Persuasive communication and presentation is one of the most crucial and neglected skills necessary for personal and professional success. Your accomplishments in life more often than not correlate with your ability to connect and communicate effectively with other people. Many of us spend years and small fortunes on college and other endeavors, yet few people invest even a fraction of this energy and money to develop their communication skills.
Effective communication helps us get what we want. There's little in life that we can accomplish alone. Success requires cooperation and consideration from others. The degree of consideration you receive will usually correspond with your communication skills and power of persuasion. Successful communication increases the frequency, duration and depth of productive, positive outcomes in our interactions with others. Learn to communicate effectively and you exponentially increase your opportunity for success in life.
In today's competitive world we must all sell all the time. You must consistently and materially add value to your relationships or you risk eventual replacement. This even goes for your personal relationships. Think of it. Do you maintain, much less nurture and pursue, relationships that do not meet your needs?
By selling, I mean to maintain an active, thorough and genuine interest in being a beneficial force in the other person's life. To seek solutions to fill the gaps between where the other person is and where they want to be. If we don't add value, we become obsolete.
Presentation is about selling the audience on the benefits you offer them if they buy into and act on your message.
To be truly great as a presenter, you must first connect with yourself; with your simple being-ness in the moment; as you exist, bereft of ego, mental activity, human activity and busy-ness; your core meta-physical energy. The simple stillness of being.
Next you must connect with your unique passion and greatness as a human being. Your special life perspective, story and voice. Your experiences, skills and interests, but it must extend far beyond these to include your greatest passion and/or vision. You must discover and develop your special message your meta-physical voice (as opposed to your physical vocal voice).
Then you must learn to effectively and movingly articulate your being, your mind, your emotions, your passion and your voice through language (both content and structure).
Then, if you hope to communicate dynamically, you must connect with and gain expressive use of your physical instruments of communication: your physical voice and your body.
Finally comes the most important element. You must connect with your audience with full attention, intention and active listening.You must persuasively communicate your message, which has to serve the audience. you must inspire, coach and lead the audience down a path to personal benefit through your message and your passion.
Truth told, if you master all of the first steps, you will connect with and move the audience with your presentation. Just keep in mind that even if you do connect and become proficient with all of the above, except connecting with the audience, it all will have been for naught. As a presenter, you are there to serve the audience, not your own ego or agenda.
So connect. And rock the world!
