Hi everyone

Before I continue with what I learned at Joanna Martin’s workshop, I want to share something with you that I came across today.

It’s an interview with Sir Michael Caine where he was talking about his life.

In one part he said…” I wasn’t one of those children who’ll sing a song. I was the shyest little boy you’ve ever met. If anyone came to out house, I’d hide behind the curtains. Years later I was playing a psychiatrist and I read psychological treatises and one thing that stuck in my mind was “We all become what we are afaid of.” And I thought to myself, how right that is. I was the shyest person ever. How I became an actor I don’t know. It was terrifying but I just had to do it.”

In another part of the interview he went on to say…”I was always scared on first nights in theatre. They have a bucket by the side of the stage in case you throw up before you go on – I used that bucket so many times but I overcame the fear.”

So if a shy little boy can go on to become one of Britain’s best actors, isn’t it possible for you and I to overcome our fear of public speaking and give great, effective presentations?

So back to more steps for those effective presentations.

STEP 3 – CONTENT

This is the part of the presentation where you teach something and engage peoples’ emotions and inspire them with your content. Deliver value or even better OVER DELIVER!  There is no such thing as too much content and if it’s top value, your audience, subscribers etc will be banging down your doors for more of the same.

When you design your presentation, there are some things you should remember:-

• Who are your audience
• What level of experience or knowledge do they have
• What their needs, wants or frustrations might be
• What is it that they are desperate to know
• What’s their biggest problem
• What’s their dream

You also need to create great content that sells your product. If you can over deliver, I believe that in itself installs trust in your listeners about you and also your products. Overcome objections as part of your presentation which are usually ‘lack of money ‘ or ‘lack of time’.

In business, either online or offline, people have heard sales talk all before. Some have even been badly burnt and let down. In other words sales people have made promises but not kept them. So for a presentation, Jo suggested we use an Elegant Business Model.

This allows us, the speaker, to make a small promise to the clients or buyers in return for a small amount of money – and deliver on it, so increasing trust; in order that you can make a bigger promise next time for a bigger amount of money.

This is where the Elegant Business Model comes in. It is also known as the Sales Funnel but both work in practically the same way.

So as an example,  Lisa is coaching people on how to transform their lives. The best way she could make good money would be as follows:-

• She would start a blog, that people could read, sharing her thoughts and some of her strategies for free
• She would then create a weekly or twice monthly newsletter that she would give away in return for the names and contact details of people who were interested.
• As the database grew, she could do evening seminars in various locations around the area for $27 or £27, where prospects could come along, be introduced to her, also her style and get quality content information to take home with them. Whilst they were at the seminar, Lisa would offer a Teleseminar Coaching Proram that would run for 8 weeks at a cost of $597
• At the end of that teleseminar coaching program, Lisa would present and offer a 1 on 1 Breakthrough Coaching program consisting of 3 sessions but at a cost of $3795

By incorporating this process, Lisa is enabling people to build their trust in her by allowing them to see what she’s all about. It eliminates the excuses that the price is too high and also the time limit is too long. Also even the most sceptical of her prospects would be able to at least give her a chance to impress them.

If she had gone and advertised the $3795 program striaght away without building a relationship and level of trust with her list, would she have had much success? Probably not.

Why? Because she would have had no time to develop TRUST with her potential clients before they spent a relatively high sum with her.

STEP 4 – ESTABLISH A NEED

The next step of your presentation should establish a need for change in your audience. Create tension between where they are at the moment and where they want to be. There are two ways to make this work – PAIN MOTIVATED and INSPIRATION MOTIVATED

With Pain, you identify your audience’s pain, aggrivate it, squeeze some lemon into the wound then demonstrate how your product will take away that pain.

With Inspiration, you are showing them a bright, rosy future whilst pointing out all the wonderful things that would be possible for them in that future if they bought your product.

So the key here is to establish a need for your product(s) by creating tension between where they are now and where they could be in the future with your product or service. Use genuine testimonials from people who have been in the same position as your audience and have since got to where they’re lives have changed for the better. Ideally use videos of attendees especially from previous workshops or seminars.

STEP 5 – REVEALING YOUR PRODUCT

Before your presentation you should think long and hard about your product or service and how will package it to create an offer so compelling and ‘must have’ for your audience that it becomes a “no brainer”.

You need to think about the following:-

• What price is reasonable based on what you know about your audience
• What the main product is going to be i.e CD.s, MP3′s, DVD’s, Memberships, Workshops, Seminars, Coaching or something else.
• What bonuses could be added to take the product to an extreme level. These need to be a high perceived value to the customer but a low cost for you to produce and deliver.
• Make a two tiered version of your product – a basic and a deluxe with even more added bonuses so that you’re audience will be choosing which one to go for.

When you’re explaining about your product or service you need to be CLEAR, be CONFIDENT and be RELAXED. Hopefully by this time, your audience will be feeling a bit uncomfortable about the position they’re in at the moment and the fact that they’re not achieving the results they want.

It is here that you should explain the following:-

• Why the product was created and what problem it solves.
• The name of your product.
• Who it’s for.
• Who it’s NOT for.
• The benefits of what it does, how it will change their lives  and what it includes.
• More proof from testimonials that it does as it says on the tin.

In my next post, I’ll be concluding with the last two steps.

Until then