Presentation Training Tips:
The Key to Persuasion - Feelings Sell

Many of us claim that we make our decisions based on logic, evidence, and facts. In other words, "facts tell."  But "feelings sell." It's an undeniable reality that our choices actually come from a much deeper level - our feelings and motivations. It's why there are thousands of different makes and models of cars on the road - we are all motivated by different interests in a car, whether it be sportiness or luxury or fuel efficiency or safety. We make decisions based on what lights our fire. 

To successfully sell an audience with your presentation, you must know what their hot buttons are and then push those buttons. Your challenge is to choose the appeals most likely to motivate them. Your presentation needs to appeal to their heart as well as their head.

Suppose you're pitching a new idea to your management team. Your chances of success would be greatly increased if you knew what would motivate that group. Maybe they're a visionary group, with a track record of initiating original, innovative ideas that can set the company apart. So your presentation is going to be more successful if you emphasize the cutting edge nature of this project, its creativity, how it would be a groundbreaking idea that would be three steps ahead of the competition.

If, on the other hand, your management team is a more conservative group - risk-averse and more comfortable with the tried and true - then your innovative appeals would turn them off in a heartbeat. You'd be more successful with a presentation approach that emphasized the traditional nature of this idea, how it's in keeping with the company's core business, how it's been proven to work in other venues.

It's not that the hard facts aren't important. But it's how you interpret them and present them to your audience that will determine how successful you are in selling them. The "fact" you're presenting may be a new software update and all its features. But it would be pitched to a visionary group as the importance of change and innovation in our increasingly technological world, while to a conservative, risk-averse audience, it may have to be sold as the need for more control and security in your information systems.

So try to know and target the needs of your presentation audience: are they all about money, the bottom line? Are they motivated by loyalty or out-of-the-box thinking? Do they respond to sentiment or logic? Do they crave innovation or tradition? Do they fear failure or change?

Here are a few examples of the needs or feelings that motivate people:

Anger                         Appreciation

Belonging                   Change

Comfort                       Control

Curiosity                      Fear

Health                          Integrity

Loyalty                         Money

Nostalgia                    Power

Pride                            Respect

Safety                           Savings

Sex Appeal                  Status

The more you know about your audience's hot buttons, the more you can target your presentation to appeal to those motivations.

Barbara Busey: http://www.presentationdynamics.net/

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