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The Ultimate Sales Collaboration 4: Know and respect your audience and you will persuade, business experts say
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Because the presidential election is the ultimate sell, we’re bringing
you the ultimate collaboration: the world’s top presentation experts
revealing the top secrets to the art of persuasion.
This is the
last in a series of four blogs where we distil analysis by 32
presentation and business experts down to simple guidelines to help
you to be persuasive in your business life.
Step Four: Approach your subject from your audience’s perspective
The golden rules of advertising copywriting apply equally to being persuasive in meetings and presentations.
Before you launch into a pre-prepared spiel about how brilliant your product or services is, listing every feature from A to Z, stop.
Think carefully about your audience. Get to know them. What is their interest in your message, if any? What are the problems that your audience have, that you can solve?
Now write your presentation in such a way that it addresses these questions.
When you are writing your presentation, the more time you put into organising and structuring your thoughts, telling stories, and rehearsing your presentation will make you easier to comprehend and digest. You will be more persuasive and more convincing.
Next, be responsive to your audience. If someone has a question, listen carefully and let them finish. Be a generous listener. Pause and take a breath to think about your response before you reply. Don’t rush in with an off-the-rack answer which misses the point of the question.
At all times, be consistent with your brand. Be your brand. Speak and present yourself in a way that is confident and consistent. Your audience needs to know what to expect from you as the relationship develops.
Remember, people make decisions emotionally as well as rationally. The way you present reflects the way you’ll handle yourself in other contexts, and how you’ll do your job. Be seen as professional, confident, and competent, and people will be convinced by your message.
From the experts…
Dawn T. Clare: Connect to your audience. Give examples that show you understand their current plight and you want to help them. Offer Solutions.
Ronald Kaufman: Know your audience, what are their wants and needs, what are their beliefs, and how you can fulfil them in ways that are better than what they had envisioned?
Tiffanie Z. Lyon, MBA: Be passionate, empathetic and sincere. Believe in the value you offer (products, services, ideals, opinion), understand how it affects others. Be real.
Deborah Shames: It's not about being polished, but making a connection with the audience.
Jonathan I. Ezor: The more you can resonate emotionally by demonstrating real feeling and understanding, the more the people will identify.
Ira Koretsky: Be a generous listener.
Michelle Eppley: Respond specifically to questions rather than supplying vague, grandiose generalizations.
Jeff Goldberg: Listen to questions and be sure to look like you're listening. Make and keep eye contact, nod your head when appropriate, etc.
John Daly: Listen carefully to comments and respond directly to them.
Jeff Goldberg: don't have to answer/speak immediately to sound like you know what you're talking about. The smartest people are often introspective and consider their words before speaking.
Barry Maher: Pausing briefly before answering sends a powerful message of thoughtful leadership while giving you time to segue from the question to the message point you want to hit.
Tiffanie Z. Lyon, MBA: Add a twist of your own personality and deliver in a sincere, empathetic manner. This is the formula for successful persuasiveness and impact!
Derrick Hayes: In order to be persuasive you have to have a consistent track record and stick to what you believe in.
Tom Brennan: Speak in a way that is consistent with your brand, whether Change Agent or Experience.
Dennis R Deaton: Be consistent. Choose your position based on what you truly believe and stay with it. Consistency is extremely persuasive because it is felt.
Judith E. Glaser: Integrity, among all of the 19 other leadership attributes, is the highest rated attribute of extra ordinary leaders. Ninety per cent of the people we've asked say that integrity sells them on which leader to believe in and follow.
Alison Behrman, PhD: Being impactful means sounding credible and confident, appearing comfortable, communicating with energy, and making each listener feel a personal connection with the speaker and the topic.
Carmine Gallo: Win over hearts and minds. Minds by laying out a logical argument and hearts by revealing some emotion.
Michelle Eppley: Stick to your message, plan responses to likely questions, and most of all, know yourself.
About the experts:
Derrick Hayes
President, WOE Enterprises
http://www.encouragementspeaker.wordpress.com
http://www.encouragementspeaker.com
Encouragement expert and creator of Derricknyms and W.O.E.
John Daly
Writer, JohnDaly.TV
http://www.johndaly.tv
TV Host and author who wrote the book on media bias and how Americans can become more informed efficiently. The book is Truth: The No BS Guide To Navigating A Media-Biased World.
Tom Brennan
Media Expert, Tom Brennan Media
http://www.tombrennanmedia.com
Have booked hundreds of clients into major media venues.
KimAlyse Popkave
President, K.a. Popkave Coaching & Consulting
http://www.Popkave-Coaching-and-Consulting.com
Creator of the Path To Power.
Steve Clements
Chief Consultant, Executive Speak/Write, Inc.
http://www.executivespeakwrite.com
Oral presentation and media trainer, distinguished professor and former television producer.
Judith E. Glaser
CEO, Benchmark Communications, Inc.
http://www.creatingwe.com
Two time best-selling author; pioneer and leading expert in the field of WE-centric leadership; founder of the Creating WE Institute; executive coach and advisor to C-suite leaders in multi-billion dollar global organizations; organizational anthropologist.
Alison Behrman, PhD
General Manager & Instructor, Speakeasy
http://www.speakeasyinc.com
Voice expert and communication coach at Speakeasy.
Jeff Goldberg
Professional Speaker, Success Coach, and Sales Trainer
http://www.jgsalespro.com
Author, speaker, coach and trainer having worked with more than 15,000 people in the last 6 years.
