At the recent Professional Marketing Forum conference there was a great session by Andy Bounds – “Britain’s sales trainer of the year” and author of the books “The Jelly Effect” and “The Snowball Effect”.
Andy’s talk was primarily about how to effectively communicate strategy to people within an organisation. He mentioned the need to create a desire for change before equipping people with the ability to change. He challenged the delegates to consider what they found interesting when people presented to them and to integrate these elements into their talks.
He dissected the typical way that people prepare presentations – starting with an introduction, delivering the main content and with a call to action at the end. And he turned it on its head.
He urged people to create more effective presentations by saying at the start what you want people to do, then offering the “afters” (the benefits of doing what is requested) and then following up with the main content organised on the basis of: position, problem, possibilities and proposal.
I liked his quote “If you want to change others in the long term, it’s important that you change in the short term”.
