Firstly, given the current climate I hope your presentations are free of performance enhancing supplements.

Here’s a new tip that might add some more power to your next meeting.

Within Storytelling, it’s called ‘Describe the Pain’

We often discuss the emotional drivers of decision makers and audiences in our Salient Presentation/Sales programs inclusing Ego, Fear, Status etc.

Describe the pain makes it really stick!

  1. Traditional method – ‘One of our clients, Company X was spending too much on (insert your service here)… Blah, Blah, Blah so costs needed to be reduced’
  1. Describe the pain method:

‘A leading energy company was facing enormous threat from a new competitor who put pressure on their margins. The CIO was sitting in an executive meeting with his CFO and after 3 strong lattes and two beers, it looked like the CIO was going to concede to sacking 5 people. That night he went out to dinner with his wife and agonised over which of his great people would reluctantly get the chop. He had the ‘hit list’ on his desk when we went to see him the next day. In one hour’s discussion on ( our solutions/magic dust), we demonstrated how he could keep 4 of his 5 staff and keep the CFO happy in the current calendar year. That’s the impact this (product/service/solution) can have ’

You get the gist…tell the story , don’t be bland….describe the pain. Let them feel it. Then ease the pain and they’ll buy in.

Remember you’re always free to drop me a line and ask a question or let me know what’s been working out there in Presentation/Sales Land

Written by Elliot Epstein, CEO, Salient Communication

Elliot has trained and coached over 3000 people throughout the Asia Pacific Region and is a sought after keynote speaker on Sales, Negotiation, Leadership and Presentations.

E: elliote@salientcommunication.com.au

© Salient Communication