Everyone of us has had to get up in front of an audience—be it our own work groups, the management team or a customer, and try to persuade them to a specific course of action.
Yet so many presentations we sit through or documents we read bore us and worse yet put us to sleep. How can we do a better job of persuading an audience. Crafting a compelling story is the first step in achieving that goal.
Here’s a 3 step process that I’ve seen skilled presenters and negotiators use and one that has worked for me consistently.
A. Begin with the end in mind
I’ll use the example of a talk or webinar that you intend to host. Write down the one takeaway that your listener or audience walks away with – it could range from broad statements such as
- Sustained innovation requires fostering a culture of experimentation without fear of failure. It is leadership’s responsibility to cultivate and reward such a culture.
or highly specific such as
- Writing 1000 words every day is the key to finishing your book – then all you have to do is edit it
- Measuring ROI on your GIS project can seem hard but it’s not rocket science – here’s how our customers are doing it
B. Use the power of three
While scientists and psychologists thought that the human brain can hold only 5-7 things at a time, newer research suggests that number might actually be only 4! I find if you break down things into three chunks, they are a lot easier to hold at least in my easily distracted mind. Now break it down into three chunks.
Sticking with the innovation or leadership theme,
B1. Context: Set the stage This is best set as a story – that usually illustrates or reinforces a widely held belief. This allows you to build a connection with your listeners. Examples such as
How:
- Steve Jobs had a mythical touch when building products or
- Unilever or P&G were masters of strategy leading to their success; Or
- government projects are always a boondoggle, like the Big Dig in Boston
B2. Counterpoint – core premise: Is that really the case? Challenge the assertion you made in setting the context. This often sets up your core premise
Here are:
- 8 products that Steve Jobs launched that failed miserably
- the huge missteps P&G made despite their obvious market leadership
- lessons from NASA’s space mission, with its minuscule failure rates
And offer your core-premise – the recommendation, lesson or take-away
- Sustained innovation requires fostering a culture of experimentation without fear of failure. It is leadership’s responsibility to cultivate and reward such a culture.
B3. Break it down: Offer an actionable set of things that they can do – how can they realize this core premise you’ve made?
Maybe it’s
- next steps – from them or other stakeholders
- a checklist – that helps them understand themselves better?
- case studies – of how other entrepreneurs succeeded (or better yet failed and recovered), followed by a checklist.
This can work, whether the topic’s building a culture of innovation, losing weight, giving a speech, or how to measure the return-on-investment on a project.
C. Challenge your audience
This is what we marketers term the Call to action! This could be as simple as inviting questions that allows them to challenge your assertions or having them take the first step (“What will you do differently tomorrow morning, because of what you learned here”)
The key here is that this doesn’t remain your story but one that compels them to action – ideally an action that benefits them. Of course, if it benefits you whether purely psychically (I did some good!) or professionally (lands you a consulting gig or job) that’s icing on the cake. As my father tried to teach me, “Give first before you ask.”
