POWER PLAY #13 FIRE-UP Your Audience! Years ago I came up with a system for a persuasive presentation, something anyone could use, no matter what they’re selling. After studying all the research and methods I could find on persuasive presenting, I arrived at this acronym: FIRE-UP. Each letter stands for a step you need to

In the final stage of your presentation, audiences should be led to take an action that improves their situation: to fulfill the outcome you established at the very beginning of the process (see Power Play #1). Sometimes, they’ll do something right then (e.g., register, buy something, give you a purchase order), and sometimes you’ll ask

Years ago, I was taught that you had to deliver a powerful “close.” You almost had to strong-arm people into doing what you wanted, and it didn’t feel good to me. Getting people to do something they don’t want to do isn’t fun. Everybody feels uncomfortable…Uh-oh. Here comes the catch. They stop listening and start

POWER PLAY #10: Give Them Exactly What They Want It’s always exciting when you get to the part of the presentation where you tell your audience about the solution you have for them. The problem is that many presenters get so hung up on telling every single aspect of the solution, every benefit and feature, that

POWER PLAY #9 Use Pictures Instead of Bullet Points Whenever I ask people to tell me what qualities they associate with ineffective speakers, one that always comes up is slide presentations with too much information on them. Probably the worst are entire paragraphs, which the presenter then recites to the audience. Second worst are endless

POWER PLAY #8 Share Three Big Concepts in the Body of Your Presentation You’ve got your audience focused, and you’ve introduced your topic with a sexy headline. Now you’re ready to serve up the meat of your presentation. It’s time for the key ideas or concepts you’ll be imparting to your audience. How many of

POWER PLAY #7 Bring the Pain You’ve heard the cliché, “No pain, no gain,” and it’s especially true when it comes to presenting. Earlier, we established that the best presentations solve the audience’s problem, but it’s not enough for you to know there’s a problem, nor is it enough for them to know there’s a

POWER PLAY #6 Give Them a Sexy Headline When you look at a newspaper or magazine, what determines which articles you read? It’s the headline. If the headline catches your attention, you’ll check out the article, but if the headline doesn’t appeal to you, you move right on. This is the same way your audience

POWER PLAY #5  Make Them Itch, Then Scratch Did you know that tens of thousands of presentations are going on right now, all over the world, where the audiences aren’t paying any attention to the presenters? Or that in one of our recent surveys, 63 percent of people said that presentations they attend end up being

POWER PLAY #4 F—– the Audience At the beginning of any presentation, attendees are usually restless. They have no idea whether they’re going to be bored or get anything out of it. They’re distracted, too, and often will be fiddling with their phones or whispering to someone next to them. Seriously, unless they’ve paid to