Deborah Shames
Co-founder, Eloqui
http://www.eloqui.biz
We've coached everyone from Dennis Tito to Paula Abdul on American Idol. We've trained teams at Mattel, Fisher Price, TD Ameritrade, Merrill Lynch, Johnson and Johnson as well as hundreds of law, accounting, insurance and financial firms.
We have one book on Amazon.com, The Speaker Survival Guide. Another book is due out in two weeks, Briefly Speaking. And we have a book contract with McGraw Hill Professional on our unique methodology. Our Eloqui method combines engagement techniques from the Entertainment Industry, cognitive science and impression management from psychology.
Barry Maher
Principal, Barry Maher & Associates
http://www.barrymaher.com
Acclaimed author, professional speaker and presentation expert.
Barbara Laskin
President, Laskin Media, Inc.
http://www.laskinmedia.com
Barbara Laskin is a nationally known public speaker, media trainer and Emmy-Award winning TV anchor and reporter. She reported on some of the most important stories of the past two decades, while interviewing the most influential newsmakers including former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. She won an Emmy Award for writing and reporting in a one-hour documentary, "Scared to Death", which was broadcast nationwide. Her company, founded in 1992, has coached everyone from Fortune 100 CEOs to celebrity chefs to Hollywood heavyweights, with the goal of helping them become more compelling and confident public speakers. She is a frequent commentator for news outlets such as The New York Daily News, NBC, MSNBC, CBC-TV, and Bloomberg radio, among others.
Ruth Sherman
President, Ruth Sherman Associates LLC
http://www.ruthsherman.com
Leading communications/presentations consultant to business leaders, politicians and celebrities, best-selling author, speaker and blogger. Regularly quoted in New York Times, Washington Post, SF Chronicle and other major media.
Carmine Gallo
Communications Coach, Author, Fire Them Up
http://www.carminegallo.com
Carmine Gallo is the communications coach for the world's most admired brands.
Jonathan I. Ezor
Assistant Professor of Law and Technology, Touro Law Center
http://www.tourolaw.edu
Law professor; technology business attorney for 15 years; worldwide speaker on Internet law and business; author of award-winning Internet business law handbook Clicking Through: A Survival Guide for Bringing Your Company Online (Bloomberg Press 2000) (http://www.clickingthrough.com)
Steve Denning
http://www.stevedenning.com
Steve Denning, former World Bank executive, is the award-winning author of The Secret Language of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2007), and the world's leading expert on leadership storytelling.
Marianne Gobeil
Partner, Leading Communicators Inc.
http://www.leadingcommunicators.com
A trusted communications advisor to politicians, government officials and business executives.
Michael Souveroff
Presentation Coach and Owner, Natural Speech Coaching
http://www.naturalspeechcoaching.com
Corporate Presentation Coach, New York City
Ira Koretsky
CEO, The Chief Storyteller
http://www.TheChiefStoryteller.com
National and internationally-recognized speaker, columnist, and consultant on business storytelling
Dawn T. Clare
President, SPISE BLISS
http://www.spisebliss.com
I am an intuitive coach and consultant with a Harvard MBA. I predicted the Wall Street Financial crisis would happen in 2008 and that we would see the fall of the Lehman & Merrill Lynch companies. I also predicted in 2007 that Obama would get the Democratic nomination.
Karol Ward
Executive Presentation Coach and Author
http://www.karolward.com/professional/index.html
Karol Ward is an executive presentation coach, nationally recognized speaker and author of Find Your Inner Voice: Using Instinct and Intuition Through the Body-Mind Connection (Career Press, 2009)
Dennis R Deaton
Co-Founder and CEO of Quma Learning Systems, Inc.
http://www.Quma.net
http://www.DrDeatonSpeaks.com
Author and Corporate Educator to many of the Fortune 500
Janet Larsen Palmer, Ph.D.
President, Communication Excellence Institute
http://www.talk2cei.com
Nonverbal communication specialist and business presentations coach
Tiffanie Z. Lyon, MBA
President, Lyon Sales Institute, LLC
http://www.lyonsalesinstitute.com
Sales expert, sales motivator and author, inspiring non-traditional salespeople to increase their sales-confidence, grow their businesses and influence others, by helping them better understand and appreciate the concepts of "selling."
Ronald Kaufman
Seminar Leader/Executive Coach
http://www.anatomyofsuccess.com
Presentation, media, and negotiation skills coach, and author of Anatomy of Success.
Michelle Eppley
President, The Sound Center, Inc.
http://www.thesoundcenter.com
President of The Sound Center, Inc. Client list is confidential, but I've worked with broadcasters, executives, politicians, performers, and other professional voice users. People come to me to learn how deliver their message more effectively, whether that means working on vocal tone and projection, moving with confidence, phrasing and pausing, or articulation and accent. I am a trained singer and licensed, certified speech-language pathologist.
Paul Anderson
President - ProLango Consulting Inc.
http://www.prolango.com
Adviser to C-Level Executives with Fortune 500 Companies (Seattle Based). I'm also working on advising politicians on linguistics and influencing abilities.
Shel Horowitz
Blogger on politics & ethics
http://www.principledprofit.com/good-business-blog
Award-wining author of books on ethics and marketing.
Laura Lewis-Barr
Freelance trainer, Training4breakthroughs.com
http://www.training4breakthroughs.com
Award-winning writer and corporate trainer.
Richard Butterfield
Principal, Butterfield Speaks
http://www.butterfieldspeaks.com
High stakes media skills and presentation coach to business and healthcare leaders ranging from Microsoft and Gartner, eBay and IDEO, to Genentech and Cleveland Clinic. Author of It's Showtime! Butterfield Speaks on the Power of Persuasion.
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