Do you Stand out from the Crowd?
Your ability to engage people and build commitment to your ideas and win support in competitive environments may well be critical to your career success, it’s certainly a key requirement for an effective manager or leader.
Here are 10 Tips that help you to get engagement from all audiences on any topic and in doing so, stand out from the crowd.
- One message. As soon as you start sending mixed or multiple messages you risk confusing the audience and key points may be forgotten. One message is clear, succinct and understandable.
- Repetition of your One Message. The more times people hear your message the clearer it becomes for them. Try presenting it from different angles, use different ways to tell it such as examples, photos, videos etc.
- Make it about people and use pictures to tell the story. Research suggests that 80% of the population recalls information visually.
- Only one idea per slide.
- Break it down into baby steps. You’re not being patronising. It’s like the emergency lighting strip on an airplane. It shows the way.
- Test with someone independent. Would your children understand your message?
- Grab your audience’s attention. Fast. Show an unusual picture, tell an odd fact or statistic, share an inspiring story.
- Show. Tell. Do. Use these three elements when presenting your ideas. Modulate your voice, use it as an instrument, speed up and slow down. Vary your voice to master the telling of your message. Include demonstrations. Even videos, testimonials or pictures will suffice.
- Change media. Don’t rely solely on PowerPoint. Use video. Grab a marker and draw diagrams on the whiteboard, answers questions on the flipchart. Stand out by being different and by using creative communication.
- Include a Call to Action. Make time for people to talk about action. Set up small group discussions so people will personalise their plan of action.
Adapted from http://www.scribd.com/doc/15236476/10-Tips-To-Engage-Any-Audience
