3 practical ways to sell your message effectively.
- Lucas Franco de Siqueira
- Oct 29, 2016
- 3 min read
We all need to sell our messages effectively!
Regardless of the job that you have, from being a student to an accountant, we all need to work as a salesman at times. Coaches need their players to buy into what they say, professors need students to comprehend and retain what they teach, and recent grads need to sell themselves well to get the desired job.
Regardless if you are an introvert or an extrovert, you need to know how to transmit your competence, ideas, and values to succeed in life. Failing to sell your message in an era with so much sharing, marketing, and social media interactions will hide your potential regardless of how great it is.
From research on experts of public speaking, writing, and sales, besides my personal experience with presentations and communications studies, I decided to always use three practical steps to sell my message effectively. These steps have been bringing me great results and feedback from people that hear or read what I share.
Read them and test them. They will give you confidence, clarity, and connect your audience to your knowledge in ways you have never experienced before.
1 - Use your body posture in your favor. Social Psychologist, Amy Cuddy said, "We know that our nonverbals govern how other people think and feel about us." However, there is evidence in her research that our nonverbals affect how we think or feel about ourselves as well. Therefore, if you are making yourself small, trying to hide in the classroom, or walking with your shoulders and head down, then you are making yourself unconfident and powerless.
On the other hand, if you intentionally use power poses, walk with your shoulders back and chest high, and expand instead of shrink yourself, you will inevitably transmit more confidence and positivity. Science has proven that the use of powerful body posture will increase your testosterone (dominance hormone) levels in an average of 20%, and decrease your cortisol (stress hormone) levels in an average of 25% in just two minutes of intentionality.
Use your body to affect your mind wisely. Thus, be mindful of your body posture before speaking, writing, and talking to someone. Posture awareness is a great way to improve your deliverance.
2 - Summarize your core message into a phrase. What do you want people to know? What is your main objective when talking about a particular topic?
In job interviews, it is easy to see people talking about themselves but lose their message on the way. When you are talking about past experiences, what do you want to transmit to the other person? Maybe that you have been exposed to diversity, perhaps that you have worked a lot in a particular area... You need to be clear.
The main message of this article is: Help to communicate your messages more effectively.
The journalist and author, Carmine Gallo wrote, "Your audience needs to see the big picture before learning the details. If you can't explain your product or idea in 140 characters, keep working at it until you can." [2]
If you clearly know what you want to communicate, it is more likely that you won't lose yourself and the interest of the audience.
3 - Use stories to illustrate your points. If you touch the hearts of the people in front of you, their minds will consequentially open. We are emotional beings; we connect through feelings, not data! Regardless of how many charts, numbers, or slides you have, if you do not connect to your audience emotionally, they will forget your message.
According to Carmine Gallo, narratives are the best way to break down resistance on other people's brains. Socrates called the storytelling habit, Pathos, appealing to emotions, and one of the best TED talks ever, from Bryan Stevenson, consisted of 65% of emotional appeal. Stories are powerful!
When we use stories, we create visions in our and other's minds to enhance the meanings of what we say. Visions create significance and sentiments that allow us to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes, or it shows us similarities between our lives and the lives of the storyteller.
Use stories in your deliverance, and you will be surprised at how much more linked you will be with your audience. It does not matter if the audience consists of one interviewer or hundreds of people.
Thanks for making us a part of your investment in yourself and your future success. Let me know if there is anything else that we can do to help you. Ohhhh! And leave a comment here for us!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Talk-Like-TED-Public-Speaking-Secrets/dp/1250041120/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477665705&sr=8-1&keywords=talk+like+ted+the+9+public-speaking+secrets+of+the+world+s+top+minds
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