Do you ever listen to people’s 60 second pitches and feel a bit confused by the time they stop talking? The reason is that they are trying to give you too much information. They do that because they feel they have to cram in absolutely everything they do in that very short space of time. The result is that there is no clear message. We can’t take in information as fast as it can be said.
On the other hand, if the speaker focuses on just one message, we will understand and remember it better.
So when you have the opportunity to stand up in front of a group and say what you do, keep the message simple. If you offer several different products or services, then pick just one of them to talk about if you want to get your message across. You can always supplement what you say with a handout or brochure to be read at leisure.
When you talk to yourself, what do you say? It was a tremendous relief to me to find out that everyone has a little internal voice too! We all give ourselves feedback, perhaps after a presentation or important phone call. The problem is that we give ourselves too much criticism, apparently we give ourselves 15 times more negative messages than positive ones! We say things like “You made a real mess of that!” or “You’ll never get the orders you need if you don’t shape up”.
And these negative messages can pop up before you’re due to visit or call a potential client too and damage your confidence. Before you know it, you put in a poor performance and prove that your negative ‘voice’ was right!
Fortunately the opposite is also true. Whenever you catch yourself saying something negative, stop and change the message to be more positive. You could say “That wasn’t like me at all. What do I need to change?”, “Next time, I’ll remember to ask that question” or “OK, this is going to be much better than the last call”.
