STEP 3: Create Compelling Presentations That Sell (Part 3 of 3)

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February 17th, 2009
Filed in: Leadership, Lifestyle, Public Speaking

Here’s part 3 to creating compelling presentations. Do you want to read the previous post in this series? Just go to http://tinyurl.com/anhwlt

If you don’t offer the audience an opportunity to buy your products or services then you are doing your audience a disservice. THEY NEED YOU! They may not know it yet, or they may have resistance to spending the money, but the bottom line is they need what you have to offer. That’s why they are there.

Here is the caveat. There will be some situations where you cannot sell anything. Some professional organizations do not want their audiences to feel “sold to.” Some conference producers or corporations may not want you to sell to their audience. That’s OK. There are ALWAYS ways to make sure you are giving the audience what they want.

Advanced Techniques to Get Them to Take Massive Action

If you ever have an opportunity to watch a master of compelling presentations, I highly recommend it for the education value alone. Watch what they do and how they “work” the audience. From the minute they arrive at the event they are watching to see who is there and how the audience is responding to the other speakers (if there are any.) The second they get on stage they are relating to the audience in a way that causes the audience to tune in, experience a deep rapport and want more.

Some of the people who I have personally seen in action on platform and consider “masters” are:

T. Harv Ecker, author of The Millionaire Mind and founder of The Millionaire Mind Intensive
Christopher Howard, founder of the Breakthrough to Success Weekend
Loral Langemeir, founder of Live Out Loud and author of The Millionaire Maker
Tom Antion, founder of the Butt-Camp Internet Marketing Training and author of the Wake ‘Em Up Presentations book and video series.

Every time I hear one of these “masters” speak, they provide MASSIVE value and create an internal need within the participant to take action. Another speaker to pay attention to is Joel Bauer, who has one of the highest “close ratios” in the industry. A “close ratio” is how many buying units from the audience invest in your continuing education. I didn’t put him in the previous category because he isn’t really teaching you any content from the stage. He is teaching some great principles but his claim to fame is he is just really, really good at motivating people to take action to buy. Legend has it that Joel is the mastermind presentation creators behind many of the great stage-sellers. Here are some of the techniques these presenters have mastered.

Embedded Stories

Embedded stories are a way of teaching a principle by telling a story. Story telling has been used for centuries to teach children principles. Stories draw the listener in because they want to know how it ends. When you tell the story of your client’s success using your product, your message gets across on a sub-conscious level because the listener experiences a 3rd party endorsement.

Another way to further the story telling technique is to tell a story of how you heard a story. For instance, let’s say Christopher Howard tells me his rags-to-riches story about how he used to live in a garage and clean dishes in his bath tub. When I am on stage, I might say something like, “Many successful people have found at one time that they are near bankruptcy or in poverty. My friend and mentor, Christopher Howard, the founder of Power of Influence, shared a story with me one time about how he used to have to clean dishes in his bathtub.” Then I tell his story. Get the picture?

Anchor Phrases

Anchor phrases are a “catch phrase” that you use over and over again to get people to emotionally connect to a new principle. It could be anything from “change your thinking, change your life,” “just do it,” or “successful people take massive action.” T. Harv Ecker uses “How you do anything is how you do everything.” One of my anchor phrases is, “Everything you say YES to means you are saying no to something else.”

The point of an anchor phrase is that you are teaching them a principle you want them to remember you by. Or you could be embedding a command. “Successful people take massive action” implies that when they have an opportunity to take action later that they better jump on it if they want to be more successful.

Ask YES Questions

Asking your audience to answer you is a powerful way to build rapport. The more rapport you have, the more your audience will respond to the opportunities you offer them. If you ask them a question, nod your head and raise your hand, the implied response is for them to answer yes, nod their head and raise their hand. After making an important point you can lead them to a yes response by saying, “do you agree — yes or yes?”

Drop “Scarcity” Hints

At “back of room” speaking opportunities, you have a responsibility to create revenue not just for you but for the event producer as well. One powerful technique that can often create a stampede to the product table is called “scarcity hints.” The table rush (as it is often referred to) can only be accomplished with this technique if you have built massive value into your presentation and you have rapport with your audience.

Throughout your presentation you will want to drop in comments about your limited availability. Here are some examples:

If it is a coaching program you offer, you may want to allude to the fact that these days you have very little time to offer one on one coaching.
If you have product offerings, only ship a small percentage to the venue and let people know that there only XX number available and everyone else will have to pay extra for shipping.
You can offer a bonus of extra discounts, extra gifts or extra services for the first XX number of people who sign up.

There are two reasons this is quite effective. First of all, you want people to move past their internal buying obstacles and take action. When they know there is a limited availability it causes them not to over process and just move into action. On a second level, when they see their peers running to the back of the room to be one of the few who get it, the competitive edge kicks in. People by nature don’t want to miss out on a deal.

Wrap your Package

One of Joel Bauer’s anchor phrases during his presentations is “wrap your package.” What that means is present yourself in a state of excellence. There is an old saying that you have ten seconds to make a lasting impression. Oftentimes the very first experience someone has of you is the way they see you on stage. If your physical presentation is not congruent with your message, it is an instant rapport killer.

Stay tuned for Step 4: Leverage All Your Opportunities.