I’m constantly telling my coaching clients to start their books with carefully planning. Just today I told stopped one of my clients from writing a chapter. She hasn’t really gotten a handle on what she is writing. She knows her topic, but she has not created a table of contents for her book; in fact, she has way too much content for one book. She has not synopsized those chapters. And she hasn’t created a good overview document for the book—a description of the book and its benefits and features. She can’t really tell me what the book is about in 25-50 words—she can’t pitch it to me—or who it’s readers will be and what will make it unique in the market. Nor can she tell me how she will promote it.
That’s why my media coach, Michael Ray Dresser, is back to today as my guest blogger to talk about something really important: strategy. He’s talking about strategizing before you speak, but it’s important to do before you write as well. So pay attention to what he has to say and apply it when you write and speak.
Achieving a Strategic Outcome
By Michael Ray Dresser
Getting your listeners’ attention is easier than keeping their attention. Once you have captured your listeners’ attention, you must maintain it and be in charge of it. To accomplish this goal, pay attention to:
- Your voice inflection
- Your pace
- Your pauses
- Your tone
- Your pitch
These become great supporting tools to your key points as they are combined with stories, quotes, and imagery. Is there one word that will define all of this? Yes!
That word is strategy, and it comprises the difference between accidental and intentional results that arise from conscious planning. When you have a strategy you utilize tactics to achieve a designed objective or outcome. In this manner, the tactics are in evidence throughout your presentation.
You need to generate a combination of emotional reactions in your listeners. Keep a variety of emotional reactions alive in your audience as you speak. Make them laugh. Get them angry. Create suspense, and most of all create within them anticipation of what’s coming next.
The art of persuasion is the driving force that causes your listeners’ emotional triggers to make them take action. It has the ability to move your audience from one mind-set or belief to a new way of looking at old patterns. On the other side of the coin, your ability to persuade and create those emotional triggers reinforces an existing position in each listener that keeps that person true to his or her base. Whether your audience has a personal or business objective, the process remains the same.
You cannot persuade without a sense of human presence. Some call it selling, but the word selling has a bad association in many circles. Let’s define selling: Selling is offer and acceptance. Period—end! You make an offer. Someone accepts or rejects it.
If you are a man, you may meet someone you perceive is a wonderful woman, and you proceed to ask her out on a date. She will say “yes” or “no.” She will accept or reject your offer. If she says, “Yes,” you sold her!
If you are a teenager and you ask your parents if you can go out, they’ll say “yes” or “no.” If they say, “Yes,” you made the sale!
In any setting, when you are involved in making a presentation, the strength of your offer lies within the organization of your communication of the subject matter.
So before you speak, be sure to decide on your strategic outcome.
About the Author
Michael Ray Dresser, host at Dresser After Dark, is a talk show host with passion, skill and talent for coaxing outstanding content from guests whose messages shine with confidence, clarity, and relevance. His engaging interview style sets the stage for authors, experts, and trainers worldwide to captivate, inform, and inspire action.
His 27-year career in radio and media skills training got its start when he sat down behind a microphone at a radio station in Fairbanks, Alaska in January of 1983. Since then, he has interviewed thousands of radio guests from all over the world.
Desser is a sought-after media skills trainer serving clients around the globe with his proprietary media skills training system. His forthcoming book, “Why Do They Listen? Creating a Compelling Connection with Your Audience Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere,” will guide experts the world over to achieve winning results through the power of engaging conversation.
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