Hints & Tips

Tired of having your ideas ignored, compromised, talked down? Here is a way to make sure that your messages capture hearts and minds. In five steps we show you how to win when putting your case.

1 Know your audience

The most powerful way of differentiating yourself is to know your audience – one person or many. If you are trying to influence someone you don’t know, then you’re just guessing.

• What do your listeners want, what do they trust? Take a little effort to find out.
  Ask what is important to them right now. What is their work/social/educational situation? What makes them proud or loyal? What excites them, gets them interested?
• Find out by chatting to people; use the internet, read reports, other messages they have received and information relevant to them. Finally, be prepared to talk directly to them in advance to understand their needs.

2 Understand their agenda

From the knowledge you now have of your listeners, what will most influence them to make a decision in your favour? What is their criteria? Experts have identified three factors which motivate us:

• What’s practical and logical? Appeal to the rational side of people. If you don’t do this, you aren’t connecting with their map of reality. Cost, efficiency, delivery, fitness for purpose, are the things that people have on their checklist.
• What are the key cultural influencers? Think about the culture in which they operate, peer group pressures or position in the organisation. Who do they answer to and what are they responsible for? List the factors that you think are important from your step one research.
• Empathy: how does it feel? Less tangible and predictable is how people respond emotionally to a proposition. Even if you get the first two right, people may still make an emotional decision about you or your message. Understand the inconvenience, discomfort, frustration or disappointment people have which your proposal might address. Empathy helps create rapport and provides comfort.

3 The building blocks

Think more than you write or speak. Most people want to fully understand the point of your message – the proposition, idea, solution – rather than the detailed process behind it.

• Be concise. Less is more. At this level you need to gain their interest as the first stage of buy-in. If they come back asking questions, you have rapport. Use few, clearly presented benefits.
• Spell out the benefits. What will your proposition offer that your audience don’t have now? What’s in it for them? Make sure that what you offer is relevant and that the benefits are real for them.
• Prove it. What is your evidence that what you propose is right, will work, is better etc? Use facts, statistics, examples, demonstration to support your case. Wherever possible use a picture or graphic to make the point – it’s more memorable and has greater impact.

4 Putting it all together

A simple structure for your message provides coherence, comfort and clarity and avoids leaving your audience confused.

• Decide precisely your subject. Write a simple one-line objective which best describes the point of your message. Then expand it into a series of stages, adding in the information you need. You then have a basic structure.
• Review what you have developed and now, with an editing hat on, make it as concise as you can, cutting out extra detail and making tough decisions on what should stay.
• You should have a beginning which sets the scene and shares with the audience the challenge, pain points or opportunity. This should lead the audience through curiosity, expectation or even drama to your proposition. The benefits can follow or even be introduced in advance of the proposition. Use your evidence at all stages. At the end, summarise both the proposition and benefits.

5 Delivery

Engaging your audience. Stories play well and are memorable, but be sure that they don’t over complicate and add time to your presentation. Choose wisely. Always visualise how you want people to feel at the end of your presentation and work to achieve that effect in your choice or words, images, visuals and stories.

• Involve your audience at the beginning. If you are presenting to one or many, ask questions to understand what they expect from your presentation – you have a better chance of managing their expectation. Tell them what is important (for them) in what you are presenting and what time you will need.
• Move through your structure, preferably with some visual support. Make eye contact with all of your audience and look for their agreement or recognition as you build your case.
• When you are finished, clearly restate your key points and recommendations, and take questions. Be prepared to be honest and if you can’t answer a relevant question, turn it into a constructive audience involvement and promise to come back with an answer!

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