Tag Archives: communication

Engage Your Audience, Sell Your Ideas, and Inspire People to Act

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If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now. – Woodrow T. Wilson

There are typically very few – if any – leadership positions in which the leader is a lone ranger with no teams to work with or report to, no organizational support, and no larger group to speak to on occasions.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are few leadership positions where the leader is constantly working with teams of all sizes, being supported by a few – or a few dozen – individuals, and is regularly speaking to a larger group.

One of those positions is a pastor.

When a pastor steps to the pulpit – in a 100 member church or a 10,000 member church, and everywhere in between – it would be easy to feel as if he were in a position of power. After all, he is up in front of the crowd, maybe even elevated on a stage, and people have come to hear him speak. The speaker is the star of the show, right?

Wrong. The audience is.

I would pause just to say that God is our ultimate audience, and everything we do as a believer is first to an audience of One. That, to me, is a given.

The speaker is not the star of the presentation – the audience is, because they will determine whether your idea spreads or dies, simply by embracing or rejecting it. You need them more than they need you. They have the control, and the speaker needs to be humble in his approach to speaking to them.

How, then, do you become an excellent presenter?

Nancy Duarte is CEO of Duarte, Inc. She teaches workshops on the art of presenting and is the author of two award-winning books: Slide:ology and Resonate. Wait a minute – better make that three!

Harvard Business Review has just published Duarte’s newest book, HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations, and once again she has delivered a valuable tool for speakers everywhere – but especially pastors who stand up every week and deliver a presentation – a sermon – to their congregations.

Duarte’s Guide is broken into 7 sections as follows:

We live and work in a first-draft culture. Type a text or email – send. Write a blog entry – post. Throw some images together – speak.

According to Duarte, though, it’s in crafting and recrafting, in iteration and rehearsal that excellence emerges.

But, you say, I have so many other things to do and I can’t worry about becoming an excellent communicator. Guess what? Becoming an excellent communicator will help you get those things done.

Ready to start?

Next: Audience: Know your audience and build empathy

Want to read more by Nancy Duarte? Click here to read her “10 Steps in Preparing a Powerful Presentation” and also download a free summary of her book Resonate.

Stories Convey Meaning

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Stories are the most powerful delivery tool for information; more powerful and enduring than any other art form.

People love stories because life is full of adventure and we’re hardwired to learn lessons from observing change in others. Life is messy, so we empathize with characters who have real-life challenges similar to the ones we face. When we listen to a story, the chemicals in our body change, and our mind becomes transfixed.

Stories link one person’s heart to another. Values, beliefs, and norms become intertwined. When this happens, your idea can more readily manifest as reality in their minds.

Tell the story.

Adapted from Resonate, by Nancy Duarte

Does Word of Mouth Suit You to a T?

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More great stuff from Andy Sernovitz’s book “Word of Mouth Marketing“:

The Five Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing

  • Talkers – Find people who will talk about you
  • Topics – Give people a reason to talk
  • Tools – Help the message spread faster
  • Taking Part – Join the conversation
  • Tracking – Measure and understand what people are saying

Here’s your homework assignment: go here and download the 5 Ts worksheet. Now complete it for your church.

What are you waiting for? Dive into the Ts and turn them loose!

UPDATE

If you are doing something worth talking about, it’s time to put a plan together to help the conversations happen. Here’s a great worksheet to do just that, by Andy Sernovitz who is the author of the 5 T Worksheet above. The action plan will help you think about:

  • Who to assign what
  • How to start with the basics
  • How to experiment with different WOM techniques

Remember, everyone’s talking – why not help them talk about your organization?

Everybody’s Talking…

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Why not give them a reason to talk about you?

Word of mouth marketing has been defined as ” a) giving people a reason to talk about you and b) making it easier for the conversation to take place”.

Andy Sernovitz, author of “Word of Mouth Marketing”, has compiled some great ideas about how to use Word of Mouth: check them out here.

What’s the lesson for ChurchWorld?

Sernovitz lists 4 Rules for Word of Mouth Marketing. I’ve listed them here, along with my interpretation of how a church might apply them:

  • Rule # 1: Be Interesting. Nobody listens to boring, and that goes for churches, too. Do you communicate with passion and energy in all you do?
  • Rule # 2: Surprise People – Make Them Happy. Do you do everything with excellence? Do people leave your campus excited about what they’ve experienced, and ready to tell others about it?
  • Rule # 3: Earn Trust and Respect. Nobody talks about an organization they don’t trust or don’t like. Welcome your guests, then listen to them. Fulfill their needs, and work constantly to make the best impression you can.
  • Rule # 4: Make It Easy. Work hard on your vision so it’s easy to remember and repeat. What can people tell a friend about your church in one sentence?

In today’s hyper-connected world, word of mouth is more important than ever – even when the “word” is digitally transmitted.

 

 

The Story Loop

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Once upon a time, I suppose, people sat around and told stories to each other around a cooking fire. The older ones told the younger ones, who told their younger ones. Eventually, one family group passed along their stories to another family group.

Thus, the oral tradition of storytelling was born.

At some point in time, people figured out letters and the materials to write them on. They took the stories that had been told and passed down from generation to generation orally and wrote them as text.

The written story was born.

Much later, people invented devices that could capture the sound of the human voice, store it, and repeat it for others to hear – across the street or around the world. These devices changed shape and form, but they all worked in an analog fashion – capturing sounds for reproduction.

The audio-recorded story was born.

In the last couple of decades, a new way of recording the story emerged: digital. The sound source was recorded by breaking it down and storing it digitally. Not only could the sounds be reproduced, they could be reproduced over and over, without any degradation of quality.

