Influence and Persuasion Skills
© Persuasive Presentations, March 2013
Client Case Study
Fran is an Executive Coach who champions women getting onto company boards.
She recently gave a talk to a Women in Journalism group. The seminar was
attended by editors and reporters from the UK’s national and trade media.
She opened with the following joke:
Barack and Michelle Obama are enjoying a quiet dinner at a local restaurant in
Washington. The restaurant’s owner approaches the secret service agents and
asked if he might have a word with the First Lady.
The agents ask her permission and she agrees. Michelle approaches the owner
and the two talk. After a few minutes they share a warm embrace and she returns
to her table.
On re-joining her husband Barack asks who the man was. She explains that he is
an old flame from college.
Barack says, just think honey, if you had married him, you could have been the
wife of a restaurant owner.
No darling, she says, if I had married him, he would have been the President of
the United States!
A good joke in its own right but on this occasion it was so in-tune with the values
of her audience that as Fran told the punch line, the audience saw it coming and
joined in. It set the perfect tone for the talk and by the end people were thrusting
their cards into Fran’s hand asking her to contact them.
