Pic courtesy Net_efekt

Time to get a bit philosophical, grasshoppers.

Why are you doing this presentation?

The instinctive response is:

“Because someone asked me to.”

“Because it’s in my job description.”

“To fill half an hour on the program.”

Or maybe:

“I’m not sure but I wish I didn’t have to.”

But the most important question is: what you actually want it to achieve?

How will the world change, just a tiny little bit, as a direct result of what you’ve told people?

Do you want them to buy your software? Help you save the Spotted Frog? Stop injuring themselves with teaspoons at work?

Whatever your cause, it’s incredibly hard to get people to act. Just talking around the subject isn’t going to do it. You need to plan exactly what you want people to do, and make it really clear how they can do it.

In the land of direct marketing, it’s the Call To Action. Visit this web site. Phone this number. Get something free. And do it now, because it’s a limited offer and it won’t be around forever.

To make a call to action work, it has to be:

Simple

So any fool can understand and remember.

In the right place

In the case of a presentation, right at the end

Non-confronting

So people don’t feel embarrassed about doing it, like when speakers try to get everyone massaging each others’ backs. Ugh.

Desirable

Something that appeals to what they like (not what you think they like). By taking action, they’ll make money, get promoted, feel good about doing something worthy, and their family won’t lose a Dad to a preventable teaspoon injury.

When you’re applying a call to action to a presentation, there’s no need for complex tricks or creative concepts. Just tell them what you think they should do, your reasons why, and ask them to do it.

And in that spirit, I ask you to start planning your next presentation just a little earlier so you can have a clear idea why you’re doing it.  They’ll like you much better on the day.

Tags: action, audience, Presentations, spotted frog, work-related teaspoon injuries

Posted by Ian on Friday, September 25th, 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.