The digital story was born.

Now here we are, in the digital age, texting, tweeting, Skyping, voice calls, emails, etc., all using a digital form of communication.

Sometimes, even when we’re in the same room or under the same roof.

Kinda like sitting around a cooking fire, telling stories…

How to Make Your Influence “Stickier”

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Want to make your written communications more likely to be read?

Use a sticky note.

Social scientist Randy Garner ran an intriguing study in which he sent out surveys to people with a request to complete them. The survey was accompanied by either (a) a handwritten sticky note requesting completion of the survey, which was attached to a cover letter; (b) a similar handwritten message on the cover letter; or (c) the cover letter and survey alone.

That little yellow square packed quite a persuasive punch: more than 75 percent of the people who received the survey with the sticky note request filled it out and returned it, whereas only 48 percent of the second group and 36 percent of the third group did so.

Garner suggests that people recognize the extra effort and personal touch that this requires, and that they feel the need to reciprocate this personal touch by agreeing to the request. Reciprocity is the social glue that helps bring and keep people together in cooperative relationships – and you can bet that it’s a stronger adhesive than the kind on the back of a sticky note.

An ounce of personalized extra effort is worth a pound of persuasion.

The above information came from a great book entitled “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive.” Authors Robert Cialdini, Noah Goldstein, and Steve Martin reveal simple but remarkably effective strategies that will make you much more persuasive at work and in your personal life.

This week I have been looking at some of my favorite examples of persuasion from the book in preparation for a major presentation this fall entitled “Selling Change.” You can see the other posts here, here, and here.

When Asking a Little Goes a Long Way

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Thinking big by going small is a powerful concept.

Consider the following scenario: you are asking colleagues to support a favorite charity of yours. Even though many would genuinely like to support the charity in some way they say no because they can’t afford to donate very much and they assume the small amount they can afford won’t do very much to help the cause.

Researchers put this hypothesis to the test, going door to door to ask for contributions to the American Cancer Society. After introducing themselves, they asked the residents, “Would you be willing to help by giving a donation?” For half of the residents, the request ended there. For the other half, however, the research assistants added, “Even a penny will help.”

Analysis of the results found that a penny’s worth of ask was worth a pound of persuasive gold. People in the “even a penny will help” condition were almost twice as likely as those in the other condition to donate to the cause.

There are several applications for the “even a penny will help” approach:

  • To friends and members regarding participation in a community project, “Just an hour of your time would really help.”
  • To a colleague whose handwriting is illegible, “Just a little more clarity would help.”
  • To a busy prospective client whose needs must be more fully understood “Even a brief phone call would help.”

The chances are that this little step in your direction won’t prove so little after all.

The above information came from a great book entitled “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive.” Authors Robert Cialdini, Noah Goldstein, and Steve Martin reveal simple but remarkably effective strategies that will make you much more persuasive at work and in your personal life.

I’m working on a major presentation this fall entitled “Strategic Persuasion,” and this book has been a great help in my research. Look for a few more gems over the next few days.

The Motivating Process

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All communication is selling. People buy on emotion and justify with fact.

– Bert Decker, You’ve Got to be Believed to be Heard

This week I’ve been recapping a section of Bert Decker’s great book on communication, “You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard.” He has created the following chart that shows the path from information to influence.

The end result of the process displayed above (and described in blog posts here, here and here) is that your communication will move from information to influence. You will be able to more effectively persuade your listeners, not just by the power of your person, but by the power of your presentation as well.

As leaders, we often think that if we say words, people will get them. That is not necessarily true. They might get the words and our message if we are enthused and confident – but not if we’re nervous and we block our message by inappropriate behavioral habits.

In the matrix depicted above, your communications reach their maximum effectiveness when they are in the active and emotion quadrant. In Decker’s words, you have moved from merely providing information to a place where you are influencing the listener. You have created a climate for motivation.

John Maxwell has a famous definition of leadership: “Leadership is influence.”

If you believe that, then what are you doing today to make your communications move from information to influence?

The Involving Process, The Memorable Process

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Author and communication expert Bert Decker has developed a matrix that shows how to move your communications from information to influence. A previous post was about the educational process; today  a look at the next two quadrants of his matrix: the Involving Process and the Memorable Process.

The Involving Process

To move people from passive to active, there are many options. One of the most important is to convey our energy and enthusiasm, which resonates in the listener. It’s hard to be passive when someone is excited, but it’s easy when someone is uninteresting, low on energy, and monotonous.

There are several things you can do that deal more with content and process. You can ask questions, getting people to think. You can do interactive exercises, or take people through simulated exercise or though processes. How about fill-in-the-blanks in handouts? However you can, get people involved, and move them from passive to active by interacting with them.

The Memorable Process

Moving people from the intellectual to the emotional realm is more difficult. This idea is not about ignoring the intellectual or reasoning processes in the listener, but adding the emotional dimension to your content. This is not something that is taught to us, but it is a very powerful mindset that you can learn quickly and use continuously.

Emotional perspective comes from the energy of our behavior, of course, but it can also be applied in our content. We want to become memorable by using techniques and methods that get us out of the dry and didactic world of facts and figures. We want to use our creativity, to become storytellers and interesting visualizers, to move deeper into the world of ideation and metaphor.

Decker’s book is entitled “You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard.” It’s a great resource for anyone who speaks before a group of people – from 5 to 500. My focus (which ends tomorrow) has only been on one section – From Information to Influence.  There are four other sections that will help you create, organize, and then deliver – powerfully – your message.

Tomorrow: The Motivating Result