ten years I have had dark days professionally and personally. We endured great tragedy in my family during this period. A childhood of stormy crisis steeled me. You can read about resilience all day long but you have to live the challenges of life to really understand it. Building your own firm will teach resilience too.

Not true: My illustrious corporate past opens door after door for me. All I need do is cold call a potential client, or fire off a slick introductory email, and I’m hired sight unseen.

The truth is, in the past 10 years of being on my own, I have not had one cold call converted to new business. I can count on two hands the number of former peers, people I did not know personally, who have found the time to return a courtesy introductory email.

People hire who they know. They will often hire people their colleagues know. They hire larger firms with bigger brands and often less experienced people at higher prices. Your existing network and relationships are everything. Cold calls mean nothing. Arguably, I run one of the most effective and experienced M&A communications consultancies in the US. But my cold call stats won’t demonstrate that.

So what can you learn from my experience if you are starting your own firm?

If you were important before, you aren’t now

When you start your own business, you find out who your corporate friends really are. There are those who will always respect you because of your reputation and your reciprocal relationship; and there are those it seems who were more likely fond of your corporate checkbook or ability to wield influence in the past. The same is true for vendors and external relationships that you no longer pay. It won’t take six months for you to determine where your real allies are. Move on. Invest in those who invest in you.

Colleagues are still trusted colleagues – but probably need reminding

A trusted colleague is in a conference room with ten other people when suddenly the need for an outside resource emerges that includes your exact skill set. Someone other than your friend is quick to the punch with a name or referral. The room moves to the next issue and an opportunity is lost for you. Don’t get mad, get over it. Your trusted colleague is still your trusted colleague. They’re just human and you’ll get lost in their memory banks unless you keep reminding them you’re open for business. Quick emails with relevant articles, tweets, sharing a quote you have in the WSJ. All of these small efforts keep your name blipping on the radar.

Don’t waste time on cold calls

Cold calls are called that for a reason. It can get chilly out there. Pitching your skills and experience to someone who has never heard of you is like standing outside their office window holding a neon “pick me” sign. They don’t know you from anyone. Research and use your network to find introductions to new clients. Even former industry peers are more likely to return an introductory email if it’s made on your behalf by someone they trust. Establish your friends and tend to them, before you need them for something. All that said, I keep doing it. I am stubborn enough to convert just one cold call to new business.

You will never be McKinsey

A senior executive will rarely take the bet to hire a small firm whose principal they do not know, no matter your corporate pedigree. They will hire the brand name over a lone wolf unless, again, someone they trust vouches for you. Find your client base in those you know or in smaller firms that will be more willing to take your experience over a big brand name. While your personal experiences may outweigh those of the principles in a larger competing firm, it’s a very tough slog to sell experienced insights and reduced infrastructure costs over a big brand name. You can still do work at the largest of companies, but it will be work that comes through networking or relationships.

Marketing, websites and social media

Create a website. Create a logo and a nice business card. Maybe create a couple of videos with your viewpoints or approach to the kinds of problems your firm solves. Post on LinkedIn and Tweet with commentary, but don’t spend a lot on marketing. No one who is buying your intellect and experience will find you through a search engine or your website. Someone may check it out, but it’s because they already know about you and want to know more. Create your own PR by writing and getting thought leadership quotes out there.

Don’t worry about creating content when others’ will do

Content is king! Except when it isn’t. Creating content takes time away from developing business. Tough love for you English majors, I know, but trust me on this. Unless you’re a noted author, you’re better off leveraging existing content. Articles, news media, and social media posts are all things you can share with others to let them know you’re keeping up with things that are important to them. Curate thought leadership that reflects your points of view; create it when you feel absolutely compelled. It’s much more efficient. You should of course, pen a few pieces to publish now and then.

If your peers start retiring, know their direct reports

You may be of an age where you’ve noticed more and more of your contemporaries leaving their corporate or agency careers to start consultancies or join boards. As this trend increases, you’ll find that you have fewer first contacts inside companies. Make sure that in every assignment you’re creating relationships with multiple generations of leaders and decision-makers. Your current contacts will get you in the door; the newest leaders will keep it open.

Truth be told: The benefits of running your own shop are well worth the uncertainty and humility you’ll feel when you’re just getting started. Trust in what you know; let those who believe in you be your advocates; and don’t waste your time on dead-end leads or busy work. If you decide to return to a large corporate environment, you’ll have a 100 new cultures to draw from in your experience base. It’s an incredible learning experience! Like me, you will be incredibly thankful for existing colleagues, their referrals, and those new relationships you create along the way. Good luck!