DECIDE HOW YOUR AUDIENCE WILL DECIDE

DECIDE HOW YOUR AUDIENCE WILL DECIDE

from the article 'Create a Dynamite Presentation in 6 Easy Steps'
By Geoffrey James | April 19, 2010

Understand How an Audience Decides

A decision is always the result of change in the decision-maker’s emotional state.

Prior to making the decision, the audience does not feel that a decision is necessary. Not yet. Then something happens, in the audience’s emotional state, that brings the matter to a head. The audience now feels that a decision MUST be made.

At that point the audience (i.e. the decision-makers in the audience) decides.

A persuasive presentation therefore changes the emotional state of the audience so that they believe and feel that a decision must be made… right now.

In business there are six emotional keys that unlock that all-important decision-making process. They are:

* Key #1: Greed. “If we make a decision now, we’ll get a big reward.”
* Key #2: Fear. “If we don’t make a decision now, we’re basically toast.”
* Key #3: Altruism. “If we make a decision now, we’re good people.”
* Key #4: Envy. “If we don’t make a decision now, the other guys will win.”
* Key #5: Pride. “If we make a decision now, they’ll know we’re smart.”
* Key #6: Shame: “If we don’t make a decision now, they’ll know we’re dumb.”

Truly persuasive presentations contain all six of those emotional keys, because it is only under the pressure of these emotion that any decision will be made.

The underlying drivers behind these emotions are, of course, pain and pleasure. Truly persuasive presentations play upon the six key emotions to:

* RAISE the likelihood of pain and LOWER the likelihood of pleasure if a decision IS NOT made.

* RAISE the likelihood of pleasure and LOWER the likelihood of pain if a decision IS made.

When these expectations are set, a decision is INEVITABLE.

I realize that this all seems a bit theoretical. But if you don’t understand this basic stuff, the rest of this post won’t make sense. So bear with me because we’re about to get to the meaty parts…

MY THOUGHTS

Nice! It's like emotional blackmail but it's not. You are not just making a presentation. You are making a presentation for transformation. And since you are presenting to people- who have emotions - then that is certainly a good point of attack.