Influence and Persuasion Skills
© Persuasive Presentations, March 2013
P = Personal Impact
Here’s the rub.
When you take the stage at a conference or seminar, your currency with your
audience is pretty much zero.
It doesn’t matter how good your products and services are. It doesn’t matter how
well you do what you do. And it doesn’t matter how highly your clients think of
you.
If your audience doesn’t buy into you, they won’t buy into your business.
After
all, as the old saying goes,
‘people buy people’.
The first moments with your audience are critical. Forget about the effort that’s
gone into preparing your presentation or the value of the content you have to
share.
You have about 11 seconds to make a good first impression.
What you do next will decide whether you’ll have your audience’s undivided
attention or if they’ll spend your talk thinking about the workload piling up on
their desk, the dinner waiting for them at home or anything else that’s on their
mind.
As any film star, comedian or musician will tell you, audiences are fickle. Give
them what they want and they’ll love you forever. Don’t and they’ll switch off.
Whether we’re watching a film, a stage play or a seminar, an audience has one
thing in common.
They want to be entertained and they’re looking to you to
provide that entertainment.
Not that they’re expecting you to get up and sing a song or juggle with fire but
they do want to know that they’ll enjoy their time with you.
When considering your personal impact it’s important to think beyond your
appearance.
