Strange as it may seem, our life is
made up of a series of “sales presentations”. Sales may not be
your gig, but if you’re the boss you’re making presentations
everyday. Be it a pitch to your Board, announcing a policy change to
employees, selling an idea to your spouse, or just trying to win
others over to your point of view – you need to punch up your
people skills for winning pitches.
Human nature is such that people
support solutions that they help create, so involve them by allowing
your audience to participate with questions or ideas. It goes without
saying that to not involve key people is risky, because messages can
be misunderstood. Your plans may be derailed before they begin if
sufficient “buy-in” is lacking. Use lots of open-ended questions
in your presentation to draw out the silent type.
Preparation is a key to success.
Prepare your listeners to what’s coming during or before your
presentation. Try these pre-meeting tactics:
- Assign task-related pre-work. This could be pre-reading or study of a problem, and the preparations of possible solutions. An example could be, “go and visit three kinds of accounts before the meeting.”
- Make pre-meeting contacts with those invited by email, phone, or in person. You might want to try an informal survey to get people’s position on the issues at hand.
Remember support on key or
controversial matters can be established ahead of time by lobbying,
if you know where to lobby.
Do your research! People who make it
look easy and are effective presenters have a hidden arsenal. This
is an arsenal of up-to-date, organized material that can be accessed
quickly in ready-to-use form when needed. They have the stats to
back up their ideas, and they have a mental arsenal of stories,
examples, jokes, and ice-breakers to use when needed.
Your physical presentation could
include tangible items relating to the issue such as recent articles
clipped from newspapers or magazines, photographs, reports, and
demonstration property. To become masterful in this art learn to
maintain resources you can access for just the right thing at the
right time.
The next thing you must do is to
explain “why?” The single most powerful thing you can do to
convince your audience of something is to provide a convincing reason
why they should do what you suggest or believe what you say. People
want and need a clear “WIIFM” – “what’s in it for me?” –
to be able to react positively to what you want them to do. It’s
extremely important that you deliver a vision of benefits. Hearing
the “why” won’t automatically generate a “yes” to your
proposition, but it’ll open the door for receptivity to your idea.
Knowing and accepting the “why”
satisfies a basic need that we all have – to understand the purpose
of our actions. Use the words “because” or “so that” in your
presentation and then finish the phrase. When your subject matter is
controversial or likely to generate emotions, it is essential that
your “why’s” be tested in advance. Ask some people you trust
or that are on your “team” to play devil’s advocate to help you
with your logic and arguments.
These are just the first four points
for making successful presentations. There are eight of them in
total, and we’ll look at the other four in my column next week.
For now, let me leave you with this thought.
Life is a sales job from beginning to
end. From the moment that we discern how to get approval as children,
winning friends at school, getting our first beau, getting our first
(and subsequent) job, getting engaged and married, achieving our
goals, and anything else you can think of in between – we’re
selling ourselves or our ideas all along the way. Who said you
weren’t a salesperson?
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